Finally mainstream media in Germany seems to take an interest in MMORPGs. In this week’s Spiegel there is an article on Anshe Chung the leading real estate venturer in Second Life who happens to live outside Frankfurt. Spiegel had an article about the web’s first naked protest some 7 years ago (Ultima Online). Since then German media didn’t show much interest in what is happening inside online computer games.
Technorati Tags: media, Second Life, Synthetic Worlds
At the Chaos Communication Congress Cory Ondreijka from Linden Lab talked about Second Life.
He did the presentation using the brand new Second Life Linux client, that will be out in the next weeks.
Besides bringing out a client for Linux, Linden Lab seems to be dedicated to opening Second Life more and more in the future. Soon there will be an Open GL version of Firefox, so the Browser can be used inside Second Life, allowing to view conventional internet content inside the synthetic world. Furthermore Linden Lab considers allowing independent Second Life servers that could be set up anywhere in the world (e.g. not under US law) where whoever runs the server can decide about their own policies.
Linden Lab themselves have chosen to impose as few rules and as little of a political system as possible on Second Life. Inside the game communities are free to shape their own set of rules, Linden Lab will usually not interfere. The same goes for trading and all kinds of business activity. In a talk we had after the lecture Cory said that sometimes they try to hire skilled users, but often hear that they make more money with their in-game business models than Linden can offer them.
Technorati Tags: Chaos Communication Congress, Second Life, Synthetic Worlds