Making a Life in Second Life, Mark van Doorn Philips Research |
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The computer gamers among you will know that the world’s best game players can actually make a living out out of shooting virtual monsters. In some massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) players have also started to create and trade virtual objects for real money. Wired published an interesting article about a woman who decided to quit her job to start working full time as a virtual clothes designer in SecondLife.
SecondLife and other MMORPGs create an ever more complex world of hyperreality where the distinctions between real and unreal are blurred
But recently I was even more amazed to read that a real world company, Wells Fargo, started its own branch inside SecondLife. The pilot project, known as Stagecoach Island, is a digital environment intended to help young people learn financial responsibility. Visitors there can skydive, fly hovercrafts, dance and shop. But woven into the experience, to which Wells Fargo has been inviting groups of people in San Diego and Austin, Texas, is a series of financial messages intended to help them learn something about money management.
SecondLife and other MMORPGs create an ever more complex world of hyperreality where the distinctions between real and unreal are blurred. To some the simulation is as real or even more real than the real world. They make real money out by playing, participating in the game. SecondLife is a perfect example of what French social theorist Jean Baudrillard calls a simulacrum, a copy of a copy which has been so dissipated in its relation to the original that it can no longer be said to be a copy. It stands on its own and becomes real. Will other companies join Wells Fargo in buying land in SecondLife and follow their customers in rich virtual online worlds? Will we see the day when actually more people are earning their money in a virtual online world than in the real world?
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Dear Mark,
Interesting article. I recently attended a lecture of prof. Lucas Introna at the University of Amsterdam. He proposed that technology is integrated in being and becoming. All technology is an extension of human life since we first picked up a stone ages ago. I strongly belief that our life in cyberspace is as real as can be.
The fantastic part is it extends our mobility through space and extends our human possibilities. Who wants to travel through geographical space when you can enter such space within a second and when you are in controll?
Still we need to understand this way of living better to be able to take advantage and combat the ill effects, just like in physical space.
Thomas Thijssen
European director of research
European Centre for the Experience Economy
On the blurring between real and unreal (although I don’t see why the virtual would not be real…): people are already blurring the line between virtual income and ‘real’ income. On sites like Itembay virtual properties of online games are sold, bought and bid for, like userID’s, pieces of (virtual) land, ‘virtual dragon knives’ (received a bid of $4,800 on Itembay), ‘royally invincible claws’ ($4,270). The exchange rates of virtual money against US Dollars is closely monitored by real-life economists. Real-life lawyers and judges are handling disputes over virtual crimes. Real-life murders are being committed over virtual possessions(
). Real-life fiscalists are discussing whether virtual property could and should be taxed… I think that this blurring is natural, at least when one does not consider only the material world as ‘real’. Virtuality is as real as everything else. Just like you argue in your article ‘An inside story on the experience economy’ for the mind there is no difference.
Mark,
Thanks for the article. Great new insight I have to say. Can we expect more?
Johan Bonner, Icefish
Yesterday (27-02-06) an episode of the dutch television show “de toekomst” covered people who play SecondLife. Very intreging to see. To watch the rerun or read about this episode click the link below:
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/detoekomst/afleveringen/27029984/
“Cocreating Customer Value Through Hyperreality in the Prepurchase Service Experience”,Edvardsson, Enquist(2005)
This article develops a new model depicting how organizations can help customers test out and experience a service prior to purchase and consumption or use. When customers buy a new car, for instance, they are allowed to test-drive it to get the feel of it. When customers wish to purchase services, it can be more difficult to provide customers with a “test drive.� In some service situations, service organizations can and do provide “test drives,� but it is suggested that such experiences take place in a simulated setting. This article introduces the notion of hyperreality, the simulated reality of a service experience.
It also introduces the concept of the “experience room,� the place where the simulated experience takes place. Based on the existing literature, the authors apply six dimensions of experience rooms to demonstrate how organizations can cocreate value, in conjunction with the customer, through hyperreality in a preservice experience.
http://jsr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/2/149