Difference between revisions of "Economic Trouble in First Life"

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== 2007: ==
== 2007: Business prosperity ==


The popularity of Second Life grows. The virtual world is not only the place for social interaction and mean of entertainment; it becomes serious platform for e-commerce, e-learning and e-governments. World wide known companies like Apple, Reebok or ABN Amro open their services in this 3D environment. Second Life becomes main source of income for many freelancers. The tax free economy is blooming giving birth to first millionaires.<br>
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.
Being part of the digital environment also Second Life is not free of cyber crime.  After short close down caused by a worm attack called “grey goo” (which installs spinning objects in the virtual world that slows the servers as users try to interact with them) Linden Labs is faced with CopyBot. This new program enables users to quickly copy characters, objects, and buildings, potentially eroding the value of people's virtual property. First trials concerning copy rights and property ownership issues follow. As a respond Linden Lab publishes the blacklist and several users are banned from virtual world. In the meanwhile, a group calling themselves the "Second Life Liberation Army" (SLLA,) stages the first online terrorist attack. Linden Lab receives several complains about the growing menace of mafias and gangs that are forcing members out of public areas. Users become more and more annoyed by the Linden Lab reluctance to take any legal action against cyber criminals or involve in dispute resolution.


== 2008: ==
== 2008: And the bubble grows ==


Linden Lab comes with new services to attract younger people to join the virtual reality. New schools, playgrounds, game centers are open. The age range of Second Life residents’ gradually shifts from 25-45 to 16-45. Also e-government and e-commerce services slowly expand. Whole cities are “copied” to the virtual world. The residents are given the opportunity to travel, attend courses at the universities, visit museums or use the e-lockets for the district administration. The opportunities seem to be endless.<br>
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 looses first law trails against the residents concerning the copy rights and property ownership. At the same time the gangs are getting more powerful distracting several public events and a still more cases of illegal mafia’s activities come to the day light. Linden Lab bounds the possibility of multiple personalities within the Second Life and starts IP blocking of the users involved in any kind of cyber crime. This method thou is still not effective enough mostly because of the use of zombie networks that make the correct identification much more complex.
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: ==
== 2009: There is no bubble! ==


First public demonstration is held in Great Britain after the death of 16 years old Kelly. She met her killer, 46 years old Thomas B. in one of the Second’s Life youth club. She was sexually abused and killed. Several more demonstrations against Linden Lab are held in France, Germany and Canada. This incident together with the growth of other online crimes within virtual world makes the Government of US to put high sanctions on Linden Lab and force them to monitor all the chat dialogs and voice conversations which take place in Second Life. From now on all the new residents are required to give the true personal data even when applying for the free account.<br>
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.
Rising criminality has a very negative influence on Second Life’s economy. After careful investigation on child pornography and sexual abuse several youth centers are close down. Also the forbiddance of anonymity and dialog monitoring seriously cuts down the number of new users and even several hundreds of active residents start selling the properties and cancel their accounts.
Ubuntu Linux users launch the first working Alpha release of "Free Penquin", the open source alternative to Second Life.


== 2010: Back on the track?==
== 2010: Crash! ==


Growing number of attacks of SLLA and their followers together with massive strikes of the online business holders makes Linden Lab to come up with the first Virtual World Constitution. Rosedale becomes the first official decision making authority.
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.
Soon first sanctions and “real life” arrests on the Second Life’s criminals take place. The newly organized investigation group discloses and shuts down several mafia networks in Mexico and Russia. Extra founds are put into increasing the security; the latest technology anty-virus applications, firewalls are deployed. The residents slowly recover the trust in Second Life. The economy seems to be rising slowly again, the course of Linden Dollar rises. The number of new residents grows and new businesses are open. It seems like Second Life is back on the right track.
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: Instability ==
== 2011: Sold ==


Economy crash
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: The End ==
== 2012: Dismantled ==


The criminality inside Second Life goes out of control. Involved in numerous trails Linden Lab has no more financial resources to continue with Second Life’s development and security improvement. Additionally more and more users are removing their businesses and close their accounts in virtual world. Linden Lab is close to bankruptcy.<br> 
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".
On September the 12th comes the end to the Second Life. Big explosion of digital bomb destroys 70% of the virtual world. SLLA doesn’t want to take the responsibility for this attack. Large amount of data is lost, together with billions of Linden Dollars. Linden Lab claims there is no way for full data recovery. The ex-residents of SL are devastated by the lost of their possessions, the lava of trails follows. The US government officially closes down the Second Life and takes over all what is left from virtual world to cover part of the depts. Some speculations rise that Linden Lab itself is responsible for the explosion. The investigation takes place and soon first arrests inside Linden Lab take place.

Latest revision as of 21:14, 4 May 2007

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".

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