Interns create game for XBox 360 and questions about Second Life

re: Interns create game for XBox 360 and questions about Second Life

Sirius — Wed, 16 May 2007 20:46:49 GMT

Second Life is the most pathetic thing ever. Avoid it at all costs.

re: Interns create game for XBox 360 and questions about Second Life

HeatherLeigh — Wed, 16 May 2007 02:01:06 GMT

See, that is the difference in what I am talking about. Marketers may be "bullish" on it to reach their target markets, but what if your target market is marketers?

It's the difference between doing the marketing and being marketed to. As someone who is trying to reach marketers, I'm not sure it's a good place to be. But if I were trying to reach techies, gamers, graphics people, younger people, hot avatars (just kidding), it would be a good place to be.

So let me phrase the question this way: as someone who "markets" to marketers, is it a target rich environment?

I knew I was in trouble trying to phrase the question. :)

re: Interns create game for XBox 360 and questions about Second Life

Ariel — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:28:54 GMT

Honestly, I think marketers are more excited about Second Life than players are. There's a huge amount of hype, and not many active users, honestly. More about this: http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/08/second_life_hyp.html

re: Interns create game for XBox 360 and questions about Second Life

tod hilton — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:27:32 GMT

You might be surprised at the age distribution of gamers. Check out http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php for some quick nuggets, like:

- The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

- Thirty-five percent of American parents say they play computer and video games. Further, 80 percent of gamer parents say they play video games with their kids. Sixty-six percent feel that playing games has brought their families closer together.

- In 2005, 25 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.

re: Interns create game for XBox 360 and questions about Second Life

HeatherLeigh — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:19:13 GMT

Lauren - what I found most interesting about your response was your interpretation of my question (which I had a hard time spitting out). It wasn't necessarily whether you would go there to check out a product, but would you go there as something other than part of your job; other than using it as a tool to market to people; would you go there for some personal reason at all? But your interpretation of the question is really interesting bc I had not thought about people going there to check out a product. I was just wondering what you would go there for on any personal level. Now I know that your answer is not much. I agree with you that First Life is pretty great. Plus it doens't require a video card.

I do have an avatar set up even though I cna't get in. WOuld still like to at least expeirence it at some point...maybe on someone else's machine...someone more involved in the video world.

re: Interns create game for XBox 360 and questions about Second Life

Lauren Smith — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:02:14 GMT

My brother in law is the VP of a small LCD monitor OEM and he was asking me about Second Life a few months ago before Linden launched their Japanese division. His opinion was that it was important to at least have a foot in the door in case Second Life became an important medium. The damage that a small company like his would incur if they missed out on a new market would be pretty significant, especially if a competitor was able to gain a lot of mindshare early on.

I'm still of the opinion that as an occasional diversion Second Life might be an enjoyable place to visit, but I prefer my First Life.

I guess the answer to your question, whether I as a consumer would go to Second Life to research a product, is that it depends on the product. The two primary benefits of Second Life are the ability to interact with salespersons in a virtual setting and the 3-dimensional representation of the world.

A normal website provides one-way information flow. The user is responsible for figuring out the information he wants and the website can only provide the appropriate information. Some technologies can attempt to anticipate the user's requests, but computer programs are a far cry from actual humans when it comes to intuiting customer needs.

Also a website is flat. While there are technologies that allow a semi-3-dimensional view of products, Second Life builds the entire Linden world around it. Being able to look at a 3-d representation of a product, to walk around it (in the case of a car) or to take a tour of it (in the case of, say, Microsoft's campus or an apartment) is a huge improvement over looking at a normal website.

They don't replace the actual experience of interacting with humans or touching and seeing with your own eyes the product, but it's the next best thing. The question is whether the convenience of doing this at home makes logging onto the Second Life service more attractive than going outside and doing it in real life.

For me, not so much.