Second Life has new competition: First Life
GameSpot has a hilarious tongue-not-so-in-cheek review of Real Life. Reading through it, the review is actually very insightful, and it does touch all of the bases of real life. Thinking of real life as a videogame really does help elucidate some of the finer philosophical points that so many people struggle with. I especially like the following two quotes; they are very apt:
The only problem is you’re relegated to playing as a human character, though the game does randomly choose one of several different races for you (which have little bearing on gameplay and mostly just affect appearances and your standing with certain factions).
Player death is a serious issue in real life, and cause for continued debate among players, who often direct unanswerable questions on the subject to the game’s developers, who are apparently (and understandably) so busy that they generally keep silent.
It is somewhat maudlin to think of “real life player death” as “account expiration”, but it is a useful metaphorical tool to help those grasping with death. And hey, if by the time your account expires, you haven’t wringed every last drop of fun out of the game, then you weren’t playing it correctly.
