Second Life becomes First Life

2007: Popularity increases

As the amount of users of Second Life keeps expanding, people become more and more familiar with the concept of it and its possibilities. This makes Second Life into one of the new ”next big things” that more and more users and companies are interested in joining. Companies like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike etc. begin experimenting with the possibilities of Second Life and start offering a few services to their costumers, primarily targeted at promoting their business. With the increase of companies entering Second Life, an increase of users also takes place. They become attracted by the new possibilities that SL has to offer and stick around to discover other aspects of it. By doing this, they start spending more money on Linden Dollars that they use within the game, making Linden Labs grow and start investing more money into the development of Second Life. The increase of money spent also boosts the games internal economy, making it even more interesting for players to keep playing the game. The increase in popularity also has a downside. Because of a few real-life incidents related to Second Life the media also starts giving the game bad publicity, creating a large amount of people that are against Second Life. Competition, like the Playstation 3’s recently announced “Home”, also begin to emerge. This offers some tough competition for Second Life as the Playstation is already a well-established brand name and reaches a lot of households who already own one. Because of this and other competitors, Second Life starts loosing some of it’s user base. This forces Linden Labs to take measures to battle competion.

2008: Increasing popularity = increasing concerns

Even though the competition takes some of Second Life’s user base away, the popularity of Second Life keeps growing in 2008. The user base keeps expanding and more and more companies keep joining. Companies that already present start expanding their services. They start to not only promote their products, but also start experimenting more with ways of selling goods and services through Second Life. This forces Linden Labs to invest more in the possibilities of Second Life to expand them to companies’ needs. The reluctance of some companies and users to join also forces Linden Labs to keep working on security issues concerning payment and privacy. Linden Labs invests a lot of money into researching this. As more users keep joining, the amount of hours hat they spend in Second Life also keeps increasing. Their goal while playing the game also shifts. It also starts getting focused on retrieving information and buying products and services. It is no longer just a way of communicating but it is starting to replace some activities people would do in real life, like going to a store. This increases the concern that some people have that Second Life is not good for people and splits people even further on this matter. The government also starts investigating incidents related to Second Life. By now the Second Life brand name is getting as big as the names iPod and Nike. More even competitors begin to appear making the competition grow. They start focusing on better graphics and more possibilities within their games. Because Linden Labs was able to invest money on Second Life, they are prepared for these changes and make adequate adjustments to their program leaving the competition behind, once again. By doing this they manage to keep their lost user base to a minimum. Companies also start competing by offering cheaper services and free Open Source versions appear. Linden Labs is forced to make Second Life more affordable but still chooses to charge for their services and offer guaranteed quality in return, as they believe this is still what companies want.

2009: Government interference

Even though there are still competitors out there business continues to grow for Linden Labs, although not at the same rate as it used to in the early days. Their efforts to offer better quality seems to justify paying for it. The increasing user base and services is starting to make Second Life into a new way of surfing the internet. By now many of the existing companies are present offering a multitude of services, information and products to people. But this also increases the social problems and raises the concerns coming from the government. After numerous incidents and lawsuits (related to fraud, child pornography, etc.) against users and Linden Labs, the government starts expressing their concern about the anonymity of users on Second Life as it is becoming too much connected with their normal lives. To avoid being shut down or loosing support from companies, Linden Labs adapts Second Life to make it more difficult to engage in illegal activities. This also fits into their efforts to offer better quality service. Still, this is a blow for Linden Labs as Second Life is known as a world where everything is possible. The changes they apply will change that to some extend. Although the “censoring” of Second Life does not go well with a part of the user base, it does attract new users who now think Second Life is a more secure and controlled environment. This opens up a new market for the Second Life economy and compensates the harm that is done to some extend. In many countries regulations start being upheld that clarify things as ownership of virtual property, and other legal issues connected to the use of the virtual environments. Concerns among people also start do decrease. All of this has the effect that Second Life, now more than ever, gets accepted as a common way to surf the web, interact and buy goods. In that way Second Life gets more and more connected to peoples “first” life. Because of this, Linden Labs starts researching new ways of continue to integrate Second Life into people’s lives and also starts to research possibilities to team-up with other companies to expand Second Life. They need to do this because any new development on the side of the competition can easily knock them off their first place.

2010: Stability and new technology

As people start accepting Second Life more as a part of their normal live, Linden Labs (working together with hardware developers) starts expanding Second Life to an even more immersive experience by developing and releasing new software and hardware that can improve the Second Life experience. Not only does the software get updated to a more beautiful and lifelike environment, but new technologies like virtual reality goggles make it possible for the user (that can afford it) to almost literally step into the Second Life world. This turns the Second Life simulation into an even more realistic experience and the barrier between the real world and virtual world starts to gradually fade away. By now, people start spending a lot of time indoors engaging in virtual activities. Using Second Life is getting as common as watching television and surfing the internet. These two familiar ways of entertainment are actually more and more integrated in Second Life as well. The possibilities of Second Life seem endless as Linden Labs keeps investing into the program and it becomes very clear that Virtual Reality is the way computers are heading in and that Second Life (and it’s competitors) is more than a hype, but is the beginning of a new direction for computers as we know them.

2011: Virtual Reality catches on

The use of virtual reality catches on with the masses. By now goggles, and other appliances that improve the Second Life experience, start getting more affordable and people start using these more and more. A large part of frequent Second Life users own these or is planning to buy one very soon. A shift starts to occur in how computers are used. Even developers of operating systems start shifting their user interfaces to an virtual reality like environment. This creates new possibilities (but also new competition) for Linden Labs. Virtual Reality starts expanding to regular applications. Ideas of complete virtual offices, classrooms, etc. start emerging. Linden Labs expands their Second Life product into a series of new Virtual Reality applications that can be used for these purposes and can also be connected to Second Life itself. The Second Life world by now is starting to become a perfect mirror of the normal world. Competition from big competitors starts getting fierce. As Virtual Reality begins to transfer to other pc applications, developers like Microsoft start to get more and more interested in it. Some small form of Virtual Reality is announced for the next Windows release. The rise in use of Virtual Reality in many different applications has a downside for Linden Labs as Second Life is no longer a novelty. This causes the growth in users to stabilise more. By now the huge popularity spike of Second Life is over. Still, Second Life remains popular and is still viable for Linden Labs.

2012: Second Life = First Life

By 2012 the borders between real world and virtual world are dissapearing. People start switching between real and virtual world seamlessly to engage in activities and accomplish tasks. People’s “First” and “Second” life have almost merged. Walking around in Virtual enviroments is more and more considered a “real” experience. The integration of Second Life into the lives of their user base is almost complete. With this, Linden Labs starts targeting even more to people who are harder to reach (like the elderly, people who dislike technology, etc.) with the goal of reaching almost every one that can use a computer. As Virtual Reality is now a normal part of life, more money is spent on researching new ways of experiencing it (like smell, taste etc.). Software developers (and also Linden Labs) start preparing for a world were Virtual Reality is the leading way in doing everything on your computer and the majority of things in your life. Second Life is now “just” one of the many applications that involves Virtual Realities but is still a very popular brand, even though they have to share their user base with competition.