Shock Stat: 1600 Second Life Community Creators Make $10,000+ Per Year from their Virtual Content -- Despite Working on a Much Larger Platform, Far Fewer Creators on ROBLOX Make That Rate

From ROBLOX's 2020 IPO stock filing

This passage from my podcast with Philip Rosedale last week seriously deserves its own post -- where Philip is talking about ROBLOX's S1 stock filing, and a passage there (above) stating that 1,050 community developers earned over $10,000 USD a year from their ROBLOX content.

By comparison, Philip notes this (at around minute 31:30):

I asked the team at Second Life to [research] exactly the same number -- how many people in Second Life are making over $10,000 a year year [in 2021] -- and the answer was 1600 people. So more than ROBLOX by a good bit.

More than 500 people. Which is notable in itself. It's even more notable when you compare the active user bases of each platform:

Wagner James Au · Philip Rosedale & Wagner James Au on the future of Second Life & the Metaverse

Second Life only has about 600,000 monthly active users, compared to ROBLOX's 200 million monthly active users. Yet somehow, more of SL's content creator community are making far more money from the platform in absolute dollar numbers, compared to ROBLOX's content creators.

And as I've  noted before, SL has the rare distinction of being a metaverse platform where the community content creators make about as much revenue as the company itself. In this podcast, Philip then goes on to point out that Linden Lab takes about 10% of Second Life's total virtual world economy as revenue for the company. (And is still quite profitable.)

I have a sense that this economic disparity across different metaverse platforms -- how much the community benefits, versus the platform's company owner -- is going to come up more often. Especially now that Philip Rosedale is actively back into that much-needed Metaverse conversation.

Comments

[Isabella]

Well... Roblox is simple and full of kids cause bad parenting... and SL is full of adults who are willing to buy digital clothes, heads and makeup that half of it will never use. They own their wallet.
Really, comparing apples with oranges

[Kyz]

Not sure what has changed in SL, but when the wife and I were making full time incomes, we had to battle LL to up the limits we could cash out. We were never able to take out the full amount we were earning, and the part time staff we were paying also had problems upping their cash out limits. so we handed the business over to them and quit for RL business.

Hopefully that has changed since then, now that SL does tax reporting. But it seemed to be what Lindens you knew back then. No way to run a business, even for a virtual world.

But I can see how Roblox wouldn't even be a consideration for serious income.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Quite interesting. I wouldn't say I'm 'surprised' with the numbers. What @Isabella said is quite right: SL targets a different audience, it's a different niche market, so, no surprise that the numbers are different as well.

It's still nice to see that the ratio of (professional) developers to consumers in SL is so high :) (comparatively speaking, that is)

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Hmm. Didn't this article have a nice graphic illustrating a breakup of what content creators earn per platform? There is an image that doesn't load for me (or is it a blocked ad?). Or am I mixing up your fantastic articles on this specific subject? :)