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Abstract: Second Life is a digital world that relies on a unique combination of grid computing and streaming technology [Rosedale03] to enable virtually all of its content to be created by its residents. To maximize the quality and quantity of user-created content, Second Life has embraced strong economic and legal connections to the real world. This approach is quite different than conventional massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Since Second Life launched in June of 2003, significant changes have been made to the business model and internal economic structure. These changes have shaped the many approaches residents have taken to creating content, building experiences and making real-world profits. This Article will discuss the evolution of Second Life's business model and internal economy, its entrepreneurial activities, and the impact of those activities on Second Life's residents and community.
Information and internet services, computer software, virtual worlds, second life
Abstract: Digital worlds exist as synthetic models and have no need for the constraints of the real world. This freedom allows digital worlds a vast design space of representational choices, ranging from near correspondence to the real world to complete abstraction. The digital world Second Life was designed to allow its residents enormous creative freedom and to be as broadly appealing as possible. Second Life chose to mirror the real world in many important aspects in order to provide a place that felt familiar and comfortable, while granting freedoms not possible in the real world. This Article will cover the environment of Second Life, the reasons for the choice and the challenges that arose.
Virtual worlds, Second Life, Place
Abstract: Ever since science fiction awoke imaginations to the promise of real, shared virtual spaces, technology has been chasing this dream. However, despite the enormous technical advances of the last decade, the concept of a broadly appealing online world has not yet been realized. At the same time, the rise of massively multiplayer online role-playing games has brought millions of players into online, persistent state worlds, where they spend tremendous amounts of time and money each year living, trading, fighting and dying. Players learn how to customize and to create within the online spaces, as well as how to extract this value back into the real world. Interestingly, this behavior exists even within worlds that don't explicitly allow user created content and in those that explicitly ban economic gains. The pervasive nature of user created content and free markets, while at odds with the desires of online game developers, demonstrates the opportunity for a different kind of online world. This Article will show how proper economic and legal decisions can be used to harness the power of player creativity to maximize the virtual world's growth in order to build an online space as rich and complex as the real world.
Information and Internet Services, Computer Software, Virtual Worlds, Second Life
Abstract: By building upon advances in disparate technologies, digital worlds enable easier and more powerful forms of creation and communication, allowing digital worlds to be more innovative places than the real world. The power to be more innovative makes it inevitable that digital worlds grow beyond their social and game roots. Furthermore, market and economic forces seen as detrimental by conventional massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) accelerate this transition. Ultimately, entertainment and economic incentives will integrate digital worlds into everyday life.
Information and Internet Services, Computer Software, Virtual Worlds, Online Gaming, Intellectual Property, Second Life
Abstract: For many digital world creators and thinkers, a core belief is that digital worlds benefit from isolation from the real world. In particular, real-world economies and legal structures should be excluded from digital worlds. As attractive as these positions can be, they do not act in the best interests of digital worlds or the residents of these worlds. With millions of players moving into online spaces and spending increasing amounts of time living their lives in them, ties to the real world become critical. This Article will argue that strong economic and intellectual property ties to the real world are vital components of successful digital worlds.
Information and Internet Services, Computer Software, Virtual Worlds, Online Gaming, Intellectual Property
Abstract: Once the domain of science fiction, advances in computer performance, connectivity, and 3-dimensional rendering now make physically-simulated, multiplayer, online virtual worlds available to a broad audience for nearly limitless applications. The virtual world Second Life has proven particularly flexible and is already in use for everything from live music performances to business collaborations spanning multiple continents. Remarkable examples of distributed learning and production demonstrate new collaboration models with the potential to profoundly impact innovation. This article will briefly introduce Second Life before examining how its unique affordances decrease the cost of communication and learning; how these cost reductions impact collaboration and innovation; what new structures and business models could be built to take maximal advantage of these cost reductions; and, finally, how these new models will change the way nations create and project power.
Second Life, virtual worlds
Abstract: While virtual worlds share common technologies and audiences with games, they possess many unique characteristics. Particularly when compared to massively multiplayer online role-playing games, virtual worlds create very different learning and teaching opportunities through markets, creation, and connections to the real world, and lack of overt game goals. This chapter aims to expose a wide audience to the breadth and depth of learning occurring within Second Life (SL). From in-world classes in the scripting language to mixed-reality conferences about the future of broadcasting, a tremendous variety of both amateurs and experts are leveraging SL as a platform for education. In one sense, this isn't new since every technology is co-opted by communities for communication, but SL is different because every aspect of it was designed to encourage this co-opting, this remixing of the virtual and the real.
Second Life, virtual worlds, education
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