Bonus Mission #2: Second Life a game? No way!

Online gaming or multiplayer games have been around for quite a few years already. Some famous games that have gone online would be The Sims Online and World of Warcraft. However, some people would argue and say that World of Warcraft is different from many online games because of its "immersive nature and compelling social dynamics" (Levy, 2006, para. 4). With that in mind, comes the newest and increasingly popular virtual world called Second Life, which is a little like World of Warcraft, except without all the fighting.

Second Life was started in 2003, but only gained much media attention in 2006 and 2007. It was developed by Linden Lab and was inspired by "the cyberpunk literary movement, . . ." ("Second Life", 2007, para. 2). Linden Lab's goal in developing Second Life was to create a "user-defined world of general use in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate" (para. 2). Some people consider Second Life to be a game, but is it really one? The answer is no. This is because of two reasons - it does not have any characteristics of games, it has its own economy in and out of the world and education has found its way into it.

Games, be it online or single-player offline games have "points, scores, winners or losers, levels, [and] an end-strategy" (para. 3) of which players must fulfill. However, with Second Life, there are no such things. There are no points to be gained from games, because it is not a game. There are no winners or losers in it either because when there no points to be gained or lost, no one is keeping score.

With virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, economies have been established both in the virtual world and in the real world. In World of Warcraft, the currency of that world is gold, which has resulted in a "thriving industry makes tons of real dollars by "gold farming" (accumulating in-game currency and selling it) or . . ." (Levy, 2006, para. 10). This is the same thing in Second Life. There, the currency, Linden Dollars can be earned by creating and selling products or by selling land. In turn, the money earned in the virtual world can be sold in the real world. An example would be on www.ebay.com, people are selling 100,000 Linden Dollars for as high as US$316.73. Even a small amount of 4,000 Linden Dollars can be sold for US$13.00. This buying and selling of currency does not happen in games because ultimately the game will come to an end when all goals are completed. However, with Second Life, this buying and selling of currency has led to the fuelling of an economy outside of the virtual world.

Lastly, Second Life is not considered a game because education can now be seen in it. In games, any form of education in it is meant for the game characters and not for the player. However, in Second Life, schools such as Harvard, New York University and Delft University of Technology have started to use the virtual world to teach their classes. This is because Second Life has managed t bridge the gap of distance - learning. According to Rebecca Nelson, an instructor from Harvard, she was quoted as saying that "no matter how good a distance-learning class is, an inherent distance does still exist between you and your students, . . . Second Life has really bridged that gap" ("Second Life", 2007, para. 26).

Therefore, Second Life is not a game because unlike games that normally end after all the objectives have been met, Second Life can go on for as long as the user hasan account. Things are constantly changing around us, and Second Life has given people a perfect place to go. Here, they can study, shop, work and relax all at the touch of the keyboard. Once, virtual reality and reality had a very distinct line drawn between them. However, with Second Life, those lines have become blurred.

References:
Levy, S. (2006). [On-line]. Retrieved April 7, 2007 from the World Wide Web:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769/site/newsweek/page/3/print/1/displaymode/1098/

Second Life. (2007, April 6). [On-line]. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:22, April 7, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Life&oldid=120696573