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IBM launches product for virtual commerce

With so many gamers earning real money playing online games like Everquest, Ultima Online, and (my favourite) Second Life, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the big blue is trying to get a piece of the virtual action. IBM has introduced an e-commerce server named Business Integration for Games, or BIG, to help game publishers (and players) set up shop in virtual worlds.

It’s not clear to me what BIG offers that the in-game economy and transaction accounting doesn’t offer already. In Second Life, for example, lots of players already run businesses and earn real money.

(Note: Second Life isn’t mentioned in the text of the article, but if you click the images, there’s a screenshot and caption.)

Link: Wire News: Interreality Business Machines

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They’re giving Bill a knighthood

How did I miss this one? I must have had my head buried in the snow.

Apparently the Queen will be knighting Bill Gates. He will be a knight. A knight! I can just imagine the ceremony… “Ride forth, O Geek Knight through the Gaping Holes of Windows Security and smite the vile e-mail worm!”

I have no intelligent comment on this at the moment because I’m still agog at the absurdity of this. Agog!

Link: The Seattle Times: Bill Gates to recieve honorary knighthood

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Virtual currency exchange opens

BBC News posted a blurb about the Gaming Open Market, a currency exchange for virtual currencies used in online games. On this site, you can trade US dollars for currencies in The Sims Online, Ultima Online, There, Second Life, and others.

Regular readers of my blog know that I’m hopelessly addicted to a metaverse game called Second Life. After four months of building and selling vehicles in the game, I’m comfortably well-off now — within the Second Life metaverse. But let’s just see how much that gets me in the real world…

Hmm… at an exchange rate of 0.0026 USD to the Linden Dollar, I’d get… $195. That means that playing this game could make me an average monthly salary of $48.75. Hey, that’s enough to cover the cost of playing and buy me a fast-food lunch or two.

I don’t think I’m ready to quit my day job.

Link: BBC News: Virtual cash exchange goes live

(As an aside, the BBC article features a screenshot of “There”, a chat game, with the caption, “Second Life is about meeting and greeting”. Just so you know, unlike “There”, Second Life is not primarily about meeting and greeting. It’s about building and scripting.)

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Confused ducks skidding across the ice

Yes, 2004 has lumbered into our lives. It looks a lot like 2003, but for the top story of the week. It’s an event so bizarre for this town that it makes banner headlines on the Vancouver Sun: “Brrr! More snow, cold weather ahead“.

The words strike fear into the hearts of all Vancouver residents. Peering through the blinds, they see something bizarre happening in the street. Pools of water have changed their form from a liquid to a solid! Cars slide helplessly into other cars, and small children fall over randomly. The very laws of physics have been turned upside down.

There’s more. Meteorologists predict that soon there will be snow falling — snow! And not just a dusting, but thirty centimeters!! The city, with only a handful of snow plows, will be rendered helpless.

The worst of it: ducks are thrown into disarray: “At Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park, confused ducks coming in for a landing could be seen skidding along the icy surface,” says the Vancouver Sun.

Please send help. Think of the ducks. Please, think of the ducks.