A Question of Taste

Posted by Mike Walsh

1/11/08 5:19 AM

questionoftasteIt's a sign that the virtual is becoming mainstream when the worst aspects of reality begin to manifest. In this case - a sub prime worthy credit crunch in Second Life, forcing the benevolent dictators at Linden Labs to take a stronger hand on regulating banking in the game. But as I found out yesterday, real world irritations are not just limited to finance scams.

After a long hiatus, I teleported onto a block of land I had bought on Dreamland some time ago. Dreamland is a managed sim owned by virtual real estate mogul Anshe Chung. Anshe had sold it to me personally, back in the days before she had achieved front cover of Time magazine fame and liked to joke around with her clients in her dry ironic way. Realising I had left this prime island plot empty for too long I opened my building inventory and dropped a structure in place.

My neighbors, used to an unimpeded view of the simulated sunset were not amused. A barrage of abusive in game messages quickly followed, including one from an administrator who protested that my futuristic modernist structure was a violation of 'island living' zoning regulations. In other words, not faux Moroccan. My protest that my new home was in the spirit of Brasilia's Oscar Niemeyer fell on deaf eyes. So much for playing at Howard Roark. It seems that the future of virtual living is still well and truly in the Rococo style.

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