Second Life Returns to Nielsen's Top 10 PC Game Ratings -- But Total Average Minutes Played Drops by Half from 2009

Well this is interesting: Second Life has returned to the latest Top 10 PC Game chart compiled by Nielsen, based on data the venerable ratings service gathers from application activity in 180,000+ US homes. (The latest ratings are from December 2011.) Last June 2011, SL dropped off the Top Ten chart, falling to position eleven, and then last October 2011, fell even further, to rank fifteen. Interestingly, the MMO Dungeons & Dragons online was in the top ten in October, but has been supplanted by SL and another virtual life simulation toy/platform/game/whatever, The Sims 3. At the same time, SL's market share is slightly down from October 2011 to December 2011, falling from .96 to .74. Overall that's a relatively slight drop, but if we look back at the Nielsen charts from 2009, there's a very notable usage falloff:

Back in March 2009, SL's total average minutes played per week (TMP) was 760, higher than even World of Warcraft. (i.e. Over 12 hours/week.) Now the TMP is down to 369 minutes, i.e. a little over 6 hours a week. Since there hasn't been much absolute growth from 2009 to 2011, I think this drop strongly suggests the established users are logging into SL for much less time -- nearly 50% less than they were three years ago. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for SL, but probably reflects a general trend away from PC power-grinding, as people shift more of their attention to tablets and smartphones. (Indeed, World of Warcraft's TMP has also dropped since 2009, from 653 to 483.) In any case, now nearly 9 years old, SL still shows tremendous staying power.

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Comments

[Pussycat Catnap]

The February and March results will much more enlightening. That's after the 'free month with purchase' ends for Star Wars, assuming that game came with such as is industry norm - so it will tell us how many people really 'switched' to that new game.

SL time going down while its relation to others goes up simply means people are playing less games of late. That might even be a sign of an economic improvement as folks getting jobs aren't at home on the couch as much... :D

That Stimulus package's effects are, after all, starting to show up as assorted projects reach active status.

[Adeon Writer]

I have noticed that lately alot of good SL friends, instead of being inworld, are off in Blender or Maya working on meshes. I'm sure a similar effect happened with the addition of sculpties. I'm not honestly saying this has accounted for the numbers, but it's certainly a fact that has greatly directly effected my SL experience.

[jjccc coronet (@JJcccART)]

one thing shows from these stats we all have less time on our hands to play these games.

[shockwave yareach]

Alternatively, much as I want to say people are getting burned out with SL, the data points to a global "less time" problem that cuts across all the games listed. Even the behemoth WOW has dropped from 653 to 483 average minutes in 2 years time. AND that happened with several updates and major improvements to the game; something SL hasn't done.

But the near halving of time spent inworld in SL is a cause for alarm. Part of it is the same lack of time for games that everyone is suffering through. But not all of it is that; another cause is in effect combined with the global drop.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Two data points do not a trend make. But it does bear further investigation.

Most virtual worlds have periodic peaks and lulls in concurrency (which ought to have a strong correlation with minutes played, unless you've got some crazy churn). They often correspond with major updates and retail box releases, but sometimes you see surges for no other reason than some viral meme took hold, or dips because another hot game is the flavor of the month.

[Nyoko Salome]

;0 are they adding (pc) with (mac) now that it's pretty much all intel? cuz i know i've been catching up on san andreas as much as i can now... ;0 (finished III; started skipping VC at the 'take the tank' level)

[Masami Kuramoto]

Just recently my girlfriend pointed out to me that I had not logged into SL for more than two months. She only noticed that because she saw my last login date in some group members list. But then again, almost all of my friends from the 2007-2009 period don't log in any more either. So the trend indicated by Nielsen is pretty much in line with my personal experience.

However, that doesn't mean I dislike SL or lost interest in it. But the SL of 2007-2009 just isn't there any more. The SL of 2010-2011 has been the period of Emeraldgate, grid-wide alt tracking systems, copybot paranoia and anti-mesh policies by land-owning luddites.

I still love SL as a concept, but the pioneer spirit of the early years is now in OpenSim.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

@Masami - Emeraldgate was just a childish prank on one viewer, Redzone is now history and I have yet to find any anti-mesh sims in SL. Live on the paranoia if you want, but there is still an exciting Second Life out there.

[Ajax Manatiso]

There were lots of great places to go to in 2009 but they are becoming fewer and further between, while the number of stores in SL continues to grow. LL has to do something to prevent SL from becoming Shopping World -- Nothing but Stores! The latest tragedy is Galaxy Dreams which, after 3 wonderful years, shut down on Sunday. LL has to face the facts that non-shopping sims have to have a lower tier or become an endangered species in SL. Then what happens when the only thing you can do in SL is buy things?

[Danielle]

How much of the reduction in minutes is from fewer bots on the grid? They tended to be logged in 1440 minutes a day.

[Renmiri Writer]

Hamlet did you see the latest from linden labs ?

You must not provide any feature that alters the shared experience of the virtual world in any way not provided by or accessible to users of the latest released Linden Lab viewer

Magnanimously they say they will work with 3rd party developers to incorporate 3rd party features into LL's viewer.

Linden Labs is using it's position as dominant player to ask all 3rd party developers to stop innovating or give their ideas and possibly code to Linden Labs. Even if the 3rd party vendors are fairly compensated for their code and ideas, it is still outrageous.

Backslash has already started and LL quickly has said that RLV won't be affected by this. Based on what criteria ? Based on the fact that a sizable number of SL users are likely to protest if that is removed ?

I think they stepped on it this time. This kind of request is blatantly against competition and "injures" 3rd part developers and SL users alike. So much so that may be against Antitrust law. Class action lawsuit anyone ?

[Hanno Tietgens]

@Daniela, good point. March 2009 was right before the bot policy change, which contributed to a decline in usage metrics, but a gain in usage quality. It was also before Viewer 2.

[Rob]

regarding "...latest tragedy is Galaxy Dreams which, after 3 wonderful years, shut down on Sunday..." - what was the music station that was played on the Galaxy Dreams dance floor. Some really great music. Gonna miss them.