Get a Life – get a ‘Second Life!’
In the last few weeks there have been at least two articles in the national newspapers that would rarely cause much interest.
The first article was about a property entrepreneur who bought some land and then sold it again making millions of pounds profit. The second was about an arrest made in Germany to do with prostitution. Nothing new or exceptional about either article you might think – but you would be wrong.
Both articles were referring to incidents that happened not in real life but in the world of binary digits, telecommunications and advanced computer software – in the world of ‘Virtual Reality’. Over the last few years the world has witnessed unprecedented growth in the phenomenon that started as a pastime for a few IT enthusiasts sitting at a computer screen at home and has now become a huge – and potentially frightening development that will impact all of our lives in one way or another. Slowly and almost imperceptibly the advances that have been made in business and science technology have been paralleled in the world of computer games and film technology.
On one side we have all seen the incredible improvements that have turned crude cartoon films into the stunning visual worlds in films like Shrek and Monsters Inc and on the other side we are seeing games technology create new ‘virtual worlds’ like realistic war zones and the landscapes that Lara Croft, Tomb raider inhabit. No longer are the computer screen backgrounds full of cartoon like features. Instead we have new virtual landscapes in which colour, texture, three dimensional aspect, light and shade all interplay in order to give us a representation of reality that is becoming more and more difficult to separate from the real tangible world that we all inhabit. Indeed, what is ‘real’ and what is ‘virtual’ is no longer obvious.
Landscapes are one thing but creating ‘virtual people’ has always been much more of a technical challenge. How can you possibly recreate skin and bones, expressions, moods and emotions in a ‘person’ made from computer technology? Although many thought it could never be achieved in recent years they have been proved wrong. Now there is the greatest ever challenge to what you understand as ‘real’ and what is ‘unreal’. It is called “Second Life” and it is taking the world by storm.
Second Life is a new ‘virtual world’ inhabited by ‘virtual people’ called Avatars who not only interact in the good old fashioned game sense but who now buy virtual land and then build virtual tower blocks and run virtual businesses. In Second Life you can create your own Avatar of any age, sex, colour and personality. You can wander through virtual towns, visit virtual wine bars, meet other virtual people and effectively lead a ‘second life’. All this is very well you might think because it’s just harmless role play isn’t it? Well, the answer is no longer as clear as it used to be. Yes – it used to be just fun and role play but now things have taken a new and sometimes disquieting turn.
Although the concept of Second Life is simple enough no one could ever have predicted the enormous success of the website – or the implications. At first it was just the so called computer ‘geeks’ who spent hours on-line exploring this new virtual world. Then gradually big business suddenly realised that this so called ‘virtual world’ was another vehicle to sell their good and services. Not virtual goods sold for virtual money but this time real goods for real money. The concept of virtual reality has suddenly become even more blurred.
Now your virtually created character – your avatar – can not only explore a new virtual world it can also buy real goods and real services with real money. Once this incredible realisation sunk in the virtual world entrepreneurs started to move in now over six million avatars ‘live’ in Second Life, some spending more time living there then in the real world. For such enthusiasts ‘reality’ and ‘unreality’ are no longer black and white concepts. The future is uncertain and the future is blurred.
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