Does the world need another virtual world? Sony seems to think so: after a closed beta period, Sony has launched Free Realms, a browser-based virtual world (but still Windows-only) tied to its Free Realms trading card game. Free Realms tries to blend the open-ended nature of many existing virtual works (like Second Life) with quests, items, leaderboards, and other goal-oriented activities more common in MMORPGS like World of Warcraft. In Free Realms, users can have pets, work at jobs, race around, play games, explore the world, and (of course) customize and deck out their avatars.
