Year: 2007

So supposedly everyone is trying to clone Second Life. Here’s word via Mobil Avenue on three different takes on the model, each trying to fix what they see as a key issue: HiPiHi in China, which looks like SL with easier tools; Planet Cazmo, which keeps the house decorating aspect but changes it into a browser-based Animal Crossing lookalike; and finally, reviews trickling out of the closed Kaneva beta, which is putting more MySpace peanut butter in your SL chocolate. Are they really SL clones?

Read More “The Second Life competitors materialize?”

It wasn’t all that long ago that we saw the John Edwards campaign location in Second Life vandalized. As if virtual feces on his campaign poster weren’t bad enough for the candidate, now we see Fox News videobloggers showcasing the seamier side of SL such as rape fantasies and ageplay, and asking whether Edwards’ campaign is going to take a stand within SL against this sort of behavior.

The tone of the piece is interesting in terms of how it references SL itself — as a place, really. It seems to at least get the distinction between being judgmental of Second Life, and judgmental of its users.

There’s an excellent article entitled “Games as Art: Project Horseshoe 2006” on Amped News. It goes into more depth about not just the “Influences” talk I gave, but about many of the broader issues as well.

Which serves as a good reminder to also point to Dan Cook’s summary of development processes in the games biz, advocating stage gate development. This was a major topic of discussion at Horseshoe 2006.