The animals of second life: A look at Amaretto Breedable Pets

Do a search of the word Amaretto in second life, and you will find the latest craze in-world.  Amaretto makes virtual animals such as dogs and horses, which act as fully functional pets.  These animals come in all manner of colors and textures, ranging from the realistic to the fantastical.  They range in price from approximately 500 linden dollars to 20,000.  Each animal has a number of stats, such as hunger, happiness, and energy.  Pets must be given adequate food, rest, and attention in order to maintain these stats.  Amaretto sells many toys and food items to assist with maintaining a pet's health and happiness, such as food, salt licks for horses, and balls for dogs to fetch. In addition, pets have a stat called fervor, raised with a special type of food, which determines when they can breed.  Breeding animals with different characteristics can create children with different combinations of those characteristics.  Age is measured in days, with animals becoming adults 7 days after birth, and eventually growing too old to reproduce.  Animals that are not fed can even grow sick, requiring medicine to heal them.

     It is interesting to note that while many residents seem to enjoy buying Amaretto's creations, given the glut of ranches devoted to the task of selling and housing them, they don't seem to spend a lot of time caring for their new pets.  A cursory inspection of many ranches will find an abundance of unhappy, neglected animals, and virtually no residents to speak of.  This is not too great an issue, as pets do not die, regardless of how sick they are.  All things considered, it seems like a pretty good deal.  You get all of the benefits of a virtual best friend, minus the dying, the housebreaking, and the waste disposal.  If this sounds like fun to you, check it out at your nearest amaretto seller today.

Blodgett's model of protest and the EVE online Incarna demonstrations (revision)

Last year, when CCP games released the Incarna expansion to their popular MMORPG, EVE Online, they triggered a wave of protests unlike any the game world had previously seen.  The catalysts for the protests was CCP's decision to replace the old ship hangar interface with one where the player's avatar exited the ship and walked about the station.  This change was too graphically demanding on some user's systems, and interfered with their ability to play the game.  Exacerbating the situation was a new microtransaction model put into place by CCP, in which virtual clothes for avatars were being sold at exorbitant prices.  This played havoc with the in game currency and economy.

     The resulting protests were a unique and interesting event.  In And the Ringleaders Were Banned: An Examination of Protest in Virtual Worlds, by Bridget M. Blodgett, Blodgett classifies protests based upon their degree of virtualization, their legality, their cultural homogeneity, and the limits on participation.  The Incarna protests manifested in the form of violent in game riots.  Thousands of players swarmed two major trade hubs in the game, and proceeded to open fire on two large stations in game bearing large monuments.  The protest is interesting in two ways.  First, it was entirely legal, despite its potential to cause massive disruptions in the game.  The sheer number of players unleashing their weapons in the nodes, which were central trading hubs in the game world, caused large amounts of lag within those nodes.  At several points during the attacks, there were so many people in the zones in question, that other players trying to get in were locked out.  However, the world of EVE is one where the law is usually made by the one with the biggest guns, and in this case, everyone's guns were pointing in the same direction.  It was not a violation of the EULA for players to attack large NPC stations (though a single actor attempting to do so would accomplish little, and be in great peril besides), however, the unprecedented number of players acting in unison caused disruptions to the game's infrastructure.  As all protests occurred online, there were no real world authorities involved, and players had free reign to vent their rage in game.  Also interesting is the homogeneity and unity of purpose present amongst the players in what is otherwise considered to be one of the most merciless, dog-eat-dog MMO's in existence.  These protests forced CCP to do quite a bit of backpedalling, and to reconsider many features of the upcoming expansion.  They also serve to illustrate interesting aspects of Blodgett's models.