Electronics Arts is investing in online gaming, but Chief Executive Larry Probst said on Monday not to expect the world’s biggest video game publisher to emulate Second Life’s virtual world.
“Second Life is a pretty adult product with some unusual adult content. We are not going to go there,” Probst said at an investor conference in San Francisco on Monday.
Play on Second Life, from San Francisco’s Linden Lab, has a lot in common with “The Sims,” one of EA’s best-selling game franchises. Players in both virtual worlds build characters, known as avatars, who own virtual property, erect homes and conduct online lives.
That’s about where the similarities end.
While scrappy Sims players can build, share and apply homemade nude “skins” to characters and have them rub together like kids play with Barbie and Ken, Second Life players don’t stop at heavy petting.
Second Life, which is open to the 18 and older crowd, boasts red-light sections and gives players free rein to endow avatars with a cornucopia of private parts and to have them engage in adult activities that would make the traditional video game industry’s rating agency apoplectic.
Update: How crazy does it really get in Second Life. Click here for a dispatch from Reuters’ bureau in SL.
Second Life Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22451128@N0 0/411725442
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5 comments so far
This whole concept of “virtual” sexual coupling seems sooooo sad to me, that I scarcely have words to describe my feelings.
- Posted by RayDO NOT VISIT SECOND LIFE. IT IS A SICK GAME AND A VERY POOR EXCUSE FOR PEOPLE TO DO WHAT THEY WANT AND GET INVOLVED WITH SICK ACTIVITIES.
- Posted by lauraSTICK TO SIMS AND OTHER CHAT GAMES IF YOU WANT TO CHAT TO PPL OR PLAY AS A VIRTUAL CHARACTER. SECONDLIFE IS A SICK SICK GAME AND SHOULD BE BANNED. THERE IS NO REASON FOR IT.
i have been looking for vurtual worlds for my kids to play online so they dont get involved in any of this can you sugest any apart from sims?
- Posted by jessTheres no need to hate secondlife.. iv been playin for a little over a year and yea i have to say its sad the way people obsess over sex in secondlife seriously theres no need for it just cuz its there and u can do it doesnt mean u have to not to mention im sure everyone knows age limit or not underage kids get in. but anyways my point is there are ways to avoid it such as.. not going to the sex sims that should be obvious and maybe its just me but iv never had the issue of people just havin sex in my house.
- Posted by AshaActually, there is a Teen version of Second Life. There are no adults there, and they have their own grid, land, and everything. You will be hard pressed to find any real “nudity”, let alone full blown sex shops, because 1, it’s teens, and 2, of course Linden Labs wouldn’t allow it in a Teen game. Check it out at teen.secondlife.com.
- Posted by Lomoco