When Does a Successful Virtual World "End"? (Comments of the Week)

With well-known Second Life-focused media outlets expanding their focus to other virtual worlds, some readers have become bearish on SL's prospects. For instance, Clara Seller:

A few years ago, I always thought that Second Life's end would look like a mass exodus to a new world. Now it feels more like mass extinction.

I'm skeptical that there's enough commonality to hold these diversification models together. It seems like they are just extending a big net and hoping there's something out there to catch.

When you start to see successful people jumping out of tenth floor windows toward nothing, it's not entirely crazy to think there's fire up there.

When SL goes down the drain, it's going to take a huge amount of imaginary money and hope down the drain with it. Whatever worlds exist in that aftermath, are going to have to deal with the "Remember what happened to Second Life" reality.

Small businesses go quickly and quietly. Now you see it, now you don't. I'm starting to think that this will be the real foundation challenge that the next generation of virtual worlds will have to contend with. Maybe all of this technology floundering is the easy part.

Penny Patton, a RL graphics artist with a longtime commitment to improving SL visuals, has perhaps a more nuanced view:

Second Life's "end" was never going to be a sudden thing. That was the mistake most SL users made both when predicting SL's end and when dismissing the doomsayers. In a very real sense, SL ended years ago in the same way AOL, Active Worlds, There and MySpace have. The only difference is that none of Second Life's competition quite scratches that same itch, which has left SL in this kind of limbo.

I'd go so far as to say that Linden Lab could turn things around and breath a second wind into SL, if they weren't still so stuck in the mindset that caused them to lose their success in the first place.

Fun fact: As of last year, there are still about 2 million people subscribing to AOL's dial-up service. But to Penny's point, AOL "ended" well over a decade ago. (Funner fact: Exactly two decades ago, AOL inspired a hit movie starring Tom Hanks.)  And I agree with her that it's far too early to declare SL dead -- with enough courage to make some bold moves and spend significant amounts of money, Linden Lab still could fairly easily give Second Life a second life. (Sorry.)

Pictured: The beloved Mont Saint Michel recreation in Second Life which was originally scheduled for closure in 2015 due to economic woes, but still seems to be in SL even now.

Comments

[Janjii Rugani]

yes I was there 3 weeks ago its still there
I guess SL is ginving land for Historical buildings I would like to know if its true Ty

[YadNi Monde]

Hey Wagner James, you seem just a little behind on the Mont St Michel here, this one was my personnal version, 2 sims, over 45000 prims, with each and every detail of the REAL village, including the tiniest beam of wook on every facade, all buildings entirely visitable inside, one year of passionnate work, two trips to the REAL place and 3200 reference pictures done there.
Take care =)
Yours, Friendly, YadNi.

[Better then E]

Hamlet fails to see Clara's point that was "When you start to see successful people jumping out of tenth floor windows toward nothing, it's not entirely crazy to think there's fire up there."

That fire is named Ebbe and the 4 years he pushed project stupid that ran off tens of thousands of residents with the suggestion it was like SL but better and hinting it would replace it, then we lost more when people found out it was not.

Penny makes a good point if this was 2010 otherwise any cell phone viewer, web viewer,cloud hosting and shines are going to do little to reverse things the wild west brave new world feel is gone.

[Better then E***]

Hamlet fails to see Clara's point that was "When you start to see successful people jumping out of tenth floor windows toward nothing, it's not entirely crazy to think there's fire up there."

That fire is named Ebbe and the 4 years he pushed project stupid that ran off tens of thousands of residents with the suggestion it was like SL but better and hinting it would replace it, then we lost more when people found out it was not.

Penny makes a good point if this was 2010 otherwise any cell phone viewer, web viewer,cloud hosting and shines are going to do little to reverse things the wild west brave new world feel is gone from mismanagement .

[Cindy Bolero]

My prediction always was, that when the real life job market got better, that would be the exodus of Secondlife.