Second Life—the online world once considered the hottest destination on the internet—never got much past a million users. But its creators think virtual-reality headsets could help give it a new lease of life.
Linden Lab, the San Francisco company behind the 12-year-old role-playing game, is planning to release a similar title that will work with virtual-reality (VR) goggles like the Oculus Rift. Codenamed Project Sansar, it will begin testing with a handful of players in the coming days. The company hopes to have an alpha version available by the time Facebook-owned Oculus launches its consumer headset early next year, and to commercially release the game before the end of 2016.
Some of Sansar’s rules will be slightly different, and the immersive VR graphics will be far superior (though it will still work on regular computers and mobile devices too). But like Second Life, Sansar isn’t a game with a clear objective. There are no bosses to defeat or princesses to rescue. The goal is to reach not a million users, but “tens, if not hundreds, of millions.” Instead, people, playing as virtual representations of themselves, will carry out day-to-day, often fantastical, lives in a made-up world. They’ll explore, socialize, have cybersex, make art, perform, create businesses, build houses, go shopping, pay taxes.
full story Could the Oculus Rift help give Second Life a second life?
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