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Pontiac's Second Life Experience
Ryan's Second Life character
By Ryan Hornbeck, graduate student
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology
University of Oxford
Editor’s Note: Ryan Hornbeck, a graduate student studying virtual worlds at Oxford University, writes about what Pontiac is doing in Second Life and suggests that an auto racing circuit be added to the island.
It’s no secret that the real world-funded sites in Second Life have not fared so well, at least not when compared with even the least-visited of the top 25 places. After an initial flurry of excitement and a glut of headlines in real world newspapers, most corporate efforts became glittering necropolises crowding the Second Life terrain. At this point I daresay that most seasoned SL residents are even a bit hostile to the majority of fluff and first ever headlines that seem to be stealing attention from the more private and emotional experiences that are making up this new cyborg sociality.
But Pontiac and the people at Millions of Us seem to be on the verge of the most promising corporate effort to date. Pontiac has the wisdom and good fortune to tap into passions that already exist in SL. By giving away land to those who will contribute to a car culture, by hosting weekly live music events, and by generally empowering the nuanced desires of a car-crazy demographic, Pontiac is building a bonfire platform for the somewhat scattered pockets of SL auto racing enthusiasts. But what seems to me to have the most potential by far is the racing platform – and I’m hoping for something with all the accompanying MMORPG (a massively multiplayer online role-playing game is an online computer role-playing game in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world, according to Wikipedia) attributes that will allow users to build social equity. Perhaps something similar in nature to the setups at Samurai Island or Combat Cards.
As a cognitive anthropologist, I’m interested in social interactions of Second Life. And it is here that Pontiac has the opportunity to differentiate itself — wouldn’t it be cool if Pontiac built a raceway that was challenging enough to give gamers an excuse to redirect some of those ungodly hours spent on never-ending-quests or avatar perfection towards racing preeminence? A series of lesser-viewed circuits coupled with a point system could qualify the most skilled drivers for the weekly (monthly, whatever) “Big Race” for a cash prize, however small, and recognition at the after-race concert. Edward Castranova has pointed out that gamers love ranking systems, and as there seems to be no shortage of demand for stages that can deliver social prominence and a chance to appear on SecondCast, I see no reason why another multiplayer Tringo phenomenon couldn’t develop from Pontiac Grand-Prix-style racing. If you really want to display the Solstice, why not as a pace car leading the pack in a sim crammed to capacity?
Posted by Editor on November 28, 2006 10:24 AM
