Second Chance for Second Life?

So there are no more gambling in Second Life.

Somebody tell me what is there left to do in Second Life? Walk around killing creeps? Oh no, there are no creeps in SL. Walk around pk(player killing)-ing? Oh no, you can only say hi to other players, no killing him/her.

Have fun saying hi to each other and probably decorating your virtual house and avatar.

I do not mean to insult the game whatsoever, but I am sure the guys at Linden Labs took the hardest blow in that decision. The USA has outlawed online gambling for close to a year now but the gambling activities were still going on very actively in Second Life. In fact, I raised the same question to Cory Ondrejka, CTO of Linden Labs, when he was in Singapore during Nexus 2007 but he didn’t provide any direct answer to it but giving the hint that the feds were still letting them loose but if they wanted them to change anything, Linden Labs would gladly do so.

And so 3 days ago, they did. And now there’s a huge void in Second Life. All the slot machines, poker tables, etc have been removed from Second Life, which were previously commonly seen on the majority of the virtual real estate. Suddenly it feels empty when I was in yesterday.

I guess the guys at Linden Labs realized that too and now it’s even a bigger challenge to them to find the fun factor in the goal-less MMORPG, considering the fact that a huge majority of the transactions done in-world, which directly translates to revenue for Linden Labs, involve an element of chance (or gambling). They have lost a lot of money in that decision, now it would be a challenge for them not to lose the players.

I would definitely miss the good times laughing at the fishy poker players in Second Life and nothing more as I was only playing for really micro stakes in Second Life just to try out. Anyone wants to buy my Lindens?

Back from Shanghai

This blog hasn’t been updated for awhile. Not that I have lost my passion in blogging, but I would like to blame it partly on Twitter and partly on the fact that I am pretty sick of Wordpress. I have been wanting to redo my blog but haven’t found time.

I am just back from a 10-day business trip in Shanghai. Sek Ling was there with me as well. It was a good experience for me to have witnessed the difference of culture in China and Singapore. Will probably post up some photos soon.

During the time when I was in Shanghai, Straits Times’ Digital Life ran a short article on Ping.sg, with a picture of me and my lappy showing Ping.sg.

The digital copies are here: (thanks to Rinaz for the scan.)

(click on the images to enlarge)

It was fun to get another 15-mins of fame even though I don’t remember saying anything about blind-dating, issues of meritocracy or comparison between multi- and single-authored blogs during the interview with ST’s reporter via email.