virtual goes mainstream...

[sitearm]

My Virtual Life - BusinessWeek

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/06_18/B3982magazine.htm

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/06/18/0618covdv.gif

[wodinoneeye]

My Virtual Life - BusinessWeek

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/06_18/B3982magazine.htm

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/06/18/0618covdv.gif


Letting players get real world money involved in online games is one of the things that have ruined them. In UO (Ultima Online) it caused the game to become one of 'harvesting' rares and speculating in housing (locking out many players from owning houses because the 'rich' people owned multiples and pricing them out of a casual players ability) instead of the 'adventure' game it was supposed to be. And then to top it off, the idiots at the company started modifying the game to facilitate that kind of behavior.

[sitearm]

*giggles* guess the point is being missed here.. the thing Linden Lab has done is give full Intellectual Property rights to resident creations. Unlike all the other games, even COTN where screenshots are "TM's", what you create in Second Life is YOURS. Most people don't bother to trade linden dollars for "real" dollars. Only a few. But it's a nice option for example if you wanted to buy your next city-builder game and you made the money for it just playin' around online. Most people just enjoy meeting others, having fancy homes or cars or submarines, going to shows and concerts, fighting in giant mechwar avatars etc. Some people enjoy making (building and scripting) the submarines and mechavis, or performing (streaming from their homes) the music. Accomodates both :)

Letting players get real world money involved in online games is one of the things that have ruined them. In UO (Ultima Online) it caused the game to become one of 'harvesting' rares and speculating in housing (locking out many players from owning houses because the 'rich' people owned multiples and pricing them out of a casual players ability) instead of the 'adventure' game it was supposed to be. And then to top it off, the idiots at the company started modifying the game to facilitate that kind of behavior.

[wodinoneeye]

And what do YOU think "Virtual World, REAL Money" is talking about???

You pay real money to get space in their world (they were looking at the idea of corporations having presentations/advertising space in their online world...).

Not really sure what 'point' you were trying to make since all that was posted was a link and the title 'virtual goes mainstream... '.


And MY point was that whenever you link an online game with money in the real world many people stop treating it as a game and start trying to cheat and steal stuff with the added incentive (warping player behavior away from the original theme) and ruining 'the game' for people who want to get away from the real world.

Now, Second Life at least has stated that real world money is part of the design, and their mechanism of creating objects with mechanisms is a good start on what we will have eventually in online 'games'.