Second Life Sketches: Penthouse to Pavement
By Warren Ellis
The following is an independent opinion column, and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.
Continuing a thought from last week:
The scarcity of land continues to escalate, it seems. Basic 512 parcels are starting to top L$10,000, some 120 percent more than what they cost a year ago. Most of the available land today is located on privately-owned islands, most of which are “residential.” Residential land is a peculiarity in Second Life; a holdover from earlier virtual worlds like The Sims Online, where the intent is to reproduce ordinary residential real-world life. Decorating houses, pretending to sleep in beds, that sort of thing.
On private islands, one pays the “tier,” or land tax, directly to the island owner rather than to Second Life operators Linden Lab. In most cases, the island owner continues to own the underlying rights to the land, and your tier payment becomes rent. Residential areas usually have strict rules. Your buildings can be deleted if they don’t fit the overall theme of the island, a great many of which tend to be “tropical.” Nothing that resembles a mass meeting place is tolerated. No retail activity is allowed. I make in-world money to pay rent and donate to others by selling Second Life-ready collections of my short stories and essays. I can’t do that on the great majority of currently available land. These are places quite specifically for the simulation of high-end living. Most islands are cut up into beach plots that give everyone an unobstructed view of the sea and the sunsets.
This all seems to have been a reaction to the condition of the mainland, which is unzoned — you can do anything you like on any mainland plot that isn’t controlled by a group, which is most of them. The mainland is therefore generally viewed as a junkyard, a chaotic tumble of strange buildings and wastelands littered with toys, made unnavigable in many areas by “banlines”. Banlines are part-visible fences around plots that can only be crossed into by the owners and designated friends. Flying around, you’ll frequently run into areas where everyone has banlines around their properties, preventing you from crossing a region. I sold my first land because everyone around me had banlines up, stopping me from ever exploring the region my plot sat in.
These days, I rent one of the rare affordable public spaces on the mainland to sell stuff and provide a central spot for people. I also have a small private space given to me by the good people of the cyberpunk area Gibson, which I use to talk to people uninterrupted in order to learn more about the world.
I tried a location on an island area for a while. I don’t have the money to buy or rent an entire “sim”, as a region is called, so I rented a parcel on a sim cut into islands, all separated by narrow waterways. The first thing to note is that these sims are essentially cut off from the rest of Second Life. The water that surrounds them is an illusion — invisible walls close off the entire sim. So your exploration is limited to within the sim itself. The second thing to note is that private island renters are pretty unsociable. They’ll put up banlines even inside private sims. I almost got thrown off my island in the first week because one of my visitors dared to go and look at one of the other renter’s builds. These are people who, by and large, reject the notion that Second Life is an art space to be explored. Their intent is purely to replicate what they believe to be a rich person’s living experience. It’s a little like watching the MTV show “Cribs.” Endless views of interchangeable beige mansions near some beach. Supernaturally tidy, ordered interiors, usually featuring a vast flatscreen TV.
The truth, of course, is that the houses on “Cribs” are barely lived in. And people in TV have alleged to me that many of the houses on that show are rented by the supposed owners for the express purpose of display on the show. They’re just as virtual as the bland Second Life coastal homes where people watch avatars of themselves pretend to sit down and enjoy the digital sunset.
The covenants, or renter’s agreements, governing these areas would seem to be indicative of a certain taste or mindset. Many of them begin their pitch with the suggestion that the mainland is one massive polygon trailer park, where the poor people buy a 512 parcel and litter it with beer cans, burst condoms and little furry children doing unspeakable things to each other in lurid nightclubs. Why not get away from the hoi polloi by renting an island in a sim accessible only by teleport where any kind of large social activity is banned?
The sociopolitics of Second Life, writ small as they are, have more complexity than a first look would suggest. The Internet has long been viewed as the great leveller, yet aspirant upward mobility seems to have raised its bouffant head fairly quickly in-world. I watch the land prices because I have more than a hundred people in my Second Life group, most of whom are without any land at all, and I think it’s nice that they have a big place to make their home base. It’s interesting to me that a lot more people are looking to build their own private Second Life.
All that said: the land listings are awash with rent-only properties that seem not to be moving, and the only mainland parcels left are being sold at exorbitant prices. Perhaps there are even more people who want to be on the mainland, and who want to engage with the world rather than wall themselves off from it.
I am, however, still holding out for a vast parcel where I can build my own fortified compound with dedicated temple and start a cult. Enquiries should be sent to me at Integral Bay. Let’s see Anshe Chung top that.
