Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

An article in Business week talked about a virtual space and whether corporations should invest in shared universes like "Second Life" or build their own proprietary worlds. This new media world was lavished with media coverage, and IBM took an interest in it. Some pros to these virtual worlds is the opportunities it provides people, it can flourish in its own version of freedom to build, create, have fun, and rise to the top. This game has actually been used for business meetings for actual real world businesses. One drawback is that this "character" would have no more personality than a robot of sorts.
People who have avators make their second lives whatever they choose, and virtual worlds offer a way of testing new ideas more freely.""We can and should view synthetic worlds as essentially unregulated playgrounds for economic organization." - Edward Castronova (Professor@ IndianU)


http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm