With a faint glow illuminating her 9-year-old face, Jalyn Skelly sits mesmerized in front of a computer screen, her eyes chasing a flittering cursor as she zips around a virtual world, playing and chatting with a gaggle of digital friends.
Instead of going outside after school, she goes straight to the living room, logging into the fairytale world of Elf Island, where she and her brother William, 12, join digital friends who are real children, too, but who are represented on the screen —- as these Kennesaw kids are —- by animated characters called avatars.
While playing, the siblings are chattering to each other and talking via typed messages to other avatars, staring into a 19-inch screen with an otherworldly look.
In this world, nobody knows anybody’s real name or address, only that everyone has a common goal: to help Habitat for Humanity build real houses in
Honduras. And the kids do this not with hammers and nails or donations, but by playing games in which they earn the virtual wood and bricks needed to build virtual Habitat houses.
After Elf Island’s thousands of “inhabitants” collectively build 10,000 virtual homes, the game’s Atlanta-based owners promise to donate the money to build a real Habitat house, says co-founder Liz Kronenberger.
One recent afternoon, the screen said 6,441 virtual houses had been built, and that 3,032 kids were playing. Thirty minutes later, 3,045 avatars were on the site.
The idea is that, with enough kids paying monthly subscription fees of $5.95 each, the company that owns Elf Island —- Good Egg Studios Inc. —- will make enough money to do good deeds like build Habitat houses and still turn a tidy profit.
Kronenberger says the firm has so far inked “partnerships” with Habitat and other nonprofits that will allow kids not only to build houses, but save sharks, protect polar bears and plant real trees in Niger, first virtually, then for real.
OK, so it may all sound a bit do-gooderish, but experts in the exploding universe of virtual worlds see the concept as golden, and green, as in the color of money, but in the environmental sense as well.
According to New York-based Robin Raskin, one of the nation’s top experts on virtual worlds, more than 120 companies like Good Egg have set out to capitalize on the idea that young people “want to do good things” while playing online.
And those known as “tweens” —- between 8 and 12 —- are increasingly going online for social networking the way grownups do with Facebook. They make friends with other avatars in a world constantly monitored by adults. And they chat with each other while a built-in dictionary blocks any attempts at naughtiness.
“These sites help prepare you for your life as a grown-up, and they help you explore and play in a safe environment,” says Raskin, head of a “summit” on kid-gaming to be held Thursday through Sunday at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Lisa Skelly, 30, enthusiastically agrees, which is why she let her kids join Elf Island after reading about it on a Web site for mothers.
“The kids can go in and do good things,” she says. “They have a mission, to build houses in Honduras. It’s monitored. It makes me feel good as a parent, ‘cause doing good is built into the games.”
Some of the sites like Elf Island —- which offers color-splashed vistas in which kids take on personas, chat and engage in teamwork —- “are going to be gold mines,” says Raskin, who runs the Raising Digital Kids blog. “Others will turn out to be fool’s gold. What we know is that there is a lot of money to be made by the ones that catch on.”
Players in virtual worlds, once just a niche within the video gaming industry, usually pay subscription fees for the right to personalize avatars, play and chat. On Elf Island, kids can explore secret passageways and shop in virtual stores.
Raskin, 55, says virtual worlds are attracting millions of dollars in venture financing, and that the winners will be those that offer “something extra,” like Elf Island, which gives kids a chance to have real impact.
On its site, a character named “Jorge” —- a real kid in Honduras —- pops up, urging players to work on virtual Habitat houses. And Good Egg’s nonprofit partners such as Habitat have motives of their own. By getting kids interested, the games spread altruistic messages that non-profits need money to make a difference, Raskin says.
Good Egg allocates funds to nonprofit partners based on the interest its games arouse in players, who, the company hopes, will talk up Elf Island and get other kids to join. Donations to non-profits, Kronenberger says, aren’t based on company profits, but are driven by the activity of paying members.
“We get tremendous value from 20,000 young people going to the site,” says Patrick Scanlan of Habitat for Humanity. “We want them to understand Habitat’s mission, the fact that people in many different countries… are in real need of housing.”
Its other non-profit partners include WildAID, which protects sharks in the Galapagos Islands; Polar Bears International, which hopes to protect their environment; and Plant-IT 2020, which plants trees in Niger. What the kids do in virtual worlds will determine if sharks and bears are helped and trees planted.
Elf Island claims to be the only virtual world to use gaming, storytelling and social interaction to empower kids to make a positive difference. And it probably is, Raskin says, but the virtual universe is growing so fast that it’s hard to say for sure.
Elf Island employs 15 people, and so far, thousands of kids have taken to its games, even though it only went online last month. Kronenberger and her husband Craig, who have 4-year-old twin sons, had an epiphany after learning that millions of youngsters spend countless hours online.
“If kids are flocking to the virtual worlds, why not create something where kids have fun and parents feel good about where they are sending their kids,” says Kronenberger, who’ll be one of the presenters in Las Vegas. “The premise and core to Elf Island is through ‘gaming for good’ (a term they have trademarked), which we believe is a new category in the virtual world space.”
Researchers who study kid-marketing say the possibilities for profit are good.
Scott Traylor, a Boston-based expert on virtual worlds whose company, 360KID, develops video software, says “social networking” sites like Elf Island have lots of potential. At least one, Club Penguin, has millions of subscribers.
“Kids are very savvy,” he says. “They are digital natives.”
And studies say kids are drawn to games that let them help others.
“You’re doing something for people in a place where people are poor,” Jalyn says.
“And,” William adds, “it’s a lot of fun.”
ONLINE GAMING
> 34 percent of American children and teens who use the Internet visited a virtual world at least once a month in 2008. That’s expected to rise to 42 percent in 2009.
> 71 percent of digital kids feel their virtual worlds are very important to them.
> 13 percent of adults say their children are spending less time with real friends and more with virtual ones
> 75 percent of youngsters said in a survey that they use the Internet to participate in communities tied to social causes.
> Virtual worlds like Elf Island, World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold), Ultima Online, Second Life, Webkinz and scores of others allow players to interact with others worldwide. They are known as “massively multiplayer online games.”
> About 10 million people worldwide visit at least one virtual world often.
> A new three-year study funded by the MacArthur Foundation concludes that youngsters who play online are acquiring technical skills and “learning to be competent citizens in the digital age.”
> A survey found that digital kids have a hankering to “make a difference” and help the planet
Sources: University of California-Irvine, Center for the Digital Future of University of Southern California, Media Research Lab of Iowa State University, Just Kid Inc.
