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Wednesday, September 02, 2015

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Cube Republic

Most striking is how much older (on average) and more female the SLers are, compared to other games/MMOs, which typically skew toward the 20s/early 30s and much more male. This might be an aytpical sample*


Second life is 12 years old, so maybe people who joined in early 30s, are now in early 40s?

Tankgirl

http://www.dailydot.com/geek/adult-women-largest-gaming-demographic/ So other games/MMOs, don't typically skew toward the 20s/early 30s and are much more male either.

Janjii Rugani

Hello
I was feeling it as resident but not sure and today your post confirm my suspicious, its a very important information for my doctor degree thesis about Art in SL
Do you have any other recent statistics about Demographics in SL like users numbers , etc?
Thanks for now
Best regards
Janjii Rugani (Isa Seppi av)

CronoCloud Creeggan

Hasn't everyone known that SL skews somewhat older and more female for years now? This is Captain Obvious style info since that was common knowledge when I joined up in 2006.

Canary Beck

This generally concurs with my SL RL Privacy survey data that had nearly 800 respondents (and much of the other data I have no SL demos):

Of the men completing the survey 51% were between 30-39 years of age, and 30% were between 50-64 years of age. 56% of the women completing the survey were between 30-49, and 26% were between 18-29. 74% of my respondents were women.

A.J.

These are the people who can afford Second Life.

It's a group of people who don't have to answer to mom and dad when they charge $300.00 a month on their credit card for things that don't exist.

Patchouli Woollahra

You're generalising. Some stalwarts of SL were poorly monied in the first place. some of them had to drop out unfortunately as the world economy put new pressures on people's incomes. also: a sim does not necessarily have to be owned by one single person, so long as everyone who wants part of it agrees to share the tier costs in a manner they consider fair.

In fact, there are ways to actively engage in SL that require only a handful of dollars a month or maybe not even that - the act of building with basic prims and precanned textures, giving static objects life with scripts of your own device or added onto the work of others, listening to music in a darkened dance club, or even merely walking in a visually enchanting place are almost zero after the costs of getting a setup that can handle Second Life and supplying reasonable broadband and power to it.

Not everyone in Second Life can be a land owner. but everyone in Second Life can experience and potentially affect it, one step at a time.

A.J.

I'm most certainly generalizing. I'm looking at demographics.

It's possible to enjoy SL without spending money and it's possible to find a meal by collecting free samples on toothpicks or by growing your own food.

But when I'm inworld at events and looking at the avatars or sailing in the Blake Sea sims, it's clear how much spending is going on. I don't see a lot homemade clothing and prim-built huts.

People are paying for all of this, even Marketplace freebies, sandboxes, music in the darkened clubs, and every prim of visually enchanting places that you find on a toothpick.


Ajax Manatiso

I agree with Captain Obvious. I have been running events in SL for 8 years now and very clearly female and over 40 dominates the profile of the typical SL regular. The only reason SL's own poll differs is because they have ivy league educated marketers who were trained in marketing to the 18-35 age group (cliche target market) and so they have to justify their skills in order to maintain their jobs. It will eventually take a lot of Captain Obviouses to pound reality in LL's management before they realize they have something very special - and then they will make real money when they shift their marketing focus to older, higher-income individuals and embrace SL's unique flavor instead of trying to copycat whatever is hot this year with 18 year olds.

Aliasi Stonebender

There's a difference between "something everybody knows" and actual statistically-valid data, folks. After all, there's a lot of things "everybody knows" that turned out to not be true at all.

That said, the MMO thing isn't that surprising; quite a lot of MMOs are very social, and the Secret World and Guild Wars 2 even have 'dress up' and social activities as a major component! They don't allow for user content like SL, but for a non-creator who still spends time in roleplay, or at music shows, or whatnot in SL... there's a lot of overlap.

Jumpman Lane

Oh gee, maybe I been playing the wrong game all these years hehehehehe caws all I've ever been after was excitement, destruction, and powah...and I meant biness hehehehehe

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