Like most grooms, Rob Perrin was jumpy on the big day. Everything needed to be just right.
The wedding ceremony was obscenely crowded: So many people showed it temporarily froze the computer server.
They packed into an imaginary world within a computer screen, where everything from the sunset to the cruise-ship reception to the monolithic, four-story cathedral, had been graphically created in a matter of keystrokes.
In real life, the bride and groom sat at a pair of desks in their home office, back to back. Linda stopped Rob from turning around to peek at her screen, to catch a glimpse of the bride preparing her entrance.
"I didn't see the dress until she came down the aisle," said Mr. Perrin, a countertop salesman from Cookeville, Tenn. "I was nervous. I didn't want to not type my lines correct. It was the first step in the big commitment between the two of us."
The world where the Perrins tied their virtual knot, called "Second Life," is one of many where the tiniest dot - every sunset and rise, every kiss, dance step, and swing of a sword - is a vicarious pixel mesh. Puppeteers are drawn into online personas: Heroes kill dragons; socialites never have bad hair days.
Some players even use an acronym to refer to life outside their online world: IRL, or "In Real Life."
And IRL, the virtual gaming industry's growth has soared. Several hundred thousand North American players at the millennium have multiplied today into nearly two million; in Asia, tens of millions.
"The estimates are always going up," said David Cole, president of San Diego-based DFC Intelligence, which tracks the industry.
Mr. Cole noted that the worldwide electronic game industry earned $28.5 billion in 2005, surpassing Hollywood box office sales ($23 billion), and rivaling the music industry ($30 to $35 billion). He estimates the industry will hit $42 billion by 2010; subscription fees alone for online worlds reached an estimated $3.6 billion in 2005.
Those that use virtual games tout the comfort, fame, and, at times, the money - real money - to be had. For some, their sole income relies on bartering virtual houses, gold, jewelry: all just as valuable as people believe they are. Academics and military contractors have taken note and made investments.
The money comes despite the fact that the worlds, and all they contain, don't even exist.
Two weeks later, IRL, on a sailboat in the Florida Keys, the Perrins finally could relax - at their real wedding.
"We wanted it to be just us," Mr. Perrin said; the both of them were beat. "Our real life wedding was easy - the [virtual] one was a lot of work, a lot of people rushing around doing things."
Still, they passed around screen shots of their virtual wedding, noted Nanci Schenkein, of Roseland, N.J., who retired from her real-life job as an events planner to organize the Perrins' virtual wedding for about $300.
"People feel that real life has its moments, or maybe not," Ms Schenkein said with a chuckle.
Matt Urbaniak of Perrysburg admits he sometimes played 14 hours straight fighting dragons while managing a group, or "guild," of imaginary wizards and warriors in the latest online fantasy craze, World Of Warcraft, which now has over 1 million North American subscribers.
Last year, he took a "WOWcation" - a week off to play the game, wandering the online world fighting ogres and trolls, and garnering imaginary gold.
"I never would've thought that I'd play so much," he said. "You do it over and over again."
Kimberly Rufer-Bach has seen that attachment - some say addiction - take place in dozens. On a moonlit night four years ago, sitting on a rock atop the silver dunes of a barren desert, she envisioned the possibilities with a business partner.
While in real life she sat at her home computer in San Jose, Calif., her partner was a continent away, in Scotland. But the two were "in world," in a virtual "platform" called There.com, and for her, that was close enough.
"I've had friends for years, people I work with, that I've never seen or talked with on the phone," she said. "Is a letter real? Is a phone call real?"
The two had helped create a nearby virtual village; one of many that make up There.com's current 250,000 residents, according to founder Michael Wilson. Ms. Rufer-Bach was surprised by how deeply people connected online, how much care and investment they attached to the pixilated landscape around them.
Now, the two make real money inventing unreal things in Second Life: jewelry, furniture for other people's online, imaginary personas - called "avatars" - to buy, wear, or relax in on their computer screen.
In less than a year, Ms. Rufer-Bach created and sold enough virtual merchandise to pay all her monthly real-life bills.
In a world where anyone can be anything - where a person in a well-worn computer chair can be bold and beautiful - there are plenty of takers.
Philip Rosedale, head of San Francisco-based Linden Lab, which founded Second Life in 1999, noted that $5.4 million changed hands - real money for unreal things - between his platform's 200,000 or so residents in March.
There are iconic entrepreneurs: Ailin Graef, perhaps best known by her online persona, "Anshe Chung," is touted and envied for her Second Life success. From her home near Frankfurt, Germany, the Chinese-born woman and her husband took an initial $9.99 monthly account and in 18 months built it into a virtual real estate empire currently worth about $187,500 by selling phantasmal houses or renting them: Her stylized virtual mansions, squatting in a desert or on an Asian-themed island, now have hundreds of avatar tenants.
"Those are only tip of iceberg [sic]," Ms. Graef said in an online interview. She once sold a virtual mansion for over $200,000 in real currency, she claims. She and her husband just opened an office in China with 12 employees to support it all.
But other than her initial $9.99 investment, she said she's never poured any real-world money into the game.
"I made it [a] very strict rule only to grow from my [online] earning," said Ms. Graef, whose prior job was as a language tutor.
But real estate - perhaps especially in a virtual world - can be risky. Mr. Perrin bought virtual land at $40 an acre, and watched it drop to $6 as trade and traffic - places where other virtual people might tread - shifted to other lands.
"I got burned," he said.
Ms. Graef agrees, saying that with fluctuating fake currencies traded on online exchanges, it's too risky to invest in just one virtual world; she hopes to branch into at least four others.
There are safer lines of work, catering to online users who want to see their avatars fulfill their wildest dreams.
"I mostly do pretty magical things: pets that follow you and talk, clothes for when you want to be a tiny bunny rabbit," Ms. Rufer-Bach said. "I sold a heck of a lot of bunny shoes for $1 a pair."
She claims to shy away from the overly fantastical.
"Sometimes I'm a robot, sometimes I'm a mermaid, but usually my avatar looks an awful lot like me," she said. "To some people it's their second thing. To me, it's all the same."
Even in a world where one can fly a spaceship, most opt for the car they know and want, Mr. Rosedale noted.
"Even in a virtual world, everyone wants a Ferrari."
And most people want an online life within the realm, but just a little bit better, than the one they're living, Ms. Schenkein believes.
"Women, 40 and up, are very enticed," she added. "You can have the body you want."
With the median age of a Second Life resident at 32, Ms. Graef said it's a matter of real-life limitations. "Things that limit people in real life: health, age, geography, race, wealth, handicaps, shyness, and so on," she said. "Not here."
Those who play recognize their online lives are a bit different than breathing actual air.
One year ago, Mr. Perrin said he'd "never even really chatted online, never really did anything like that."
Now, he said, "My wife and I haven't been in the dining room in a while. We spend most of our life in [the computer] room."
Others spend hours and hours online - an average of 23 a week, according to a study of 5,500 virtual world residents by Nicholas Yee, a Stanford doctoral communications student.
Those near them sometimes lament the lack of real-life attention. Or worse.
Liz Woolley, a systems analyst in Harrisburg, Pa., has started Online Gamers Anonymous, a 12-step program to wean people back into real life.
She's also a member of EverQuest Widows, where members commiserate about the loved one who was once in their life: the person who now comes home from work, unwinds in front of the computer screen, and continues to unwind until the following morning, taking bites of their dinner between clicks of the mouse.
"You make more accomplishments in the game then you do in your real life, so all of a sudden the game's more fun," Ms. Woolley said.
In 2001, Ms. Woolley's son, Shawn, 21, committed suicide in front of his computer screen while signed on to the fantasy world known as EverQuest. "I watched him get addicted to it. He withdrew, became schizoid, depressed, couldn't function.
"I know what that is, I was addicted to alcohol," she added. "I didn't believe somebody could get addicted to games."
Another organization, Reality Quest Institute, of Redmond, Wash., has a Web site displaying real-life photos of smiling people throwing Frisbees in the sun.
But Ms. Rufer-Bach argues that if real-life work and relationships were so interesting, what's stopping people from just living them?
"That's like complaining that you're a football widow. It's ridiculous, " Ms. Rufer-Bach said.
Second Life CEO Rosedale said that, percentage-wise, it's the small towns that garner most virtual residents: Toledo has three times as many Second Life users as New York, in proportion to its population.
"It's no different than alcohol or cigarettes, or sex for that matter," Mr. Perrin said. "I don't really enjoy selling countertops, but I enjoy the friendships I've made [online]."
Virtual worlds weren't the first to receive such renown, noted Mr. Yee. "When the telephone came out, people thought it had the power to unravel society - you were getting rid of face-to-face contact," he said.
But Ms. Woolley argues it's more than that.
"When you bring somebody into a cult, you take away their food, their sleep. That's exactly what these games do," she said.
"They become different people. They become like zombies."
Mr. Rosedale defends his platform, saying there's a difference between it and games where you run around swinging a sword.
"Clicking on rats and killing them is a pretty low, Pavlovian kind of thing. You're probably getting dumber than wandering around the shopping mall," he said. "But if you're trying to start a business, good grief, it's very intellectually challenging."
Most involved say the ball is rolling too fast to speculate too much where it will end up. But Ms. Graef, for one, believes the virtual evolution will traverse a logical course.
"It will only be complete when you don't see, feel, hear, taste or smell any difference to reality," she said. "Except the limitations of reality, when you return to it."
Contact Tad Vezner at: tvezner@theblade.com or 419-724-6065.
First Published April 30, 2006, 5:11 p.m.
