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翻译：思苇
从QQ、论坛、网上社区到大型网游，大多数人对虚拟货币或虚拟生活都不会感到陌生。但最近，有一个社区正在尝试打通虚拟和现实之间的高墙，玩游戏不再是荒废时光，居民在娱乐中找到真正的机遇。以下，就让人物“罗布”带大家游览这片神奇之地吧—
Scene 1: Anshe Chung and Her World
As I step onto the wood floor of the peaceful Chinese house, a fountain gurgles[作汩汩声] softly and a light breeze stirs[摇动] the curtain in a doorway. With a stylish blue and purple dress, Anshe Chung waves me to a seat at a table set with bowls of white rice and cups of green tea. I’m here to ask her about her booming[急速发展的] land development business, which she has built from nothing two years ago to an operation of 17 people around the world today. As we chat, her story sounds like a typical tale of entrepreneurship[企业家的能力].
Except I’ve left out one small detail: Chung’s land, her beautiful home, the steam rising from the teacups-they don’t exist. Or rather, they exist only as pixels[象素] dancing on the computer screens of people who inhabit the online virtual wonderland called Second Life. Anshe Chung is an avatar[化身], or online virtual character, created by a Chinese-born language teacher living near Frankfurt, Germany. And the sitting room in which Chung and my avatar “Rob Cranes”exchange messages is just one scene in a vast online world operated by Second Life’s creator, Linden Lab of San Francisco. Participants launch[安装] the software on their personal computers, log in, and then use their mice and keyboards to roam[漫步] endless landscapes, chat with friends, create virtual homes on virtual land, and maybe come across real possibilities.
Scene 2: Linden Dollar for Real
The avatar named Anshe Chung may be a computerized character, but the company she represents is far from imaginary. Second Life participants pay “Linden dollars,”the game’s currency[货币], to rent or buy virtual land from Chung so they have a place to build and show off their creations. But players can convert[兑换] the play gains into U.S. dollars, recently at about 271 to one real dollar, by using their credit card at online currency exchanges. Chung’s firm now has virtual land and currency holdings worth about US $250,000. To handle rapid growth, she just opened a real office in Wuhan, China. According to Chung, “this virtual role-playing economy is so strong that it now has to import[引入] skill and services from the real-world economy.”
Oh yes, this is seriously weird[怪异的]. Even Chung sometimes thinks this is too hard to believe, but by the time I visited her house, I already knew that something a lot stranger than fiction[小说] was unfolding[展开], some offspring[产物] of the movie The Matrix, the social networking site MySpace.com, and the online marketplace eBay. And it was growing like crazy, from 20,000 people a year ago to more than 2.3 million today.
Scene 3: The Meaning of Creation
Second Life is one of the many multiplayer online games that are booming in popularity these days. All told, at least 10 million people pay $15 and up a month to play these games, and maybe 20 million more log in once in a while. Just like eBay founder Pierre M. Omidyar says, “This generation that grew up on video games is blurring[模糊] the lines between games and real life.”
Second Life hurls[猛投] all this to the extreme end of the playing field. In fact, it’s hard to call it a game because the residents, as players prefer to be called, create everything. Unlike other virtual worlds, Second Life’s technology lets people create objects like clothes or storefronts[店面] rather than simply get ready-made outfits[装备]. That means residents can really build anything they can imagine.
You might wonder what’s the point? Well, for one, it’s a real form of entertainment and personal fulfillment, and the growing appeal also reflects[反映] a new model for media entertainment that the Net first kicked off: don’t just watch -do something. “They all feel like they’re creating a new world, which they are,”says Linden Lab Chief Executive[总裁] Philip Rosedale.
Besides, in one important way, this virtual stuff isn’t imaginary at all. In November 2003, Linden Lab made a policy change unprecedented[空前的] in online games: it allowed Second Life residents to retain[保留] full ownership of their virtual creations. The idea of property rights in the virtual world made for a thriving[兴旺的] market. Programmer Nathan Keir in Australia, for example, created a game played by avatars inside Second Life that’s so popular he’s licensed[许可] it to a publisher, who’ll soon release it on real video game players and cell phones.
This virtual world may end up playing an even more important role ?as far more direct portals[入口] into the vast resources of the entire[全部的] Internet. Some thinkers suggest Second Life could even challenge Microsoft’s Windows operating system as a way to more easily create entertainment and business software and services.
Scene 4: Rob Crane and His Ego
After all my travels around Second Life, it seems clear that virtual worlds really offer a way of testing new ideas more freely than ever. Or maybe a little too free. Logging in to Second Life after a few days off, I found someone has built some buildings on my avatar Rob Cranes’s land. This causes Rob Cranes to blow a fuse[勃然大怒]. He immediately sends an angry e-mail complaint to Linden Lab and deletes[删除] the buildings, planting some trees in their place.
At first, I wonder why I have such a reaction to this virtual intrusion[侵入]. Then a flush of[感情迸发] parental pride washes over me: my avatar, which so far has acted much like me, suddenly is taking on a life of his own. Who will my alter ego[个性的另一面] turn out to be? I don’t know yet. And maybe that’s the best thing about virtual worlds. Unlike in the real world, we can make of our second lives whatever we choose.
场景一：钟安社，她的世界
当我踏上这所宁静的中式房子的木地板时，小喷泉正轻轻地哼着歌，微风摇曳着门口的帘子。钟安社（音译）穿着时尚的蓝紫色裙子，招呼我到桌子前坐下，桌上还放着两碗白米饭和两杯绿茶。我来这里是为了采访她那迅速发展的房地产生意，她在两年前白手起家，如今她的公司已经招了17名来自世界各地的员工。随着我们交谈的深入，她的故事听起来简直就像一段典型的企业家奋斗史。
但我其实省略了一个小细节：钟安社的土地、她美丽的家园和茶杯上升起的缕缕热气—它们都不是真实存在的。或者应该说，它们仅仅以象素图的形式存在于人们的电脑屏幕上，这些人居住在一个名为《第二人生》的网上虚拟乐园。钟安社是一个“人物”—也就是网上虚拟角色—创造她的是一位住在德国法兰克福附近的华裔语言教师。而她和我的化身“罗布·克兰斯”互发短信息的起居室只不过是在线社区的小小一幕，这个无比广大的《第二人生》世界由其创造者—位于旧金山的林登实验室公司进行操控。玩家在个人电脑上安装该软件，登陆进去，然后就可以通过鼠标和键盘徜徉于无穷无尽的美丽风景，与朋友谈天说地，在虚拟土地上创造自己的虚拟家园，还可能遇到真正的商机。
场景二：林登币，不止虚拟
名叫钟安社的人物也许只是一个电脑角色，但她背后的公司并不是虚构的。《第二人生》的参与者以游戏的货币“林登币”进行交易，向钟安社租用或购买虚拟土地来建造自己的地方，炫耀自己的创造物。但玩家还可以通过信用卡的网上兑换业务将自己的游戏所得兑换成美金，最近的汇率大约为271:1。她的公司现在便拥有价值25万美元的虚拟土地和货币。为了应对如此迅速的业务发展，她刚刚在中国武汉设立了一个真的办公室。据她说，“这种虚拟的角色扮演经济实在太强大了，现在必须引入真实世界的经济技能和服务才能应付得过来”。
哦是的，这确实非常神奇。连钟安社有时也觉得这一切太难以置信了。但在我到她家拜访的时候，我知道一件比虚构小说还稀奇的事情已经发生了，这是电影《黑客帝国》、社交网站“我的空间”（MySpace）和网上购物商场“易趣网”（eBay）的综合产物。这个世界在疯狂地发展壮大，从一年前的两万人到今天超过230万的玩家。
场景三：创造力，价值体现
《第二人生》是现在非常流行的多人在线游戏之一。据说至少有一千万人花上15美元以及长达一个月的时间来玩这类游戏，可能还有超过两千万人偶尔登陆玩一下。正如易趣网的创立者皮埃尔·M·奥米德亚所说：“这一代人在游戏中长大，对游戏和现实生活的界线已经模糊不清。”
这种情况在《第二人生》里达到了极致。事实上，已经很难将它称为一个“游戏”了，因为居民们—玩家更喜欢用这个叫法—才是一切事物的造物主。不像别的虚拟世界，《第二人生》的技术让人们可以自行创造出如衣服和店面之类的物品，而不是仅仅拿到现成的装备。那就意味着居民们可以真的做出任何他们能想到的东西。
你也许会不明白—这有什么意义呢？首先，这确实是一种很好的娱乐方式，会带来一种真实的个人成就感，这种不断增长的吸引力也体现了媒体娱乐中的一种新模式，而这种模式又是由网络首先激发的：别光顾着看，做点事情吧。“他们都觉得自己正在创造一个新世界，而事实正是如此，”林登实验室的总裁菲利普·罗斯戴尔这样说道。
除此以外，从一个重要方面来说，这个虚拟的玩意儿并不是都在闹着玩的。早在2003年11月，林登实验室便在网上游戏的规则上作了一次前无古人的改变：它允许《第二人生》的居民保留他们的虚拟创造的所有权。虚拟世界财产权这个概念马上给市场带来极大的繁荣—例如澳大利亚电脑程序员内森·基尔设计了一个给《第二人生》里的人物玩的游戏，这个游戏实在太受欢迎了，于是他将游戏授权给一个发行商，后者很快会将这个游戏发布在真正的游戏机和手机平台上。
这个虚拟世界最终还可能担当一个更重要的角色—它将成为一个更直接的入口，由此通往整个互联网的广阔资源。部分思想家认为《第二人生》以后甚至可能会给微软的Windows操作系统带来挑战，因为在这里更容易自行创造娱乐以及工作的软件和服务。
场景四：罗布，新的自我
当我在《第二人生》中游历了一遍之后，虚拟世界似乎确实为各种新想法提供了一个比以往更自由的试练方式。也可能有点过于自由了。几天后我登陆进《第二人生》，发现有人在我的化身罗布·克兰斯的土地上建了几栋大厦。这让罗布顿时勃然大怒。他马上发了一封恼火的电子邮件，向林登实验室投诉了这件事，然后把那里的大楼全部删掉，在原来的地方种了几棵树。
一开始，我不明白自己为什么会对一个虚拟的侵入行为有这么大的反应。然后，一种父亲般的骄傲涌遍我的全身：到刚才为止还像我一样行事的化身，突然有了他自己的生命。我个性的另一面会是怎样的呢？我现在还不知道—也许这才是虚拟世界最棒的地方。不像在现实世界，我们可以自行选择如何度过第二人生。
从QQ、论坛、网上社区到大型网游，大多数人对虚拟货币或虚拟生活都不会感到陌生。但最近，有一个社区正在尝试打通虚拟和现实之间的高墙，玩游戏不再是荒废时光，居民在娱乐中找到真正的机遇。以下，就让人物“罗布”带大家游览这片神奇之地吧—
Scene 1: Anshe Chung and Her World
As I step onto the wood floor of the peaceful Chinese house, a fountain gurgles[作汩汩声] softly and a light breeze stirs[摇动] the curtain in a doorway. With a stylish blue and purple dress, Anshe Chung waves me to a seat at a table set with bowls of white rice and cups of green tea. I’m here to ask her about her booming[急速发展的] land development business, which she has built from nothing two years ago to an operation of 17 people around the world today. As we chat, her story sounds like a typical tale of entrepreneurship[企业家的能力].
Except I’ve left out one small detail: Chung’s land, her beautiful home, the steam rising from the teacups-they don’t exist. Or rather, they exist only as pixels[象素] dancing on the computer screens of people who inhabit the online virtual wonderland called Second Life. Anshe Chung is an avatar[化身], or online virtual character, created by a Chinese-born language teacher living near Frankfurt, Germany. And the sitting room in which Chung and my avatar “Rob Cranes”exchange messages is just one scene in a vast online world operated by Second Life’s creator, Linden Lab of San Francisco. Participants launch[安装] the software on their personal computers, log in, and then use their mice and keyboards to roam[漫步] endless landscapes, chat with friends, create virtual homes on virtual land, and maybe come across real possibilities.
Scene 2: Linden Dollar for Real
The avatar named Anshe Chung may be a computerized character, but the company she represents is far from imaginary. Second Life participants pay “Linden dollars,”the game’s currency[货币], to rent or buy virtual land from Chung so they have a place to build and show off their creations. But players can convert[兑换] the play gains into U.S. dollars, recently at about 271 to one real dollar, by using their credit card at online currency exchanges. Chung’s firm now has virtual land and currency holdings worth about US $250,000. To handle rapid growth, she just opened a real office in Wuhan, China. According to Chung, “this virtual role-playing economy is so strong that it now has to import[引入] skill and services from the real-world economy.”
Oh yes, this is seriously weird[怪异的]. Even Chung sometimes thinks this is too hard to believe, but by the time I visited her house, I already knew that something a lot stranger than fiction[小说] was unfolding[展开], some offspring[产物] of the movie The Matrix, the social networking site MySpace.com, and the online marketplace eBay. And it was growing like crazy, from 20,000 people a year ago to more than 2.3 million today.
Scene 3: The Meaning of Creation
Second Life is one of the many multiplayer online games that are booming in popularity these days. All told, at least 10 million people pay $15 and up a month to play these games, and maybe 20 million more log in once in a while. Just like eBay founder Pierre M. Omidyar says, “This generation that grew up on video games is blurring[模糊] the lines between games and real life.”
Second Life hurls[猛投] all this to the extreme end of the playing field. In fact, it’s hard to call it a game because the residents, as players prefer to be called, create everything. Unlike other virtual worlds, Second Life’s technology lets people create objects like clothes or storefronts[店面] rather than simply get ready-made outfits[装备]. That means residents can really build anything they can imagine.
You might wonder what’s the point? Well, for one, it’s a real form of entertainment and personal fulfillment, and the growing appeal also reflects[反映] a new model for media entertainment that the Net first kicked off: don’t just watch -do something. “They all feel like they’re creating a new world, which they are,”says Linden Lab Chief Executive[总裁] Philip Rosedale.
Besides, in one important way, this virtual stuff isn’t imaginary at all. In November 2003, Linden Lab made a policy change unprecedented[空前的] in online games: it allowed Second Life residents to retain[保留] full ownership of their virtual creations. The idea of property rights in the virtual world made for a thriving[兴旺的] market. Programmer Nathan Keir in Australia, for example, created a game played by avatars inside Second Life that’s so popular he’s licensed[许可] it to a publisher, who’ll soon release it on real video game players and cell phones.
This virtual world may end up playing an even more important role ?as far more direct portals[入口] into the vast resources of the entire[全部的] Internet. Some thinkers suggest Second Life could even challenge Microsoft’s Windows operating system as a way to more easily create entertainment and business software and services.
Scene 4: Rob Crane and His Ego
After all my travels around Second Life, it seems clear that virtual worlds really offer a way of testing new ideas more freely than ever. Or maybe a little too free. Logging in to Second Life after a few days off, I found someone has built some buildings on my avatar Rob Cranes’s land. This causes Rob Cranes to blow a fuse[勃然大怒]. He immediately sends an angry e-mail complaint to Linden Lab and deletes[删除] the buildings, planting some trees in their place.
At first, I wonder why I have such a reaction to this virtual intrusion[侵入]. Then a flush of[感情迸发] parental pride washes over me: my avatar, which so far has acted much like me, suddenly is taking on a life of his own. Who will my alter ego[个性的另一面] turn out to be? I don’t know yet. And maybe that’s the best thing about virtual worlds. Unlike in the real world, we can make of our second lives whatever we choose.
场景一：钟安社，她的世界
当我踏上这所宁静的中式房子的木地板时，小喷泉正轻轻地哼着歌，微风摇曳着门口的帘子。钟安社（音译）穿着时尚的蓝紫色裙子，招呼我到桌子前坐下，桌上还放着两碗白米饭和两杯绿茶。我来这里是为了采访她那迅速发展的房地产生意，她在两年前白手起家，如今她的公司已经招了17名来自世界各地的员工。随着我们交谈的深入，她的故事听起来简直就像一段典型的企业家奋斗史。
但我其实省略了一个小细节：钟安社的土地、她美丽的家园和茶杯上升起的缕缕热气—它们都不是真实存在的。或者应该说，它们仅仅以象素图的形式存在于人们的电脑屏幕上，这些人居住在一个名为《第二人生》的网上虚拟乐园。钟安社是一个“人物”—也就是网上虚拟角色—创造她的是一位住在德国法兰克福附近的华裔语言教师。而她和我的化身“罗布·克兰斯”互发短信息的起居室只不过是在线社区的小小一幕，这个无比广大的《第二人生》世界由其创造者—位于旧金山的林登实验室公司进行操控。玩家在个人电脑上安装该软件，登陆进去，然后就可以通过鼠标和键盘徜徉于无穷无尽的美丽风景，与朋友谈天说地，在虚拟土地上创造自己的虚拟家园，还可能遇到真正的商机。
场景二：林登币，不止虚拟
名叫钟安社的人物也许只是一个电脑角色，但她背后的公司并不是虚构的。《第二人生》的参与者以游戏的货币“林登币”进行交易，向钟安社租用或购买虚拟土地来建造自己的地方，炫耀自己的创造物。但玩家还可以通过信用卡的网上兑换业务将自己的游戏所得兑换成美金，最近的汇率大约为271:1。她的公司现在便拥有价值25万美元的虚拟土地和货币。为了应对如此迅速的业务发展，她刚刚在中国武汉设立了一个真的办公室。据她说，“这种虚拟的角色扮演经济实在太强大了，现在必须引入真实世界的经济技能和服务才能应付得过来”。
哦是的，这确实非常神奇。连钟安社有时也觉得这一切太难以置信了。但在我到她家拜访的时候，我知道一件比虚构小说还稀奇的事情已经发生了，这是电影《黑客帝国》、社交网站“我的空间”（MySpace）和网上购物商场“易趣网”（eBay）的综合产物。这个世界在疯狂地发展壮大，从一年前的两万人到今天超过230万的玩家。
场景三：创造力，价值体现
《第二人生》是现在非常流行的多人在线游戏之一。据说至少有一千万人花上15美元以及长达一个月的时间来玩这类游戏，可能还有超过两千万人偶尔登陆玩一下。正如易趣网的创立者皮埃尔·M·奥米德亚所说：“这一代人在游戏中长大，对游戏和现实生活的界线已经模糊不清。”
这种情况在《第二人生》里达到了极致。事实上，已经很难将它称为一个“游戏”了，因为居民们—玩家更喜欢用这个叫法—才是一切事物的造物主。不像别的虚拟世界，《第二人生》的技术让人们可以自行创造出如衣服和店面之类的物品，而不是仅仅拿到现成的装备。那就意味着居民们可以真的做出任何他们能想到的东西。
你也许会不明白—这有什么意义呢？首先，这确实是一种很好的娱乐方式，会带来一种真实的个人成就感，这种不断增长的吸引力也体现了媒体娱乐中的一种新模式，而这种模式又是由网络首先激发的：别光顾着看，做点事情吧。“他们都觉得自己正在创造一个新世界，而事实正是如此，”林登实验室的总裁菲利普·罗斯戴尔这样说道。
除此以外，从一个重要方面来说，这个虚拟的玩意儿并不是都在闹着玩的。早在2003年11月，林登实验室便在网上游戏的规则上作了一次前无古人的改变：它允许《第二人生》的居民保留他们的虚拟创造的所有权。虚拟世界财产权这个概念马上给市场带来极大的繁荣—例如澳大利亚电脑程序员内森·基尔设计了一个给《第二人生》里的人物玩的游戏，这个游戏实在太受欢迎了，于是他将游戏授权给一个发行商，后者很快会将这个游戏发布在真正的游戏机和手机平台上。
这个虚拟世界最终还可能担当一个更重要的角色—它将成为一个更直接的入口，由此通往整个互联网的广阔资源。部分思想家认为《第二人生》以后甚至可能会给微软的Windows操作系统带来挑战，因为在这里更容易自行创造娱乐以及工作的软件和服务。
场景四：罗布，新的自我
当我在《第二人生》中游历了一遍之后，虚拟世界似乎确实为各种新想法提供了一个比以往更自由的试练方式。也可能有点过于自由了。几天后我登陆进《第二人生》，发现有人在我的化身罗布·克兰斯的土地上建了几栋大厦。这让罗布顿时勃然大怒。他马上发了一封恼火的电子邮件，向林登实验室投诉了这件事，然后把那里的大楼全部删掉，在原来的地方种了几棵树。
一开始，我不明白自己为什么会对一个虚拟的侵入行为有这么大的反应。然后，一种父亲般的骄傲涌遍我的全身：到刚才为止还像我一样行事的化身，突然有了他自己的生命。我个性的另一面会是怎样的呢？我现在还不知道—也许这才是虚拟世界最棒的地方。不像在现实世界，我们可以自行选择如何度过第二人生。