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33 CommentsStudy finds that women are less clothed than men, virtually speaking
By Dave Tach on Dec 27, 2012 12.27.12
Canadian researchers studying Second Life have found that virtual women avatars wear less clothing on average than their male counterparts, according to a study published on Plos One. Virtually Naked: Virtual Environment Reveals Sex-Dependent Nature of Skin Disclosure covered "humanoid avatars that were not covered by fur"(read: no Furries) in Linden Lab's online virtual world. By comparing the amount of skin showing on 404 avatars, Anna M. Lomanowska and Matthieu J. Guitton found that"virtual females disclose substantially more naked skin than virtual males." The researchers propose several explanations for the findings, including "implicit cultural influences on skin disclosure" that carry over from the real world into Second Life. Other theories include a desire on the part of the...
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2 CommentsPoking the box: Why Linden Lab creates shared creative spaces
By Dave Tach on Oct 12, 2012 10.12.12
Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab, is proud that his company doesn’t create content. Most games are stories. There’s a beginning, middle, and an end. Link begins as a powerless boy and, over the course of many hours and dungeons, he gains abilities, overcomes challenges, and saves the world. So does Kratos. So does Snake. Linden Lab does it differently. The developer, known best for Second Life, builds sandboxes not unlike the Metaverse in author Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. There’s an architecture to the online world, and a set of rules governing the digital reality. Everything else that happens there is up to its inhabitants. "We don't make the content." Linden Lab has poured it’s creative energies into Second Life and little else for many years. When Humble became Linden...
