What is there to say about this game? I honestly don't know, but I love where its going. Second Life is another Massively Multiplayer game, but the difference is that its not based on killing monsters, or gaining XP, its about being a member of this virtual society, and being part of an online economy. In the game you can buy land and build pretty much anything on it. Then you can create a store and sell things and make money, or get any kind of job. Then there are always events that get a lot of people to gather and socialize in the game. So it allows for people to be part of the community and set up a business. This is where it gets really interesting, players can take the money they make in the game and exchange it for real money. For instance, if I sold a bunch of shirts that I made myself in Photoshop and I made 10,000 Linden Dollars (the money in the game) I could exchange that into US Dollars and I get it all back based on whatever the exchange rate is. These virtual economies are really starting to pick up as more and more people are getting into MMO's. In fact people are starting to make money off of it, and in the game people and companies are buying land to advertise the company or their personal sites. As far as the "gameplay" goes, its not done all that well. The controls are not very intuitive, the interface for creating buildings is poorly done, and generally the game is slow from all the lag. Clearly this is a 1.0 version of the game, and It would be nice to see where it goes in the next few years... Clearly it will gain users, gamers and non gamers are into it, and its extremely scalable. Basically if you buy a lot of land in the game its the equivalent of buying a Linux server and paying for it monthly. To sum it up, its a great concept, it works now and its fun, and it will be incredible to see where it goes in the next few years. E-mail me at hosvos@gmail.com, and until next time its irreversible progress.
Related Tags: second life, virtual economy, game, online, linux