Is Second Life a Game?
Filed under: News | By: Daniel
Posted on: June 4, 2007 | 14 Comments
It’s a simple question which is sure to have mixed views, as I was just talking to a member of my family about Second Life and how big it has become.
Yes Second Life is and has taken over the online world and as he was talking about how amazing it is we had a little debate about Second Life being a game.
So what do you think Is Second Life a Game?
Leave a comment in the box below and share your views. See it could be looked at as a game, but then so is life a game.
We think Second Life is Very Important so we will be dedicating a category to the subject with regular news updates.
But the one question we would like you to answer Is Second Life a Game?
I will let the people decide.
CLICK HERE to keep updated with the latest news, share a comment or problems with products and services. Follow us on twitter or read more news.
Of course it’s a game, just one big popular game.
Anyone who says else is just a computer game addict.
You do not know what your chatting about Tina, life is one big game, you got to play along with people all the time. You can advertise there, promote businesses plus chat to people about a question you need answered.
Yes, it’s a GAME!!! Please don’t try sounding deep by saying life is a game, because you will only embarrass yourself.
It’s not a game. I do nothing in there but make money selling gags and pranks. *Real* money. To be honest, Second Life isn’t a very good platform for making or playing computer/video games that most people are familiar with. It’s more of a creative and social outlet than anything else.
I don’t consider myself a gamer, although I would not rule out Second Life addiction regardless of its game-or-not status.
In my view Second Life is one of several platforms for immersive 3D. As a platform, one could certainly use it to develop games (within its limits of graphics and lag) and yet there are so many other uses that each have their own context and “rules” that I believe the moniker Game does not do it justice.
SL isn’t a game - it’s an environment. There’s an essential disconnect that a lot of people experience because SL uses game mechanics (eg: 3d graphics), but unlike a game, SL is first and foremost an environment for communication. Like email, like chat, and soon, like phone. Are words on a screen irrelevant? Does that heartfelt reconcilliation with your grandmother via email not count because it was email? Is that late night call at the bus station when you call your wife/husband/parents and discover you both still love each other irrelevant because it’s just sound on a wire? Those 3d pixels you see in second life - every avatar you see in world is a living breathing person somewhere in the world. Certainly, even some of the residents of second life view their activities as consequence free - as though they were playing a video game still, and the NPC’s won’t shoot back. However, there are plenty of folks who carry the same personal rules inWorld as they do in their outer lives. They are polite, respectful of other’s feeling and privacy. They love, they hate, they have endless opinons.
And should SL reach it’s goal - to be the next evolution of the web - will people still be chanting get a life, when all their communications and half their jobs will carry their instrumentation through Second Life (or something like it)?
Take some time, visit. Ignore the casinos and the strip clubs and porn - they are part of first life too (what do you think set the standard for VHS? DVD? CD ROMS? Half the internet protocols?), and see some of the amazing things that people are doing with their second lives. My fiancee is a hospice nurse - her days are filled with the heartbreak of tending the dying. I’ve watched her blossom creatively in Second Life - learning Photoshop hungrily. Tackling Poser to help her realize her visions. Things that might never have happened in the outer world due to material costs and equipment. All the magic inside her that her first life makes impractical, exploding not just before her eyes, or my eyes, but a world of people who can appreciate it.
Yeah… it’s just a game.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, there are several definitions of the word ‘game’. The loosest definition is a ‘pleasurable pursuit’, which Second Life is. However, the second definition is a pleasurable pursuit with rules. I am not sure if Second Life has rules as such, unless you include the End User Licence Agreement!
Many people will claim Second Life (SL) is a game. Those people are ignorant. Why else would there be RL money to be made off such a thing as ‘a game’? Why would the FBI be conducting investigations into ‘a game’. Why would ‘a game’ cause RL marriages and relationships to end in divorce? Game’s don’t do that do they, never.
IMO, for some it is only a game, to others it’s a business, then there
are those like me who are there for the music more than the game.
I’m one of those people that play music in Second Life. For me, it
is a second chance to do what i’ve always dreamed of…being a
part of a real band and playing in real concerts almost every
weekend. Although it is a virtual world where nothing is real, the
music we make and the people that come to listen and watch are
very real.
Many years ago, as a young man, I was in a small band that
never made the “Big Time”. But after years of loud music my
hearing was destroyed by tinnitus (ringing ears) to the point that
i can no longer go to real concerts, clubs, or even loud partys. In
Second Life, i can enjoy all those things just by turning the
sound down. I’ve also met people with disabilities that go there to do
things they can’t in real life. One is a person who had mutiple strokes
and cannot leave her house in real life, but she goes to second life to
listen to music, dance, and interact with people on a level she cannot
in real life…I’m sure to her, it’s much more than just a game.
The band I’m in is unique because none of us are in the same place.
The founder and lead guitar, BlueTom, is in Germany…the keyboard,
Roland, is in France…the Bass and male vocals, Ictus, is in Oklahoma…
Female vocals, Foxy, is in NewJersey…and i’m in Miami.
Although we have never met face to face, and may never meet in the
real world, you wouldn’t know it by listening to or watching us in Second Life.
Thanks to Second Life, and VLB, I’m having the time of my life there…
but not quitting my day job just yet…
Joker aka Jokker Streeter
http://www.virtualliveband.de
Jokker Streeter Has shown us what Second Life is Really About, What a great story.