IMVU

Bobak, James, Alex, Kyle, Jing

IMVU is a 3d avatar based chat and social networking program. It takes many of the ideas of second life, constrains them, makes them prettier, and makes it into a perfect world for teenage girls and creepy pedophiles. When first joining IMVU you must choose an avatar. These avatars could all be categorized as very stereotypical “hotties” by shallow teen girls. Further driving this point is the preview videos on the main website which show such hotties in romantic positions interacting. There isn’t such thing as a small chested woman, and massive amounts of shown cleavage is near mandatory. The men are just as bad, often having “ripped” bodies, and “handsome” looks. In both cases, the avatar’s clothing choices are limited to what could be considered by some as “very stylish, clubbing outfits.”

Once a person has created their avatar, they can enter chat rooms. These rooms are small 3d virtual worlds where players can move around fully furnished rooms/bars/graveyard. An example room may resemble a living room with hip furniture, complete with couches, tables with chares, and bar to get drinks at. To move around the room, players must click on preset locations and there avatar teleports there. Sex is a big thing in IMVU. When browsing chat rooms to join, the first noticeable thing is that every other chat room has a name like “Vampire Sex Fiends.” To access much of these 18+ areas, you need to pay $19.99.

As far as IMVU being compared to Halting State, there are some very vauge comparisons but for the most part it they aren’t really alike in the least. Stross’s vision had basically user created avatars with supposedly infinite possiblities in the creation of them, they were just complicated and difficult to use off the bat. IMVU is more of a warehouse of provided content that you must purchase to access. Communication is done through floating thought bubbles over people’s heads rather than any form of voice chat. And the rooms are restricted to only a handful of people over 45000 rooms (About 40% of which seem to be sexuality or club related)
 * Compare to Stross's work**

Compare to Second Life, IMVU is like a very limited express version of it. All of the activities of the gameplay are taking place in rooms, and some rooms are textured to look like outdoors. Similar to Second Life, when a player first comes in to the game, he/she is given some gifts or virtual money to start with. Similar to Second Life, players can buy different dressing, furniture, rooms and even poses. These things are designed by the game developers, unlike Second Life, items are partially designed sold by other players. While chatting in a room, you can interact with pre-programmed furniture to perform different poses. You can also interact with friends you invited to your room by right-clicking on their characters and select an action animation designed by the developers. In IMVU, you cannot walk around in your room. You move your characters by clicking on dots on different items in your room, and then your character will be teleported to certain location to display a matching pose. There is a not transition animation in between each jumping and you can jump as far as you can lick on the dot with your mouse.



**Profit**
When you dress your character, you’re provided with limited outfits so you can go to shop with your avatar where you enter a dressing room with a library of clothing and accessories. The way to purchase new items for your avatar is by credits on the menu. The way to get more credits can be available for the purchase of real money by going to the game page or the website. Also another way profit is attained from the game is to purchase an access pass that allows adult content such as sexual favor gestures in the game.