Whatever side you happen to land on in the debate over adult content on the Internet, you've got to hand it the folks at Red Light Center: at least they're creative.

Simply put, Red Light Center is something of an adult-themed equivalent to the massively popular online virtual world, Second Life. Instead of flying around and visiting virtual Dell stores, however, the residents of Red Light Center get their kicks in other ways: through both the sexual experiences around which the service was based and the recent, much touted (at least on the part of game manufacturer, Utherverse Inc.) introduction of "virtual drugs."

When Utherverse sent Appscout a press release that trumpeted an upcoming "Virtual Rave" (honestly, once virtual drugs are introduced, can bad virtual house music really be that far behind?) on April 20th (get it?), we couldn't help but take the bait. We sat down with Utherverse CEO, Brian Shuster, to discuss the upcoming Rave and to get a bit of insight into the world of Red Light Center.

The interview (transcript posted after the jump) proved incredibly fascinating. Before launching into it, however, it must be noted that certain things should be taken with a grain of salt. The methods for calculating the populations of virtual worlds are notoriously muddy, as our own Cade Metz found out a while back, when writing a story about Second Life. When Shuster suggests that, at 250,000 active users, Red Light District has "many, many more users than Second Life," you can almost hear the retaliatory blog posts firing up.

Still, if that number is anywhere near the actual population of active citizens, it's a bit mind-boggling. That's more people than live in my hometown of Fremont, CA--all indulging their deepest, darkest fantasies. I don't consider myself a prude, but once those initial images of your kindergarten class gallivanting through the streets of a virtual Amsterdam creep into your head, there's no getting them out.

Be forewarned: the transcript is long, but well worth the read. And while far from graphic, it contains certain themes which might prove questionable for some readers. Consider yourselves warned.

Can you briefly explain what Red Light Center is all about?

Red Light Center is an adult virtual world that also leverages Web 2.0 features. Users start by creating an avatar and online profile. The two are really interconnected. The avatar is obviously whatever the user wants to create, in terms of how they want to portray themselves. In terms of a virtual world, there's an unprecendented number of experiences that users can have, everything from a highly social environment—people making friends and hanging out, all the way to extreme adult situations. It's really a wonderful platform, for example, for sexual experimentation. We have a whole spectrum on the adult side, including classes and shows and events that occur within the world, in which users can participate.

Is the site fee-based?

It's free as a basic member, which provides users all of the functionality, other than all of the adult stuff—being able to get naked and have sex and whatnot. The VIP membership is $20 a month, which is all-inclusive. Our revenue model is partly the fee component, but we're really more commerce driven. There's all kinds of shopping. We don't support any kind of advertising in the world. As a commercial type of district, it's patterned very much after the Web, where there's not an expense to visit Web sites, but you can conduct commerce out of there.

Are people buying virtual things or real-world products?

Generally it's real-world products, though there are some virtual components. There's some stuff that is a mix. For example, we have a bordello. They pay us a flat monthly rent, but their girls engage in phone sex and avatar sex. I don't know how I would categorize that. It's sort of virtual and sort of real-world, and it's really services more than goods. We're starting to add in virtual goods, but that hasn't been the focus, so far.

So it's not quite like the Second Life virtual economy?

There's components of that, but really, we're a much more sophisticated system than that. This is really more patterned after the World Wide Web, grounded in the real-world economy.

You mentioned that on the non-paid side, there's an element of casual interaction. Do you find that people are using it for the same kind of basic non-sexual interpersonal relations that they do on Second Life?

Unquestionably. Much more so than in Second Life. We've really overcome a lot of the inherent problems that they experience on that platform. You'll find that we have many more users than Second Life—

You have more users than Second Life?

Many, many more users.

Can you give me a number?

Actual, real users--we have about 250,000. That's markedly different than users who have registered, but don't use the platform.

So that's 250,000 active users.

Right. And you can pop into the world at any time, day or night, and you'll find that, wherever you go, there are dozens or hundreds of active users engaged in the various shops and bars and clubs and whatnot. It's much easier to socialize and its much easier to interact on this platform, and really a lot of that draws from the full integration with this Web 2.0 social networking platform. Users will send each other notes and friend requests on the Web side, and then decide to hook up in the world to go to an event or a club.

Everything I've seen thus far seems to indicate that you're marketing it as more of an "adult" experience, but you're finding that people are using this site for more casual encounters?

The adult side is obviously a significant component, but it's not the primary feature. The primary feature is an immersive virtual world. We find that it's the main focus when people first arrive—they want to check out the ability to have all kinds of sexual encounters, everything from standard sex to bondage/discipline, but that rapidly diffuses to the priority that it's given in real life, which is that the community has its own standards. It's become inappropriate for people to be naked in the street—

That's kind of a disappointment...

Yes and no. It makes it more special. There's special events and special regions, where that type of thing happens, but it's been a self-organizing community.

It's an interesting social experiment, watching people impose these real world rules upon themselves.

Yeah, it really is. We don't come up with those rules and we don't enforce them. It's really so much more about making friends and being social. We have so much more, like wedding events and people making lifelong friends within the software, and those seem to be more dominant than the adult components; though to be fair, it is Red Light Center. It's patterned after Amsterdam, so it's designed to be a fully expressive platform for people.

When you were designing it, though, you specifically had these adult activities in mind, right?

Well, it was designed to be one virtual world in our vast network of virtual worlds. We opted to start out with the one that was the most adult-entertainment oriented, but we've rapidly expanded beyond that, though we haven't officially come out with these as different virtual worlds. We've moved into wellness and beach environments and other environments that are not adult-oriented. The focus is going to be more diffused than that.

Are they all going to reside under the Red Light umbrella?

No. Within the next few months, we're going to be rolling out a 3D Vanouver and a 3D Las Vegas, which will be interconnected, over what I'm calling the "virtual world Web."

So the environment that you've created is also geographically modeled after Amsterdam?

Yeah. A lot of the buildings that you see are actual buildings in the red-light district of Amsterdam. The textures, we went over and shot. It's really like visiting a European city, without leaving home.

Do you have numbers regarding the amount of time that the average user is spending online in these worlds?

I actually don't track that metric right now. Though I will say that generally, what we've found is of our paying member base, users very rarely quit. So from that standpoint, they seem like they might be using it quite a bit, because they're not inclined to cancel their memberships.

What was the thinking behind the virtual drug experiment?

Again, as an adult community, and being patterned after Amsterdam, we introduced virtual marijuana. Users really enjoyed the enjoyed the experience of being able to go into a café and take a hit on a hooka—particularly with the effects as it related to the user experience, the movements and the visual effects. We invited Renderotica, which is the premier adult graphics community, to co-sponsor a rave with us, and decided that we could move this beyond everything that's even been done on the Internet, or really, in any iteration before, which is invite everyone from everywhere on the planet to experience this rave culture. So we spent a lot of time and attention and really—without going into any specifics—were able to reproduce the ecstacy effects quite dramatically, and integrate that into what is sort of a music festival/rave-type party and offer that to our user base.

Do you see this as glorifying these drugs, in a way?

Well, I don't think they need any glorification from us. They're pretty high profile. Certainly, I think it adds a new dimension and another choice for consumers. I say it's analogous, for example, to a woman who is bi-curious. She may not want to experience her first sexual encounter with another woman live and in-person, so we introduced this process as a way to experiment online, and it was really well received. Many women are saying they tried out their first lesbian encounter this way. This is sort of the same type of thing. A lot of people who would be concerned about doing a drug as potent as ecstacy in real life, but don't want to go their whole life having missed out on this type of cultural experience, this is an opportunity for people to experiment in safe environment.

So you believe that the portrayal is that accurate?

Yes. This is hard to grasp before you've spent a significant amount of time in a virtual world.

I think we got cut off there.

Yes, I suspect that that's one of your United States law enforcement agencies deciding that they don't like this discussion [laughs]. What happens is, when you experience that immersion, those experiences really start to feel real. There was initially a lot of concern, as we were launching with the sex component, that it wouldn't seem like a real experience, and therefore wouldn't be successful. We found quite the opposite, in fact. Users really come away from the sexual experiences, feeling like they've been intimate with somebody. The same really holds true for the drugs. When you're inhabiting the avatar, your brain really feels that it's real; beyond what we portray on the screen, you really start to experience these drug effects. With ecstacy in particular, we've nailed it, and it's going to become better and better as the technology improves. But even now, the drugs are remarkably effective.

You mentioned the possibility of adding other drugs in the future. Are there any that you wouldn't add?

That's another good question. There may be drugs that we have trouble replicating the effects. It's easier for us to replicate hallucinogens, for example, than stimulants or depressants. I can say that we don't have any plans in the works to replicate any drugs outside of hallucinogens or minor stimulants.

So there'll be no heroin?

You know, I don't intend to put heroin out there, though I can't say definitively yes or no, depending on the feedback and demand.

Depending on how the market for heroin is looking?

Really, depending on how the results of everything play out. For example, we're investigating, right now, using the Red Light Center software as a tool to help people quit smoking, as an adjunct to using standard techniques, such as a patch. The theory is that, if every time someone who is trying to quit smoking, instead of going out and smoking a real-life cigarette, they instead log on and smoke a virtual cigarette, it takes the social component of smoking a cigarette, and helps break it. Depending on how these trials play out, it may be of real value to add in a methodone or even a heroin solution. It's more than just what the marketplace bears—we look at this more holistically, as a lifestyle replacement.

So, is virtual marijuana a potential gateway drug for real marijuana?

I don't know that I'd agree with that assessment. First of all, my personal opinion is that "gateway" is just a huge fallacy. There's no such thing as a gateway drug. But even to the extent that one would want to argue that this could be a gateway, my response would be, that if someone hasn't tried marijuana in the real world, and their first experience is with peer pressure in Red Light Center to try it, this actually gives them an experience that they can call on later as to whether they want to try it in the real world, or not, rather than just being carried away by peer pressure. Because the first time that they're exposed to this is in a situation where they're being told to take a hit on a joint, they can instead recollect that they've had this experience multiple times, and they don't want to try it, or they do want to try it, in the real world.

You talk about "experiencing" drugs, but are you also showing their negative effects?

[Pause]. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "negative effects."

Obviously, there will be a negative side to all of these experiences, in the real world. For example, smoking—there are obvious negative effects to smoking. Will those be part of the experience when you smoke a cigarette, in the virtual world?

Like with everything that we do in Red Light Center, we make an effort to ensure that there aren't negative effects. Really, it's an argument for why using substances in Red Light Center is an enhancement over the real world. I think if anything, it will dissuade people from using these drugs in the real world. For example, we have a Sober button. So, if at any time, you decide that you need your avatar to be straight, you just hit a button and it's straight. After users have had that experience several times, if they then turn around and experiment in the real world, and realize that, "oh, s—, in the real world, there's no Sober button," it may pull them back to just wanting to use these drugs virtually.

But at the same time, it's not necessarily dissuading them initially from that desire to try it, because you're not really experiencing potential negative effects in the real world.

You know, that's a valid argument. The negative effects are not really portrayed in the virtual world, and they're therefore an enhancement...

But your essential point is that it's a safe environment in which to experience them.

Yeah, and my other point is that peer pressure works, because people don't have experience in being able to stand up and knowledgably decide what they want to do, in the heat of the moment. And after having this virtual crutch as an experience, they can say that they've encountered peer pressure online, and they can deal with it. If they're making an affirmative decision, that's different. My personal opinion is that people need to have the freedom to decide what path their life is going to take, and frankly, I think that experimenting with marijuana—I just don't see a downside to it.

Heroin, on the other hand...

Well, [laughs]—there are certainly substances that have downsides. And again, I think it bolsters people's ideas of what they want to do when they gain experience, and I think that's what Red Light Center's all about. Giving people experiences halfway between the Internet and the real world, and helping them to experience what those things are like, and deciding whether they really want to try them or not. Once people are making informed decisions, that's the best that we can do. Once they're educated, they're equipped to handle things better.

Real quickly: what are the details on the "rave"?

The rave is on 4/20. It's at the Fever Night Club, and it's being brought to users by Renderotica. It's going to be at 8 PM PDT, and it's the world premier of virtual ecstacy.