Humans. Ten thousand years of civilization and stunning technological advances, and when they go online where their wildest dreams can come true, it turns out all they want to do is pay their mortgages.
Sort of.
Companies as diverse as Dell, adidas, and Toyota have established outposts in Linden’s Second Life, one of the top online reality games, more for branding purposes than anything else. Now ABN AMRO has done it as well.
The Dutch financial services giant won’t be set up for actual banking activities at first. Initially, it will offer financial counseling. (No, you can’t pay your taxes in Linden dollars; the IRS frowns on that.)
If the bank is smart, though, it will ditch the branding-only strategy quickly. Far better would be to provide currency exchange between Linden dollars and real currency. The money is already being traded — just offer a better exchange rate. Entice players to sign up for real accounts with a bonus of Linden bucks. Offer credit cards. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with branding, but sometimes you gotta make money, too.
In a way, Second Life is a lot like China. Western companies are looking at the still exploding Chinese market with extreme interest, carefully taking note of a rising middle class with one of the highest savings rates in the world. Well, Second Life only has two million residents compared to China’s three billion, but there’s a lot less regulation and a whole lot more familiarity with the capitalist lifestyle.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years we start seeing virtual reality revenues accounted for in annual reports – geographical segment data that includes Asia, Europe, North America, and the Metaverse.
After all, the possibilities, like that of online gaming itself, are virtually endless.
Comments
Maggie Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
What is Second Life?
Patrice Sarath Says:
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:42 am
Second Life is an online game where people establish personas and create, well, a second life, on the Internet. It’s a whole virtual community.
Daysha Taylor Says:
September 13th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I created a Second Life profile… just to see what it is all about. Very addictive. I like my Linden dollars. The Second Life mixed-media universe has also become a great place for musicians to stream their live shows in exchange for Linden bucks, allowing them to generate two streams of income from one performance. It’s really quite clever.
Patrice Sarath Says:
September 14th, 2007 at 8:13 am
I am barely capable of managing a first life, let alone a second one, but I am fascinated by the concept of exchanges between the virtual economy and the real one. We’re going to see more of this. I like the idea of musicians getting paid in Linden bucks — we’ll probably start see this move to books, movies, etc.
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