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I downloaded the Second Life client about two weeks ago and while I am still getting used to how to do everything, I find the concept scociologically fascinating.
It appears, against the expectations of most, that the End of Geography came rather sooner than the End of History.
It is clear that, just as with the 2D WWW, some people will use the 3D metaverse for entertainment, others as a useful communication tool and others, instead of using their interactions in the metaverse as an extension to their real-world interactions, will increasingly replace the latter with the former.
I am intrigued to see how this pans out over the next couple of years.
No chance of a drop-in WW Pubcon in the Metaverse, I suppose?
I've wasted years of productivity- literally years- on computer games when I could have actually been living life, doing things, achieving things, interacting with real poeple.
Yes, it's intriguing, or whatever you want to call it. It's supposed to be. They don't spend millions of dollars trying to make these games boring, you know. A major brand computer game these days has a larger production budget than a Hollywood film. What does that tell you?
Here's a metaphor. There are, to my knowledge, few things more enjoyable than lying on the beach in the sun. (I can think of one thing, but I'm keeping my metaphor family friendly) Well, if you want to, you can move to near a beach, and every morning, weather permitting, walk down there with a towel, and bake in the sun. It will be fun, but after a while, you'll run low on money; you'll run low on friends and family; you'll get dry, wrinkled skin and sunspots; you'll have no career. But, wow, you really enjoyed those days in the sun.
To much of it is a bad thing, but in moderation it can be totally healthy and even beneficial. Of course if keeping it in moderation were as easy as, oh... say falling off a log, then it wouldn't even be up for discussion.
As for Second Life... I got an account and tried it out just to see what the hype was, but didn't really like it much. I'm more of a solo type of gamer anyway. I could certainly see Second Life (or some similar program) turning into the next MySpace though.
[edited by: Duskrider at 10:23 pm (utc) on June 14, 2007]
I've been checking this thread for two days out of curiosity (no I didn't bother searching,) hoping this wasn't something important I'd missed, some new technology I'm behind on . . . .
<whew> it's a game.
:-)
As for computer games well I would rather not count how much time I have "passed" on games like Super Mario Bros, Command&Conquer, Warcraft 2, Civilization during my childhood. I still play some games perhaps a couple of hours a month.
Also there seems to be no real purpose. You just hang around and can chat with random people. OR can dress your character, if you want to spend money on virtual clothes.
But maybe it's only me or I did not give it enough time.
If more things in second life were free, for example being able to create clothes and such, I would be more interested in participating further.
I created some random hideous objects (I found the tools a little unwieldy), and left them about the place with $10 price tags on them, but for some reason no-one was interested and they were returned to my inventory! At least I wasn't prosecuted for littering...
