This is honestly what I pictured when I heard of the gold farmers online…gold coins from the Mario games.
I think using virtual worlds, such as Second Life, is a great way for global companies to hold meetings and do business. Since there is a Second Life Time, you can easily make sure everyone is there at the same time. As a woman my group is interviewing said to us, “Second Life never sleeps.” This allows her, and anyone using SL to do business, to constantly make money. What more could you ask for? On top of SL making travel and things of that nature easier to organize since their employees can just log on to their computers, it saves them large amounts of money. Why wouldn’t they use it? The little amount of training required to teach members just what they will need to know in order to gain all they can from SL is also minimal. The only real issue I see with using virtual worlds to hold business conferences would be internet connection. Speaking from personal experience, sometimes SL can slow down your internet/computer even if it’s the only program running. There may be valuable pieces of information one may miss or not be able to add because of their internet connection. However, problems arise with holding the same conferences offline; delayed flights, hotels being overbooked and the like.
I’m not sure whether or not IBM spent money on creating places such as theatres, a picnic area and a garden within their Conference Area, but I would have to assume they did to some extent. This goes along with how I feel about a lot of the things in Second Life, but why pay money for things that are not tangible? What do the people behind the avatars get out of a community garden? You cannot eat the vegetables. Things like that bother me about Second Life because I personally am not getting to eat the food. Maybe that’s just the foodlover in me speaking.
In reading the article on the “gold farming” I’m wondering why Americans or others don’t just mine the gold themselves instead of paying a very much inflated price. Maybe they cannot due to the games rules and regulations but if they can, why wouldn’t they? Maybe it has to do with America’s “laziness.” Then I began to wonder why these gold farmers can’t just work for themselves, as their own bosses, and sell the coins they farm straight to the buyers themselves. This would increase their wages by a lot. Allowing people like Li to get married and have a family. He could even spend less hours per day online. For the other options of power leveling, I don’t see why people would spend money to level up persay. Isn’t the whole fun and interesting part of the game, playing it? You play the game because you enjoy it, and yes sometimes it may turn into an obsession that you want to finish it and destroy everything in your path, but that’s why you play. Why stop playing, and pay, to get to a higher level only to play again? I understand it’s time consuming, but so are other hobbies. If this is your hobby, keep at it.
On the other hand, cashing in on that business, the power leveler one, is incredibly smart. You obviously get involved because you enjoy playing the game. Why not get paid to do it? If I was good at videogames I would definitely be creating an account right now to do just that. Would I make my online life my sole income or would I have another job? What would be the time breakdown of my time spent online and offline? As the majority of those who spend their time in Norrath spend more time online than they do off, I would most likely not be doing that. I would get a headache, daily.
