"Playing" Second Life? What do you call it?

It's more than just a game you play. I don't like to say to other people (usually those that really don't know what it is, and don't understand when you try to explain) that I "play" Second Life. It makes it sound trivial. It isn't. I even am able to work in my RL profession here (sometimes volunteer, sometimes paid - but both legitimately working in my field). And many of us make and sell things, run businesses, etc.

So what do you call it when you refer to being inworld in SL? And do the people you talk to get it, or is it still just a computer game you "play" to them?

Princess Ivory

I call it playing and refer to it as a game sometimes, but it really is more like a 3 dimensional version of the internet, with it's own economy.

A lot of people didn't take the internet seriously at first either.

I usually refer to it as playing on second life. I can't say I necessarily think it's a game, I think it's another little world, really. Most people have a problem understanding, but I have showed it to a few friends, and told them in great detail what we do in SL. I think it's difficult to explain, though, without using "play" in there somewhere. People seem to have a better understanding if I say I was "playing on" Second Life last night. But I do think of it as entertainment, and I do tell people that. Some make their RL living in-world, though, and to those it's much more than a game, of course. Mostly I call it a "virtual world" where you can create just about anything, buy just about anything, do just about anything, all while sitting at your computer keyboard.

I play a very interesting, engrossing game, where I interact with real people.

I tell people that I both work AND play in Second Life.

I call it "being here".... it is a form of "play" in the sense of a non-essential activity undertaken for enjoyment alone (if you'll accept that as my definition).. but it is SO much more than that too.

For me anyway

Inc

Yeah, it's a game to me...as in I'm in it for entertainment. I make money off of it but use that money to add to my in-world experience.

It's not a 3d version of the internet yet and has no real world value other than socializing with people...many of whom are socially dysfunctional to begin with...and I'd have to say that I'm one of them to some extent!

It's a platform in which I can play many different kinds of games or chat and could potentially get some cash out of if I tried harder.

I guess i'm one of the kooks that says they live here.

Ouch. No real world value other than socializing? What about commerce? What about learning to 3D model and design? What about learning how to work with clients and business partners? Learning to script? How about going to the new NASA exhibit, and learning about Mars' crater sediment? What about all the real world money that flows in and out of SL, supporting families and changing the way we perceive digital content?

These are just a smidgen of reasons why SL is much more than a social tool.

I'm not bashing you at all, I'm just very passionate about SL's inter-reality aspects.

I dont consider it as 'playing' so I say "Living my Second Life".

I consider it more like residing, creating or being in SL, when I am in Neipets or at game site I am playing a game personally. Sometimes I play in SL but usually that involves hanging out with friends, pretending or doing a recreational activity.

I usually tell people that I participate in Second Life. Seems more accurate to me than "playing." Not that it matters really.

What about using SL as a platform for creative and artistic expression?

I'm a RL creative working in the fields of video and art direction.

In SL, I'm learning new photography techniques and new post-production (Photoshop) skills I haven't ever tried before in RL. I'm probably learning more new things about Photoshop with SL-based projects than any new skills I've gained with RL projects in the past several years. (Thanks to inworlders Baron Grayson, yann Mip and Torley Linden for your influences, inspirations and guidance.)

I'm learning about machinima (virtual filmmaking), the different ways to produce it inworld and how to develop those projects for viewing on the internet -- and eventually how to "broadcast" it back in SL, as well.

Finally, I'm currently in rehearsals for a theatre production that someone in SL wrote specifically for an SL-related subculture. I'm learning about virtual world stagecraft, too. Theatre in SL. Yeah.

How cool is all that?

I have a "to do" list of a bunch of things I still want to explore in SL. For example, I used to be a DJ in RL and I want to do that here again. I love museums and I have a really cool idea for one that I'm going to build and promote. And, lately, I've decided that I want to learn how to make jewelry. Really, really cool jewelry. Edgy looking stuff.

My SL partner recently told me about his hobby of restoring antique furniture. He's started to build furniture in SL now.

And we've both talked about opening an SL sports bar together, with things like sports videos and an ESPN audio feed. That is, if we can figure those things out.

There's a lot more going on inworld than just "socializing." Anybody who thinks otherwise needs to get out of the clubs and malls a little more often.

I call it working in SL. Kinda. I have a pretty loose notion of work.

This is a New World.

The earliest US settlers, who set up Jamestown colony or were the early Dutch who cleared land around what is now New York and planted crops and who (in a few cases) had farms in what is now Greenwich Village and SoHo and midtown in Manhattan, could not have had the slightest conception of what their new world would become. We are a little further on, maybe around 1700 or so, but we still cannot imagine what is yet to come, because of what we do and create, here and now.

Every day, I log on, excited about what I and the rest of us might be able to do about what will be from this, and I fall in love with it all over again.

Even such as the ad farms and the griefers and the scammers; they give us Bad Guys to struggle against, who force us to figure out what we must do to make this a viable world for everyone.

I mean EVERYONE. If "glorious country of Kazakhstan" gets broadband, Kazakhs can and will be here too. Think of what that fact will do for the future of the (RL) world!

Considering it's all artificial and for entertainment purposes...no. If this was run like the internet and not consolidated in a company that could potentially go bankrupt and essentially close up shop leaving us all with nothing then I might say different.



Well from what I've done with SL and other 3d modelling programs I can say SL doesn't hold much educational value in that respect. You could say that with the introduction of sculpties there is new motivation to learn real 3d modelling programs but you chould do that anyway with the programs themselves.



Not sure what you mean by this one. The potential for enhanced teleconfrencing is definitely there but considering how unstable SL is I wouldn't bank my company on it if I had one!

As far as clients and business partners solely in the context of SL itself I can say that it only serves to help people understand how easily they could be screwed by shifty crazy people! Anyone who relies on SL for any source of major income is a fool.



I totally wish I had a couch-shooting push gun IRL.



How many people actually go to SL for that? Again there's potential, but SL isn't developed enough to provide a vital educational service that already isn't provided elsewhere on the internet.



Those guys are in for a surprise! Anyone supporting their family off of SL income alone is an unfit parent. Sorry!

Just because people will pay RL$ for something doesn't make it worth anything. It just means the seller is a good salesperson.

When (and I don't mean "if" someone can tie RL products or RL services into SL in a way that you can't already get on the internet then this will change but as of now I can't bust out the submersible aircraft I got from Cubey Terra IRL and use it.

I'm paying a game company to entertain me. They just pass some of that money onto the people that make content.



Don't get me wrong. I am definitely a true believer in the POTENTIAL SL as an application can hold and I look forward to the day when it is able to grow outside of the limits of LL, but as of right now it's just entertainment and gambling with your and others' money.

I don't recally call it "playing."

I am more likely to say stuff like dis:

"I logged in last night, and while on, I checked out that new Greenie sim. After dinner, I went back inworld for a while."

Mari

I'll usually say I am spending time in Second Life. I try and avoid calling it a game, I've described it as a social community with an interface similar to MMORPGs. More often than not I get blank stares until I relent and say "It's kind of like a game..."

Now when I describe it to people I play up the building aspect and how there are whole games and RPGs that only exist in SL and giant cities people made.

I basically refer to it as a platform where you can build and create your own games if you wanted.

I would build up the cultural aspect of it but so far there isn't a whole lot to build up other than "non americans use SL, too!" Having more art and less spam would make it easier to pitch to people, too. I guess art imitates life...

I'm afraid I have to take deep exception to this. My SL income is allowing me to stay home with a child who has deep emotional issues, to be here whenever he is home, who has to have a parent on call to come and support him at school without fear of losing his/her job over it, and my husband's income just isn't enough to support us by itself.

If working my ass off in-world so that I can be here for him, day in and day out, seven days a week, so that I can drop everything and run when my son needs me, makes me an UNFIT PARENT, then your definition of 'fit' leaves a lot to be desired.

Char

Hear hear.

While we don't rely on my SL income to support our family, it does pay some of the bills now, and has allowed us a bit more freedom of the type granted by such money.

Anyone who can support their family on SL income is f*cking /amazing/; someone else's view that it can't be a viable source of income is ignoring the
(admittedly few) people in-world who make a living wage off of it.

I'd recommend not typing when the greeneyed monster is sitting on your shoulder...

What are you going to do if LL goes belly-up from the Bragg lawsuit (for example) and there is no SL to make that extra money from?

What if there are major billing or LindeX issues and you can't get your money paid out for an extended amount of time?

What if the government of whatever country you live in decides SL income is taxable and this law is retroactive and demand you to pay them for all the money you've made previously?

I understand there is a certain freedom and/or advantage given by being able to work at home on a computer game/platform/whatever but in this stage of the game SL is a house of cards that I wouldn't rest MY family on by any means!

Just because it's easier doesn't mean it's better.

If you think it's "easier", you're ignorant of the meaning of "work".

If you think it's less secure, you're ignorant of the majority of people in the US who work for RL companies that can go tits up without warning (look at recent VOIP company failures) or who can be fired at will.

If you worry about taxation, think about the people in RL who have had the rug yanked out from underneath them by finding out their employer didn't pay taxes to the proper authorities.

There's always risk and always the potential for loss; if one used your "standard" for so-called "normal" jobs, there'd be a great many "unfit" parents.

A good business person has buffers built into their business strategy, including plans for losses, missed months of income, and so forth. *I* would assume that anyone relying on this income has such buffers built into their business model. I realize that not everyone is a good business person, but I like to assume the best before the worst.



I live in the United States. This is the first year I have made money in SL that has been converted out to USD. I have filed with my state as a sole proprietorship and will be filing my tax returns as such. Again, you *assume* that I don't pay taxes on my income.




Then I will have done everything in my power to stay home with him for every second that I could and I will go out and get a new job just like I would if I was laid off from a 'real world' job, an all too common occurrence out there, even for top notch individuals in their respective fields.

It is not the *sole* source of income here, but it keeps me home for now. I don't think any job out there today is likely that much more stable than that of SL. I can always go work at McDeath if I have to until I found a job in whatever my real world field is or was before I quit to stay home. And do, please note, I quit first and found SL as a way to supplement much later. I had to. At the time there was no choice (bear in mind I'd worked there for 18 years...). It was my job or my son. I'd make that sacrifice any time, and if it was the choice of selling my home and going and living in the poor side of town to live on hubby's income alone, sweetheart, I'd live in a one bedroom apt and shop at goodwill if it was for the best interests of helping my son move on into adulthood with some promise of a future, but gee, I can do this instead.

Go ahead and sit on your moral high horse and judge me. I'm fine with that because I don't answer to you. I answer to myself and my family, with a little bit of death and taxes mixed in, and nothing you can say changes anything about my situation, my view of my self-worth, the quality of the work I do in SL, the value I'm paid for it, and the quality of care of I give my children.


Char

My definition of "work"? Definitely not stripping, camping or selling land that doesn't exist.

Don't worry, I've worked all types of shit jobs from 15 hours-a-day meat warehouse shipping/receiving to semi-abusive call centers whose pay doesn't match the level of work they expect out of you. Try some of that on for a year or two and come back to me about SL not being "easier". Get over yourself.



Except those companies never said "we can choose to not pay you for certain things and your co-workers could steal/ruin/destroy your work and we probably won't be able to help you with that". Shit even AMWAY doesn't have that issue!!

Of course there's a risk with most kinds of jobs out there but they have potentially huge payoffs for their employees. SL has it built into their TOS that they have no such liability. They don't even have to pay you your money! And when do you think you'll be able to retire off of SL income?



There are legal options when something like that happens. When the GOVERNMENT is the one yanking the carpet out from underneath you THEN you're screwed. From what I understand the "internet game revenue tax" issue is still up in the air.

I'm not for it by any means, but I'm also not for a lot of things the government has us do.



Yeah, I guess my standards of "working somewhere that won't look ridiculous on my resume later" and "is actually subject to any labor laws or codes of conduct enforcible by the state so I have even the slightest amount of protection if the shit hits the fan" are a little high!

I refuse to accept that the job market is so bad that the best work you can find is playing a computer game all day. Shit, even places like McDonalds-level jobs can offer health benefits. They might suck but it's more than SL's gonna give you!

There's a difference between "getting by for a while with" and "depending on" SL. If you're depending on SL then you're taking a big risk. If you're taking a big risk and you have a family to care for then they could suffer, too.

If you're getting by on SL while looking for real work or working through a current situation then that's a different story.