Imagine a world shaped by the development of Internet games, in which people leave their homes only when necessary, and conduct most of their business and social interactions using digital representations of themselves, or avatars, in massively multi-player, online role-playing games. MMORPGs) and virtual worlds.
Science fiction author Neal Stephenson brought a fully immersive online life to life in his 1992 novel, Snow Crash, and it was called the Metaverse. In Stephenson’s vision of the digital evolution of humanity, the all-encompassing virtual world, much like today’s MMORPGs, has ceased to be a game at all, becoming the only living thing.
The entrepreneurs who grew up on Pacman and Mario, introducing millions of online gamers to the immersive worlds of Orc and Night Dryads, are also deciding what will help shape the future of online media.
Although not the first commercial to do well online-game-game, Blizzard Entertainment’s “World Time” opened the MMORPG genre wide open. broke, now attracting more than 10 million players each month, most of whom pay a monthly fee of about $15.
Internet entrepreneurs have set up sites where in-game currency from “World of Warcraft” and other MMORPG titles can be bought and sold, leading to a subculture of hunters who literally play stage games for a living.
Online virtual worlds are now evolving beyond the stage of just pro-fun MMORPGs into tools for testing new products, concepts and business models on millions of people who spend huge parts of their days “jacked in”.
The leader of such an online alternate event is Linden Lab’s “Second Life.” Unlike other online worlds, “Second Life” does not set goals. But the free-form virtual world emphasizes creativity, technical innovation, and social interaction.
“Second Life” citizens use the Linden Lab toolset to create digital representations of everything from luxury condos and working universities to strip clubs and lupanaria
The second part of Life’s steady growth is due to the fact that the creator of the digital object retains the intellectual properties in his own right. use, leading to the purchase and sale of goods and services, using the second life hunting currency, Linden.
Lindens can then be exchanged for real-world currency among “Second Life” residents on a website officially sanctioned by the virtual world’s parent company.
Online gamers and MMORPG developers are changing the landscape of how content and advertising are created, and delivered, to online consumers every day. Commercial efforts, and indeed governments, have set up shop in “Second Life,” using virtual reality worlds for product promotions and public relations.
We will soon live in a world where an in-recognizable avatar can walk to the nike outlet in the ancient virtual world, try on the company’s latest basketball shoes detailed to pixel-perfect representations of their own feet and instantly order “real” shoes for delivery using the in-game earned money working in a digital bar at night club?
O brave new world, with such in’t!-William Shakespeare
Sources:
http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/080122.html
http://secondlife.com/whatis/create.php
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/May/20070508163536lcnirellep0.2645075.html
