Cookie Cutter Crime Wave
by Pixeleen Mistral on 23/10/07 at 11:48 pm
CSI:NY – Massively Repetitious Online Roleplay
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
CSI sims come in packs of 4
Residents braced themselves for a spree of identical crimes scheduled to occur Wednesday, courtesy of CBS television. The lumbering old-media dinosaur will be promoting – on television, no less! – the opportunity for coach potatoes to fire up their computers, download and install a special version of the Second Life client, and play cops in “your world, your imagination”. Or is it now their world, their imagination?
The scale of the endeavor is impressive – there are 440 sims visible on the SL map with “CSI” prefixed names, and the replicated sims are neatly clustered into groups of 4. All this suggests that 110 identical crimes will need investigation tomorrow. It is unclear if the Linden Lab abuse report system will be up to the task – aren’t we are supposed to report crimes via abuse reports? Speculation around the Herald offices was that some bots could be involved in the crime spree – there were a number of suspicious sheep bots named CSI in the people list this weekend.
Some current residents are less than happy with the potential influx of CSI:NY criminals and investigators. Concurrent access to the Lab’s creaking infrastructure has been topping out at around 50,000, and there are questions about how well the metaverse will function with a large population spike.
The environmental impact could be significant – it is possible that the CSI:NY event could add another 20% to the concurrent players, assuming around 20 players per sim. On the other hand, if there are not 20 players per sim, someone at CBS might want to ask if the payoff from this event was worth the expense. At list price, 440 sims comes out to around $700,000 USD – or is there a wholesale discount for these sorts of volumes?
Ramping up for the masses
A few breathless accounts by numerically challenged writers suggest that we will see 1 million new accounts thanks to CSI:NY MROR (Massively Repetitious Online Roleplay) – but for that to work out the sheep herders will need to fill each of the 440 islands with 20 players and turn the islands over about 120 times. If the hype cycles for this event is about 10 days and players spend two hours in the MROR world then they can just make it. If everything goes right. Maybe.
Did the bots commit the crime?
Residents may also wonder what happens after the criminals are brought to justice and players tire of the CSI:NY islands. Are there more mega-promotions coming to keep these identi-sims viable? Or will there be a large land sale that depresses the virtual land market? Perhaps the television sims can be re-purposed as MacDonalds and Starbucks outlets, and improve the metaverse even more.
The CSI:NY experience will also include a special SL client which has a built in web browser. Presumably this is because most people don’t already have a web browser installed on their computer. Oh wait – its 2007 – I guess most people DO have a web browser already. Perhaps CSI:NY viewers aren’t sure how to use the web yet. Still, this could be a good sign – I look forward to a built-in Second Life word processor and spreadsheet program next as part of a new CSI:Accountants television series.
Cocoanut Koala
Oct 24th, 2007
” . . . and play cops in ‘your world, your imagination’. Or is it now their world, their imagination?”
It’s now CBS’s world, CBS’s imagination.
Or maybe it’s ESC’s world, ESC’s imagination.
After all, according to the New York Times, ESC is “the company that builds the fantasy worlds that the Second Life avatars inhabit.”
Amazing how that works. Who knew.
In any case, corporate world, corporate imagination, corporate profits. That is apparently LL’s goal, and has always been.
coco
Alyx Stoklitsky
Oct 24th, 2007
In b4 the asset server shits bricks.
One wonders if there’ll be a ‘furry’ crime.
John Hurliman
Oct 24th, 2007
I think the one million figures were projected based on how many people will be viewing the show followed by some random guesses as to how many people did not already have Second Life but would make the effort to sign up a new account. That doesn’t necessarily imply they would complete the process and download the client and successfully login that night.
Nacon
Oct 24th, 2007
“…aren’t we are supposed to report crimes via abuse reports?”
Ok Pixeleen… let’s calm down…. and slowly, I mean realllly slow…. put the crack and joint down and step away from your computer. Unplug it is for the best.
(duh… csi is full of crap as much as SL Herald is.)
Pavig Lok
Oct 24th, 2007
I’d say you’re right that they got these sims at a discount. The lindens offer bulk discounts to estate owners for one. Secondly I believe most of these sims are void sims. If the prims are divided between each group of four, then each island group probably only reperesents the server resources of a single normal sim. (Void sims are prim poor sims that run on fewer resources, often used for open water or mostly emty land – though Nova Civis Caledon where the new NCI campus is hosted shows how much can be done with a very limited void sim.) Doing something of this size is of course going to leverage economies of scale. I’m looking forward to it opening – my guess is that even if it’s a kindof lame experience, the sheer scale and narrative weight of the link to the csi franchise will make it a pleasant once off evening diversion for sl residents.
Greefin Oh
Oct 24th, 2007
I have to admit, this whole thing is buzzing everywhere. All of a sudden, my non-sl rl friends are asking me questions about Second Life, and wanting to get into the game. And like any good friend, I am slapping them all on the hands, and saying “NO!, Play your WoW! NO! Stick with your 360″.
Of course I can’t stop them all, and some of entered the game. So now I’m walking around teaching them all there is to know about SL, and what they can and can not do.
Oh yeah this is about CSI right? Oh they’ve lost interest in that already. Funny isn’t it?
Tenshi Vielle
Oct 24th, 2007
CSI:NY has over 6 million viewers, and if the ESC gets even half a percent of those viewers, they’re looking to shape up well.
We’ll be manning our battle stations this evening. If you want to come join us in the CSI sims, join any of the Orientations! It’s really quite neat.
Ann Otoole
Oct 24th, 2007
so let’s all invade these sims and make sure all the new residents find out there is more to secondlife than CBS programming. get the right looking people going over there and there should be a lot of noobs following them out of csi land.
shockwave yareach
Oct 24th, 2007
So a bunch of TV viewers will see ads for the CBS sims in SL. Assuming they have computers capable of playing the game, AND interest in gaming, AND can master the controls to do anything inworld, AND have the bandwidth necessary, we may see a surge of… what, a few hundred people? And of those coming in at CBS behest, will even 1/10 hang around for more than a week?
I’m hoping to pick up an island from CBS on the cheap when they abandon half of them. I’m pleased to see someone realize that SL is interactive and not just a static advertising sign. I think it’ll be a plus for SL in the long run. But no, I don’t believe we are about to be swamped with newbies just because CSI mentions SL.
Then again, lots of people believe everything they see in the fictional show is factual, so my last shred of hope for humanity could be misplaced.
DaveOner
Oct 24th, 2007
If a RL corporation fails at using SL to it’s full potential and gets upset you guys talk shit about them. If a RL corporation actually comes up with a creative campaign you complain that it’ll bring too many people to SL and will ruin it.
If it wasn’t for the fact that you guys are definitely not hip by any stretch of the imagination I would think you were some would-be hipster douchebags that don’t shower working at coffee shops while wearing tight ass jeans.
I bet the shower part’s on the money, though.
If you were actually paying attention you’d know this could be a big help to SL as a whole. CBS not believing the “furry whore house” hype that SL has gotten? That’s a huge step in making it legitimate to the mainstream.
Now if only the advertising and new population (most of which will most likely leave once the whole thing is over) could translate into money that goes to better infrastructure for SL…
Kalel Venkman
Oct 24th, 2007
And the next big question is, when the promotion’s over, WHAT HAPPENS TO ALL THOSE SIMS?
Now that they’re bought, will they be repurposed to whatever TV show comes along next? Or will they remain CSI sims? And who’s really the controlling interest here, Warner Brothers or CBS Television (the answer would affect what kind of content we’d expect to see).
Simon Lameth
Oct 24th, 2007
It was murder, *Pause, puts on big sunglasses* on the interent.
^CSI Miami reference.
Prokofy Neva
Oct 25th, 2007
I don’t see how there were more than about 4,000 really at any given time, and I can’t see that they could have surpassed 20,000. In fact, it was probably really more like half that.
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/10/watching-the-de.html
Lewis Nerd
Oct 25th, 2007
“After all, according to the New York Times, ESC is “the company that builds the fantasy worlds that the Second Life avatars inhabit.”
“THE” company? Try telling that to the hundreds of other developers listed in the directory, like myself, who can work for a fraction of the price of ESC and, in many cases, probably provide a better end result.
Lewis
Stone Culdesac
Oct 25th, 2007
The episode was very good, I thought, the handling by the sheep sucked, the sim I was on, only a few people actually showed up because they downloaded the SL viewer, the OnRez browser could not be downloaded for a good while. An hour or so later some newbies showed up and we tried to help some of them, with no ESC avatars or helpers to be found anywhere. We couldn’t download the toolbar and none of the sim, that we tried, worked properly. I would say this was a big bust compared to what they thought would happen, otherwise, someone would be trumpeting how well everything went.
shockwave yareach
Oct 25th, 2007
You’d think that the sheep would have someone on the payroll who has nothing to do with the build, and is told to “try it” so the problems can be exposed early.
Yeah, that note about “THE” company was a wee bit strong to me, too.