Re: Second Life--game or virtual reality?

Back in the early 1990's (if not earlier), some MUDs, MUCKs, MOOs, and
the other M* text-based role-playing games--the forerunners of the
modern MMORPG, like Second Life--were used for chat, meeting up with
friends across the country, classroom meetings, and other such
real-world activities.  That's nothing new.  The only differences are
now there's pictures in addition to the text, and there are a LOT more
people (and organizations) taking part.  The presence of pictures and an
increase in scale shouldn't impact the description & classification.

In my opinion, Second Life is, at heart, a gigantic role-playing game,
just one in which many people choose to role-play "themselves" (a
past-time my friends did with paper-and-pencil role-playing games at
least back into the 1980s, if not earlier) and use as a chat medium to
conduct real-world activities.

Players can change their in-game "avatar" to a blue-skinned elf, their
avatar can fly, the "world" consists of a fictional planet that is
chiefly made up of lots of little islands, players use pretend money to
conduct business transactions (even if it now can be converted back and
forth into real-world money, that's no different from World of Warcraft
players trading real money to a friend for in-game armor, or video
arcades using tokens rather than quarters), they can go to an area of
the "world" where they can solve CSI:New York mysteries.

In other words, it is a giant game of "let's play pretend."

However, that does not necessarily mean it *should* be qualified by
"(Game)", just that that qualifier is an appropriate one.  Given the
emphasis on "virtual world", perhaps "(Imaginary place)" would be more
appropriate?

--
Joel Hahn
Lead Cataloger
Niles Public Library District
Niles, IL 

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