Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

A virtual world has a lot of uses, from providing a space for escapism from real life troubles, to allowing for training simulations for important tasks, to even assisting with mental therapy.

One such use was discussed in the Wall Street Journal article "Avatar II: The Hospital" which brought up a specific case of a medical facility using the virtual world of Second Life to train a staff on how to react to rapid response emergencies. This is an example of using the virtual world for a training situation. It goes without saying that having a way to practice important tasks in a situation where failure does not cost lives is a very useful thing, and this is something that people in both the medical and military fields have taken notice of, as they both use this to great effect. Whether it's simulations of combat scenarios in preparation for a military mission, or practicing high precision open heart surgery on a virtual heart, there are countless applications for this technology.

There are also unfortunately some downsides to virtual worlds. One is that they are always limited by the technology of the time, so things like the laws of physics, and 1:1 motion tracking have historically been limited, though in recent years, improvements in technology have made the virtualization of these a bit smoother. One big con that still strongly exists today is how these virtual worlds goad consumers into spending a large amount of money through micro-transactions. The New York Times article "No Budget, No Boundaries: It's the Real You" talked about how an average person was able to use the micro-transactions of Second Life to make their in-game avatar come off as a high class citizen. While it was mostly harmless in this specific instance, this has evolved throughout the years into ways to get people to spend absurd amounts of money on virtual goods that have no tangible value. This is currently running rampant in a lot of phone games, where they typically implement features behind very long timers and try to get you to pay real money to avoid the timers. This exploitation of people that overvalue digital goods is perhaps the biggest issue going with virtual worlds today, and will continue to be the biggest issue for the immediate future.