Virtual Worlds
"A couple of years ago, the Erie, Pennsylvania-based supplier of hospital decontamination and surgical equipment commissioned Summit Graphics Inc. of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, to create a 3D library of their products and generate walkthrough animations that the company's salespeople could use to help potential clients--hospitals and other medical facilities--visualize how the products might fit into their facilities."
- Diane Philips Mahoney, Virtual Technology Generates Real Sales(1995)
This is an example of a positive use of virtual reality that can responsibly use virtual reality worlds to help communicate with a client and sell a product. In the future traditional advertising will fall by the way side as more and more companies see the benefits of being able to show consumers and clients a 3D model of the product in a hypothetical environment. In this context, in which the client know that he or she is being advertised to, virtual reality doesn't harbor any real problems. A controversial issue arises when people don't know they are being advertised to. While not illegal, deceiving a consumer is somewhat unethical.
"Export-manufacturers in China, for example, have started to enhance their websites using VR to showcase what they do and how they do it, not just provide information content. Using video and VR presence, they can reach their targeted audiences without appearing to advertise to them."
-W. Wossen Kassaye, Virtual Reality as Source of Advertising (2006)
As virtual reality becomes more mainstream in the future, this problem will arise much more often. Virtual Worlds are certainly not to blame for society's problems but they could help perpetuate them. If used properly virtual worlds can provide a great platform to communicate and form groups that would have otherwise been impossible to form. We just need to be weary of the consequences of too much reliance on them.