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Second Life offers pricey fantasy |
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008 |
by LINDSAY CRAVEN
Lifestyles Reporter
If you are tired of your life and have always wished you could try a new one consequence free, your wishes may have been granted.
Secondlife.com, launched in 2003, offers members a virtual world to fulfill any persona they wish for prices ranging from free for a basic subscription to $72 a year for a premium account.
“Secondlife.com is a kind of 3-D world created by the Lindens,” senior advertising major Garrett A. Button said. “They created a virtual world where people can create different models or upload models
that they have created.”
 Screenshots from Second Life, an interactive world where users form relationships. Photo Special to The Appalachian
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The Web site requires the use of C++ coding in order to create compatible characters or products used in the Web site.
“There are some basic tools that you can use in order to code some
simple stuff, but if you really want to do anything substantial you’ll
have to know pretty basic coding to create a good, high quality piece
of work,” Button said.
“The whole thing is three dimensional and HTML coding is two
dimensional whereas this is something your character is physically
interacting with so you have to create a three dimensional product in
order to upload them onto the site,” Button continued.
Second Life allows subscribers to use real currency to purchase Linden
Dollars, the virtual currency in
Second Life, to buy additions to their
virtual world if they don’t wish to create their own.
“They can spend
Linden dollars to purchase things that other members have created and
then there’s a conversion from Linden dollars to real dollars and so
there’s people who have created real estate that was so successful that
it’s made hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Button said.
According to
Secondlife.com, in March there were approximately 170,737,431 Linden
dollars spent, which equals approximately $637,080 in U.S. currency.
“I think they’re
doing about $1 million plus selling a virtual world, virtual real
estate, virtual wedding dresses,” communication lecturer Roger Bodo
said. “Second Life money is selling enough to earn a $1 million plus
U.S. dollars, that’s not bad.”
 Screenshots from Second Life, an interactive world where users form relationships. Photo Special to The Appalachian
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The virtual world also proposes moral dilemmas that have been debated by critics of the site. Subscribers can develop relationships online and even carry out elaborate weddings and marriages.
“It’s intriguing
that people would go online and have a relationship with a person of
the opposite sex and actually get married online even though they may
be married right now,” Bodo said. “People spend a ton of money on
buying wedding dresses and putting together a wedding.”
Aside from moral
issues, dedicated subscribers to Second Life also face harassment from
outsiders who join the site for free in order to make fun of those who
use the site as an escape.
“The reason that
I have [an account] is not best of reasons, but the Second Life
community is often attacked by the rest of the internet community
because of their odd interests,” Button said. “Generally speaking,
there’s people on Second Life who are fulfilling what the title of the
game is…their second life. There are groups of people online who are
sort of the crowd that I go with who just sign on to pick on them I
guess.”
Button notes
Shawn Elliott is the leader of this group of people called “griefers”,
or trolls who go online solely to harass gamers passionate about their
virtual life on Second Life and in video games.
It is unclear
whether Second Life will grow in popularity in the future as
subscription rates do not show large growth percentage rates currently.
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