Seven Shikami

A game implies things like win states, fail states, rules to figure out, and other interactive elements. Pet raising and breeding definitely fall in there, as they're questions of resource allocation, with the player trying to figure out how best to maintain the pet. Throw in a levelling curve of some sort and you've definitely got a game in play. Of course, there stands Ye Great Potentiale for Evile, with pets. Because in real life, pets die (a harsh fail state) and pets need to be fed (a constant, ongoing resource allocation issue). Virtual pets that must be replenished perpetually lest they expire forever -- particularly when yoked to a feeding mechanism that indirectly translates to "Feed me L$!" -- that's not my bag at all. The only winning move is not to play, etc. With a good game design, however, a pet can be an enjoyable and rewarding game experience onto itself.

I wouldn't use SL to prototype an idea intended for any other platform. SL is a pile of quirks and interface issues which need to be worked around -- issues you wouldn't have anywhere else. Why spend effort trying to make a game make sense within SL, just to un-work all those works you worked in order to make it work somewhere else? After all, what does SL do really well? Avatar positioning in a 3-D space and clicking on objects is about all I can think of. You can't restrict the camera, so your game can't rely on having a viewpoint that can't no-clip through all of creation. Complicated inputs are difficult, as outside of prim-clicks and chat inputs, you have to do obtuse things like pop-up menus or HUDs or control overrides (which new SLers get easily confused by). Physics is semi-reliable, but my physics based games have broken so many times when LL decides to implement new versions of Havok that I'd never make another one. Now, one thing SL could do for you is allow collaboration on a game project. You can share art and sound resources, design docs, have meetings, talk it over in voice chat, etc. But that's great for projects in general, not just games, I suppose.

For what it's worth, when I was contacted about this "games in SL" event, I was under the impression it'd be about games in general and the process of building them, playing them, dealing with issues surrounding them, etc. Then I got my interview questions and... it was mostly surface-level marketing copy related inquiries. So, marketing copy is what I gave 'em. This event's changed a few times since it was first pitched and I'm just as confused as to its intent as you are. Hopefully it'll spur some good discussion beyond just "Here is my game! Is it not neat?"