As part of its "Geek Week", a segment of BBC's Newsnight has been broadcast from inside the virtual-world Second Life.The show's producers enlisted a designer who runs a business in the game to recreate the television studio, as well as a lifelike avatar for presenter Jeremy Paxman:
"Here", I said to Newsnight's real life editor Peter Barron, "why don't we broadcast Newsnight from inside a computer game."
Because the virtual money inside Second Life is convertible to US dollars, and people who make things can keep the intellectual property, it is possible to run a real life business inside the game.
I got in touch with Cory Edo - real name Sara Van Gorden - who runs a business in Second Life designing avatars - the idealised 3D personas that people use as their online identities.
Cory recreated the Newsnight set, Jeremy Paxman and myself - the latter with wrinkles and stubble rendered in full 3D realism, sadly - so we could record the historic "two-way" that will go out before my piece on online games.
Do avatars dream of electric racoons? - View the broadcast here
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