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 but they have a hard time on keeping up with Second Life.

2008: Increasing popularity = increasing concerns

In 2008 the popularity of Second Life keeps growing. 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 competitors begin to appear. 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.