Virtual Reality is Real!

The deeper I delve into this book, the more I realize just how real virtual reality is becoming. Not only does it offer jobs that individuals can enjoy while supporting their families, but Dibbell proves that it can form real relationships and have real conflicts.

Yes, people can make money and earn and 'honest' living, as Dibbell is trying to do, but there are also people who can cheat, like Lee Caldwell. They see holes in the system and they take advantage of them. They cheat others and work the system to earn millions. Sounds alot like the real world doesn't it?

We see the relationship that formed between Dibbell and Radney. Two people in the game to make money working together in his first semblence of a partnership to improve one another's bank account balances. Again, real world. I would have to say, though, that it really hit me that these are people playing these games which makes the game more real when he discussed an instance in which Radney asked for advice from Dibbell. This young kid was having girl problems and he chose to ask his the man he shared a virtual house with and did trading with to give him some advice. Real again. Dibbell explained his confusion with the situation in Chapter 19, "But, why me? And what to make of the trust he placed in a 40-year old half-stranger he happened to share an imaginary mansion with (pg. 148)?" This didn't surprise me when I read it. Dibbell was doing business with this young man. They were trusting eachother, a real relationship was forming between two people even though it was in the midst of a virtual game. I think it is easy for people to get caught up in the virtual aspect. When most people first think of video games and computer games that company's such as UO produce, you think of people sitting mindlessly for hours and hours in front of a screen becoming one with the computer, becoming "dehumanized" like we've talked about it class. I think that it's easy for most people to dismiss these individuals and not reckognize that there is actual human interaction going on here in the games. Dibbell's friendship with Radney is the perfect example. They may be interacting in a virtual world but their social (human to human) interactions are real, and doesn't that make this world they are living in real as well?

There is REAL money to be made, relationships to be formed, business to be done, the system can be cheated and when it is cheated there are 'police' to come in and stop forces like Blacksnow. Virtual reality isn't as mindless as many think it is. It is more real than I think anyone realizes, even Dibbell when he first started to get involved in this new 'business.' It's the people that make virtual reality real. These games exist for our amusement and now they just happen to have opened up new job market. Virtual reality wouldn't exist if it wasn't for us, so, in a slightly confusing way, virtual reality is real. Sure, we can't touch it, we can't hold it in our hands, but we control it.