Is second life a game?

If you were Ralph Lauren, there would be nothing to stop you selling your brand virtually. The market you reach might be confined to SL, but there's no reason the business has to be.
And if heightened brand awareness translates to RL sales? Then you just sold polo shirts through SL.

First, let me say thanks for taking up the counterpoint on this!

Hm. The mini-model/simulation idea some how doesn't seem appropriate to me. Real money goes in and out of SL, unlike how it does with gambling. Gambling places wagers on outcomes... but has no direct affect on those outcomes. Not true with SL, which I think invalidates it as a model or simulation.

"Simulated interaction" - I gotta disagree with that. If I'm talking to you... face to face, over the phone, with sock puppets or via a virtual medium... I'm still talking to you regardless of the medium through which the communication flows. That's still real interaction and real exchange of ideas regardless of the between layers.

Naturally... secondlife has simulated action. (uh huh, aw yeah! I mean, er, ... nevermind). But that's not necessarily a game... is it? Getting to it may be, but getting it?

You could argue that the people aren't 'real' because they're role playing or pretending to be someone else. Please don't. People are people regardless of the masks and roles they take on. Unless you're going to convince me that demonic possession or brain transplants are happening when people log in... =) We are ourselves, our choices, our words, our actions and our earned consequences, regardless of who we may think we are.

As for relevance outside of SL being important... one could say that a bar has no outside utility as well. It is a place where people meet to drink, socialize, watch sports, cruise people, hook up, etc. It can be a 'scene' that is relevant only to the people who want to be part of that scene. (Making money in SL or hooking up at a bar... both have relevance and utility in RL though.)

While I agree that the choice to market SL as a 'platform' *IS* marketing hype... I only agree with the misleading aspect in it seems to endorse the chance that anyone can make money in SL which certainly doesn't seem to be true.

Anyway... I do think that the non-game parts of SecondLife ARE unfairly trivialized by referring to it as a game. Game is certainly a very adaptable word, but, again, it seems incomplete and insufficient to encompass what SL is.

If only that were definitive.

SL isn't a game because you won't find it in the "Games" section at the (name your favorite computer store).

Is virtual reality still a reality? I would argue that it is increasingly so. I think the seperation of the two will eventually become very difficult, it's the path the world is heading down, the digital age and all that. It's a communication device, and in a world with video mobile phone calls and more, we are rapidly relinquishing ourselves to the digital domain.
The people behind the avatars are very real, and their interactions can be real regardless of the method of transmission/communication. They express real thoughts, ideas and emotions.

Well... Foo.

The wikipedia says:

Second Life is a privately-owned, subscription-based massively-multiplayer online real-life game (MMORLG)

"online real-life game" ?

Okay okay okay fine whatever.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecondLife

Oh gesh. its a game/business etc. its one wants it to be
Does it really matter if its a game for some people. I not going to get in to the bitching match withthis issue. But come on LLabs is a business that give a product to its users Its called SECOND LIFE.

It doesn't really matter!

Poker is a game and some people make money playing.
Barbie Dolls and Model Railways are toys and some people make money out of it.
There are stock exchange games that are practically the same as trading for real.

If you want it to be a "platform" for business - if you make money and hate every minute of your sh*tty job making millions in SL, good luck to you.

If you love your hobby uselessly arguing in Land and the Economy Forum - great.

Just get on with it.

Well, one could say that all of life is a game, but the trouble is that the people who tend to view it thus usually end up in penitentiaries.

Even if SL were only a game and nothing more (which seems horribly inapt to me) then I would still have a right to be upset if people interrupt my $200/month game. It still comes down to this: (griefer view) My fun is more important than your goals. My fun is more important than your sense of responsibility. My fun is more important than your fun. My fun is more important than your leisure. My fun is more important than your money. My fun is more important than your social time. My fun (though I and my friends represent maybe 0.05% of the populace) is more important than anyone else's anything. Self centred? Mhm. like a 5-year-old. Difference? a 5-year-old is cute.

I don't see people who think SL is a platform telling others they can't have fun in SL or treat it like a toy or a game or a hobby. SL is fun in lots of different ways and it should be.

I do see people come into these forums and insist that SL is just a game (and only a game) and that people who use it for business are ruining SL. They believe that selling Lindens for USD should be against the TOS and that land barons are inherently evil and other such nonsense.

What we call it, is really not the issue. The issue is that some people want to restrict what others can use SL for. Specifically they don't want people making any money from it. And their rallying cry usually is, "SL is just a game!" That is why I think people get defensive when people insist that it is a "only a game".

That is exactly what I hear repeated over and over, "SL is just a game and only a game". Platform is inclusive. It accomodates those for whom it's only a game as well. However, "it's only a game" excludes other uses, especially when accompanied by a rant about how other ways of using it are evil and ruining their game.

The economy enhances my enjoyment of SL. I can own land I could never afford straight out of my RL wallet because of it, it's self-funding fun. I like to build, and I don't like to be restricted with my prims, and the economy and the Lindex allows me to indulge that. Take that away, you're ruining my building game, which is can I build better than my last effort? Can I build something I'll want to look at a long time and think 'neat'? And can I build something someone will want to use? That's my game, and SL is the platform I play it on.

to some its a investment...........if your going t pay 200 a month yes.......

But I think the claim would be that you're only able to do that because you've "won" the game, or at least achieved a victory - making back your tier.

The problem with your "inclusiveness" claim is that the majority of people on SL can't do this. This isn't a "gloomy" claim about talent; it's an economic fact. For every person who has money going out (to tier, or otherwise) someone else must be putting money in. Thus for the majority to be able to repay tier, or make money, the minority (ie, those not doing so) would have to be putting in enough money to cover them all. That would mean that an average person in the "non-money" group would have to be putting in more money than the average person the "money" group was taking out or tiering. And that seems very, very unlikely.

If SL was actually accepted as a game, then you'd be able to build without restriction anyway because there'd be no money required to own land. When v1.2 came out with land charging, people who (in this alternate universe) would be unable to make money would refuse to pay out of their own pocket to entertain others, LL would see the grid shrinking and interest in the game declining while themselves not making money, and thus the business model would have failed and LL would have had to do something else. They might have allowed users to host their own regions, and the problem of centralised L$ transactions would be gone because (in this alternate universe) L$ are just play money anyway so who really cares if someone hacks their way to a million?

it's pie

I accept SL as a game Yumi, and recognize tier as maintenance fees for the land. So your analogy doesn't work. Besides you can build without restraint or land fees in a sandbox.

That's - sort of - true. But the poster above said, "I like to build, and I like not being restricted in my prims, and the economy allows me to do that." But the problem is that the attitude that "the SL economy is great because it lets people make back their tier" is not general - in other words, if everyone has it, it stops working.

I just did a bit of math regarding this:

% of users           % of average tier 
repaying average     that average non-repaying
tier                 user must pay
0%                   0%
10%                  11%
20%                  25%
30%                  43%
40%                  66%
50%                  100%
60%                  150%
70%                  233%
80%                  400%
90%                  900%
100%                 Impossible, no money coming in

As you can see, the more users get into that position of paying back tier, the more money other users have to pay - even though they're not enjoying (what was cited as) the main advantage of the economy; and if they're not getting the advantage, they probably aren't going to pay for it.

Exactly. Which is sad that we have alot of users expecting to make back teir who whine if they don't. I don't cash out and I don't raise prices to make up differences.. I do it for fun. One thing I do is make gestures, thus far I've seens oem of mine come back around to me in bulk freebie folders people hand out. Ive never charged once for them, and don't plan to unless I upload the sounds myself.

Well that's just my personal game. Others can play their own, and they don't all require land. It makes my view no less inclusive. I really do see SL as having a myriad of uses, thats just one.

Well it's not an issue for everyone. Some can afford to pay their tier out of their RL wallet, and it's just an entertainment expense. Some don't need as much tier, so they don't have to earn it to justify the expense to themselves. Some don't even need land. I have more because I'm a bit fanatical about building, but there's no real reason you couldn't build the same things in a sandbox the size of Mauve. I know I've been fortunate to make it (so far), it wasn't even an expectation of mine, it just happened. Oh and Jonas, you won't hear me whingeing when I don't. I don't really worry about the Linden value, I'm not dealing with enough money for it to make that much difference, and if it does, I'll just increase my prices to match.
Being constrained by what you can afford is not exclusive to SL. In RL, I'm sure we'd all like to have plasma screen TVs and to drive a beamer, but we can't. Thing is, in SL you can live a dream for a hell of a lot less than in RL.
Would SL be any cheaper if there was no economy? I'm not sure it would be. You'd still have tier, and that's a far greater expense than your land purchase over time. And some of the other 'games', 'worlds' whatever without this sort of economy seem pretty expensive.
I can't follow your maths right now, it's 3.30 in the morning here and I've been building for hours.

Hey everyone!

Not getting involved in this thread (since I think arguing semantics is pretty pointless ), though I do pop my head in occasionally to see if there's any funny drama going on. Just came across this quote while researching for a paper I'm writing and thought you might like it:

CVE is short for collaborative virtual environment if you're wondering.

Full essay available here.

Oh Fade its not those like you who I get upset by. Its when people come to the forums crying about not being able to make teir with the economy the way it is that does. Obviously they don't realize of the 1 our of 10 rl business that succeed, few make a profit within the first few months. My uncle, when opening a restaurant was told by expereinced owners that he probably won't see a profit the first few months. He got into the black on the 4th month, and hes one of the lucky ones.


But thats digressing. Regardless of if they made their teir, its still a game/platform/whatever you choose to call it. Its for enjoyment, not a second job. if you keep stressing over not covering teir with linden dollars, then maybe you should drop the stress. Go play games. Do something you enjoy.

Its people like you, Fade that help keep the game real to me, no matter if we disagree on points. Its for enjoyment..why stress?

Yes Jonas. And I do agree with Yumi that there is an unrealistic expectation of making tier. It isn't possible for everyone, or even desirable. I think just enjoy what you do, and worry about the rest after. SL seems to offer so many things, so many possibilities. You know, other than land, uploads, and some textures now and again I can't remember the last time I felt the need to spend any Lindens. I've really been enjoying discovering new places, visiting inspiring builds and building things people use. I'm kinda extra-smitten with SL at the moment. I find it satisfying on so many levels, and I'm in constant awe of the talent I see, and the sheer beauty of creation for creation's sake in evidence everywhere I go.