There is a market of WoW characters, in the case that you don’t know. Just look at the advertisements on this and sites that are focused on virtual worlds and avatars. You can make decent income by making, training and building warriors and other beings in World of Warcraft.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe it is out of my horizon, but there is not such a thing as a character market in second life. Correct me if I’m wrong. Gorean markets of slaves doesn’t count. That is different, that is an avatar selling another avatar, his or her slave. What we are talking about now is human selling his avatar.
WoW character is trained one. It has its own abilities and skills. On the other part of the metaverse, what second life character has? Experience. If you go through profile pages, most of the residents say that they are exploring. This is the land of virtual tourists. :)
But we build characters in second life. We even buy them parts, from bodies and skins to almost unimportant attachment that blings sometimes. But that is not what makes an avatar a person. It is not fancy skin and bought animation that makes a good pole dancer. You cannot train a good pole-dancer and than sell it away. One can teach a good couple, both avatar and human, and then send them in the world, but half of character’s experience goes to human part.
I am not sure what percent of the WoW character can live without its human, but I suppose it is more than in second life. World of Warcraft is themed game and it is not so open as SL, so it is easier to measure some parameters of character, and those parameters are affecting the game and the life of avatar. In second life (almost) everything is possible. And that level of both freedom and colorfulness of possibilities is due to symbiosis of human and avatar. Good reading on this issue is Beth Ritter-Guth’s Barbie With Brain research whether dancers with good chatting skill get better tips. And chatting skill you cannot sell on e-bay.
Leave a Reply