Eros LLC of Florida, which produces the popular (or so I am told, anyway) SexGen line took Linden Lab to federal court this week, on a claim that the Second Life operator refuses to take action against users who custom-rig their own sex machines (more or less, they're code that facilitate boinking animations) and then slap the SexGen brand on 'em.

Sounds funny, but microtransactions are no joke. Some $600 million in in-world sales are expected this year, with Linden Lab taking a cut of that. It gets a cut of anything that changes hands for virtual buxx, black market goods or no. And on top of this, Eros does maintain an in-world store, so the virtual ripoff is very real to them.

Eros successfully sued some black marketeers two years ago; this suit represents an escalation. They seek class action status for other merchants who are getting bootlegged. Their allegations will also challenge the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects Web sites from legal action if they're responsive to rights holders' takedown notices. All of this because people are selling counterfeit fuck coffins.

Linden Lab Targeted in Second Life Sex-Code Lawsuit [Wired]

See, instead of spending millions of dollars on recruitment advertising no one will actually see, the IRS instead spent thousands of dollars to create an IRS Careers Island in Second Life which no one will actually see. That's much cheaper! I actually visited the island as soon as I heard about this, and one can definitely see how they saved millions. It's a bunch of booths with clickable information signs, and a couple of lounges with some very pretty penguin clip art that must have cost them a small fortune to secure.

Frank Stipe, Virtual Worlds & Social Networking Project Manager for the IRS, explains why the IRS needs a Virtual Worlds & Social Networking Project Manager.

In the physical world, we could spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on sponsoring a race car that displays our brand in a field of thirty or more other cars. In the SL virtual world, we have spent a few thousand dollars to build complete entertainment and communications venue that includes a race course. IRS branding throughout the venue not only displays our messaging, but it also instantly dispenses marketing collateral and links to our Careers web site.

Wait, there's an IRS race course in Second Life? Excuse me a moment.

Wheeeeee! The IRS rocks!

The service is currently working with Universities and other academic institutions to raise awareness of its Second Life presence. Those interested in more information can contact recruiter Robin Laviscu or sim engineer RobinRasberry Sorbet.

IRS Saves Millions by Using Second Life to Market Its Employment Opportunities [College Recruiter]

Second Skin provides a rather balanced look at the relationships formed via online games, from friendships to romances to relationships that go even deeper still. It's funny, disturbing, and disturbingly funny at the same time. I particularly enjoyed the slice-of-life moments they included, such as when the World of Warcraft players ran out of toilet paper. Don't laugh. It happens.

I'd highly recommend catching it in the theater if you can, but if you can't, ad-supported free video site Hulu has you covered.

Even if you weren't one of the chosen few, you can still get a lot from watching what went on at the panel. I pulled some quotes I thought were interesting, but really, there's much more wisdom and points for discussion to be had from the total two hour run of the panel.

In particular, I call your attention to the Part 6 and 7 clips where the panelists talk about the importance of having gay characters in games and respond to that effed up game, Watch Out Behind You, Hunter!

VIDEO: GLAAD's Panel on Homophobia & Virtual Communities [GLAAD Blog]

Taser was looking $75,000 from Linden Lab because they allowed virtual Tasers to be sold in the game they run. Turns out they very swiftly dismissed their own complaint because Linden never replied to the original filing. Its voluntary dismissal was filed in May but was just now reported - not like we expected them to issue a press release on it.

The case was withdrawn "without prejudice," which doesn't mean it's an equal-opportunity employer - it means the complaint can be brought up again if Taser so chooses. Here's some free legal advice: don't. Just focus on making your weapons so our cops can jolt grandma, OK?

Taser Drops Linden Lab Lawsuit [Virtual Worlds via GamePolitics]

Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer at EA's Maxis
To developers: "Who doesn't want to be a gay super hero? Are you thinking about this stuff when you're making your game? Well you should be!"

Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association
About the ignorance of the general public toward gaming: "We need to come together. We need gay and lesbian gamers to step forward. Come out, and then come out again as gamers."

Stephen Toulouse, Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement, Xbox Live
On expressing sexuality in Gamertags: "Who we choose to love is part of our identity."

Cyn Skyberg, Vice President of Customer Relations at Linden Lab
On expressing sexuality online: "The process for how we display ourselves as we really are [determines] what are the values we have as a virtual community."

Flynn DeMarco, founder of GayGamer.net and Kotaku alumnus
On blogs and gaming sites censoring the n-word, but not the other f-word in headlines: "They need to let people know that it's not okay [to use that word]."

There were two other issues that came to mind as a result of the panel that, sadly, I didn't encounter until after the Q&A ended. The first was brought up by my friend over at GamesRadar, Henry Gilbert: On Xbox Live, you can download McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden icons – so is the message that it's somehow more acceptable to express political orientation than sexual orientation?

The second issue stemmed from the part of the panel where moderator Justin Cole brought up the Flash game Watch Out Behind You, Hunter!, where players have to shoot gay men to keep from being raped: I thought to myself, what if you re-skinned the hunter to be a woman on her way home late at night from a club? Would that somehow make the game more acceptable because it removes the anti-gay sentiment? Or is it equally uncool because the game still advocates murder as a solution to sexual assault?

Discuss.

Cole used commenters' responses to his post, The Impact of Homophobia in Virtual Communities, to drive discussion among panelists Caryl Shaw (Senior Producer at EA's Maxis), Dan Hewitt (Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association), Stephen Toulouse (Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement, Xbox Live), Cyn Skyberg (Vice President of Customer Relations at Linden Lab) and Flynn DeMarco (founder of GayGamer.net). Read on to see if you made the cut.

First up was McLuvin's comment about flaunting sexuality. Next was GameBuddy, continuing the discussion. Then came bLaZINcOdE3's comment about the "gay mafia" forcing companies to hold "token meetings." OrigamiNinja's comment about how harassment makes the game less fun made it in, as did Nnooo's about whether or not gamers can expect Mario to save a prince instead of a princess someday. User saulpimpson's comment steered talk toward developers refusing to make games based on gay or gay bashing content. Then DanoruX's tongue-in-cheek "this is so gay," statement got a discussion going on "innocent" slurs. Phydeaux's comment on "play to file" introduced the topic of abuse reporting in online communities. Lastly, ach77 made it in as part of a general statement that gay gamers just want to have fun like every other gamer – and to introduce the founder of gay-centric World of Warcraft guild, The Spreading Taint who happened to be in the audience.

Aside from being shamelessly proud of Kotaku commenters, I was interested to see how Kotaku alumnus DeMarco reacted to comments from his ex-audience. He did almost half the talking at the panel and demonstrated the most gaming expertise. Whenever an issue was raised, DeMarco could name at least two games in response whereas everyone else just fell back on their own games (like Shaw's Spore and Skyberg's Second Life) or defaulted to Halo.

The other big talker was Microsoft's Toulouse, but I think he was being targeted. At the beginning of the panel, Cole presented a video that outlined the issues facing gays and lesbians in online gaming. All of their in-game examples seemed to be from Xbox Live – most specifically, Halo multiplayer. To his credit, Toulouse responded to almost every issue raised by Kotaku comments and admitted that Xbox Live hasn't got it right quite yet – but they're committed to making their community a safe place to game for everybody.

The quietest panelist was Second Life's Skyberg. It takes all types to make a virtual world like Second Life and I know they've had issues that prompted developer Linden Lab to create an adults-only space. Skyberg did pipe up at one or two times to talk about anonymity making it easy for people to use gay slurs in online communities – and made an excellent point that as people invest in their online identities more, this anonymity goes away.

The only dull part of the panel was the Q&A. I'm not sure if it's because the two hour time limit was almost up and everybody wanted lunch, or because the audience was the choir being preached to – but nobody asked anything that hadn't been addressed. One lady asked if the "dehumanizing" aspect of violent games like Halo brought about gay bashing and DeMarco responded that the problem wasn't that the game that engendered homophobia, it was that the audience that the game tended to attract was immature and ignorant of gay issues.

In sum, this is what I took away from the panel: Don't hate the game, hate the player. Or better yet, don't hate anybody.

Pure West's Second Skin looks the lives of gamers and virtual world residents as they live out their lives playing World of Warcraft, Everquest, and of course, Second Life. It touches on the topics of addiction, online romance, and the community feeling and sense of camaraderie that can be fostered by a group of people essentially only connected to each other through the internet.

Since first reading about the project back in 2006, I've pretty much lived through most of this documentary, having put my Everquest addiction behind me well before that. Back then I thought it would be interesting to watch in order to see how those people live. Now I'm going to pick it up to see if I spot anyone I know.

Along with the DVD release on August 25th, Second Skin will also see a limited theatrical run, so check your local papers, just in case. Check out a sneak peek at the first five minutes of Second Skin below.

While the bill, publicized by GamePolitics, doesn't explicitly name video game communication services like Xbox Live and PlayStation Home, it covers their services more broadly. The bill, currently under consideration, would require sex offenders to disclose the "Internet communication identifier" used by the person. That could mean Gamertags and PlayStation Network usernames.

As GamePolitics points out, the wording of bill HB 22 could extend to limit sex offenders from using a "commercial social networking" site or service altogether.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing, considering the disturbing frequency at which we've been hearing about this sort of unsavory activity.

Texas Bill Requires Sex Offenders to Register Online Game Names, Could Ban Them Completely from Game Venues [GamePolitics]

Massively got a hold of the complaint and today posted a pretty lengthy breakdown of the charges and their credibility. Highlights include pointing out that the TASERs in the game don't actually taze people (because you'd have to hijack other users' avatars to make them appear as though they're being electrocuted); pointing out that TASER doesn't seem to understand who to sue to technically be suing "the game;" and examining whether or not the $75,000 in damages TASER is seeking is even worth a lawsuit instead of a take-down notice.

The big deal in this case, though, is why TASER is suing Linden Lab instead of the content creators. The answer to that, according to the analysis of the official complaint, is because Linden Lab bought XStreet SL a while ago. That means:

…the Lab is no longer mediating transactions between buyers and sellers. Xstreet SL arguably retails on behalf of sellers, and takes a commission. It's going to be difficult to argue that the Lab/Xstreet SL is not selling these items.

My answer is that TASER would rather sue the guys with money, rather than the actual (penniless) infringers themselves.

Don't Tase Me, Bro... Second Life Zapped by TASER Lawsuit [GamePolitics via Massively]

Trident Media Group, responsible for all things Arrakis, Dune, Desert Planet, sent the C&D to Linden Lab, which runs Second Life. Linden turned around and sent it to its SL fremen, harkkonen, et al. They're complying with the letter of the letter, not its spirit. Says "Vooper Werribee," leader of the Dune roleplayers:

We've made all the compliance changes we intend to now. Basically we've removed the words 'Dune', Bene Gesserit, Atreides, etc. from as many object names and descriptions as we can find. But we still intend to keep the place as a 'generic' sci-fi desert planet with spice mining. And still intend to roleplay here.

In something of a Streisand effect, the publicity has created more interest in the Dune environs, which had counted 130 members, only 20 percent of which were currently active. Star Trek SLers have expressed interest in using them for "First Contact" scenarios. And, horror of horrors:

"Some Star Wars players are interested in using the place as a 'spice mining' base. As Star Wars has 'spice'."

I wouldn't necessarily take Trident Media's banhammer to mean that Herbert's estate has imminent plans for a Dune-licensed MMO. It's more like brand protection, and of course, protection of the potential value of licensing one down the road.

Enforcers of Dune: Frank Herbert Estate Targets Dune Roleplayers In Second Life [New World Notes via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin says that the company "absolutely" has intentions of going after other big virtual world creators, including Blizzard for World of Warcraft and Linden Labs for Second Life, reports Business Insider. That depends, of course, if Worlds.com is successful with its suit against NCSoft.

Kidrin says that Worlds.com's patent for "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space" dates back to 1997. It's based on the work done on the Steven Spielberg-backed Starbright World, a virtual world service design to "educate, entertain and inspire seriously ill children."

That patent were inherited by Worlds.com.

Don't worry, addicted MMOers. Looks like Kidrin and company are looking for a little cash in the form of licensing fees from Blizzard, et al. Your virtual world of choice won't likely be shuttered. But we'll see.

Worlds.com CEO: We're 'Absolutely' Going To Sue Second Life And World Of Warcraft (ATVI) [BusinessInsider via IncGamers]

This clip from the full documentary, which can be viewed at the link below, shows the woman Dutch is now married to, along with the woman Dutch was formerly married to, and from a purely shallow point-of-view, you could probably say he traded up. Looking at things from the emotional side of things, he's still a giant dick.

Note that this clip contains simulated Second Life sex scenes, and a bit of understandably harsh language. To get a look at the treasure that is Dutch in the flesh, you'll have to sit through the full documentary. Sorry!

The Fifth Estate: Strangers In Paradise [CBC - Thanks Putter5!]

During this episode we talk about politics, furry hatred, upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV DLC The Lost and Damned and why we're trying to come up with a new one to write previews for Kotaku.

Oh and there's a neat little drinking game too. Warning! Don't drive after watching this podcast.

Watch Video Podcast - Grand Theft Auto IV on your iPod or Zune!
Right click save link as to download. Subscribe to our Kotaku Video podcast on iTunes and the Zune Marketplace.

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OnRez and Xstreet SL (formerly SLExchange) are basically the Amazon.com of Second Life, where residents of the virtual world can browse and purchase items for their avatars without having to leave their virtual homes to shop. Call it the ultimate in laziness. Formerly run by independent companies, Linden Lab have now purchased both online marketplaces, consolidating them into XLstreet SL.

The Lindens plan on integrating the XLstreet SL marketplace directly into Second Life, so users do not have to open up a web browser in order to shop, removing the time consuming alt-tabbing step from the mix. A grand idea, but I'd much rather Linden Labs concentrate on making the login server functional before adding more bells and whistles. If we're going to be able to buy goods in Second Life, being able to log in would help.

Linden Lab Goes Shopping, Buys Virtual Goods Marketplaces to Integrate Web Shopping with Second Life

Strategic Acquisitions of OnRez and Xstreet SL Shopping Web Sites to Enhance e-Commerce Functionality for the Virtual World

SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Linden Lab®, creator of the virtual world Second Life®, today announced a key milestone in its expansion of the Second Life platform: acquiring two Web-based marketplaces for virtual goods, Xstreet SL and OnRez. These acquisitions join several other recent strategic initiatives, including enhancements to the experience for new users, which will enable Linden Lab to reach a broader global audience for Second Life in 2009. Linden Lab is consolidating the two marketplaces on the Xstreet SL platform, offering one online shopping experience for customers and merchants. This will make it easier for Second Life Residents to find virtual goods to purchase and will provide merchants broader channels to sell their products.

The global market for virtual goods is estimated to be approximately USD $1.5 billion a year,* and Second Life plays a significant role in this market. In 2008, Residents of Second Life purchased and sold more than USD $360 million of virtual goods and services. Shopping for virtual goods has become one of the most compelling and popular aspects of the Second Life experience. The acquisition of these e-commerce sites will aid the continuing growth of the Second Life economy by making it even more convenient for buyers and sellers to transact virtual goods and services online.

Similar to e-commerce sites for real world goods, such as Amazon and eBay, Xstreet SL provides an online catalog, where Second Life Residents can browse, purchase and sell Second Life-related virtual goods and services. Just as e-commerce Web sites provide a complement to shopping in real life, Xstreet SL complements how Second Life Residents shop inworld – visiting 3D stores, shopping centers and malls to purchase virtual services and goods from the Residents who created them. Linden Lab will integrate the Xstreet SL marketplace with Second Life, making virtual goods easier for consumers to find on the Web. The enhancements to the e-commerce experience will also drive Residents inworld to collect and use the goods they purchase online, enabling Second Life merchants to further promote their inworld stores. Merchants will also gain additional ways to market the more than 680,000 Second Life goods currently listed for sale online, including apparel, animations, vehicles, buildings and furniture.

“Linden Lab is expanding its footprint in the virtual world industry through four major initiatives – localizing the Second Life experience in key markets around the world, simplifying the ‘first hour experience’ to broaden consumer adoption, enhancing the platform for enterprise users and building our virtual goods marketplace,” said Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab. “Content creators and merchants are pillars of the strong Second Life economy. With these e-commerce acquisitions, we will now be able to offer content creators and merchants an opportunity to substantially improve their businesses, while enhancing the Second Life experience for all of our Residents.”

“The vibrant inworld economy is part of what makes Second Life such a compelling experience for Residents,” said Jay Geeseman, founder of Xstreet SL. “Just as e-commerce can enhance the shopping experience for real life goods, so it can for virtual goods. With the Xstreet SL marketplace integrated more closely with Second Life, Residents will be able to find goods more easily and shop more conveniently, while merchants will have broader channels to sell their creations.”

For the immediate future, Xstreet SL will continue to function as it has with only minor changes. OnRez will remain active for a few weeks to give customers and merchants an opportunity to migrate their accounts and product listings over to Xstreet SL. More information about the transition and future development plans of Xstreet SL is available in the FAQs available here: http://blog.secondlife.com/2009/01/20/xstreet-sl-and-onrez-to-join-linden-lab

For more information about Linden Lab’s strategic initiatives, including these acquisitions, please visit the official Second Life blog at: http://blog.secondlife.com/

"As a teenager I would watch these sexy women walking the streets, waiting for the cars to stop, teasing the guys, and then hopping in and getting out sometime later," she says in an interview posted to IGN's Green Pixels. "I'm not sure why I find it such a turn-on. I think it's because when a man will pay to have you, you know he really desires you. It's proof that you're really wanted."

"Palela's" real-life (and anonymous) persona says she tried being a prostitute. But "In the end, I refused all the [offers of] dates I got. It wasn't that I didn't want to do it, not at all. It was because I was afraid of being discovered by my family. They would have never accepted it, and I didn't want to hurt them or make them ashamed of me."

("Palela" probably left out the part where a john reached up her skirt and his face contorted into a masque of confusion and rage ...)

So when she discovered Second Life three years ago, "Palela" realized — like men who can't bear to shame their mothers but secretly want to be Nightcrawler with a 2-foot glowing prehensile penis that ejaculates magma — she could live out her fantasies without the real world consequences.

Fun facts:

• "In Second Life I look similar to the real me, even if I don't use the red hair extensions every day. I try to minimize the differences between real life and Second Life — my avatar looks like me because it's me that's doing these things, not a character or an actress."

Mmm hm.

"What I charge has to be realistic for the Second Life economy. To give an example, a pair of thigh high boots (I'm crazy for them) cost 600-800 Linden Dollars, and it's 400-500 for a short dress. But I don't have any fixed "price"; I prefer my clients to give me something as a present. They already know that the average fee in Second Life is around 2000-3000 Linden Dollars for one full evening."

And:

• "When I say a full evening, I underline the 'full.' I spend two to three hours several nights a week 'working' in Second Life. I dance in escort clubs, and people know what they're coming there for; they know where to find me. But I take new clients very rarely — I tend to be quite selective."

And finally:

• "At the moment I don't currently have a real-life boyfriend."

Yeah, ya don't say.

I Live Out My Sexual Fantasy as an Online Escort [Green Pixels]

Since the dawn of time, man has had close bonds with the animal kingdom. Many Native American tribes revered animal spirits as part of their rituals and celebrations. The ancient Egyptians worshiped gods depicted as humanoids with animal heads. Zeus, king of the Greek gods, liked to turn into a bull and mate with human women. Perhaps that's a bad example. The point is that we relate to animals. We talk to our pets...give them human names, assign them human behaviors, and we talk about them in terms of family. We enjoy sharing our lives with them.

Now just having a tail and a pair of fuzzy ears doesn't make you a furry. Let's take a look at the various ways that SL residents relate to animals.

Furries
Furries in Second Life are actually anthropomorphic animals - animals given human shape, walking on two legs. There are several popular places in Second Life to purchase furry avatars - Luskwod, Lost Furrest, and Curious Inc., where Uchi Desmoulins has been teasing fans with a house cat furry avatar for a good year and a half.

Characteristics of a furry avatar include a head made up of prims (a SL term for polygons, short for primitives) that completely covers the avatars normal head, along with paws, tails, or wings where applicable. While some furries indeed fall into the category of people who like to have sex looking like animals, most just enjoy being something other than human. It's a virtual world, after all. Why limit yourself to a shape you see everyday?

While there are links to RL furry fandom and SL furries, many of the furry players on SL would never dreams of showing up at a RL furmeet (furry convention). It's simply a way to express themselves within the confines of the world...much like you would take on the role of animalistic characters in games like Ratchet and Clank, Tai-Fu (remember Tai-Fu?), or even games based on films like Kung-Fu Panda.

Nekos and Hybrids
Nekos run rampant throughout Second Life. Mostly inspired by the habit of anime and manga to include random girls with cat ears and tails, Nekos are just that - humans with cat ears and tails. While there are places in Second Life where you can roleplay actual Neko cultures (they even have their own language), for the most part neko ears and tails are mainly worn just because they can be. Not only are they kind of cute, they also give folks focal points for flirting where just grabbing the nearest naughty body part wouldn't do. It isn't limited to just cats, however. Stores like Hybrid sell a wide variety of animal ear and tail sets, along with skins that help the humanoid character look as if they have tiger stripes or other animal markings. A few examples of other hybrids include:

Inu: Dogs
Usagi: Rabbits
Kitsune: Foxes
Mouse: Do I need to explain?
Raccoons: There is only one raccoon boy.

Ferals
Ferals are avatars that skip the whole humanoid bit, opting instead to be straight-up animals. Wolves and lions are popular forms, though some more fanciful variants can be found, such as this freaking amazing Okami wolf I purchased from Lost Ferals. It actually sprouts flowers and grass behind it as it runs. They also had wolf Link from Twilight Princess, but they were so expensive I could only afford the one. Lovely work.

Tinies
Last but never least, we have the Tinies. These folks wear avatars shaped like tiny toy animals - rabbits, bears, ferrets, and cats are especially popular - and just have outrageous amounts of fun being small. Tiny communities, such as the ginormous Raglan Shire community, are all about having fun, free of the drama of everyday SL life.

Their community is strictly PG-rated and constantly engages in special events. They hold regular festivals to celebrate holidays, gather together to watch movies, play games such as Primtionary - a take on Pictionary where the players must use their SL building skills to deliver clues - and just basically have a good time. They regularly invade "biggie" areas in mass, partying along with their larger counterparts in the name of Waffles, preferably on a stick. Oh and yes, some of them are armed to the teeth.

That's All, Folks
Oh I know that's probably not all, but as far as I've learned so far, this is a rather comprehensive little list. There are plenty of other prolific cultures in Second Life - cyborgs, elves, more elves, vampires...vampire elves - but they don't generally come up as much during conversations from outside SL. It's all about the furries.

Hopefully I've help clear up a few misconceptions about the various animal hybrids. I don't expect you all to immediately run out and get dressed up as animals, but perhaps you'll be a bit more understanding of folks who choose to do so. At least you won't get a Neko mixed up with a furry ever again, which I suppose is all one can hope for.

After Crecente posted the news of Verbinski's purchase of the rights to the 2007 Wall Street Journal article about a man cheating on his wife in Second Life, I hopped onto the virtual world in order to ask Ric Hoogestraat's avatar Dutch what he thought about his situation possibly turning into a film. Not surprisingly, he hadn't heard anything about it.

The story belongs to the Wall Street Journal now, so it wasn't necessary for either the paper or Verbinski to get in touch with Hoogestraat whatsoever. Pity though. His avatar has an extremely kick-ass pirate-themed sim in SL that I'm sure the Pirates of the Caribbean director would just love.

While trying to contact Dutch, I got a pretty good idea of what had happened since the original article ran back in 2007.

According to his profile in Second Life, he now lives in Arizona with the player of the avatar he was cheating on his wife with, having married her in December of last year, several months after the article ran in which he repeatedly assured his wife that it was just role-playing. I guess that whole bit had changed.

Just a tip here folks. If your spouse is married on Second Life, they are cheating on you. You generally do not get partnered in SL for fun. If it comes to that, there is something seriously wrong with your relationship.

Don't worry about Ric and his new wife, however. Apparently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is doing a documentary on the couple, which looks to be so in-depth that he didn't feel the need to follow up with me on the story.

I think the CBC documentary - if they dont fuck us over - will be the only follow-up we need to do

Here's hoping the loving couple stays un-fucked.

Having been immersed in Second Life for the better part of two years now, I first ventured into the virtual world due to the initial impressions that PlayStation Home was a clone of the popular online community for the PlayStation 3. Now having spent a significant amount of time exploring what PlayStation Home has to offer, I decided to take a look at how wrong or right those initial impressions were.

A warning to readers: The following article contains video of an avatar with ears and a tail break dancing, and a heaping portion of naked furries. Depending on where you work, the very end of the post might be not safe for it. You have been warned.

Differing Goals
To understand the differences between PlayStation Home and Second Life, first you have to look at the reason behind the existence of both virtual places.

Second Life is a large virtual world where the majority of the content in the game is generated by the user. Linden Labs lays the groundwork, so to speak, but nearly everything you see while wandering about Second Life came from the mind of one of the game's residents, from clothes and hair to buildings and vehicles...a Second Life resident not only created it, they've probably made a bit of cash off of it as well. It's a living, breathing world, complete with it's own economy and different societies based on factors such as nationality, interests, and even sexual fetish.

PlayStation Home, on the other hand, is a purely commercial construct. While one of the services goals is fundamentally the same – to provide a place for PlayStation 3 owners to make friends and socialize – the aspects of Second Life that make it a true virtual world aren't present. You have no economy to speak of, with new items and customization options coming at a cost from Sony and its partners. While the addition of Clubs and Clubhouses does add to the social aspects of the service, the program's architecture really doesn't allow for communities on the same scale as in SL.

In Phil Harrison's keynote speech at the 2007 Game Developers Conference where PlayStation Home was first announced, it was said that users would be able to eventually create their own content and auction it off to other users in order to make money, though so far no such features have been implemented. If they are, it could very well lead to a nice stream of income to talented creators.

Avatars
Appearance is just as important in the virtual world as it is in the real world. PlayStation Home and Second Life diverge greatly when it comes to allowing players to define who they are in the virtual setting.

PlayStation Home offers a wealth of options during initial character creation. You can adjust your height and weight, change your facial structure, style your hair or get a dye job, and pick from a limited but capable selection of clothing in order to flesh out your Home persona. The you take your first steps out into the world, where you still look like everyone else.

This is because Home is running high-end graphics on a high-end piece of hardware, so variations in avatar appearance have to limited in order to insure the service runs at all. It's the same sort of structure you'll find in an MMO like Sony Online Entertainment's Everquest II. All female Wood Elves are the same, save for some slider changes. It's a very elegant solution to having large numbers of characters in a single space, but it doesn't allow for much variety.

Initially, creating a character in Second Life worked much the same way. You'd log in, adjust some sliders, and suddenly you are a slightly less hideous mutant person with chunky hair than you started out with. Give players tools to make themselves look better, however, and soon you start seeing characters and creations not far removed from modern-day video game characters.

Second Life residents have made huge leaps in avatar creation since the early days of the service. Chunky, single-polygon hair has given away to prim hair, consisting of a number of polys linked together into one object. Blank skin textures have given way to photographed or hand-painted skin textures. Clothing has evolved from simple textures overlaid on your avatar to designer outfits complete with polygon collars, sleeves, and cuffs, giving things a much more realistic look and feel. Flexible prims allow for hair and clothing to flow, adding a dash more realism to the mix.

The ability to create 3D objects and attach them to avatars has led to some truly fantastic avatar creations. Giant robots, tiny cartoon animals, gigantic dragons, and even popular video game characters can be created using attachments. Keeping in mind that every avatar has at its core that basic humanoid shape, it's really quite amazing what SL residents have accomplished.

Even character movement is controlled by players, with some very wealthy folks making a killing off selling motion-captured walks, stands, and dances to a community constantly striving to blur the line between real-life and Second Life.

Of course, all of this versatility comes at a price. To look pretty in Second Life, you have to spend money, either earned through working in-game or purchased with real-life cash through Linden Labs. This little anime-inspired guy below is wearing probably $20 worth of clothing, with another $10 worth of animation enhancements to make him move like a real boy. Yes, I am indeed rocking an NES controller belt and blaster combo. That's how I roll.

The World
Second Life's environments will never look as good as the locations in PlayStation Home. Home is a tightly controlled environment, where resources are monitored by servers, instancing locations when they get too crowded, and the limited amount of character options make it so that Sony can create lush 3D locales without worrying that a gigantic dragon wearing 250 prims (polygons, basically) worth of scripted attachments isn't going to pop in and crash the whole thing.

In Second Life, primitive count is everything. Land is not only measured in size, but also in the amount of objects you can place on it at any given time. This is to help maintain stability and cut down on lag issues in the game. Unfortunately, avatars don't technically have a prim count, so while a parcel of land might be limited to 500 prims worth of objects, that doesn't stop someone with 300 prims worth of stuff attached to their body from coming in and slowing things down. SL environment builders have to build efficiently. Between that and the relatively limited engine powering the virtual world, you'll never see anything quite as polished as the PlayStation Home main gathering area...though they still manage some pretty spectacular sights nonetheless.

Gaming
Is Second Life a game? No. Is PlayStation Home a game? No. Neither qualify as a video game, but both allow visitors to play games within their confines.

Right now PlayStation Home is just beginning to tap its gaming potential. Mini-games and bowling are what we've seen so far, with the promise of additional gaming content to come down the line.

The main gaming focus of PlayStation Home is the PlayStation 3 itself. This is a place where PS3 owners can meet up with other PS3 owners and get their game on. It's much easier to find players with similar tastes when you can actually see them. It could very well wind up one of the most compelling gaming lobbies ever created.

There is gaming on Second Life, though you have to dig a bit deeper to find it, and sometimes a little imagination is needed. There are large communities or role players in the game who uses combat huds – interface attachments showing hit points, power levels and such – in order to simulate RPG gameplay. There are weapons you can purchase that will do damage to people using the same combat system, and all sorts of themes out there to chose from, from post-apocalyptic wastelands to vampires and werewolves running amok in a dark city.

There is a lot more, if you're willing to hunt for it. Second Life used to be a haven for gambling, but last year rules went into effect outlawing that popular pastime, so alternative games have popped up to replace it. Just recently I've discovered a nifty little fishing game that has you leveling up your skill in order to catch increasingly rare fish, which you can wear on your character or display in a fish tank. There's even a large-scale tower defense game called PrimWars, played on a patch of land nearly the size of a football field. Wherever you find bored people with creative power, you'll find games of some sort.

Music And Video
One of the major points made during the initial presentation of PlayStation Home was the ability to add your own pictures to your living space, or place a television in your house that would play videos streamed from your console. This idea has yet to come to fruition in Home, so for the moment we are left with the music Sony chooses to stream into designated areas, and game-related videos playing in the movie theater and central plaza. Whether or not we'll see those features in the near future remains up in the air, but they were certainly a major selling point of the original PlayStation Home idea.

Meanwhile, in Second Life, internet movie and music streaming is alive and well. Residents can purchase televisions and internet radios that play streaming music or movies from the internet. There's actually a brisk trade in DVD rentals in Second Life, with many locations available where users can pay Lindens in exchange for the ability to stream a movie to the player set up in their home.

The ability to stream music over the internet into Second Life has given rise to a large number of dance clubs, complete with live DJs, which leads us directly to our next topic...

Socializing
As it stands, socializing in PlayStation Home at the moment consists of standing or sitting in various places and typing at each other, often while participating in some rather robotic dances. You're bound to find people congregating in the services main areas, and there is almost always dancing. Oh the dancing they do! Home users can also invite friends into their living spaces for more of the same, which the addition of clubs and clubhouses promises to give players with similar interests places to hang out and chat.

There are designated locations in Home where users can gather together an listen to music, but these are pretty much limited to one specific area at the moment. Perhaps the popularity of said places might convince Sony to introduce a dance club into the mix later on down the line.

Second Life, on the other hand, nearly has too many clubs, with new residents picking out plots of land and erecting what they believe will be the next big Second Life hot spot every day. I highly recommend the industrial / goth stylings of Club Industry to those new to the SL scene, though in the interest of full disclosure I must point out that I actively work there. No, I am not a stripper.


Aside from dance clubs, there exists a great number of spots for residents to meet others of like mind. You'll find virtual coffee shops, theme parks (with bumper cars, yay!), biker hangouts complete with ridable motorcycles, and yes...you might find the odd sex club now and then. From science fiction to furry fantasy, there really is something for everyone in SL.

You've already seen what dancing in PlayStation Home looks like during our recent podcast, so here's a look at some Second Life-style dancing, courtesy of yours truly. Yes, I am breaking it on down.

Adult Content
You will never see naked furries in PlayStation Home. Whether this is a plus or a minus, I leave up to you. Yes, this is the bit I warned you about. Incidentally, that's a real-live Japanese woman in all of those shots (Hi Keiko!), proving once again that Japanese women have a tendency to be wondrously odd when no one is looking.

So, Is PlayStation Home Sony's Answer To Second Life, Or What?
PlayStation Home and Second Life are two completely different animals, even if they do share several similar characteristics. The main difference between the two virtual societies is really control.

Linden Labs manages land, maintains the servers, holds special events, and handles technical issues, but for the most part they've handed Second Life over to the residents, and the residents have crafted the world in their image. If there's something a creative resident wants to add to the world and the scripting language can handle it, there's nothing they cannot do.

PlayStation Home reflects on Sony and Sony's advertising partners, so it's doubtful we'll ever see the amount of user-control in that service as we see in Second Life. There'll be no nudity, no naked furries, and no unicorn sex, but at the same time users will be hard-pressed to express themselves quite as freely as the can in Linden Labs' world.

The majority of regular Second Life users who've seen videos of PlayStation Home in action have laughed at the robotic avatars, the staid environments, and the overall uniformity of Sony's virtual space...which parallels the general gaming populace's notion of Second Life as a place for perverts and freaks to hand out. While there are admittedly a good number of twisted people hanging about, folks intrigued by the social aspects of Sony's service might actually find something worthwhile amidst the clutter of user-created curios littering the SL landscape.

Or they could just make disparaging remarks about furries. They're used to it.

Gore "Pirates of the Caribbean" Verbinski has purchased the rights to a 2007 Wall Street Journal article by Alexandra Alter about a sordid Second Life love affair between a married man and his in-game wife. Yeah, I know, I've heard that one about a thousand times before too. This means he's working on a BioShock and a Second Life movie. My head is going to explode.

Apparently this whole "Second Life" thing is very new to Verbinksi, who will be directing the movie which is getting the script treatment by Steven Knight.

I can't wait until it comes out so I can not go see it.

Universal, Verbinski plan to role-play [Variety, thanks to the tipster whose name escapes me]