Selling Silly to the Insane

[The Dreaming Dragon]

   http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/biztech/11/10/virtual.real.estate.ap/index.html   


Hokay...it's a Brave New Virtual World out there,in this Year of Almost 2006. Strange tales of Will Power-Level your character for Cash,sweatshops in Hong Kong mining Warcraft Gold,scamming make-believe fortunes for Eve spaceship blueprints...and now ,as the CNN story reports,a consortium of Diddleheads paid $100,000 for a prime block of ones n zeros.Virtual Land,to put up a Virtual Resort for Virtual inhabitants can spend their Virtual Cash at.But in this case,the economy translates back into REAL cash at 10:1 exchange rate.Hmmm.

http://www.project-entropia.com/about/Index.ajp

And as for their Buying a CD analogy for purchasing this content,DOUBLE-"Hmmm".I have some artistic skill,a copy of Photoshop,and an urge to create content at some virtual thingie that'll generate cash in some respect with a minimal of effort.I managed to make one"skin",and I'd like to try my hand at making Virtual T-Shirts first.I never yheard of Project Entropia before,but since its a Themed game (Hard Science Fiction),it may not be the ideal place to begin.Some other places I have seen so far are:

http://secondlife.com/     http://theuniversal.net/      http://www.there.com/index.html

Any more out there? Any war stories to share with the peanut gallery? Any recommendations? Hmmm?

[[BTF]Defiant!]

TMF, I could talk all day..

1) I heard that Everquest has a higher real-money GDP than some countries, due to people buying/selling characters, items, etc..

2) Many people work in the "virtual world" today.  In the TastySpleen community, wouldn't you feel that admin rights has a certain value -- not that money is involved but certainly the ability to affect this community is a degree of power even though it is all virtual.

Originally information was only valuable if it was related to real world items, that changed long ago.  You could potentially live your life on a computer by clicking banner ads, answering google answers for money, etc..

3) A neat tool would be a omni directional camera with a laser-range-finder that you roll through a room and it creates a Quake map for you (it knows the shape of the room and can create the textures).  Do the same with your own body and have the ultimate player model.

4) The future is the semantic net.  The current Internet is very shallow from a "meaning" standpoint.  You as the viewer interpret the data/information.  There are many long term efforts to try to capture and encode the meaning. 

For example, 105.3 is just data, 105.3 degrees fahrenheit is information but not useful because it isn't related to any other information (e.g. what is 105.3?), "human blood thickens causing reduced circulation and possible death at 105.3 degrees fahrenheit" is semantic information. 

Once there is a decent semantic underpinning for laws, rules, work, etc.. that are interpretable by humans AND computers; then many tasks can be automated by agents that work in our behalf. 

• Maybe that means people become introverted in the real world and live most of their life online.
• Maybe that means we have completely sold out our connection to real world pleasures and struggles.
• Maybe it means that we create a higher intelligence unconstrained by the human brain.
• Maybe that means the only work left to do is art, exploration, and gaming.
• Maybe that means SkyNet takes over.
• Or maybe we augment ourselves.

All interesting, real possibilities.


Def

[The Dreaming Dragon]

Oh,I'm for all that.Just want a recommendation of where would be a good place to "sell" virtual T-Shirts in game as "content".

[Bleach]

actually my buddy just got Project Entropia.. I'm going over there to take a look at it today

Heard the Hotel story off www.fark.com , i personally would love to make all my money on a computer, im already an introvert anyway 

I heard that Everquest has a higher real-money GDP than some countries, due to people buying/selling characters, items, etc..

i used to sell stuff from EQ, DAoC, Diablo2LOD and UO on ebay, but i had to play ALOT

[The Dreaming Dragon]

I wasn't thinking of trudging around some actual game RPG to get a +15 sword of Zombie Wombat Molesting to sell to some sorry silly bastard for cash.That's against my religion.What I had in mind was to bring my unique artistic expressions into something like There that has an economy built around this idea.I figure instead of selling a Real Person a T-Shirt with my artwork on it,I'd be happier selling a Real Person's ingame avatar the right to use my artwork on their thingies.Sort of like,*Ahem*, Share-wear.Yes,a real T-Shirt is "nicer" to my artistic integrity,but the thought of having money appear from a similar output of effort in a forum that is planetwide and available 24/7 and reproduced virtually with no input from me past the act of creating the first prototype makes me GIDDY!At the moment,I work in a supermarket,at night,often 6 nights a week.And I have been at it for over 22 years.So I have been looking into the possibilities.And I wonder if there are any of these Super-Avatar-Chat things like There I can check out that I haven't seen before....

[[BTF]Defiant!]

Ok, so you would use your artistic ability to make clothes/models/avitars for people?

Not sure which games allow you to upload models.  Do the RPGs?

Having a website where people can compose their model from pre-fab parts could be good.  So, someone logs in and picks Brittney legs, Batman torso and wings, with a George Bush head and voice.  If they like the web preview, they pay $1 in paypal and download it.

Def

[The Dreaming Dragon]

The three links that weren't Project Entropia have ways of merchandising user made stuff. Iwas just wondering if there are others out there...