Second Life, the online game where people get together to role-play alternate digital lives, has long maintained a fully-functioning economy that players use to generate both virtual and real-world money. Naturally, because of this, its audience has replicated just about every aspect of our actual markets, including shops that sell clothes, decorations, housing, and people who provide services like farming for worms or offering virtual sex work to other players.
A recent documentary from People Make Games focuses, presumably because the topic’s a lot more interesting than worm-based agriculture, on this last business through an in-depth look at The Monarchy, Second Life’s “most expensive brothel.”
The video starts by running down how the whole business works. Those who run the digital brothels buy and design in-game real-estate then hire sex workers who interact with clients entirely through their avatars or by sending photos, videos, and turning on their webcams and microphones. Aside from the fact that it takes place within a video game from 2003, it’s all pretty much meant to replicate the real world, including the fact that employees of places like The Monarchy can earn actual money.
What’s most interesting about the video isn’t its explanation of how these businesses work, but host Quintin Smith interviewing The Monarchy’s creator. His Second Life avatar walks through the neon-lit brothel while the two discuss her work. As they talk, blankly-staring characters with evolutionary impossible bodies sway around in canned animations.
By the end of the video, we’ve learned how The Monarchy became so successful, watched Smith’s fully-clothed avatar performing various robotic sex moves in front of an empty couch, and finally gleaned the answer to the ultimate question: “How exactly does semen work in [Second Life?]”
It’s a fascinating look at a subculture within an internet subculture that’s worth checking out. Watch the full video by clicking on over here.
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By the end of the video, we’ve learned how The Monarchy became so successful, watched Smith’s fully-clothed avatar performing various robotic sex moves in front of an empty couch, and finally gleaned the answer to the ultimate question: “How exactly does semen work in [Second Life?]”The ultimate question is actually “How is babby formed in [Second Life?]”
I once ran into the Boy-Mayor of Second Life at a brothel
I hope he convinced you that dogs should vote!
Every time someone writes about Second Life, I’m once again surprised that Second Life is still operating. It feels like the servers should have been shut off ten or fifteen years ago. Side note: back in the day, I interviewed for a job at Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life. Of course the interview was supposed to be in-game, and of course technical issues intervened and we ended up talking on the phone. I made it past that interview, but not the second one, in which a developer noticed that I listed light HTML editing as one of my job skills and decided to spend the entire time dismissively grilling me on my insight into HTML5’s technical specs. Readers, this was for an editing/content management position, and HTML was not one of the requirements – he was just being an asshole. I didn’t get the job, and thank God for that.
It’s funny, because gamers tend to look at Second Life and see an old game with no quests, and wonder how it’s even still around, but SL is booming, and always has been. They make enough money off of Middle Eastern dudes gambling in the weird technically-a-game-of-skill casinos that Second Life will outlive us all, and that’s before you even get to the in-game fashion or sex industries, both of which are quite robust. I’m sure it’s one of the largest economies in gaming.Also, it’s sort of misleading to call it a game from 2003. It’s been through several massive client upgrades, and everything is mesh now. I would kill to have an avatar in any other video game that looked even half as good as my SL avi.
“How exactly does semen work in [Second Life?]”
It’s cumplicated.