Virtual Real Estate

Virtual Real Estate has been a talking point for a while, with artefacts changing hands for what seemed at first like crazy sums of RealMoney.
when you look at the money to be made and the planning that has gone into a deal like the buying of this island, however, you can t help but admire the savvy.
the mention later of an in-game space station being turned into a nightclub/record shop seems a similar stroke of 'i get it' genius.
i wonder how long it will be until we have virtual worlds competing for acceptance as valid confederations.
we already have landless groups with real power in the form of corporations.
they too exist over national and ethnic boundaries, forgetting all their differences in pursuit of a common goal.
i can imagine an order of warrior monks in a computer game manifesting in real life as an army of geeks, all hell bent on furthering their in-game temple by whatever in or out game methods seem to best guarantee success.

if its worth real money now, it'll be worth real lives soon, wont it?
if its worth money?
well, it is.
it will be worth lives?
shit, it already is and Qiu Chengwei has already been sentenced to life.

now that's one guy, going a bit mental over a friend's betrayal.
sure.
it could have happened over a case of beer or a guitar in different circumstances.
but it didn't, hey.
that someone is willing to murder over possesions from it points to just how real this virtual world is to some of the people regularly immersed in it.

how long before the natural tendency to organise into groups comes into play?
it already has.
but how long before virtual gangs begin to use real life as their territory, or vise versa?
how long before the online world gets its first real gangsters?
or maybe freedom fighters?
or terrorists?
how long until the american military is playing the game on the clock to keep us all 'safe'?

and then how long until the games incorporate these threads of reality for better storylines?


virtual real estate -this time not even in a game
virtual ad space -selling inch high billboards on a webpage! (the site behind it)
the capture of virtual money thieves
tamagansta- virtual pet ganster





in other news, a memorial service for' richard motherfucking whitely, bitch' is this afternoon.
take a moment.