This isn’t me, you understand; it’s him. My avatar. And this isn’t here; it’s there. There being Second Life, a 3-D virtual simulated world, or massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), where everything is possible, and which bloggers, music-industry buzz-builders et al are wittering about. For now.
The Russian-American singer Regina Spektor recently launched her new album with a virtual listening party on this site. It has a modest number of subscribers (or “residents”), so, as a means of disseminating her music, it offered minimal promotional value. But as a way of whipping up an online panic attack (“Why isn’t our artist doing that?”; “Get me everything you can on Second Life — now”), it worked a treat. So, what’s all the fuss about? Let me invent an avatar and find out for you, at secondlife.com. Click.
This isn’t me; as I said, it’s him. Him being Forster Feng. Feng is a new kid in Second Life’s virtual town and needs to look the part to make an impression. Another click gives me a visual on the mini-me, and for some reason Feng is a muscle Mary, all tight white T-shirt and crotch-hugging jeans. It’s not a look I like. You do get to customise, though, and for reasons that will be explicable only to those who know me, I give Feng huge pecs, a tiny nose and small feet. Off you go then, Feng, you big beauty.
Here’s Help Island, and over there is one called Orientation. (The name of the former proves only semi-accurate. The latter’s is, perhaps unintentionally, on the money: boy, can you swing in Second Life — of which more later.) No sign, though, of the tiny actor Hervé Villechaize, star of the cult TV series Fantasy Island. I confess to feeling a little disappointed: I’d gone off into a reverie about a virtual Villechaize looking up at me adoringly as he grazed my kneecaps, and saying: “Hey, boss.” Get a life, I hear you say. Or, as Linden Lab, the Californian computer company behind the site, would no doubt prefer you to put it, get a Second Life. But this isn’t me; this is him. And Feng is having the time of his life.
Armed with Linden dollars, Feng is keen to spend, spend, spend, make some new best friends, buy a swanky pad and get himself some fancy wheels. Instead, the first area he encounters once he’s checked in is devoted to porn. Pussy 40, which sounds like a top-shelfer for mid-lifers, is a veritable emporium of erotica, with curiously 1990s graphics. Feng spots a sign saying “Multiple sex balls”. As in the masked Venetian variety? Perhaps MMOG in fact stands for “ massively multiple orgasms — great!”.
Outside, another Second Life newbie, a woman, is standing against a wall. Feng attempts to engage her in conversation. Hey, Zeyamorey, how about it? But Zeyamorey isn’t playing. Michael Proost, confusingly another muscle Mary, appears. No reply from him, either. Suddenly, the words “Blow me” appear, and everything Feng has heard about Second Life (“Already, on my short travels there,” one resident enthuses, “I’ve.. . had several types of sex that I wouldn’t THINK of doing in real life”) appears to be coming true. But the words are not from Zeyamorey (or, indeed, Mr Proost); instead, it’s Feng’s chance to get his virtual laughing gear around a hookah in the middle distance. Feng shuns the opportunity and goes teleporting in search of new people.
He keeps landing in the coolest-looking clubs and bars (you can tell this is fantasy, because I get — sorry, Feng gets into these places with no trouble), only to find them empty. Regina’s Listening Loft is similarly deserted, though in fairness it was probably busier at the album launch. What about the island that Radio 1 has rented for a year? It was here, in May, that the station staged a virtual festival to coincide with its Big Weekend in Dundee, hosted by an avatar of Chris Moyles (a scary thought). It’s a lonely, windswept place now, decked with posters of Preston from the Ordinary Boys and a row of fluorescent BBC Party Packs. Clicking on these, Feng discovers that he’s allowed to pick a dance step, and is soon doing the funky chicken. Distressingly, his pecs have now become man breasts. Time to leave.
Back to life, back to reality. What have Feng and I discovered? Is it a game, a trading floor, a 3-D retail outlet, a music-content provider — or all four? “Man, I was so ready to like this game,” sighs one blogger of Second Life. “Second Life is Not a Game,” another counters.
Let’s ask the technology writer Phil Hartup. “It’s not a game for gamers,” he argues. “Why bother sitting around looking at a little character who doesn’t really do anything?” Alex Pell, assistant editor of The Sunday Times Doors section, is also sceptical: “A game such as World of Warcraft claims more than 6m users globally. They’re fanatical — people have been known to pay huge sums for virtual weapons, or to get geeks in the Far East to develop their characters for them, then sell them on. Gamers are prepared to pay a monthly fee for something with a large membership and competitive incentives, such as that. But some estimate that Second Life, though it boasts of 300,000 residents, will have far fewer active users.”
What about a wired-up teen? My 14-year-old daughter looks up just long enough from MySpace, Bebo and YouTube to say: “You mean it’s like (the lifestyle simulation game) The Sims? What, for grown-ups? That’s sad.”
Or a retailer? The US clothing company American Apparel recently made its products available on Second Life for residents to dress their avatars in. “I have few expectations about generating significant revenue,” AA’s director of web services, Raz Schionning, has admitted. “As with all the marketing we do, we’re being innovative and keeping our ear to the ground. We want to see how people respond to our presence.”
Or a record-label marketing team? The Spektor launch did create a buzz. So, who won — the artist and her label? Doubtful, in terms of hard sales. Linden Lab? Definitely. Here’s a company, after all, that’s looking to expand, but needs resources. Keen, presumably, to attract the attention (and cash) of the big beasts in the online jungle, it moves into music.
Finally, the music fan, used to receiving music content in a millisecond; used, possibly, to whiling away the hours in the virtual world of a computer game, too. Aren’t the two mutually exclusive? My daughter thinks so. “Why would I bother doing all that silly fantasy stuff, with pretend money, if I wanted to hear a song or watch a video?” she asks. “I can get all that just by clicking my mouse, and for nothing. It doesn’t make sense.”
Still, what about the resident who claims to be earning a real living from selling virtual flowers on the site? (You pay in Linden dollars, which can be swapped for hard cash at current exchange rates.) It’s a thought. Next time, for instance, you forget an anniversary and your other half wails “You could have got me something, even a token. You haven’t even bought me flowers”, you can whip out a big virtual bunch and say: “No, but Feng has.”
Additional reporting by David Phelan
