The Sandbox

Having grown up in Tampa, I can personally attest to the uncanny level of weirdness that comes out out that town and state. Freaky Florida at its best. Exhibit A: the strange case of the stolen virtual sex bot.

Kevin Alderman, whom AP describes as a "46-year-old entrepreneur," wrote some code - in the scripting language of the Second Life virtual world - that allows residents to animate their avatars in a variety of sexual positions. Now he's suing the person behind an avatar named Volkov Catteneo for allegedly busting open the copy-protection and selling the randy wares on the Second Life black market.

Yes, this is funny: the sort of stuff you'd read in a Kurt Vonnegut novel. But of course it's also sort of a big deal. As virtual worlds grow more sophisticated, the stuff users are creating is maturing in tune. That means there will be more cases of piracy and theft, with more money at stake. The article quotes an intellectual-property attorney who says, "Virtually every aspect of real life is getting duplicated, and all the laws that can be applied to the real world are being applied in 'Second Life."

The Yankee Group has bad news about Second Life, the virtual world that got so much coverage last year. According to the research firm's cheekily titled report - Whither Second Life? - "the growth rate of Second Life users has slowed since its peak in October 2006, while user engagement (as measured by average time spent per user) has leveled off at just 12 minutes per month. This is in stark contrast to other highly publicized sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which are seeing steady increases in both the number of users and the intensity of user engagement. Facebook’s average time spent per user, for example, increased 24% over 6 months to 186 minutes per month, equating to 15-times more engagement per user than Second Life. The Note considers a number of factors contributing to this stagnation, but concludes that Second Life’s PC-centric approach in an increasingly mobile world is to blame."

Okay, so Second Life is getting slammed this week. But does that spell trouble for virtual worlds? Not according to investors. According to a study released by Virtual Worlds Management, a firm that tracks v-world business, a whopping $1 billion has been pumped into these startups. What's even more astonishing to me is that people don't seem to take this stuff seriously. Virtual worlds are still shrugged off as the stuff of freaks and geeks, but that's incredibly small-minded. This is human evolution, or call it: e-Volution, as we increasingly live our lives online.

Check out the money details.

Last week, I blogged about the Yankee Group's critical report on Second Life, the popular virtual world. Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, responded in a blog entry called "Second Grade Math." In the post, they point out that while the Yankee report claims users visit Second Life for an average 12 minutes a month, the real number should be 23 hours.

Either way, that doesn't change the reality behind Second Life's virtual world: it''s not ready for prime-time yet. The barrier of entry for non-geeks remains high, as I'm sure even Linden Lab would admit. But that's okay. Why not just look at this as an early foray into the virtualization (to coin a word) of the Internet? I doubt virtual worlds will ever replace the flat worlds of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. But they can supplement these places, and provide a vivid place to collaborate and create. The danger is in over-selling Second Life too soon - and turning future Residents off for good.

Right now, we have to create avatars - virtual characters - for each different game or virtual world that we explore. One avatar for World of Warcraft. Another for SecondLife. And another for EverQuest. Wouldn't it be great if you could just teleport between worlds with the same character, just as you carry your own sac of bones between towns? Such persistence would be a massive evolutionary leap for the veracity of online worlds - and also, of course, raise a ton of really interesting problems.

Case in point: passports. Reuters says that, in light of Linden Lab (creators of Second Life) and IBM's plan to develop avatar transport, pioneers are lobbying for open borders.

In the believe-it-not category, a 17-year-old Dutch kid was arrested - for real - for swiping $6 grand worth of virtual furniture from another member of the social networking site, Habbo Hotel.

How crazy is that? Or is it? As virtual goods take on real world value, the definition of criminality will have to evolve too.

Here's more:

Gamespot hips us to word that NASA is in the market for a massively multiplayer online game. The group wants to create a virtual world in which students can simulate and carry out exploratory missions.

There's an area in Second Life that already suggests how such an experience might unfold. It's created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and, though rudimentary, is pretty cool/fun. You can wander into the ocean and see how a tsunami forms, etc. I have a friend who teaches computers to school kids, and this is just the kind of stuff that engages his class. The U.S. Army has been using online games as a recruitment tool for years. It's nice to see another branch of government explore the more educational potential of virtual worlds.

More categories for this article than I thought possible... it's about everything.

Leigh Alexander is very much worth reading, when you're in search of thoughts on the game industry. Two recent articles are the case For and the case Against this new world of entertainment media convergence. Is this intertwining of games, web, movies, television, cell phones, GPS, fresh baked bread, and the fat pipe connecting your checking account to media producers' coffers, is this good for games?

Leigh gives the definitive maybe. I mostly agree.