Virtual worlds

 

Growing up I remember when I first bought the game ‘The Sims’ at around age 11 and I had hours of fun designing homes, changing their clothes and sending them off to work each day. I even remember telling mum about how I just killed my sim by taking out the pool ladder and making them drown, which looking back was pretty cruel on my part. This idea of controlling life is something that I will always remember discovering with the first edition of the Sims, and as a child it was something that I actually had control over in my life!


This same idea of controlling and altering life has moved into a bigger community called second life, where adults are taking part in a game where they see themselves represented as an avatar. Launched in 2003, second life is an online community where users use avatars to interact with others.  As well as this the game has its own currency, worlds and use of a trade system between users (Wikipedia, 2013). With this idea of having an online avatar comes along problems surrounding the way in which people represent themselves in games such as second life. In many cases, a person’s avatar is a taller and skinner version of themselves, where they create a representation of themselves in a more idealistic way.

 According to Lee, the way in which people play with avatars can be;

ž  Projection of idealization of the self;

ž  Experimenting with identity/ies

ž  Merely a pawn – ‘a means to an end’

(lee, 2003)

This idea of a Virtual community has expanded over the last 10 odd years, specifically with the release of the Sims 2 and 3 and sites such as second life, however there are many issues that arise with the capability to customise and create an avatar in ways that were not possible only a few years ago.  Games such as second life have created an new online world/community, where many users feel emotionally attached to this concept. Studies conducted by Nick Yee suggest that “40 per cent of men and 53 per cent of women who spend time in virtual worlds said their virtual friends were equal to or better than their real life friends” and of those surveyed, it was found that most of them spent up to 20 hours playing in these virtual communities (Yee cited in Meadows, 2008). It becomes difficult to make a distinction between ones real life and virtual life, when these type of studies show just how involved these users are in virtual communities. Questions are raised about the idea of separating these two lives. Baudrillard brings up some interesting points with his idea of hyperreality and the simulacra which can be likened to second life where there is no longer and distinction between reality and its representing image (Alleyn's School Media Studies Department, 2010).

Looking towards the future of virtual communities I can only help wondering about the use of second life as a substitute for a real life. The possibility for everyone to somehow have an online representation of themselves has the potential for an virtual life to become more important than the physical life and body that we have.

 

Alleyn's School Media Studies Department, 2010, contemporary media issues, viewed 19th of may 2013 http://www.slideshare.net/mickgoogan/04-baudrillard-the-matrix-and-blade-runner-simulation-and-hyperreality

 

Farrell, C, 2013, lecture 11 ,digital characters, avatars and second life, learning materials on blackboard, Swinburne University of Technology, viewed 19th of May 2013

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/194970-second-life
 http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Fire
http://readwrite.com/2007/07/04/digital_life_vs_life_digital