Second Life to explore and find the joy in Blue Mars I think I lost part of my theme because I had three sims with a massive castle people could explore. Now I only have one sim, but I have come to realize there is a whole group of people who have not been here or ever saw my store. I think my castle was good for those new people to come and enjoy a place on the grid and get lost for a while.” When I asked how Max came to find a home in Second Life he explained “in 2006 I was an advertising direction and I went back to North Carolina (United States) to do product design. I decided to do a job designing towel racks and interior items in a 3D modeling program for Home Depot, Lowes, etc. so if someone has redone a bath-
room in their RL home it is most likely some of it might be my work! I was also play Guild Wars for about a year around the same time I spent so much time looking at castles and fantasy items I was mesmerized as you can imagine you can only do so many knobs before going nuts! I wanted in the gaming industry and read an article about SL and was drawn to the idea of building your own game without being part of the company. I got a premium account and land before I even logged into the game.” Within a week Max built a conference room to use with contact at the designing firm to hold virtual meetings with the engineers and members of his art team because he worked from home and telecommuted. “The first meeting they goofed off the whole