OK so I'm one of those people who does not have a myspace account, didn't know what facebook was until joining this class and had never heard of world of warcraft, so if i seem a bit ignorant or shocked by this article please forgive me. I really don't know how popular virtual worlds are or if it is even a new thing anymore. but this is the first I've heard of it. Also, before I proceed I would like to apologize if my post takes a critical or judgemental tone, I'm really not judging, I'm just a bit shocked.
I found an article titled: A PG-Rated Second Life in the latest issue of Time magazine that is about Sony Playstation's new virtual world, Home. Home provides virtual environments such as a mall, town plaza, a bowling alley, an arcade and apartments (time, 2009). So the article says that you can create your own life like avatar and then lounge and interact with other gamers. How Sony plans to make money off of "Home" is through virtual merchandise (this is where my disbelief comes in). Apparently Sony has partenered with companies like RedBull, Deisel, and Ligne Roset and will have their virtual products available for sale in their virtual stores at the virtual mall. Sure you could dress your avatar in free off the rack stuff but if you want your avatar in the latest trends and in designer labels, you're gonna have to come out the pocket. Sony wants you to pay Real money for virtual designer furniture, I can barely make rent (I'm not judging)! The article didn't say how much i would have to pay for my avatar to drink RedBull and it did state that "Home" was still in the works. the writers main complaint of "Home" was that it didn't give the gamers option to build/create anything, i guess everything offered was already made and for sale. Anyhow i found this article interesting especially since Professor Boellstorff had mentioned "Second Life" in class. I'm still not entirely sure how this works (both Second Life and Home), but i hope to gain further knowlegde on this matter and more through this course. PS this was my first blog ever, i was nervous, hope it was ok!
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No problem, I think most of the class is still shy about posting on the class blog, myself included, heh. Anyway, let me see if I can help you understand why paying "real" money for virtual goods works by sharing my view of things. It has to do with power relationships (#5 in Prof Boellstorff's list).
The designer virtual goods being offered in the game are playing on people's desire to be seen by their peers as cool and trendy. Owning and displaying the most expensive, popular items can elevate their avatar to celebrity status in-game, and the players themselves earn much renown by extension. They become powerful within the game community. Sure, the items only exist virtually and even then only as pixels, with some pixels being prettier than others, but the power pull is still there. For the players, what they purchase for their avatars is just as real as something they might own in Reality. It's their "stuff," their property. Using real life money to pay for it is just like exchanging foreign currency. Even if they can't touch the goods and can only interact with them through the game's interface, those items still exist to the players, and that's what's important.
Hope that helped. :)
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