Virtual bricks and mortar
I’ve just being reading that Amsterdam has been sold on eBay for $50,000.
Thing is it’s not the real city in Holland, it’s the virtual Amsterdam in Second Life!
That’s fifty thousand big ones for something that doesn’t actually exist – or does it?
I’m really not sure.
The virtual Amsterdam looks pretty much like the real one with tall skinny houses, cobbled streets, canals and women in windows.
And believe it or not those women are making just as much money as their counterparts in the real world.
In a documentary on the ABC’s Four Corners last week, the man behind the virtual Amsterdam claimed that there are prostitutes in Second Life who earn around $4,500 a week.
With that kind of income, I can’t help wondering if it was a virtual working girl who snapped up Amsterdam on eBay.
At $4,500 a week it would only take about three months to save up the money.
posted by Stan Lee at 12:36 am
2 Comments:
this is proof that second life isn't as connected to real life as people go on about.
sounds obvious i know.
but the fact that second life Amsterdam is being sold is proof that second life people don't have a real connection to the place that they hang out it. not enough for it to be sold. if you care about a place enough to be there, you're not going to let it be reduced to something as simple or tawdry as a transaction. a city or environment can't be owned like that.
the thing about real cities, with real people is that there is a physical memory that people have associated with the physical manifestation of a city. it's not just about the buildings, or just about the occurences there, its a complex combination of both.
second life Amsterdam obviously hasn't got those connections happening for it, despite looking like the 'real thing', so of course it will be sold. which leaves the whole second life deal really exposed as something that has a long way to go in really establishing a connection with its 'citizens'.
Interesting point - I never thought of it like that Lauren.
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