Second Life Game

When a friend of ours first mentioned the game "SL", I started laughing; I thought he was just trying to be ironic, since he had been informed of the amount of time we spend on the internet. Nevertheless, he assured us he was being serious: there is this new game that enables internet users to lead a parallel life while on the computer. In exchange for a certain amount of money, anyone can become a member of this community and they can start building a "new" life. From waking up in the morning, taking a shower and driving to work to buying and selling various products, the possibilities are endless. The only thing is, in order to do all this you need to use Linden Dollars, a virtual currency exchangeable for US Dollars. That's right, you get to pay all the commodities that you're not actually going to be able to enjoy by using money you've worked for in your real life. Our friend was saying that one "restaurant owner" sold the place for about $300.000; from all the customers he got, the buyer managed to recover and even surpass his investment in a very short amount of time.

I was, and still am, blown away. Isn't it enough that so many of us list the internet as one of the top addictions, that we have so many attractions that keep us glued to our monitors and that childhood is not what it used to be, as outdoor games are being replaced by CS and other violent computer games? Now we need to find alternatives to escape our own existence? The only one (supposedly) we have? How stupid or desperate are we to pay real life sums for virtual houses and cars? It's just scary...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life