Second Life gathers no moss in Rolling Stone
by Kevin Kelly 
{ Apr 26th 2007 at 10:28PM }
It's pretty obvious that without Rosedale's fanaticism for the project, Second Life never would have been born, but reading this article makes him seem a bit driven to the point of megalomania. Kushner compares Rosedale's "Rig" that he built to start the virtual experience a "Lawnmower Man-like contraption," and you probably remember how crazy that guy got.
Give the article a spin and find out a little bit behind the man who built Second Life, the problems they face, and where it'll all go from here.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
konajinx @ Apr 26th 2007 10:46PM
Yyyyyeahh...people really do have way too much time on their hands. Yet it's the video gamers who take heat time and again. Gimme a break. Second Life isn't Burning Man. It's Wal-Mart.
scott @ Apr 27th 2007 8:35AM
It's like Burning Man in that they have a fervent cult following which make it out to be bigger and cooler than it actually is.
Second Life is not a game. It's a graphic-based chat service for having cybersex with fat sweaty men with cute avatars.
Steve @ Apr 27th 2007 9:26AM
Rolling Stone? Do people actually take that magazine seriously? It is clearly targetted for and written by 8th grade boys.
Todd @ Apr 27th 2007 10:16AM
I bet he took both pills, crushed them into a fine powder, and then snorted.
Nephus @ Apr 27th 2007 5:20PM
Ok, I've recently got hooked on the whole Second Life thing. The simple fact is, like the rest of the internet, most of SL is full of idiots with the power to create shrines to their idiocy. I played with it for a bit on an old system, and really didn't get the point. Got a new computer after moving and couldn't find the product keys to some of my games, so it occurred to me that I could download SL again and use it as a system test because it was so resource intensive. Again, I was awash in a sea of idiocy and just about uninstalled it after playing around for a few hours. Then I started finding different places where there was a real community evolving.
Think of it like the open web. On it are many different forums, some of which are filled with spammy morons, and a few golden ones for a given topic that are full of real people who are building their own little community out in the harsh wastelands. These places may not thrive like some of the others, but when you find one, you want to stay there. I mean, why are we all commenting on a game blog? Because it's a damn good one and has tried to make a difference.
Second Life is exactly the same. There's no story, no preset rules... It's like opening up a new domain and opening a text editor to create the first bit of html. What happens from that point is up to you. Sure, you could make an old school AOL style page with a picture of your cat and a horrible background that you can't read text over... and make the text lime green and blinking. Of course you could also spend a lot of time making a professional looking page that eventually turns into a successful and well known media outlet that actually generates some income.
Every comment I've heard about Second Life could apply to the internet at large. It's all about sex, it's always people trying to sell you things and people just sit around and talk to each other (which is ironically what we're doing right now). Well, then what's the point? Ladies and Gentlemen, close down your web browsers because the internet is pointless. Yet, here we all are. Staring at the same flat web page, instead of hanging out in a coffee shop and discussing the latest games with friends.
What I'm trying to get to in this rambling mess is this: If you didn't enjoy Second Life, you have no one to blame but yourself, the same as if you don't like your drawing, or the story you wrote, or the web page you made. You didn't create anything to make that world enjoyable to you. I've seen WW2 dogfights, I've seen futuristic laser battles, and I've seen mermaids in an underwater palace. Those people all took this empty world and created something they wanted to see instead of having a game dictate what they should do. When it comes down to it, video games are barely a step above TV. Sure, you get to control the characters, but you can only do what the game makers let you do within their own vision, and then tell you that this is what you want. Well ya know what, it isn't what I want. So I'm going to carve out my own little space to MAKE what I want instead of waiting for someone to make it for me.
I'm sorry that people don't get that, or they just aren't exposed to something that sets off that spark within them. It's not for everyone I guess. But honestly, I'm having a lot more fun creating my own version of the Nautilus to play with in the virtual oceans than I've ever had playing another run of the mill FPS.
Aberu @ Apr 28th 2007 1:32AM
Second Life is not a game. It doesn't feel like a game when you "play" it. Barely any content is contributed by the people who "made" it. It's just not a game to me, it's like some interactive website or some shit. People that play Second Life have no life and no taste, seriously.