Is Second Life a game?

This may have been discussed before, I didn't feel like checking , but after being here for a year and a half it caught my attention that there are some gamelike elements to this 3D collaborative virtual environment known as Second Life.

So what's your take on it, is Second Life a game - or isn't it?

I think this was discussed at length in a thread that was locked just a few minutes before this one opened.....

Personally - for me its a game.


And so does the great circle of life renew, and start again....

I wanted to make sure I don't go to my grave without at least once having started an "Is SL a game?" thread.

Hmmm.... let's see ...

THIS:
/120/0e/58756/1.html

was just closed by Jeska Linden:
"Having already warned this thread once for personal attacks, I am now closing the thread."

Maybe the thread should stay closed?

Who cares what things are defined as?

Is an orange...
a fruit?
food?
part of a plant?
(insert infinite possibility here)


Why must something, anything be generalized?

A much more interesting question:

Is Pac Man a game?

It can be put very simply without any cause for name calling etc etc or personal insults,

SL was made with a game engine, (to my beleifs)
SL somewhat can be used as income
SL is a hobby,
SL is entertainment,

SL is lots of fun,

hope that answers your question.

but doesn't doing one up the chances of the other?

No I think as long as people can refrain from attacking one another any thread has the right to stay open.

The fact that a 3D environment where games can be played can be considered to be either..

a) not a game
b) more than a game
c) a game with non-game social like open ended stuff

deserves a looking into.

I would say one should ask why there is even debate! The company swears it's not a game. Others say it is.. others say it isn't.

I salute linden labs for making a software so complex that it defies defining.

I for one just think it is a game-like interface that is great for playing games as well as many other things including chatting.. experiencing a collective experience with people all over the world and who knows what else in the future.

Keep the tread going. Keep the attacks in your pocket.

how is 'game' being defined?

For me, if it is an application installed on my PC purely for entertainment, as SL is, then it's a game.

Maybe it would be fun to display some different packaging and marketing schemes for "the Second Life game".

A set of Second Life playing cards, maybe some Second Life tarot cards - a Second Life board game - "go directly to Jail - do not collect your stipend" - some photoshop work should be capable of producing some Second Life inspired professional sports teams.

SL is NOT a game, and anyone who says it is will roast in hell for all eternity! Mwa Ha Ha!

This is a good point. Second Life is installed on a computer used by my daughter, I had trouble finding it one time because she had moved it into a folder labeled "games". Having been told now that SL is not a game, am I obliged in the name of putting things in their proper place to move it to a more appropiate spot in the menu structure?

One place I know it should NOT go would be the productivity folder.

Watching a couple arguing in a restaurant can often be very entertaining, that doesn't mean its a game...

While the definition of 'game' would include entertainment, entertainment is not exclusively games...

Untill big business takes a foothold in SL and the likes of Amazon set up stores selling their RL wares for L$ which they can convert to US$ via GOM, then SL can be called entertainment, just as going to the movies or watching TV is entertainment. But none of those fit the definition of 'game'.

EQ is a game, WoW is a game, HalfLife is a game, Monopoly, Cluedo, Snakes and Ladders, Chess and even Baseball are games.

SL is (currently) entertainment with the potential to be much much more.

Would that not make iTunes a game?

The point most people miss is that how something is categorized is not dependant upon, nor does it require the agreement of Linden Labs or even you, you poster, you!

When comparing item X to the world in order to determine how to classify it, one looks for the closest 'match' between item X and something else in the world. This is known by a technical name, 'Pattern Matching'.

It does not matter how many differences between Item X and the world exist UNLESS any one of those differences mean it is a closer match to one thing than another.

So all the distinctions about what SL does or has that 'a game' doesn't or haven't are, frankly, moot.

SL has more things in common with MMO games than not, therefore by industry standard (i.e., online entertainment, marketing, business sector, etc.) as well as by basic reasoning (which I fully understand is neither basic nor reasonable for most), SL is consistantly determined to be.... a game.

The things that Linden Labs consider 'different enough' to warrant SL being categorized as something else do not fall far enough outside the boundaries of 'a game' for anyone in any of the abovementioned areas to change their thinking about 'what SL is', and this alone is why SL is still considered 'a game' in these areas.

In general, people tend to label things based upon whatever previous experience with things *of that type* they have.... which is another reason why SL is considered a game, it is not different enough to stand out from that typecasting -- OR -- that which makes it difference is not communicated well enough or consistently enough for others to reach the same conclusion.

Differences do not have a meaning in the minds of consumers or the industry or business world in general to afford distinction in meaning (and acceptance of it as 'being different) unless they are obvious and more than 'potential' or 'ideology'.

So we can argue whether it is or is not 'a game' all we like, but the simple fact that we are here means we are the very least likely to be in a position to affect/change how it is considered... especially amongst one another.

And oh yeah -- Happy Friday.

Is the World-Wide Web a game?

For many, it certainly is, and they'll fight to the bitter end to defend that position. Not only you can play games on the net - either the ones with Flash anims or Java applications or whatever - as well as being a place for people to come together in Web-based Play-by-Email-type of games, chatrooms, dating services, and other entertainment features, like simply posting on forums or creating blogs.

People can browse night and day on the Web and never come across things like Amazon, eBay, or even the Wikipedia, not even mentioning the 150 million+ companies doing solid business on the Web, so people could claim that the Web is just a game that some have took the opportunity to make some business. But did Tim Berners-Lee or Marc Andreesen or all the other people who allegedly put the Web in motion thought about the Web becoming a "serious marketplace"? Weren't they only interested in doing "cute things" with an emerging technology, which they never dreamed that would evolve into one of the most important information distribution channel, and one completely new industry of marketing products through a "virtual medium"?

It's easy to look to the past and laugh at all that and answer, shaking our heads, and say "no, the Web never was a game". But when it all started, people were really not so sure!

Of course I think that the very same reasoning applies to Second Life. It's a communications platform, it's a gateway to what one day will be the 3D WWW. It's also an amazingly entertaining platform, and it gives us access to lots of in-world games as well (speaking of which, I did spend 2 or 3 hours yesterday playing Portal Wars, and I have no doubt that I was playing a game, using SL as a platform!).

The best part of SL (just like the Web) is that it is what you want it to be. If you want to look at SL "as a game", that's fine. If you wish to look at it as a 3D chat environment where you can get lots of socializing and entertainment, that's fine as well. If you're using SL as a platform for educational purposes and training opportunities for RL companies/entities, you can do that as well. And if you see it as a new form of e-Business, you can also thrive and have success that way.

Right now, Government officials are frowning about the "game" look of the cartoonish characters which don't look "serious" enough for the professional look they wish to give to the platform they use for training; or academicians, using SL for their conference presentations, fear that suddenly someone drops by their real-time show and starts to dance or use pose balls or something. It's still hard to separate the two areas! (but imagine someone doing a presentation on how cool Google is to retrieve information, and suddenly get some sex advertising popping up on your screen in front of an audience!)

When you're inside the forest, it's hard to see the trees. I think that is what happens to most of us. We're just looking at one or two trees and concentrate on them, and can't focus on all the trees at the same time. Meanwhile, someone above the forest, sees how many different trees there are in the valley; and Linden Lab is just the gardener planting new seeds and trimming a few branches here and there. They accept all trees equally, as well as nurturing all of the different types as far as they can - but they don't cut the "game tree" just because SL is "not a game". The "game tree" has the same opportunities to grow and expand as have all the others.

SL is a game.

Life is a developmental platform.

Thank you for coming, and have a good weekend!

Incorrect. The Internet was initially ARPANET, a government network. While there are those who would immediately proclaim this proves it was always a game, understand the context and humor of such a thing and then, realise that it was never so until commercialism touched it.

Relativism is a fun thing, but it is rarely good at achieving the declarative. (grin)

What eez dees "Whay-hib" teeng hov wheech yu speekh?

I never knew anybody who in any respect would have ever claimed that the Internet is a game.

News to me.

coco

Actually that's not true at all. It's really very easy to see one or more trees when you are in a forest. I have been in forests many times, and each time I was in a forest, I was able to to see trees. In fact, seeing a lot of trees is of the tip-offs that you are in a forest. If you look around and see trees everywhere in all directions you are probably in a forest, although you might be in the tree department of a really big plant nursery, maybe one with mirrors on the the walls to make you think you are in a place much bigger than what you are really in, a place as big, perhaps, as a forest.