NWN IN '04: MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING

Since the beginning of 2004, Linden Lab has allowed the buying and selling of Second Life's in-world currency of Linden Dollars for real dollars, via third-party sites and resident vendors. At the same time, they phased out the taxation of land ownership for Linden Dollars (a bane for residents in 2003.) Instead, land owners would now pay a monthly leasing fee, in real dollars.

(And from then on, most land would be sold via online auction, for both US and Linden Dollars.) This shift has had fairly enormous consequences to the culture of Second Life-- in how residents perceive the world, for example, and what they do with it. Throughout the year, New World Notes has tried to keep up with them...

- SELLING THE WORLD
(The first signs of controversy, at the policy shift.)

- ASSESSING THE SITUATION
(Virtual land assessment.)

- MARKET FORCES
(What happens to the world's wealthiest residents and land owners, when the exchange rate seems to drop through the floor?)

Two case studies on the new state of land ownership:

- MOOD INDIGO; MOOD INDIGO, PART II

- ELVEN LAND BARONS!

Two attempts to keep the real cost of things in one's head:

- MENTAL CONVERSION

- CONVERTING THE MENTAL CONVERSION