Do you find your life just a little bit boring at times? Do you want to build a business empire? Fly over mountains? Defeat monsters with a magic sword? And all without leaving your room?
Those experiences are just a mouse-click away in the wild world of virtual1 realities. Today, virtual communities beckon2 millions of people—kids, teens, and adults—to live out3 their fantasies in an electronic parallel universe.
Don’t believe it? Just ask Nick Petrizzi. Nick is a 12-year-old Connecticut boy who doesn’t seem to have magic powers. But put him in front of his computer and he becomes an avatar4, a virtual reality character he created. Nick has entered the world of RuneScape, one of many massively5 multiplayer online role-playing6 games. RuneScape creates a virtual world filled with monsters to kill, quests7 to complete, and treasures to find. Players from all over the world, in their avatar forms, meet to battle and trade with each other as they advance through the game’s levels. “The fun is trying to get your game levels up,” Nick says. “It’s also fun to meet new players.”
Everyone who plays RuneScape knows it’s only a game. But Second life, created by San Francisco’s Linden Lab, takes the cyberexperience8 to another level. Second Life is a three-dimensional9 online society that has more than 1.3 million people around the world playing it. Once subscribers10 set up their avatars in Second Life, they can travel the world, buy virtual fashions, go on virtual vacations, build up virtual businesses—just about anything people can do in the real world. Avatars even sell things to make real money. According to CBS News, more than 100 people now earn fulltime livings selling virtual land, clothing, jewelry, weapons, and pets and offering virtual services in Second Life. Avatars buy and sell using Linden dollars, the currency of the Second Life world, which can be exchanged for real U.S. dollars, so people can make real money. One woman made more than $100,000 by trading and leasing11 valuable land to other avatars in Second Life.
Teen Second Life
In 2005, Linden launched12 Teen Second Life. This virtual world is open to teens ages 13 to 17 who—for a monthly fee of about $10—can hang out13, make friends, listen to music, and shop. It’s much like real life except that in Second Life they can also make movies, establish businesses that can earn real money, design video games, and fly.
“Teen Second Life is a great way for me to escape the real world... and make friends,” says a Teen Second Life resident whose virtual-world name is Aesop Thatch. On a typical day, Thatch says, he might meet up with friends from London and Paris, check out a flea market14, and maybe make a new robot avatar.
Although a virtual world seems to offer people the chance to reinvent15 themselves and change their experiences, most people don’t do that. A study of Second Life, released16 in December by EPN (a Dutch think tank17), showed that most people reproduce their real-world experiences in the virtual world. The study found that people with successful businesses in real life generally become successful businesspeople in Second Life. Avatars with many friends in Second Life also have many friends in real life too.
When Worlds Collide18
Is spending a lot of time in a virtual world harmless fun? Clearly, for some young people, it is not. In July 2006, Europe’s first treatment clinic specializing in computer addiction19 opened in Amsterdam. The Dutch clinic was swamped with20 calls for help from parents and kids around the world. “The phone has been ringing constantly,” Keith Bakker, the American director of the clinic, told The Times of London. “These are perfectly decent21 kids whose lives have been taken over22 by an addiction. Some have given up school so they can live in a virtual world. They have no friends. They don’t speak to their parents.”
How do you know whether you have a problem? The National Institute on Media and the Family says it’s a bad sign when virtual time begins to crowd out23 school, friends, and family. Problems arise when the games begin to control a player’s real life.
“Our industry has always encouraged consumers to enjoy computer or video games just as they would any one leisure activity: responsibly and in moderation as part of a well-rounded24, well-adjusted lifestyle,” Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, told New Jersey’s The Record.
你有时是否觉得生活有些乏味？想建立一个商业帝国吗？想飞越高山吗？想用魔剑打败怪兽吗？而且足不出户就实现这一切？
只要点击一下鼠标，我们就能在虚拟现实的疯狂世界中体验这些经历。如今，虚拟社区召唤着数百万的人——儿童、青少年和成人——投身于一个平行的电子世界去实现他们的幻想。
不相信？去问尼克·佩特里兹就知道了。尼克是一个12岁的康涅狄格州男孩，看上去并没有神奇的本领。可是只要让他坐在电脑面前，他就变成了一个avatar，即他所创造的虚拟现实人物。尼克进入了名为《江湖》的世界，这是众多“大型多人在线角色扮演游戏”中的一种。《江湖》所创造的虚拟世界充满了有待消灭的怪兽、尚未完成的探险以及等待发现的宝藏。来自世界各地的玩家以各自的虚拟角色闯关升级，同时相互厮杀并时有交易。“它的趣味在于努力提升你的游戏级别，” 尼克说，“能结识新玩家也是件乐事。”
每个玩《江湖》的人都知道它只不过是一款游戏。但是，旧金山林登实验室开发的《第二人生》却把网络体验带入了一个新层次。《第二人生》是一个在世界各地拥有超过130万成员的三维在线社团。一旦用户在《第二人生》中设立了自己的虚拟角色，他们就能周游世界，购买虚拟的时装，享受虚拟的度假，建立虚拟的商业机构——如同人们在现实世界中能做的几乎所有事情。虚拟角色甚至可以出售物品以赚取真钱。据美国哥伦比亚广播公司的报道，已经有100多人把《第二人生》游戏作为全职谋生的手段，他们出售虚拟的土地、服装、珠宝、武器和宠物，并提供虚拟的服务。虚拟角色使用《第二人生》游戏世界中的货币“林登币”进行买卖，还可把它兑换成真的美元，所以人们可以赚钱。有一位妇女在《第二人生》通过向其他虚拟角色出售和出租贵重土地而赚到了10多万美金。
《第二人生少年版》
2005年，林登实验室推出了《第二人生少年版》。这个虚拟世界对13至17岁的少年开放，他们只需每月交10美元费用就可在里面聚会、交友、听音乐和购物。它与现实生活非常接近，区别是在《第二人生》中他们还可以制作电影，成立可赚真钱的公司，开发电子游戏，以及飞行。
“《第二人生少年版》对我来说是一个逃避现实世界……也是一个结交朋友的绝好途径，”该款游戏的老玩家、虚拟角色名为伊索·萨奇的男孩说。在虚拟世界的典型一天中，萨奇说，他可能会与来自伦敦和巴黎的朋友碰碰头，到跳蚤市场逛一逛，还可能创造一个新的机器人虚拟角色。
尽管虚拟世界似乎给人们提供了一个重塑自我和改变人生经历的机会，但大多数人并不这样做。十二月由EPN(荷兰的一个智囊机构)发布的一项有关《第二人生》的研究表明，大多数人在虚拟世界中都不过复制了他们在真实世界的经历。研究还发现，现实生活中的商业成功人士在《第二人生》中也通常是成功的商人；在《第二人生》中朋友众多的虚拟角色在现实生活中也拥有很多朋友。
当两个世界发生碰撞
把大量时间花在虚拟世界中是否有趣而无害呢？显然，对一些年轻人来说并非如此。2006年7月，欧洲首家专门治疗电脑沉迷症的诊所在阿姆斯特丹挂牌营业。这家荷兰诊所几乎被来自世界各地的家长和孩子们的求助电话淹没。“电话铃响个不停”，这家诊所的美国主管基思·贝克对伦敦《泰晤士报》说，“他们都是非常正派的好孩子，却因沉迷网络游戏而不能自拔。有些人为了生活在虚拟世界而放弃了学业。他们没有朋友，也不和家长交流。”
如何知道自己是否出了问题？美国媒体与家庭研究所说，当虚拟时间开始把学业、朋友和家人排挤出去的时候，就是一个糟糕的信号。当游戏开始掌控一个人的现实生活时，问题就出现了。
“我们这个行业向来都鼓励消费者像从事任何一种闲暇活动那样去享受电脑或电子游戏：把它们作为一种均衡发展、身心协调的生活方式的一部分，合理地、有节制地享受，”娱乐软件协会主席道格拉斯·鲁温斯坦对新泽西州的《唱片》杂志说。
1. virtual adj. 虚拟的
2. beckon v. 召唤，吸引
3. live out 实现，达到
4. avatar n. 原指印度教中的下凡天神
5. massively adv. 大规模地
6. role-playing 角色扮演
7. quest [kwest] n. 探险；寻找
8. cyber- 前缀：电脑的、网络的
9. three-dimensional adj. 三维的，立体的
10. subscriber n. 订户，用户
11. lease v. 出租
12. launch v. 发起，启动
13. hang out 在某地消磨时间；约会
14. flea market 跳蚤市场
15. reinvent v. 改头换面；重做
16. release v. 发布；发行
17. think tank 智囊团
18. collide v. 碰撞，冲突
19. addiction n. 入迷，上瘾
20. be swamped with 忙得应接不暇；有（收到）大量的
21. decent adj. 正派的；得体的
22. take over 接管
23. crowd out 挤出，驱逐
24. well-rounded 全面发展的