Virtual Reality City

The conception of the virtual reality city has been defined by Second Life. The Second Life virtual world takes the concept of a city and broadens its reach to a worldwide village, accessible by everyone.

A City

A city is defined as a large town, an incorporated municipality, a pre-determined area governed by a mayor, and a metropolitan area. The notion of a city is place you can travel to and exist in physically.

What happens when you take the concept of the city out of the realm of the physical world? Quite a bit if you are Linden Lab and the many Second Lifers on their Second Life virtual world.

In Second Life the virtual city abounds. There are thousands of different communities both real and fantasy, that are open for any other Second Life user to visit and enjoy.

The Island

The virtual city in Second Life is called an island. Second Lifers can buy an island and create their own virtual reality city or visit cities created by others. Cities can focus on one niche – such as entertainment, arts or business – or mimic a real city and be very diverse.

Second Life has too many islands, or virtual reality cities, for the average user to visit in a lifetime. However, users can visit cities that look interesting or happen to catch their attention. Find virtual cities through the search option on the second life interface viewer or screen using the “showcase” and “places” folders.

Single Purpose Cities

Some virtual cities in Second Life serve one purpose such as commerce or tourism. IBM has led the way for businesses taking a claim in virtual reality by developing their own island.

While the IBM virtual reality city is a single purpose city – it focuses on IBM – there is much to do there. IBM has built a theater for giving online presentations to employees, gives virtual tours of their many buildings, encourages networking between employees from disparate locations such as India and France, and sells their wares to the general public.

In Second life you can also find several virtual reality cities with role playing gaming purposes like: City of Lost Angels, Toxian City and Insilico.

Multi-Purpose Cities

Multi-purpose cities also abound in Second Life. These virtual reality cities closely mimic real world cities. But not everything you can do in Second Life’s New York City you can do in its real life counterpart and vice versa. Other multi-purpose virtual reality cities are: Virtual Bucharest, and Shouwa, Japan.

Some virtual reality cities are owned by individuals who rent space to others. Other users set up businesses which range from malls to entertainment venues giving the island real cities feel.

What are you waiting for? Go online now and experience a Second Life virtual reality city.