Week 4 - Virtual Goods and Economy

Virtual goods are a big thing in Second Life. Every single piece of land, every building, every avatar, every object, etc., is built by the people who inhabit the game, by using the given tools from Linden Labs. Before I talk about virtual goods, I want to dive into the history of the tools that Linden Labs has given us for these goods to be created.


When the game first went into closed beta in 2002, the game used standard “primitives” and textures. Primitives are your basic “3D modeling” shapes (like cubes, cylinders, spheres, and cones), that you can move, rotate, scale, cut, and skew to your hearts desire to create your target idea. Some of the first things made included buildings, hair, and other types of clothing bits! Shortly following this, in 2003 when the game opened to the public, LL updated their creation system to include vehicle API (scripts), new terrain textures, animated hair and clothes, bump mapping, and shininess. (Nino, 2010) This allowed creators a slew of new options to further enhance their ideas and already made creations.

Basic primitive shapes and options

Linden Labs has constantly been taking steps in updating their game to keep it modern for its players and creators. In June of 2007, Sculpted Prims were announced to creator's groups and were soon put into test on Second Life's Preview/beta grid. In just a month, they were released to the main grid for everyone to start using. (Linden, 2007) Sculpted Prims were much different from standard prims, and somewhat hard to deal with. These did, however, allow creators to have much more freedom in creation, and allowing creators to condense shapes. In order to create a sculpted prim, you need to use a special shape in a 3D modeling program, which was most usually a sphere consisting of 32 or 64 vertices. In order to get it into SL, you would need to export it in a special way (which is mostly done by user-created plug-ins) which would then create a sculpt-map texture. This texture would contain the objects shape and details. Putting this texture into the game and putting it on an object would then create your sculpted prim! Sculpted prims have been heavily utilized for dynamic shapes such as curves and rounder objects.

Basic Sculpted Prim and Texture File

Sculpted jeans and shoes

By 2010, Sculpted prims have hit their potential and have been used in many impressive builds, avatars, and outfits. It was at this time that Linden Labs announced the upcoming support of Mesh objects. After two complete years of beta testing, Mesh Support was finally released in 2012. Mesh is the most wonderful thing to happen to Second Life in its history (in my opinion). Mesh allows a complete freedom, surpassing that of what sculpted prims had. Mesh support allows any 3D model created out there to be imported and used in SL, as long as it is exported as a COLLADA file (.DAE). This is a gigantic step in the way that SL content is created, worn, and used. By rigging these models, creators and users can have complete 3D models as avatars, clothing, accessories, and just about anything else, without having to use any of the games avatar creation system. Just attach the mesh object and you are good to go!

Mesh Hoodie

Mesh creation import and options

Complete Mesh used as an Avatar

Shoryuken!

Now that I have covered the brief history of creation tools, I'm going to talk about the products that are made by these tools, how they are bought and sold, and how, exactly, they drive the virtual worlds business and economy.

Creation company who's looking to hire!

As I mentioned in my blog posting in week 2, the games virtual goods can be bought, sold, and given away via in-world and online through stores, personal transactions, or the Second Life Marketplace. These three areas are how products and creations are distributed through Second Life. There is a giant way these products and creations impact the world of Second Life, and why many people are drawn to stay in this virtual world. That way is through the gain of money. Each product can be sold at the creators price, allowing them to set a price from 0 - 999999 (and way beyond that!). This is all done using the currency that Linden Labs has created, called, the Linden. Lindens can be bought through real-life transactions on the website or through the games residents. The Linden dollar has an economy of its own, which is pretty incredible for a game. It is possible to become rich through Second Life by buying and selling land and products. (and many people have, too!) (MacMillan, 2007). Once players and creators have racked up a large sum of Lindens, they can either choose to spend them in the virtual world on products or land, or they can cash them out for real USD, or whatever currency they want! It is possible to invest into the Linden currency market, as the price of lindens to USD fluctuate, much like that of the real market. Large content creators or popular places have the ability to virtually hire other players to help them in creating, supporting, or inventing new products and services. I personally know of at least two friends on SL who make a living creating content, to which they can live on. Virtual products on Second Life are how the game and virtual world strive to continue living. With the constant support of Linden Labs, the users of the game can constantly create cool, new, and interesting products. 



References


MacMillan, D. (2007, April 04). Virtual world rich list. Retrieved from http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/04/0416_richlist/index_01.htm?chan=technology_special report -- virtual life_virtual life


Nino, T. (2010, June 26). The virtual whirl: A brief history of second life (2002-2003). Retrieved from http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/06/26/the-virtual-whirl-a-brief-history-of-second-life-2002-2003/


Linden, Q. (Producer). (2007). Sculpted prims in second life. [Web Video]. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlfpACg_lww


LindenLabs, L. (Producer). (2010). A brief look at second life mesh support. [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/TlIn35BuNfU