Virtually Homeless
At some stage in the very near future the clip you see above will be all that remains of my island in SecondLife. Just this weekend I caught word that the company that manages the estate that the Isle of Zapp is a part of has gone out of business and all properties will be derezzed/deleted shortly.
According to an IM I received last night:
“I can confirm that the [company] is to close forever. please take back all of your items as the sims will start to be taken back by lindens over the next month. Please do not mass IM me as I still do not know all of the answers.”
I have removed reference to the company out of courtesy to them. Rumor has it that unfortunate circumstances befell one of the key staff members and it was not their desire to close up shop - they just had no alternative.
I’ve begun to delete much of the stuff I don’t want to keep, rather than have it suddenly start clogging up my inventory when the island disappears. After all, much of what had been included on the island were default inventory items, and I still have the original copy.
While it is sad to lose the island, there are people who are far worse off than I as the result of this news. I had not embraced the opportunities of residing on this much space nearly as much as others, who undoubtedly put in countless hours building up their little piece of virtual paradise - only to have it disappear in a poof of smoke.
For example there are people I know who started up online businesses, built impressive office spaces and had big plans for their virtual spaces. Now they’re back at square one, facing the prospect of building up everything all over again. Yes you can take copies of everything you build and replicate it elsewhere, but you can’t ignore the fact an experience like this plants the seed of doubt in your mind: “How do I know this won’t happen again somewhere else? Should I even bother putting in the work again?”
It seems virtual spaces have even more in common with real life than I previously thought. Banks go bankrupt; families lose their homes and businesses; people are left to pick up the pieces and slowly come to terms with the implications. Fortunately in a virtual world losing your home doesn’t mean you sleep on the street; you just fly across the sea to an island inhabited by a giant purple watermelon and carry your home with you.
October 13th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
This is why the members should own the platforms that they use. Like at Rotary. We own our lectern, our gavel, all of our property. What we don’t own, we rent or lease, which allows us all the rights that we would usually have under ownership.
artie
http://foc08-artie.blogspot.com/
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