Second Life Virtual Property Boom 242
The Guardian Gamesblog has an interview with Philip Rosedale, Second Life's CEO and Founder. In the wake of last week's virtual property slaying, they discuss the realities of owning something intangible. From the article: "We launched Second Life without out of world trade and after a few months we looked at it and thought, 'We're not doing this right, we're doing this wrong.' We started selling land free and clear, and we sold the title, and we made it extremely clear that we were not the owner of the virtual property. USD$.4m a month is traded directly to world markets in Linden Bucks on Gaming Open Market. That's USD$.4m redeemed, or Linden Bucks turned into US dollars. In May 2005, the total amount traded in-world was USD$1.47 million. There were 1.3 million transactions between 19,500 unique users."
Intangibles always bust (Score:5, Interesting)
In the case of dot.bomb we had a bunch of non-viable businesses and ideas with no effective business plan that could not stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately a lot of other viable ideas/businesses got burnt too.
The same goes for pyramid selling schemes. While there are new suckers/members to join up and fuel the system everything is great. Once the sucker/member fuel runs out they crash.
I recall a business selling Kruger Rands about 15 years ago. A Kruger Rand is just a minted ounce of gold, so has the tangible value of an ounce of gold. This crowd, however made a business of adding an enhanced value based on the condition and minting marks, coining phrases like bloom, sheen etc. Some coins sold for 5 to 10 times their tangible value. Eventually this bust and many people got burnt.
Sure, until they try to shut down second life.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't that the whole point behind MMORPGs NOT allowing actual ownership in-game? Since if there's a server wipe or something they have no obligations to the players to return all their houses/loot?
Not that crazy (Score:2, Interesting)
This reminds me a lot of website property.
A company -- say, Amazon.com -- owns the title to a website. They have rights to the property at http://www.amazon.com/ [amazon.com] . But the actual bits on the server don't have to reside on computers owned by Amazon; they could hire a hosting company to do that.
That's what's going on with Second Life. The video game is hosting the "site", and they're licensing rights to areas of the "site" to individual people.
Come to think of it, it also reminds me of an IPO. But instead of selling ownership, Second Life is selling rights to its product. I don't see anything wrong with this whatsoever.
Life's a game, get over it. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't get it. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
So is it really the intangible property that weirds people out? Or the fact that the general media has no damn clue how online games work?
Rich kids. (Score:3, Interesting)
Products and Services (Score:3, Interesting)
Selling intangible property is more similar to offering to shovel somebody's driveway for cash, than to selling your old stereo. That the item is neither tangible nor permanent makes it no less legitimate. (However, I would never pay real money for RTS property.)
Not that crazy (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand it can turn the game into a "only those with more money have fun" type of thing... Well I guess they are trying to make it more like real life.
Re:Its money (Score:4, Interesting)
The monetary system in the country (and all others, as far as I know) is based upon a shared (and mutually agreed-upon) illusion of value.
This is what Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (and Cryptonomicon, for that matter) was talking about. This isn't a virtualization of money, this IS money. These people are creating money, printing their own currency in the most elemental way possible, they're thinking it up.
It's interesting for that reason alone, aside from what people are actually doing with the service.
m-
Not that altruistic (Score:3, Interesting)
Also it would be more altruistic if they allowed you to host your own server with your own land that you can control who can visit. That way people who provide their own server get the benefit of not having to pay maintenance fees (they would still pay for the software, developers have to eat I agree, being one myself).
Think of it this way many games i.e. Quake, Counterstrike have worked for years by providing networking functionality and people create their own servers etc.
Granted MMO networks need to be much larger and persistent, though why can't they take the BitTorrent approach. Rather than have one central bank of many powerful servers, all computers running the game could connect together to form an adhoc grid with just as much computing power if not more. This would negate the huge maintenance costs required and hence the need for monthly fees. Which is where I see the sinister part, it's like saying rather than lets look for a better solution, lets look for the most expensive solution.
Re:I don't get it. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
When I pay my bills online, I am paying for a good or service that exists in the real world. While I do not get paid in physical bills, the number which represents how much money I can spend on physical goods increases.
In the bank/credit card case, the number is a representation. In the case of so-called "virtual items" there is no tie-in with the real world. The bit sequence is all that actually exists.
Re:Intangibles always bust (Score:4, Interesting)
Second Life was one of the first major financial movers in the virtual worlds department, which started as a simple 3D version of the text based MUSH/MOO style 'games' which have been around since the 80s. The major difference is they started as a purely commercial venture.
Such virtual worlds don't yet have the draw that a more accessible game such as Everquest or World of Warcraft does. MMORPGs have goals that seem much more self evident, which allows casual gamers to more quickly value the bits that make up their virtual characters. However, as the wired generation grows up we will eventually have a world full of people who can more easily make that connection and are more than willing to pay money so they can look good in the exclusive Black Sun. The term "Persistent World" will take on new meaning as the few major players who have fostered the largest communities will kick off the next major revolution when they establish and share protocols so players can freely move their Avatar and virtual objects from Matrix to Metaverse.
An important point (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I don't get it. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Same reason you would spend $400 to get a +25 yards driving distance golf club.
You could argue that with the golf club you get a physical item, but in realistic terms the premium price tag is directly linked to playing golf. You would be hard pressed to find somebody willing to pay $400 for what is essentially a finely crafted stick, unless they were a golfer or thought they could turn around and sell it to a golfer.
Re:Western vs. Eastern (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that I anticipate this brave new world with without hesitations. To paraphrase Dennis Miller, the day an unemployed ironworker can go home, sit in his easy chair, open a beer, put on a headset, and fuck Claudia Schiffer (this was in the early '90s), it's going to make crack look like Sanka. Which leads to another interesting question: when people start investing large proportions of their net worth in virtual real estate, and start to work primarily in the massive multiplayer, are 80 hour weeks spent online going to start to become conventional?
Sorry, I got to go buy some shares in companies that manufacture adult diapers.
--Moiche