Pic by Drakedarkblood from a recent Potted photo contest
Somewhere off the coast, there’s a deep sea diver sitting in a decompression tank worrying for long stretches about the fate of his virtual plants.
“One of our players is a deep sea diver,” Cort Brandiss explains, “like for oil companies. And he has to sit in decompression for hours, and he tells me how he sits there and thinks about his plants.”
Cort is lead creator of Potted, and by her count, up to two thousand Second Life users regularly play, carefully growing and watering their plants to unlock new seeds and other rewards.
Virtual plant life has been in Second Life for nearly two decades -- indeed, I still regularly water “Kona Gold”, my 20 foot tall marijuana plant from 2006 -- but Cort has created a fun game mechanic around the regular habits of virtual world citizens:
“Potted is structured in a way that I hoped it would fit anyone's SL, no matter how they play,” she explains. “Casual players can buy a pot, plant a seed, grow a plant and water it once a week for free, just for the fun of having something ‘living’ in their homes. Or, people can play the star point game, which advances each time you water.”
And yes, like Kona Gold, your Potted plants start to wilt, if you don’t regularly attend to them:
“They get sick, yes, if you don't water them at least once a week.” If you’re offline for strong stretches, however, you can pause the watering cycle by putting the pot back in inventory. “We all take occasional SL breaks!”
Potted has become so popular, it’s changed how many people play in Second Life:
“It gives goals to your Second Life, reasons to decorate, collect, etc.,” as Cort puts it. “I get blamed for houses and furniture disappearing in favor of greenhouses a lot.”
I first got word of Potted during Second Life's Lahaina wildfire fundraiser, which Cort and her crew, many from Hawaii, rallied to support. (Yes, Cort has a staff helping her, as Potted has become popular enough to be a major part of her real life work.)
That public spirit can be seen in Potted’s game community for a previous fundraiser to benefit Gentle Giants Elephants of Thailand, Cort tells me:
Photo by Sniper Villota Savage Newall from Potted's Elephant Photo Contest
“In June for my birthday, we held a fundraising party and raised over $4K USD. Since then, we've done a total of over $7K and we continue to fundraise for them each month.”
In other words, the fauna of Asia are being cared for by caring for the virtual flora of Second Life:
“We have our ‘Potted Herd’ of elephants that we've sponsored/adopted. Our players are really proud of that, because while we provide the items, they are the ones who are donating to their herd. We all work together for our elephants.”
Potted has existed in some form for nearly a decade, but she began building it out recently with her Krysta Ember and coder, Amanda Bork. But then the user base for growing, well, grew wildly by itself.
“It sort of all just came together, pretty easily. Well, relatively speaking,” Cort adds, laughing. “I'd love to say I'm a marketing genius hahaha but I think it is a lot of planning, a lot of timing, and a lot of luck. I have done my best to slow it down, because the game wasn't ready for this kind of user base, but they keep coming!”
Turns out virtual plants can take on a life of their own.
More about Potted on the game’s website.
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