I must admit, my first week or two in the Second Life world, I was shaking my head at the idea of spending *real* money for virtual clothes... clothes that I couldn't wear in the real world, heck clothes that I couldn't even download and take with me to other 3D worlds. What was the point of this?

A couple of perspectives on this idea: one practical, and one sociological.

First, the practical aspect. Selling virtual items isn't some pyramid scheme or sly corporate way to simply get you to part with more of your money. Truth is, you can make anything you want to wear or own in Second Life. You can make all your own clothes, if you want. You can make all your own furniture and buildings and accessories, if you want.

A good suit of clothing might take somewhere between five and twenty hours to make, if you already have good Photoshop skills and know the process of making the clothes, you have the templates, etc. More hours if you need to ramp-up any of the learning curve. Anyone with a good digital camera can coax pretty good fabric textures into the Photoshop template. Getting seams to align, esp. for different sizes of avatars, can be challenging. But, with enough fiddling, you can get it honed right in.

Same with furniture building, house building, gadget building, and scripting. Well, scripting will take a few dozen hours to learn, but after that, you'll be able to script items and debug them in that 5-20 hours range.

If you want create every item you'll use in SL, you can. You don't have to buy anything. Self-made items are some of the richest, most interesting and satisfying items in SL.

If you want to save yourself a couple hundred hours, though, you can buy just about any item you can think of, usually for a price between a dime and three dollars. Scripting and building are fun, don't get me wrong, I spend most of my time in Second Life building and scripting. But if I want to try surfing on a Sunday afternoon, I certainly don't want to spend 60 hours scripting up a surfboard and waves when I can buy a surfboard for L$500 and surf on operational waves in a dozen different sims in SL.

So, the practical matter is: buying things simlpy saves you time. And when you do buy something, the money goes to the person that built & scripted it; not Linden Labs. So you are supporting an artist and creator, someone in your (virtual) community, and you are paying them just a little bit to cover their 40 or 60 hours of work they put in. As you can see, no one is getting rich selling clothes in SL. You have to sell *a lot* of clothes at $1US each to even make minimum wage for your hours of building. But it gives these folks some Lindens to spend in the game, pay their land rent inworld, and have more fun making more things.

The second point is socialogical. Why buy different clothes at all in this virtual world? Well, you certainly don't have to. In fact, you can put togther some fine outfits quick and easy using the built-in Appearance Editor that Linden Labs supplies, free, and it doesn't take hours and hours (maybe 20-30 mins for tweaking).

However, when you show up to a Star Trek event, or a Samuri event, or a Caledon (19th Century Victorian) event, it's fun to dress in the style. You don't have to, for sure, they'll let you play regardless. But if you are the only one without a cool ninja outfit and swords, you want some! You could make your own, or buy a ready-made cool one and be playing and looking cool in just two minutes!

Being part of the gang, showing you are serious about the sim / event / game / activity, having people compliment you on your clothes and gadgets... it feels good and it's all part of the fun.

Don't take my word for it. Explore the world of Second Life. No need to spend any Lindens to have fun - you can tour and explore plenty of places and do plenty of activities free (that's partly what this site is about!) Spend a few weeks or months in-world, and allow yourself to see what's fun.

If you do decide to buy some clothes and stuff in SL, no need to spend yourself silly. A monthly budget of about $15US (that's about L$4,000!) will take you far in SL - lots of specialty clothes, fun devices, furniture, and more. Set your own budget and relax.

Enjoy! That's what it's all about!