Second Life...should be "get a life"

For my mass communications class, we are required to create a character in Second Life, the online massive player computer game. Somehow, although don't ask me how, we're supposed to create some kind of ethnography from our experiences in the game. Well, here are my initial observations that might make this more difficult than I'd desire.

1. In my initial travels, I have discovered nothing but scams galore in this game. Some months ago, I wrote about the massive propensity of surveys that scam companies use to sell products to people who have no actual money to spend. It works like this: "Fill out this survey, and with enough surveys filled out, you'll earn money." What they don't tell you is that every one of these surveys really is an advertisement for a company that requires you "try" their product and then decide whether or not to spend even more money on their products. Somehow, this gets called a "survey", which no dictionary would ever equate with that definition whatsoever. Well, in Second Life, if you want to earn any money, the whole survey thing is available as a way to earn "fake" money, which they call Linden dollars (to be used in the game). Yet, you have to do these same surveys you'd have to do if you were being scammed by people outside the game. The only difference is you get game money instead of the possibility (translation: You're never seeing a dime) of real world money. I've tried to figure out how to make actual money in the game to buy things, but you either have to spend real money to the owners of the game or you have to participate in this really cheesy scam/survey thing.

2. There's no one in this world. No one. Not a soul. Okay, there are a few, but no one speaks to anyone else. It's like a game where you walk around with no one to speak to (unless they want to hit you up for simulated avatar sex) and with nothing to do because the game doesn't actually have anything to do. In the tutorial area, there was a little driving simulator (to teach you how to drive a car in the game), but I couldn't get anywhere because the only other person driving decided that driving in my path over and over again so I couldn't move would be fun. In other words, the game is so boring that he had to grief someone who was as bored as he was in order to actually have any fun.

3. The game is all about kinky sex. Several years ago, I tried playing the game. And all I found in it were business establishments that sold kinky outfits and offered S&M parlor entertainment. Of course, with no one there because as I said before, there's no one in this stupid game. I quit the game because even though a kinky sex playground sounds like it would be fun, it's not really fun when basically you're walking through a ghost town of areas with no one present.

4. So, I don't know what's interesting about the game because no one else is in it.

5. On a positive note, Kat and I created Furry characters. I'm Marty Wrigglesworth and she's my wife, Maeve Wrigglesworth. We're two furries and we'll probably run around doing stupid things, but it would be a lot more fun if there was actually a community in this game, but so far I haven't found it.

I know there's this whole community of people who are trying to build industries in this game, but I'm wondering why. It's not exciting. It's really boring, and so far nothing about the game has been interesting. My professor seems to believe that sites like Myspace and Facebook are going to end up giving into marketplace forces like Second Life so that all social networking will be much like Second Life, but I just don't see that happening. I was playing this game two years ago, and it was nothing but a sandbox for weird sex. Now, it's a sandbox for weird sex and a possibility of economic speculation. But who is going to continue to want to buy into a world where no one else is joining? I just don't see people flocking to Second Life because some people latched onto it at one point whereas the rest of the world went to worlds like World of Warcraft that continue to dominate computer gaming worlds online in unbelievable numbers.

In conclusion, I think what makes Second Life so uncomfortable is the very nature of what makes it unique. Everything in the game is player made. But the only real goal of the game is self-rewarding economics, and what's the fun in that? Why spend your time trying to get rich in a game where getting rich is all you can do? Why spend a great deal of time in a game trying to socialize with people who go afk (away from keyboard) and spend their time online getting money for the game while outside of the game (doing surveys or other ridiculous stuff like that)?

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