HiPiHi, I don't need another Second Life — I've already got one

I've been in the practice of exploring online worlds other than Second Life because I'm an explorer, and I'm by no means confined to one metaverse, game, gametaverse — whatever the cool kids are calling them these days. But I gotta call out baldercrap when I see it:

"It is absolutely a misunderstanding of the virtual world if people think HiPiHi is a copycat of SecondLife. The virtual world is not just a 3D environment, but a complicate social system including the property policy, financial policy etc."
-Hui Xu from this Mobinode interview

Wait a sec, that sounds exactly like Second Life. Heck, even if I didn't work for Linden Lab, even if I was a 3-year-old all over again, it doesn't take a Kaku, much less a Coffey to see the sheer resemblance between these two claims:

"HiPiHi World is a 3D digital world as rich and complex as the real world, and is created, inhabited and owned by its residents.The residents are the Gods of this virtual world; it is a world of limitless possibilities for creativity and self-expression, within a complex social structure and a full functioning economy."

sourced from here, compared to an older description of SL:

"Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by hundreds of thousands of residents from around the globe. From the moment you enter, you'll be surrounded by the creations of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with others, or exchange Linden dollars to/from US dollars."

which has since been updated and expanded at the "What is…" page.

Maybe that's not convincingly specific enough. So, how about this…

I'm a big fan of mythology, and the whole "Residents are Gods" thing sounds empowering, but wait — why is HiPiHi referring to their users as "Residents" too? Couldn't you guys call them "citizens", "denizens", "kinfolk", another synonym from your Chinese-English thesaurus, or do you just really like our name and the history that comes with it? I can't wait to see if you'll use our colloquial abbreviation of "Resi" too.

Try as I might to keep turning giving the benefit of the doubt, SuezanneC Baskerville (thanx!), who's also a Resident in Second Life, has blogged frequently about her adventures in HiPiHi, has uploaded numerous pictures showing many of the sad, sad similarities.

On the plus side, their terrain editor looks a lot more versatile, they've already got a type of reflective ripple water, and some of the prebuild stuff looks slick. More comparisons and pros/cons are helpfully covered at sites like Spunlogic and Centric. But if you're going to lick Linden Lab's crib notes, please don't copy the wrinkles and warts of our user interface too:

The "unflattery" doesn't end inworld; hmmmm, let's have a look at Second Life's website layout and theirs!

Different meat, but the bones are almost the same. And hey, in the lower-left corner with the scroll bars, that's where they put their press stories too! (Some of which incidentally have "Second Life" in the title; what a way to feed off of our hype aura.) It'll be "interesting" to see, to say the least, if they continue to dopplegang and clone future revisions. (As tempting as it may be, I advise against putting in intentional mistakes and seeing if they get copied too. :p)

Before I move on, let me just say I'm not proud of Chinese people being saddled with a stereotype for shamefully imitating innovations from 'round the globe; being part Chinese myself, I think my lineage did pretty well inventing abacus-things, chopsticks, gunpowder, and the surprisingly controversial needle-poking that is acupuncture. But, fast forward to 2007, and what splashes across the world news? All the stories about Chinese copycats which cloud earnest creation. Let's not forget the Chinese iPhone ripoff and Komoo, which is clearly Chinese for Twitter. If you're going to duplicate the efforts of others, at least be volumes better; don't just clone the bulk of what we already know and toss us a removable battery like a feeble bone, or whatever. And if you've been influenced or inspired, it's a simple and nice thing to graciously acknowledge the source of your riffing. I do it all the time.

(This ain't the saga of Leibniz and Newton told in cyberspace, my friends. Nor is it a Mr. Sparkle-style coincidence.)

Finally, HiPiHi if you pride user-created content, please find a Resi to make a better piano, 'cuz the one on your website is the lamest I've ever seen:

I'd rather perform on this, and this is pre-WindLight (gosh forbid we see a HiPiHi advance dubbed "AirRight"):

HiPiHi really owe it to themselves to tread new ground like other virtual worlds instead of scuttling over LL's scraps.

I enjoy visiting fertile new grounds and savoring new experiences, but I don't need another Second Life — I've already got one.

Tagged as: Cyber-History, General, Ideas, In the News, Pictures, Reviews, The Web