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Virtual worlds started with the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) who emerged from the video gaming world, thus indicating their play-related origins. Steinkuehler’s work (2006) suggests that the learning mechanisms triggered by games in the virtual world depend “on the nature of the game obviously, but also on the social practices they give rise to.” Continuing this line of study, our work shows that these immersive environments actually forge social ties and generate digital rites of various kinds between the public and private spheres. In this article, we explore the controversies around immersive environments through an investigation of the virtual body within these systems, which we believe function as venues partly for entertainment, partly for leisure and partly as mediated learning spaces. The case of “serious games” is discussed here as an illustration.