November 10, 2003
there inc - propagating the bad of society?
from slashdot:
"An anonymous reader writes "A former beta tester has written up a negative, but interesting, review of the 'virtual world' MMO title There. While it mainly contains sarcastic remarks directed at the game mechanics (or lack there-of), near the end it also claims that There is 'a mirror of the shallowest possible view of American consumerist society.' It concludes by saying that There is missing anything that would classify it as a game, and that as a chat service it capitalizes on 'our society's tendency to believe that being attractive is a prerequisite for being accepted by others.' Should developers try to be aware of whether their game will reproduce negative trends already present in real life?" We recently ran a story on the official launch of There, a game that has its fans as well as its detractors."
i still havent had a chance to play it. i know some emails were bounced around a few weeks ago about it. anyone have anthing new to say about it? (or brinker: second life updates?)
Posted by tripp at November 10, 2003 12:04 PMComments
I have yet to play (participate) in There yet, so I can't honestly compare the two. I would only say this though, Second Life has the distinct advantage because it's been in full swing for a while now. Precedents have been set, stuff has been tweaked and I think that's going to make it very difficult for There to catch on. From what I have seen, the two are almost identical in function and participatory action. The modes vary slightly, so that's whats going to seperate the two. AKA, SL building and texturing is all done "online" where as There is done offline, then uploaded. Conversation interaction is much different from what I see, and I already think SL gains the advantage because of it's tendancy to be like somthing already in existance, AOL IM, but combining that with two other modes that seem to "make sense" to existing modes of chat. AKA, the shout feature, the IM feature and the group chat feature. Ummmm...that was a big bolt of lighting real close to my "First Life" house...gotta go now!
Posted by: Mike at November 12, 2003 03:00 PM
