Tetsuya Mizuguchi to build Virtual Tokyo in Second Life
Like everyone else, we're pretty sick of all the Second Life coverage; it seems like buying real estate in the massively multiplayer non-game is the modern, big-business equivalent of setting up a website for your dad's repair shop. Still, it's one thing when Mercedes sets up a virtual dealership, and a very different matter when Lumines and Rez's Tetsuya Mizuguchi decides to build a re-imagined Tokyo for the denizens of Linden Labs' mammoth world.
What makes Mizuguchi's Tokyo different than other architectural projects in Second Life is his intent in building the city. 1UP reports that rather than building an exact replica of the Japanese city, Mizuguchi wants to fashion his facsimile based on the perceptions of both locals and visitors. Speaking to 1UP, he states his hope that the project, which is a collaboration between himself and advertising firm Dentsu, can become a "museum of Japanese pop culture." We might need to dust off our Second Life avatars just to check it out when it launches.
What makes Mizuguchi's Tokyo different than other architectural projects in Second Life is his intent in building the city. 1UP reports that rather than building an exact replica of the Japanese city, Mizuguchi wants to fashion his facsimile based on the perceptions of both locals and visitors. Speaking to 1UP, he states his hope that the project, which is a collaboration between himself and advertising firm Dentsu, can become a "museum of Japanese pop culture." We might need to dust off our Second Life avatars just to check it out when it launches.





















(Page 1) Reader Comments
Oh, wait...it's Second Life. LOL- SILLY QUESTION!!!
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I'm gonna sketch New York City. It won't be based on New York City or include anything from New York City. In fact, it's a doodle of my cat, but I think it represents the concept of what New York City would be if it were a cat.
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Can't wait.
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I wonder how big the finished product will be, and if a single japanese person will ever go there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyXUVd2c83c
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2) In terms of console representation, the DS has to appear somewhere...
to #3 Anam
Or you could all it an abstract Tokyo, distilling the core preceptions of the city. And another reason for a non-replica is also copyright.
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COCKZILLA RAMPAGING THROUGH TOKYO! WHO WILL SAVE US? CAPTAIN MARIOMOSHPIT!
And then lulz.
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Oh and Joystiq... you think the businesses getting in on SL is annoying? Two words: Prokofy Neva. She's like Jack Thompson, but her targets are: percieved griefers, open source content, CopyBot, and the "new media". She also likes to relate the above to socialism and marxism, completely disregarding the fact that the SL viewer itself was recently open-sourced.
She's also invented some... colorful vocabulary. Tekkie-wikinista isn't even a word, and don't get me started on the "Feted Inner Core" (sic) or FIC... listen Prok, not everyone is in a giant consipracy against you!
>>Anam: That's a pretty funny interpretation of his project, but in a good way. I'm going to be building SL San Francisco. Except that it won't be really San Francisco. Instead, it will be a gay bar.
>>Jeff: Of course, the solution to this, like everything, is to throw more money at the problem. Need more than 50 people in an island? Join multiple sims together! Pay twice the island fees!
>>Psaakym: I don't think there are copyright issues with building virtual representations of cities. Maybe some of the buildings would be tricky in terms of trademark-related issues, (McDonalds stands come to mind) but we already have sims for many various major cities with no problems.
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Hmm, Mizuguchi says no to the world's largest advertising agency, but later has a change of heart.
Wonder what could've changed his mind ($$$).
Mizuguchi: "I hope to make Virtual Tokyo like a museum of Japanese pop culture. My friends abroad have told me often that there's so much materials and it's never preserved. This might be the perfect place for it."
So Tokyo is known to people from abroad as a city in flux, a place that's always changing.
Mizuguchi plans to create a museum, where things are preserved.
In fact, he is creating the anti-Tokyo.
And for what? Better ask the folks at Dentsu.
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