Simulated Lives: A Chance to Live

Preface: This was written for a college english course. The majority of information I could find was based out of Second Life specifically, so I am posting it here for others to read. I think a lot of people don't realise what exactly video games and things like Second Life can be beyond the normal experience, at least not very often.

Amber*[1] was once a dancer, dancing both professionally on stage and during her off time in clubs. She was once able to dance for hours, to any music, and loved doing so. For Amber, dancing was life.

Several years ago, that changed. Amber began having problems with movement, often losing her equilibrium and feeling fatigued. She was soon diagnosed with a chronic disorder the slowly began to interrupt every aspect of her life. Amber could no longer work for the theatre she performed at, or anywhere else for that matter, but still had two children to feed and medical costs to pay.

Like many patients of terminal disease or physically debilitating illness, Amber initially became depressed; once she could no longer dance, she seemed to wilt under the pressure of her illness. She no longer felt that she had much of a life, especially since she could barely even take care of her children.

In June of 2003, Amber began what she found to be an acceptable replacement. Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts released a video game, Star Wars Galaxies, that included a set of classes that were geared towards socializing and role players. One of them was a dancer class, with motion captured dancing skills, and Amber was hooked from launch. Aside from gaining in game monetary tips for her work as a dancer, Amber also took up a crafting skill to make her own costumes which lead to an in game store later on. This also would eventually lead her to selling costumes offline for real world use, her main income for quiet some time.

Although it was technically against the End User License Agreement, she would sell off the money she made in game to a resale company for actual US money. As her marriage was coming to a close due to her illness, she found her first means of generating income even when she was too sick to work. While it wasn’t quite enough to make a full time living, it was enough to help her family get by.

In 2004, an innovative game was released by Linden Labs. Unlike the traditional online game, most of the content was to be created by the users themselves, through something known as share sourcing. While Second Life is not exactly a game, as there is technically no way to win, it’s not exactly a chat program either. It is, however, someplace where people can make a living off of virtual goods.
Once she had learned all the tools used to create Second Life content, Amber opened her own ‘clothing’ store. Over the past few years, she has turned her pixilated fashion into a full time living, her real world tailoring becoming the side job. Aside from her business, Amber uses the versatility of Second Life to go out to clubs and dance on a broader level than was ever available elsewhere.

Amber’s story is quickly becoming something common in the online worlds available today. Many terminally ill, physically debilitated and others with chronic medical problems have turned to video gaming – and online gaming in particular – to fill roles they once enjoyed before their illnesses deprived them of such. From young leukemia patients to trauma injured individuals to older people who just no longer are able to get around, virtual worlds bring a whole new level of life that is missing.

Not all of the stories about medically challenged individuals and their rediscovery of life end as happily as Amber’s did. In October of 2007, SL Resident Pixeleen Mistral shared a story about someone she had met in one of the many sailboat racing sims. Mistral’s friend, Djduerrer Zou, was terminally ill though that was a fact Mistral didn’t know at first. Eventually, it came to light, and in her story Mistral described:

DJ was playing a different game, though. For him, Second Life was a way to re-live some of what he was missing in RL - sailing and dancing. On bad days, DJ was probably the slowest typist in the metaverse and would go AFK without warning. This used to drive me nearly crazy. In time I learned the unpredictable disappearances and uneven typing happened because DJ was ill - terminally ill. Second Life was more than an amusement for him - it was an escape. ("Remembering Djduerrer Zou" The Second Life Herald Oct 10, 2007 )

Mistral described what it was like to race sailboats with DJ, how often times he would type very slowly or have to suddenly go away from the keys for long periods of time and how things where on ‘good days’ for DJ. After a while, their schedules began conflicting, and DJ eventually moved to a different sailing sim that had unexpectedly banned Mistral, probably due to the fact their sims were in direct competition for players. DJ assured Mistral that in time the ban would be lifted, but never was clear on why; unfortunately for Mistral, who didn’t often visit the opposing sim by other means, regrets not trying harder to get around the ban despite the fact that DJ never pushed for Mistral to.

In October, after the opposing sim had undergone a change of ownership, Mistral stopped by for a visit and was lead to a rather eye catching memorial on the docks. A bench had been set up with a plaque beneath an image of DJ that read “In Memory of Djduerrer Zou; DJ had already passed away. It was noted to Mistral that DJ had many people stopping by to remember him, a testament to how much DJ lived in the online world.

Digital worlds are not just reprieves for the ill, they are often havens for those around them who have given up part of their lives to care for them. In an interview, Robin Harper of Linden Labs stated that one of the things that had surprised her the most was the story of a woman who gave up her life and career to stay at home and care for her dying husband. The Second Life community became her support network, helping her not only cope with the tedious times while caring for her husband but also afterward by helping her move forward. The woman was 76 years old at the time Harper heard about her, and the woman since her husband’s death had met someone through the platform as well as owning two virtual islands and a business.

While under documented entirely, there are many more cases such as these in many different games and online platforms, from Ultima Online to World of Warcraft to EverQuest II and more. This phenomenon is not entirely limited to the ill and the old - one particular 3D chat program, IMVU, is often used by soldiers who are away from their families, providing visual communication with their loved ones while they are abroad.

Amid the scores of arguments that video games and online chatrooms are tools of corruption and degrade the minds and morals of their users, people will often overlook the good that such things do – allowing a dancer to dance again, a man who would never see the ocean again to sail upon it, and a woman who was unable to continue her life and career to become successful in the shadow of death. Perhaps living in a virtual world isn’t quite the sin people would like to make it out to be, perhaps it is just a new way of living that society has not yet thoroughly explored; hopefully this new frontier will provide even brighter lives for those who can no longer have such in the world society is used to.


[1] The interviewed party’s SL name is not actually Amber Nightfire, it was changed to allow her anonymity as not all people in the Grid know she is ill.

Works Cited

Amber Nightfire*. Personal interview in Star Wars Galaxies. Circa Summer 2003.

Amber Nightfire*. Personal interview in Second Life. January 2008.

Jenna Idaho. Personal interview via MSN Messanger. June 2006.

Mistral, Pixeleen. "Remebering Djdeurrer Zou" 10 Oct. 2007. The Second Life Herald. Oct. 2007 < http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/10/remembering-djd.html#more>.

Hardaway, Francine. "Second Life: Turning Over to the Crowd" 10 May 2007. Assignment Zero. 10 May 2007 <>.