Economic Trouble in First Life

2007: Business prosperity

Second life shows an exponential growth as their growth rate more that triples. The continuous presence in the media contributes to the success. Second Life shows its potential in E-commerce. Supermarkets open virtual shopping malls where customers can fill their virtual shopping basket which will eventually be delivered at their real door or are made ready for pickup by the customer. As the presence of businesses in Second Life continues to grow even non-commercial and governments show an increasing interest in Second Life. Currently no competition or similar alternatives have arised.

2008: And the bubble grows

Second Life is now a commonly accepted economic market. Most global companies have their businesses represented in Second Life and most of them conduct at least some type of e-commerce in Second Life. The first “virtual businesses” which only exists in Second Life are reported. Wikipedia is ported to Second Life creating a virtual library with almost unlimited resources. In an effort to keep up several search engine companies introduce a Second Life search. Seeing the succes of Linden Lab other alternatives are announced claiming they offer various superios additions. Even on Sourceforge the first duplicates of Second Life are emerging. Linden Lab and Nvidia’s introduction of first hardware accelerated 3D version of Second Life adds to the endless growing media attention for Second Life. South Korea reports the first Second Life addicted citizens and introduces special “Second Life rehabs”.

2009: There is no bubble!

Second Life, now a part of every wordbook, faces it first growth slowdown. But due to the immense size it has grown, the slowdown is hardly noticed. However, several business analyst question the business model of Second Life suggesting it might be the second bubble that could break. Linden Lab, now a multinational company with over 2000 employees, claims these reports as incorrect and highly speculative. Meanwhile the competition is growing stronger and backed up by large funding raised during the last year start offering comperative and in some cases superior services. Ubuntu Linux users launch the first working Alpha release of "Free Penquin", the open source alternative to Second Life.

2010: Crash!

Linden Lab lowers their prizes for various services for the first time in their existance. The rising competition in the Virtual Reality Community business is getting harder and harder. The more difficult economic climate also works against Second Life by making it less atractive for businesses to establish themselves or otherwise spend money on Second Life. Although Linden Lab has small succeses by teaming up with hardware manufacturers to create special Second Life items such as emotion transmitters and voice transmitters, competitors easly change their coding to make these items compatible with their products. The first Beta release of "Free Penguin" is launched for Linux, Windows and MacOSX and downloads are over 100.000 in the first week. The free alternative becomes populair fairly quickly as users are stimulated to create free content.

2011: Sold

Unable to coop with the increasing competition Linden Lab sees itself forced to sell their Second Life business to Atari. Atari's long experience in the gaming industry is needed to prevent Second Life from being overrun by (free) competitors. In the same year Electronics Arts presents their new version of "The Sims" which shows large similarities with Second Life. Free Penguin opensource release 1.1 is considered stable and gains more popularity. Businesses are now forced to make a decission wether they will participate in all programs or just pick one. This deteriorates the business opportunities.

2012: Dismantled

Atari decides to close Second Life as competition from EA's "The Sims" is overwhelming. Atari makes a media stunt by announcing that most of the code will be donated to the open source initiative "Free Penguin".