Dear Mr. Castranova,
After reading your chapter examining how the effects of
virtual life on real world life is very tough to swallow. I believe that you may just be too
pessimistic about how the real world is affected by the virtual ones. I mean, when you mention the ability that
both the virtual world and real world are becoming one with another as seen
mainly through the ability to create capital gain through these virtual worlds
is very understandable, but these worlds I believe can co-exist. These virtual worlds are becoming a normal
way of life within the real world. It is
odd how much activity in a person’s life takes place in a virtual world now a
days and it can be seen by your examples such as those who tend to not leave
home for substantial amounts of time.
This can, in some people’s eyes, be seen as a destructive force within
out real world society, but the benefits of using virtual worlds are such a
marvel, it is hard to disregard.
IBM had
seen the light showing briefly by the use of virtual worlds and decided to take
an early stab at its power by holding an event directly held within the second
life world. This event wasn’t just want
event, but a powerful well-funded event that was usually held every year in the
physical world and at a cost of 320k a year.
The ability for the virtual to lessen the strain of travel and business from
the physical world and drive the event into an completely online world where
users could simply log on and attend actual business meetings was amazing. The success of mixing real world business
with virtual world technology really opened up a ton of opportunities for
others to look into the abilities to hold events completely in a virtual
world. The savings were more than 1/5 of
the allocated 320k and everyone was pleased by the information the event held. So as you can see, it isn’t all bad. I mean
people need to make sure that some sort of line must be held between
virtual worlds and the real world so that new users can understand the
difference later in the future.
Best,
Carlos Feliciano
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