Your neighbor, your local cop, your checkout clerk, your grandmother, maybe even you. Millions of people around the world spend countless hours interacting in virtual worlds, playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPG’s.
Seated behind a flickering screen, they can log on to games like World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest, and become idealized version of themselves - the chiseled knight mounted on a bucking steed, or the svelte female warrior, skilled at fighting monsters - online personaes that battle with other players, able to make friends, tell their secrets, even flirt.
It's also a major economic industry. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade earned $96 million in one day. Compare that to the highest one-day gross for a film last year – $60 million. And Blizzard Entertainment, the company that makes World of Warcraft, has an annual gross of $1.2 billion.
A new documentary called Second Skin explores the lives of those people. We meet couples who fall in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts whose lives fall down around them, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, and wealthy online entrepreneurs - all living in a world that doesn't quite exist.
To find out more about this world we’re joined by Second Skin's director, Juan Carlos Pineiro. The film’s New York premiere is set for September 5th. We also hear from Marie Harriman from Antrim, NH. She isn’t able to leave home often due to a disability, and says that playing Second Life allows her to feel less secluded.
Watch the trailer for Second Skin:
