CONTINUED:
How to define an online metaverse

Spatial and contiguous
But Dibbell also said that Second Life belies the notion that the activity that creates value has to be based on the goods of games, such as weapons, armour and the like.

"I had always assumed the development of economies in games proved you needed a game to make these economies happen," he said. But "you add the treadmill of open-ended achievement and the economies take off."

Another that takes off, said Rosedale, is competitiveness, though not necessarily in the sense of who can score the most points.

Rather, he said, because Second Life incorporates neighbourhoods and people setting up homes near each other, its members can see and watch each other as they create the kinds of houses, businesses, vehicles and other things it allows.

"Because it's spatial and contiguous," Rosedale said, "you're more likely to encounter competition" when neighbours spot each other creating new and valuable things.

In the end, Dibbell brought the conversation full circle, trying to pin down participants on how to define Second Life.

Susan Crawford, a professor at Cardoza School of Law, called it "Other Lives".

Dibbell himself ventured "Second Homes".

Thomas Malaby, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said his preferred designation was already taken.

"I would like 'domain'," he said. "Domain suggests action."

Others suggested "spaces", "dreamspace" and "state".

Robin Harper, Linden Lab's senior vice president of community and support, rejected "state" or "country", noting that such names bring with them an expectation on the part of users that the publisher will provide in-world government and policing, something Linden Lab has steadfastly avoided, preferring instead to allow users to police themselves through community standards.

Ultimately, the group did not arrive at an answer. But the fact that each person had come to share their views reflects the fact that environments like Second Life present a conundrum for those would seek to name them with designations already in use. After all, Second Life is an entirely new place in the digital realm and one that in some ways more closely resembles real life than it does any preexisting games.