Virtual worlds reach out to the real one

Tom Loftus Columnist • E-mail

Meet the 21st century's answer to the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

Inside the free form virtual world "Second Life," a desire to help Katrina victims has spawned yard sales, auctions and fund-raising concerts. Proud donors wear T-shirts that read "Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief."

Everything in "Second Life" is virtual: The yard sales are stocked with virtual clothing and goods; the relief concerts and dances star virtual DJs and bands performing in a virtual concert space. And those T-shirts ... also virtual.

The money raised, however, is very real.

"Second Life" residents, as users of the space are known, have contributed almost $6,000 to the Red Cross so far, with one celebrity date auction netting $2500.  (The dates, of course, are virtual.)

Then there's the people melting virtual gold.

Questing for charity
Over at "Ultima Online," a massive multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG, Joe Harden says he has committed $200 to the Red Cross with another $200 awaiting conversion from gold to U.S. dollars.

Gold? Dollars?

MMORPGs like "Ultima Online" are infamous for the time users spend online in their never-ending quest to improve, or level up, their character. Success in questing or other challenges
yields gold, "Ultima Online's" virtual monetary system, or other goods.

Over the past decade such items have gained a real world value, particularly among players not content to gain status the old fashioned way, with a gray market for virtual money and goods appearing on eBay and a handful of virtual world-specific auction sites.

Harden first tapped into that market after the Asian tsunami. Selling his own gold and gold donated by other "Ultima Online" players on eBay, he raised $8,000 in five months.

"Although players become absorbed in the virtual world," Harden e-mailed MSNBC.com, "this proves how concerned they are about the real world around them."

Harden's Web site, GamersCharity.com, is now collecting for Katrina relief and word of the project is being spread by game players soliciting gold within "Ultima Online."

"People I have never met or talked to contact me at all times of the day to ask where they may donate virtual goods," said Harden.

Users of another MMORPG, "EverQuest II," are also being asked to donate. Sony Online Entertainment announced last week that players who type "/donate" while playing the game will be taken to an American Red Cross Hurricane 2005 relief page where they can donate money. Sony has also suspended billing for the 13,000 "Everquest II" subscribers living in the affected areas.

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