Virtual Fashion Thrives in Second Life

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "The game Second Life — a simulated world with more than 700,000 'residents,' or players, who sometimes refer to their offline existence as their 'first life' — is breeding a virtual world of fashion design, with the same complications as the real world of fashion, the Wall Street Journal reports: 'A continuing headache for many designers is the ease with which others can copy their creations, and several have discovered boutiques that sell knockoffs of their clothes. A well-known Second Life designer was recently accused of stealing skin textures and withdrew from Second Life after receiving harassing messages. Linden says it investigates accusations of design theft, and repeat offenders can have their online accounts closed. Some designers, like DE Designs' Mr. Hester, have taken steps to copyright their work.'"

Copyright?

[gr8_phk]

So real world copyright law will apply in the virtual world. Will real-world designers start to steal from the virtual one? Is that a copyright violation? Hmmm.

Re:btfa

[brunascle]

"We found out pretty quickly that people loved owning things," Ms. Smith says.

i can vouche for that. except, i like to have things that exist in the tangible universe.

free focus groups

[neatfoote]

Seems like real-world clothing manufacturers could easily take advantage of such a system to provide low-cost marketing data. Is someone trying to pitch a potentially risky line of avant-garde designs? Create a quickie virtual mock-up and see whether the Second-Lifers go for it. Overhead is reduced to essentially nil, and you have the added opportunity to create a built-in customer base if you ever do decide to sell the clothing in real life.

Second Life Clothing Market

[RembrandtX]

Well, I have to say it. Not only does second life irritate the CRAP out of me, but its whole 'system' is a mess.

I honestly played second life for like 2 days, to see what all the fuss was about. Not only was the game slow, and unresponsive, but it was dull as shit too.

It was basically a giant SHOPPING MALL. you could go to remote islands, and shop. You could go to the desert, and shop. All the while spending 'real' money for virtual clothes, so other people could watch you 'shop' in style. [As an added bonus, you could sell your virtual life $$ for 'real' money, allowing chinese etc. money laundering and farming.]

You are given an allowance of Lydon(sp) dollars every week. and my first (and only) $250 went to buy a t-shirt that said 'you all suck' on it, of course, I didn't get that .. I instead got a big 'box' hat that covered my little character and said 'sucker' on all sides.

So not only can you SHOP online, but you can get ripped off online too.

The company is just biding its time trying to get series-A funding. Something to drive the price up so the CEO can retire, or sell to warner brothers or something.

Now, its also well known that Second Life has a HUGE gay following, its like .. the video game for folks who are/were/might be coming out soon. So maybe that has something to do with the endless fashion parade. Really, in the end of the day though, not only is this story moot, but second life is moot. Its a failed experiment, pumped up by marketing PR, hoping to last long enough so that the folks who own it don't need to get real jobs. The Sims online, has a larger marketshare, and sony called that game a failure.

Re:much like real life knockoffs

[Overloadplanetunreal]

I believe there is a big difference in the Second Life setting.

In the real world, they're cheap knockoffs. They're made from substandard materials and I'm sure the craftsmanship is not as good. But in a game like Second Life, stealing a texture to use on your own outfit has the SAME quality as the original, so there's no reason for a potential buyer to get the knockoff as opposed to the original.

Re:If they really want this game to succeed

[cowscows]

Second Life is two things basically. On one hand it is a sandbox for people who want to build/create/script/model/texture/whatever. But for a lot of other people, it's just a really fancy chat client. One where you are represented to other people by your customizable avatar. I think most people end up somewhere between the two extremes, it's fun to dabble in making your own clothes or whatever, and you'll learn faster and probably have more fun if you're at least a little bit social.

The neat thing about SL is that you get both of those aspects in one package, so you can sort of float between them at your lesiure. Then add in the fact that a basic, yet very capable SL account is free, and they've ended up with a decently sized userbase, and a solid in-game economy.