Mike Sellers, CEO and Chief Alchemist of artificial intelligence development company Online Alchemy has a few thoughts on how user created content can and does pose a problem in online worlds like Second Life. In a blog post titled “The Dark Side of User-Created Content” on the blog Terra Nova, Mike explains how user created lands, homes, objects and just about everything else play into the whole feeling of empty space in the online world. The discussion is a bit more technical in nature but with figures and facts to back them he demonstrates pretty easily how someone might get the feeling that playing in a world populated by millions of other players can feel empty.
Its easy to feel alone in Second Life I admit. Especially if you’re not in the “game‘s” virtual communities, but I don’t think thats a factor of custom content so much as just having a huge sandbox to play in. Sellers compares World of Warcraft to Second Life in his post and but I think he misses the key point that SL is not a game per se as much as a graphical chat room.
Do you agree with his assessment?
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