• Wired, Wednesday, February 8, 2006 10:31 AM

When The Legend of Zelda, the first major role playing video game, was released about twenty years ago, no one would have thought that by 2006 gamers would actually be able to earn a living off their virtual second lives by selling virtual goods in a growing and maturing virtual economy. Meet Jennifer Grinnell, a one-time furniture delivery dispatcher in Michigan who recently transformed herself into a top fashion designer in the massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) Second Life. In her shop, Mischief, Grinnell sells digital clothing and "skins," which allow users to change the appearance of their avatars, or online representations, in a game where users are responsible for creating ALL of the content. Within a month of opening her shop, Grinnell was making more in Second Life than she did in her real-world day job. After three months she was able to quit altogether, now earning four times what she used to. Grinnell isn't the only one: artists, designers, landowners--even currency speculators--are turning Second Life into their primary workplace. One gamer designs virtual objects for real-life organizations like the UC Davis Medical Center, for whom she created a series of virtual clinics to train emergency workers. Said one client, a UC Davis professor: "There are substantial advantages to doing this training in the virtual world." For one thing, it's "incredibly cheaper," he said. Second Life has about 130,000 users; game-maker Linden Lab estimates that nearly $5 million dollars, or about $38 per person, was exchanged in January 2006 alone. Hmmm, now who will set up the first virtual ad agency?

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