Looks Good on Paper

Leaving work today I was startled by the big headline on the front of the Broward edition of The Miami Herald newspaper staring at me from the gauntlet of dispensing boxes that I pass every day on my way in and out of work. The headline was "VIRTUAL LIVES" with the sub-title "Millions of people are investing time - and money - in avatars in the online universe." Well I thought it would be worth the quarter to chedk it out and hopefully get some blog material, and here we are - just as I'd hoped.

The two major point the papers seems to want to make are
1. virtual worlds aren't just used by "lonely kids who couldn't get dates." (yes, I'm quoting the paper here)
and
2. a significant number of people are spending real money to lead virtual lives

The article is not very speculative, but does present some data which I had not know - at least in the detail provided by the paper (have I gotten lazy?). While WoW gets a lot of press for how it broke through to become the most massive MMORPG with 8million plus subscribers and counting, Second Life is a close rival with 6.2 million residents. Both pale in comparison to the globally accessible Habbo Hotel, which the paper says has 50 MILLION residents worldwide. Some other worlds cited and briefly mentioned are Whyville which is geared for children and There.

Some attention inthe article is given to the role the avatars' appearance plays in the worlds, particularly how they relate to the "real" person's appearance and persona. Also, at least as much attention is given to the real-dollar income opportunities in these worlds and the role that currency plays. A small information box gives exchange rates, which I've normalized for comparison. $10 US dollars will get you...
18,000 Therebucks (There) or
2,600 Linden Dollars (Second Life) or
250 clams (Whyville) or
50 Habbo coins
Which is the best buy? That will depend on the goods or experience you are looking for and whether you are spending just to get something, or expecting a return on an investment.

Two particularly interesting anecdotes in the article are a guy in Tampa who makes money in There.com building stuff for residents, including a "virtual lodge" that landed him a payed gig to build a virtual headquarters in that game world for Coldwell Banker. Oh yeah, he also said he knows people who earn $100,000-plus in that world just making and selling upgrades for other people's avatars. Wowee!

The second interesting fellow bought the Weblo.com version of Florida (a steal at $18,000 US), made himself governor and now gets a cut of the action whenever Weblo gets paid by a virtual resident to "live" in that virtual Florida. Hopefully, it's not overcorwded and drought-free. I'd like to see down the road how the virtual world operators handle growth. When that Florida fills up, do they spawn a new world and sell the properties all over again? That could have a negative impact on the original world. Some will find to cost of moving to the new world too high - with some many friends and investments, and so on. But others will be able to start fresh. Eventually, there could be multiple parallel "Earths" operating in Cyberspace - an interesting social experiment to see how each is governed and developed differently.