Month: October 2017

Virtually Real
October 5, 2017

From the beginning of recorded history we’ve  had a fascination with the blurred lines between the real world and the supernatural world. Greek gods and Hindu gods were described as humans with superpowers who lived in other dimensions and interacted with people on Earth. In biblical times, an all-powerful but invisible God granted some humans super powers, like parting seas and feeding multitudes. In our own times we’ve continued to blur the lines between the real and non-real worlds. We’ve created a non-real online world where a regular person can have a whole different persona – on places like Facebook. We can strap on goggles and walk, swim and even fly, in what we call virtual reality. And when it comes to business, we’re coming to accept the blurred line between transactions that happen in the online world and real world as perfectly normal.

Peter’s lunch guests are both on the cutting edge of this blurred line – if in fact a blurred line can have a cutting edge.

Stephen Morel is Chief Legal Officer at a company called CivicSource. CivicSource takes real world houses that are blighted – or what they call “tax-distressed” – and puts them online where they are auctioned and sold. You can find CivicSource here in Louisiana,  as well as Tennessee, Mississippi and Missouri. Since 2008 CivicSource has sold over 37,000 pieces of property.

Matt Findley is President and Voice of Reason at inXile Entertainment. inXile is one of the most influential and successful creators of online games in the country. They’re responsible for titles like The Mage’s Tale, The Bard’s Tale, and Wasteland. If you play video games you’re already impressed. If you’ve never heard of any of this, you’re going to be impressed by the multi millions of dollars involved and the unique crowdfunding business model that inXile has pioneered.

Photos at Commander’s Palace by Alison Moon.

Original article and live recording found here: http://www.itsneworleans.com/shows/out-to-lunch/virtually-real