OBJETIVES for life
... in 40 hours a week easy," said Shannon Grei, who supports herself in Medford, Ore., by making virtual clothes for avatars in that other world. "I couldn't believe that it was really, that it was real, that you could even do that, and it just blew my mind, it still blows my mind," Grei laughs. She's not alone. "What we have here is a virtual loft of sorts that we created for the artist Regina Spektor," says Ethan Kaplan of Warner Bros. Records, which has set up shop to publicize the pop singer's music. You can go skydiving and not be afraid of dying; you could become a wild animal, something that you could never do in real life," she said. As hard as this may be to believe, there is real money changing hands among the players in these games, Bowen reports. An estimated $1 billion worldwide is spent by users buying and selling virtual goods, such as furniture for virtual houses and clothing for their avatars. But it's paid for with real-world credit cards — at Second Life alone, $6 million a month. "I put...