Other Virtual Women

More random notes from around the metaverse…

The Vanity  Google

Ever heard the term “vanity google”?  It’s basically where you google your own name and any online monikers you may use, and it is actually a good idea to do every now and then, especially if you are being cyber bullied.  I tried googling myself (arianeb) and of course I get a lot of links to my website, as well as blogs dedicated to my dating game, and a growing number of walkthroughs.

It is not surprising to find out that I am not the only Ariane B on the planet.  I already knew about Ariane Blanc, a German Ariane B who owns the “Ariane” sim in Second Life. (If you are in the market for virtual furniture, check out her store), but there is also a French Canadian Ariane B.  I run arianeb.com, and I am arianeb on tumblr and wordpress (which you knew from reading this blog), but arianeb on twitter is a Montreal based singer/songwriter.   I’ve listened to some of the stuff she posted online and its pretty good.  I also found out there is a Facebook ArianeB page, which is about me, but I am not the one who created it. Whoever did, needs to update it, and as for the rest of you, I could always use a few more “likes”.

Other Dating Sims

But the really cool thing I found while googling myself is that there are a growing number of dating sims similar to my own.  Ugo.com recently did a list of Virtual Girlfriends You Can Date of which I am number 5.  Its an entertaining list covering many kinds of virtual dating with virtual girls. Stay away from #4 (3D Girlz) I got a malware warning when I went there.   Another list that had me as an entry is a list of dating sims at playforceone.com (link NSFW due to ads), a list of 36 other dating sim games available online.  A couple I have tried before were not that good, but that still leaves 34 I have not tried.

One other dating sim appeared on both sites called Keely, a dating sim very similar to mine, in that it is written in HTML with a branching storyline, and uses a lot of Poser graphics based on Victoria 3.  I assume that the character is based on British model Keely Hazell.  I have not played too much with Keely, but it has a much more involved storyline, taking place over many days, like the Japanese dating sims do.  Also, you don’t have to arrow around the picture to find the choices, they are usually at the bottom of the page to choose from.  The thing I’m most jealous of is that Keely already has a sequel, and I still have a lot of work to go on my sequel.

The Virtual Popstar

And since we are on the topic of virtual women online, a recent story from Japan gave me a good chuckle.  Virtual pop stars are hot right now in Japan, the most famous one is Hatsune Miku, a manga styled character who’s singing voice is created artificially using a vocalizer, and does concerts using rear projection technology.

But there is a pop band in Japan called AKB48, and they are very popular (the top 10 chart for 2010 in Japan consisted of songs from only two bands AKB48 and Arashi).  It is a band consisting of a choir of cute young teenage Japanese girls, with new young girls being added as older ones leave.

One of the new girls this year was Aimi Eguchi, a 16 year old according to her bio.  She appeared on magazine covers and videos before it was revealed, she does not exist.  Aimi Eguchi was a composite of 6 other members of AKB48, to the shock of many. It was a silly publicity stunt, and the fun only lasted a few days before the secret was revealed, but the idea that fake can pass as real has generated a bit of buzz.

Reminds me of that under appreciated film S1m0ne from 2002.

Is The Sims Online returning too?

I have mentioned a few times that I got my start on the metaverse via The Sims Online, a 2.5 dimension virtual world first released in 2003.  I only lasted 6 months before moving on to There.  Well it looks like a new incarnation of TSO will soon be returning, this time called The Sims Social, and it will be a Facebook App.

All attempts to attach a 3D Virtual World to Facebook have resulted in failure due to incompatibility of purposes.  If any can succeed it would be The Sims, so it will be interesting to see how this goes.

Japanese Dating Sims

When I originally created my Dating Sim, I thought I was being original.  I knew about games like The Sims that had dating scenarios in them, and I knew about interactive stories, adventure games, and the “choose your own adventure” books, but I figured that my combining all these elements together was an original concept.

It wasn’t too long after releasing the first version that I discovered I was wrong.  A whole genre of “Dating Sims” had risen and declined in the decade before my game.  My ignorance can be forgiven since all of this happened in Japan, and nowhere else.

Before I go on about the Japanese Dating Sims, I should point out that the Japanese never called them “Dating Sims”.  They have Bishoujo games (beautiful girls),  and Ren’ai (romance) games,  both categories do not necessarily mean “dating” as literally as I took it.

The term caught on, because the Ren’ai games released in the early 90′s like Tokimeki Memorial, True Love 95, and a bunch more relationship games seem sto have “getting a date” as a major objective. These are just some of the ones known here in the US.  In Japan there have been hundreds of these titles.

A well known sub genre of the Dating Sim is “Eroge” (Erotic game, aka hentai game , or H-game), and Dating Sims themselves are part of a broader genre known as Visual Novels, which I’ll discuss in a future post.

I do not know what is considered to be the first “dating sim”, the early H-game  Dokyusei (1992) seems as good a candidate as any.  Games with sex and nudity existed before, but it was just straight porn or “strip poker” type games.  Dokyusei actually had plot and a gaming objective before the sex and nudity came into play. Like many early titles, eventually non-H versions would appear on consoles, and even Anime based on the game would be made.

I do know that Tokimeki Memorial is the first real breakout title, released in 1994.  It was an all ages program from the beginning, and its gaming style influence many titles to come. It and numerous sequels, have been released onto many consoles and even on cell phones.  Another breakout was True Love (1995) another “eroge” title.  An MS-DOS version in English was released in the US with nudity intact in 1999.

Before you go track these down,  most all the characters in these games are “manga” style drawn characters.  This convention has largely remained throughout the visual novel genre, which is probably why the genre has never caught on outside Japan.

The general settings of these games are also very Japanese.  The most common setting is Japanese prep school, and all the girls are in school uniforms.  The games start out letting you pick what kind of character you are RPG style where you distribute points between, looks, charm and intelligence.  As you move through the school, you meet many girls, and the object is to find girls that your style allows you to “score” with which you must do by the end of a set time period, usually a semester or school year.

It is not always a school setting, but there is always some arbitrary time limit involved.  The games usually also involve many different possible endings making the games re-playable.  Even though the settings often differed, the formula did not.

After about a decade, the formula got tired, and the popularity declined except for small cult followings.  Recently a resurgence has been happening as video game makers have been interested in games for pre-teen and teen girls they have dusted off the old formula, removed the eroge stuff, and reversed the genders making games where girls have to get boys.  These are called “Otome” or GxB Dating Sims.  Gay themed dating games exist as well, but only from indie sources.

Links:
College Romance – A simple flash romance virtual novel, PG-13 contains adult situations but not nudity.
Sim Girl – A flash game that pretty much includes all the stereotypical Japanese dating scenarios, including the H ending.
True Love 95 – The ms-dos game in english, in all of its 256 color glory, downloadable for free. Contains a reg file to allow it to run in windows. In vista or 7 see this note.
Dating Sims at NewGrounds – A big collection of flash H-dating sims, most are probably crap.
Wonderland Days – A PG rated Otome dating sim for girls.

Similarities and Differences with Ariane’s Dating Simulator

While mine is made up of rendered 3D while most of these are hand/computer drawn, the idea that live photos would be way too creepy is a shared idea.  Like mine, most all of these Date Sims adhere to the first person perspective (I thought I was being very original here, but I was just like everybody else).  All dating sims, including mine, occasionally pause the plot for some mini game or puzzle you have to solve to go on.  Mostly still images mixed with occasional animation, is also a shared trait.  The biggest alike quality is of course the multiple possible ending scenarios.

The key differences: Most dating sims allow you to pursue multiple girls, while mine is limited to one.  The advantages of the first is you can construct multiple personality types, mine is stuck with one type.  Other dating sims go on for pages before you have to make a branching decision, while mine has multiple branching decisions every other page.  The advantage of the first method is that you can actually tell a story, mine has to be designed with small story elements that can be told out of order thus sacrificing any semblance of plot.  Another key difference, all other dating sims are made up of “sprite” images overlapped on still backgrounds, while mine are all fully rendered stills.  Their method is a lot less work, believe me.

The biggest original concept on my part (and I wouldn’t recommend it to others) is to code the whole thing in html/javascript.  There are free programs out there that automate the whole process for people  interested in making your own.

The Dating Sim Formula in Other Game Genres

As games have gotten more complex over the years, the Dating Sim seems to have gotten demoted from genre to story element.  One cannot play these Japanese Dating Sims without being reminded of Leisure Suit Larry games for example, though that series was more arcade skill oriented and linear stories.  While The Sims added Hot Date in 2001, it was The Sims 2 expansion pack Night Life that included simulated dates where you had a certain amount of time to impress your date or lose a bunch of friendship points.

But the most complete inclusion of the Dating Sim element into a larger game I have seen is Dragon Age: Origins, where an optional sub plot of the game involves getting friendly, or better yet romantically involved, with your party NPCs. Like the above Dating Sims, this usually involves chatting them up, and responding in ways that gets them to approve, as well as buying them gifts and doing special personal favors for them.  No doubt these formulas show up in other RPG games, but DA:O is the most obvious example.

Adult Segregation Complete?

There has been a fair amount of drama on the whole adult continent Zindra front. The move of all adult content to a new continent has brought land speculators, complaints, AR griefing, and other nonsense. Time to take a second look.

On September 15th, Linden Labs has drawn the line. All adult businesses must be on Zindra or an estate server set as “adult”. Rule breakers will no longer be seen in search and could be forced to move.  Furthermore, SL clients not enabled with code to handle adult permissions (1.23 or higher) will no longer be able to see adult islands on maps, or see any shops or groups that are adult in nature.  LL is still vague about their guidelines to prevent people from working around them, though there are 3rd parties figuring it out.

In the June essay, I mentioned two possible scenarios of where Zindra will head: 1.) A sanctuary away from alt griefing and kids pretending to be adult, or 2.) an adult oriented ghetto.  Many of the more established successful businesses have relocated to private estates rather than Zindra. Because of this, its looking more and more likely that the second scenario will prevail.

A quick tour around Zindra today is like a big mall of mostly crap. A good 90% of adult merchants do not know how to make a good store build. Lots of bright tacky colors, or way too big textures that cause load lag. I went to some of the busiest businesses and either found a lot of bots / camping chairs, or builds in private skyboxes.

That to me is a virtual ghetto.

Ironically, after exploring the main areas of Zindra, my favorite build I found was designed to look like a ghetto (More Pictures).  Its actually a group of builds in the same area with the same “ghetto” aesthetic.  Lots of naughty poseball furniture and toys, mixed with sexy clothing shops and booth and apartment rentals.  It is the most interesting build, or group of builds, I found on the whole continent. (Pictures in this article are from that build)

The as yet unanswered question is how will this segregation of adult businesses affect the rest of Second Life.  Adult rated regions currently make up almost 5% of Second Life, and the stricter enforcement (especially on estates) is going to make that percentage rise. Traffic will change, as will land prices, but how and how much are unanswered as of yet.

Below is a map of the main section of Zindra as it now exists. Compare it to the map I made in June and see how much it has changed.

Exploring Zindra before the chaos begins

I haven’t written in a while especially about Second Life. Felt the need to post something. I wanted to check out Hair Fair 2009, but all four servers were consistently full. Oh well, off to plan B…

Second Life finally opened the “Adult” rated continent to public access. There is no privately owned land or building yet, but there is some new construction courtesy of Linden Labs. I decided to check it out before the place gets crowded with who knows what kind of places.

This shuffling all adult content to one continent is an odd experiment I plan to watch carefully. Already there are people attempting to scam the system and trying to get land there.

Despite minimal content, there seem to be other people wandering about, many recruiting adult “clubs” currently open on other islands. At least most people had their clothes on.

I am curious how life on “A” continent (they keep changing names, first Ursula, now apparently called Zindra) is going to go.

On the one hand if the age verification system works, this may be the place to go to get away from kids pretending to be adults, and newbies begging for free Lindens.  If the continent becomes popular enough to overshadow the rest of Second Life, it could make SL’s already sullied reputation as a virtual sex world even worse.

On the other hand this could turn into an “adult ghetto” with tons of tasteless textures and graphics we do not really want to see, driving away any business interests, and quickly turning into a waste land. The upshot will be LL can now tell potential deep pocket clients and investors that they cleaned the place up and it is no longer the anything goes virtual waste land it was in the past. Despite official statements, it is obvious that this is the result LL is hoping for.

Lets face it, when it opens for building starting next month, it is initially going to be the place to be. What happens after the initial newness and curiosity factor fades remains to be seen.

Here is a pristine map – a “before” picture. I suspect the place will look quite different by the end of the summer.

Is the Party Over in SL?

Second Life is falling off the mainstream radar, ironically Linden Labs is making a potentially hazardous move to try to become more mainstream. I have to ask: Is the party over in SL?

SL’s Declining coverage

I am noticing a major shift in the attention that Second Life has been getting lately. Mainly it is getting a lot less of it.  I have an RSS aggregator dedicated to SL which pulls stories from the biggest and best SL outlets I can find.

I used to feature Reuters, they dropped covering SL. Same with Wired. Electric Sheep Company seems to be pulling out of SL and blogging less. I yanked them all.

Of the ones that are left, they are still covering SL, but at a reduced rate. Former Second Life Herald, now Alphaville Herald (thanks to trademark enforcement) is shifting to Metaplace and other VW coverage. Massively, a site dedicated to all online gaming that bought up SLNN for more SL coverage, still has the occasional SL story, but only when there is some interesting development. They no longer seek out the stories themselves. Of the other blogs I list, only New World Notes continues to blog regularly. To keep the aggregator busy I added Koinup popular places and the Second Life Bloggers group at ning.com.

Mainstream press in general no longer seems that much interested. Part of me suspects that when SL was being judged by the number of accounts, the tens of millions generated some interest. Now that the “active” account number seems to hover around 500,000 and hasn’t grown much in nearly two years, its considered old news.

A couple of years ago the announcement to section off a continent for “adult content” would have gotten a few mentions in the mainstream press. Today nary a blip. The last SL story to get mainstream press coverage was last November’s headline of a real world divorce over the husbands SL “cybering” with another player. It was a strange human interest story, but that kind of thing happens a lot more often than you think. That story reinforced SL’s reputation as a “cyber sex” haven. The recent “adult content” announcement was an attempt to lessen that reputation.

“Adult Content” Continent

As  I have said before, the age verification is a game changer. There has been quite a confusing discussion about what exactly counts as “adult content” and many players are upset that Linden Labs is engaging in censorship.

What LL is proposing is a new mainland continent where adult content will be allowed reachable only by acconts that have been age verified or that have used a credit card for billing. The general consensus is this will be a “ghetto” continent, which could eventually be closed completely if LL decides it is necessary.

Personally I have a suspicion that this may backfire completely on every level. First of all, you are going to lose some of the 500,000 active players who no longer want to have anything to do with SL, best case is that they are replaced with new active players not looking for adult content.

But from my perspective, there are unforeseen benefits to this island. Adding verification for admittance means there will be no “kids” on this island, no “alts” or “alt griefing”, the vast majority of people allowed will be paying customers with lindens to spend, few “noobs”, few free accounts = no lag due to “camping”, and no one complaining about the content there, because everyone goes in knowing what to expect.

No doubt the immediate focus of this continent will be on the adult content, but these other ancillary benefits may actually drive more really active players there, possibly making the adult continent more popular than any other continent, possibly making the rest of SL the “ghetto”. A recent NWN post agrees with my assessment.

If Linden Labs sets the adult content bar real low (like no nudity) and strictly enforce it, this will almost certainly be the outcome. If this does occur SL’s reputation may continue to sour. New players will find new obstacles to the “good content”, ultimately driving a wedge into the community as a whole.

On the other hand, If they set the bar real high (like no XXX porn anything less is OK) and don’t enforce it much, it will change SL not at all and then LL can tell anyone interested that they are doing “something” about it without really doing anything.  The new adult only continent really will become a “ghetto” no one wants to go to.  Unfortunately, lax enforcement will lead to more player complaints ultimately driving a wedge into the community as a whole anyways.

Either way the community loses. Linden Labs has put themselves in a tough position that will affect every player one way or another.

Based on interviews at NWN and reports from the SL forums, there is lots of contradictory info coming out of LL’s offices. If they hope to have these policies in place by the end of summer, they got a lot of work ahead.

A divided community is an unhappy community, opening the door to the next cool thing taking away LL’s business. The party in SL will truly be over, moved to another venue.

Second Life At Dangerous Crossroads Part 1

I have been meaning to write a comprehensive essay on how many recent changes in SL may have a cumulative affect of making the world completely unrecognizable in a few months.

I want to do the story, but the changes keep coming and it is increasingly hard to keep up with it all. Here are two big hits that just came in the last 24 hours.

1. SL Terms of Service In Legal Limbo

Lets start with the big news from Bragg vs Linden Labs court case. Let me summarize:

Bragg: I found an exploit to make Lindens really cheap
Linden Labs: You are not allowed to do that!
Bragg: Your sucky code lets me, so it is legal!
Linden Labs: You still can’t do that so shut up! (account closed)
Bragg: You can’t close my account, I invested money!
Linden Labs: Yes we can, its in the TOS!
Bragg: Well your TOS sucks, I’m going to sue you!
Linden Labs: You cant sue us, its in the TOS!
Judge: Yes he can sue you, your TOS sucks!

Here is more on the case. Personally, I’m rooting for LL in this case, because Bragg is a “cracker lawyer” who should be thrown in jail for virtual land fraud.

Basically this means that the Terms of Service agreement you have to agree to is no longer legally binding and will have to be rewritten to be more fair to players who have a dispute with Linden Labs. Here is more on that.

2. Second Life’s Patriot and Domestic Surveillance Act

On the same day that a federal judge has put the TOS in jeopardy, ironically Linden Labs decides to release a vague statement to the affect that activities that many players engage in are now not allowed in Second Life anymore.

The diversity of things to see and do within Second Life is almost unimaginable, but our community has made it clear to us that certain types of content and activity are simply not acceptable in any form:

• Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors;
• real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual violence including rape,
• real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and other broadly offensive content

are never allowed or tolerated within Second Life.

Please help us to keep Second Life a safe and welcoming space by continuing to notify Linden Lab about locations in-world that are violating our Community Standards regarding broadly offensive and potentially illegal content.

Our team monitors such notification 24-hours a day, seven-days a week.

Individuals and groups promoting or providing such content and activities will be swiftly met with a variety of sanctions, including termination of accounts, closure of groups, removal of content, and loss of land.

It’s up to all of us to make sure Second Life remains a safe and welcoming haven of creativity and social vision.

WTF is this? What happened to “Your World, Your Imagination”?

What exactly does this mean? It means that the stuff they were planning to sweep under the rug as “adult content” restricted to age verified players is now just simply not allowed period. If someone reports you, LL can delete your account if they feel like it, it says so in the TOS (that a federal judge ruled as sucky).

There are two kinds of players in SL, you have those that equate virtual activity with real activity (the “Virtual Utopians”) and those that see it as all pretend (the “Role Players”).

On issues like this, I am squarely on the side of the role players. Ageplay does not equal Pedophelia, virtual nudity does not equal real nudity, virtual sex does not equal real sex, virtual rape does not exist, and to say it exists is a slur against real rape victims. (Ignorant newbies being fraudulently coerced into virtual sex, not knowing they could easily report the conversation to abuse, is sexual harassment at best).

The Virtual Utopians don’t see it that way. They don’t understand that virtual and reality are two very different things. That is what this new (they are claiming it is not new) policy is trying to cater to. To them, virtual sex and violent acts can lead to real sex and violent acts. They think we have to clean up virtual reality to have any hope of cleaning up real reality.

Except, the evidence says no, in fact even the opposite:

• Increased access to internet porn has reduced sex crimes
• There is no causal relation between violent video games and violent crime

If people want to get their yayas out doing stuff virtually that could cause physical or psychological harm if done really, I have no problem with that. Lets keep extreme sex and violence in Second Life where it belongs!

Motive: Follow the Money

What does all this add up to? Why are they doing this? When a company starts pissing off its core audience, just follow the money.

The answer can be found in the notes of the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference. Corporate sponsorship was more interested in PG rated games like There than they were in more open NC-17 games like Second Life.

With everything going 3D these days, the small companies that run today’s virtual worlds have to be considered prime takeover targets. Second Life is worried about its reputation. It wants to go mainstream. It would rather have the corporate dollars than the player dollars.

That’s what its all about!

Age Verification… A game changer for Second Life

Second Life will soon implement strict age verification for everybody.

Here is the official word on it

First of all, it sounds like if you are already credit card verified, you still have to be age verified? Apparently this is the case. They should use as a given CC on file = Age verified. But apparently Visa has a policy against that.

Second, there is no definition for “adult content” except “We trust that common sense will prevail. As a general rule, “Adult Content” is any content that is explicitly sexual or excessively violent in nature.”

Now I have a very liberal view of adult content. Remember here, we are dealing with 3 levels of content: PG servers, Mature Servers, and Adult Content:

• Nudity, especially fake avatar nudity, is Mature but NOT adult content.
• Language no matter how raw or foul, unless it is used in a threatening manner, is Mature but NOT adult content.
• The infamous “Flying Penises”, Again Mature but NOT adult content.
• Strip Clubs that do not have escort services, Mature but NOT adult content.

None of the above are explicitly sexual, even though some with more prudish minds may think so.

On the other hand:

• “Xcite!” Toys (aka talking vaginas) = adult content.
• Sexual Pose Balls, I’d say are a judgement call, but mostly adult content.
• BDSM sex toys = Adult content
• Posters or streaming video of real people engaging in sex = adult content
• If your business provides escort services of any kind = adult content

Now the real question is how will this affect Second Life as a whole, the changes could be radical.
Consider for a moment the following two facts:

1. 17 of the top 20 most popular places are listed as “Mature”, the majority of them become popular through the use of “Camping Chairs”
2. Most people who earn money via camping chairs are unlikely to be willing or able to verify their age.

That means the top places are either going to have to drop mature content or drop camping chairs.

Just as the number of premium player is a significant minority to the population as a whole — and because it costs money and may not be available to MANY foreign countries, I doubt the number of age verified players will ever reach a majority of the SL population. This means there are going to be significant disincentives to label your lot as “Adult Content”.

Now if you are a store owner with a tiny shop that has questionable content (like me), you can get away with not checking the adult content box. If you are a really popular place with lots of adult content like Bad Girls Dance and Fetish Club, you will NOT be able to get away with not checking the box, and therefore chasing away a big chunk of your clientelle.

Good or bad, that means the sexual content of SL is going to decline.

"Amsterdam" sold for L$13750000

In the largest single sim deal in SL history, owners of the beautifully decorated Amsterdam sim sold the whole thing on e-bay to an anonymous resident of the real Amsterdam for $50,000 real US, which is €37,500 or 13,750,000 Lindens.

More details in the Reuters story.

Second Life Articles on Economy and Sex

Thought I’d post a note on a couple of Second Life articles I stumbled on from a British site. Normally I would just post them in Delicious, but I thought them important enough to post here.

Despite the title “The Phony economics of Second Life” is a thoughtful piece on the economy of Second Life. It echoes some of my own misgivings about making money in SL.

“The latest figures show that there are less than 50,000 of these premium accounts. So, only a fifth of Second Life’s returning users have a premium account that lets them fully participate in its economy. With around 15,000 concurrent logins, it is possible to speculate that there may be as few as 3,000 paying customers online at any one time (although this figure would rise if they logged on more frequently and for longer than those with free accounts).

Linden Lab itself estimates the number of “in world business owners” by counting those with a positive monthly cashflow. There were over 21,000 of these last month. For more than 11,000 of them, however, their positive cashflow came to less than US$10. And this is before Linden Lab’s charges were applied to their account.

So, from the three million residents who, we are told, are living the dream of a virtual economy, we arrive at a figure of around 3,000 economically active users at any one time – most of whom are turning over only a token sum.

This is a far cry from the predictions of the business journalists.”

I’m not sure where they are getting those figures. I guess I’m one of the lucky 3000 players who is actually making money in SL. I’m not making enough to quit my job or anything, but I make enough to pay for the annual SL premium account and hosting for this website, and have lindens to blow on Tringo.

I think that the authors other interesting point is that attendance in SL is not good enough to warrent the recent advertising boom in Second Life. With a limit of 100 people (and even that results in horrible lag) the recent trend towards “launch parties” and “virtual concerts” are weak. I have to agree, if you want to use SL as an advertisement platform, “events” are not the way to go.

A better way to go is to use SL as a “3D website”, and then advertise it on your own site. I like exploring some of the weird islands. I recently found 30 identical islands sponsored by Showtime, where you can see episodes of The L Word. Its designed for people who have never been to Second Life before. (Note: Showtime and MTV are owned by the same company, the latter is using There for show promotion)

Should forms of “fantasy virtual sex” be deemed illegal?

The second interesting article at the register is interesting for completely different reasons:

Dutch demand ban of virtual child porn in Second Life
By Jan Libbenga
Published Wednesday 21st February 2007 16:45 GMT

The Dutch prosecutor’s office is considering legal actions to test the law against child porn in the popular virtual game Second Life. With no clear litigation, it is difficult to act against perpetrators.

Kitty Nooij, who is in charge of the sex offences portfolio at the prosecutor’s office in the Netherlands, told Dutch news show Netwerk that she will try to bring cases to court so precedents can be set.

Linden Lab’s Second Life is an online digital world with almost three million “residents” claimed by the company. Some areas of Second Life allow adult members to have virtual sex with others who pretend to be children.

Experts, such as psychologist Jos Buschman of the Van Mesdag clinic in Groningen, say Second Life is “by definition a school for paedophiles”, despite the fact that adult members like to roleplay as children. Second Life requires all players to be adults.

Virtual child pornography has been a criminal offence in the Netherlands since 2002. However, there is no litigation related to virtual sex with virtual children. Today, at least four political parties in the Netherlands demanded a ban on virtual child porn roleplay.

Discussions about virtual child porn in Second Life already started three years ago with the introduction of an avatar called Sasami Wishbringer, who has the body of an eight year-old. Lately, there are more serious reports about adult players with child avatars soliciting (paid) sex.

Last year, Robin Harper, Linden Lab vice president of community development, wrote in a posting on the official Second Life forum, that “if Second Life has evidence of child pornography or abuse that involves children in the real world, it will act to protect the child and notify the authorities”. However, virtual roleplay is allowed.

Second Life maintains a seperate server for teens 13-17 and no one under 13 is allowed. So on the main grid, everyone is adult (or at least claims to be) so if there is simulated pedophilia going on it is between consenting adults pretending. As gross as this is, it should not be illegal.

Yes it is possible to make your avatar look like a child, its possible to look like anything. Yet this activity is very rare, so rare that I have yet to see it, and I like hanging in the seedier areas of the grid too. Most “sex clubs” would frown on such activity anyways, so it would be limited to private residences.

A Quick Peek at Red Light Center

This is a new 3D social game designed primarily for its adult content. It is currently being advertised as “open beta” and it does have a few bugs and lacks much content.

A lot of the doors around town simply say “coming soon”, and if you try to access anything interesting, like the streaming video, it asks for you to purchase the VIP membership for $20 a month.

Currently there is no custom content, so you are very limited in wardrobe and avatar looks, and most of the wardrobe is extremely revealing, at least on the female side. Animations are also very limited too.

For all intents and purposes, this is just a clever gimmick to sell membership in a porn site. There is nothing here that isn’t doable better in Second Life.

The one thing I am interested in is this: What the makers of this program have done is make a simple bare bones 3D chat and navigate system. I am curious as to how small it is and how simple it is. A simple bare bones 3D chat and navigate system as a front for other websites and commerce besides just porn could be huge.

http://www.redlightcenter.com/flashtour.asp

Update: The makers of this program also have opened up a MySpace like place for adults (R-rated content) http://www.utherverse.com

They WILL add custom clothing for sure as it is an option available in the profiles. They should add custom faces as the 3 they currently offer are pretty boring.

Bottom line: Not worth $20 a month just to access porn content. There is not enough free 3D content to keep people around for long. The social networking end shows promise and it is done much better than Xpeeps, but the community is a bit too small right now.

UPDATE #2: Wired did a review of Red Light Center as well and came more or less to the same conclusion as me. Their review is here.