Episode 25 Of The Drax Files : World Makers takes us into the seedy underbelly of rock music in Second Life! Ooooh! Well actually it’s not seedy … nor is it an underbelly, and it might not even rock music, however let’s move on, the star of the show is an artist known as Oblee.
Oblee explains how he plays gigs in Second Life two or three times a week, pointing out that there are many venues to play at. There has been talk about music being a good use case for the forthcoming VR boom and yet, there are already ample opportunities for musicians to play on a digital stage. Obviously one of the issues with the current virtual worlds is that they support a relatively small audience, as anyone who has been in a sim with 40 avatars knows. However that shouldn’t mean that the opportunities of current virtual worlds are overlooked.
Oblee is self made in Second Life and in an impressive twist, his earnings in Second Life have allowed him to earn enough money to finance his debut album outside the virtual world. These virtual worlds aren’t as distant from reality as some may think.
We see a use case that comes up time and again within virtual worlds here, the ability to collaborate with people all over the world. However what this episode also touches upon is the beauty of exploration in the virtual world.
Oblee explains how he gets up at 6am in the morning and travels around Second Life in his boat. He went to a bar where people were talking in voice in Japanese, Oblee whips out his guitar and plays and the people in the bar recognised “Every Rose Has a Thorn”.
There’s another point that Oblee highlights, Second Life’s global audience provides the opportunity for people all over the world to hear his music. This has been touched upon in a previous Drax Files episode, how that Second Life offers potentially more reach than being well known for playing the local bar.
The episode uses the tried and tested formula of putting virtual and real footage together. We see Oblee at home, with his wife. We see that he hunts and fishes outside the virtual world and we see that inside the virtual world he explores and plays music. Oblee also makes a fine point about virtual worlds and how they are part of the real world :
It’s not an alternative to life, it’s adding to the substance of your existence
To read more about Oblee, go visit his website : http://obleemusic.com/index.php
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