
What happened to Second Life? - jonmc12
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8367957.stm
======
anigbrowl
It got overrun by porn, which this story inexplicably fails to mention. I used
to play SL occasionally as I like MMORPGs but it just turned into a bad 3d
version of geocities with more naked flesh. I think LL eventually decided to
hive off all the adult content to a different 'continent' to recreate the
clean social space it originally had, but it was too late. Additionally, the
graphics engine has got really long in the tooth now...last time I fired it up
it looked...old.

~~~
Semiapies
Also, lousy controls and movement that made you feel like a duck - you were
either flying or waddling. Then there were the boxy internal environments that
emphasized the early-FPS visuals.

Really, 90% of what I saw in Second Life was more easily and better done in
City of Heroes, including character design - and you didn't have to pay extra
real cash to get decent clothes.

More fundamentally, though, when people were being social in SL, they were
standing around and _chatting_. It doesn't take all the rest to accomplish
that.

------
Tiktaalik
Second Life was essentially hyped PR spin that was latched on to and parroted
by reporters that knew nothing about the internet. Anyone who was actually
involved with virtual worlds or social networking dismissed Second Life
immediately.

~~~
dylan62
Presumably the 1 million 'residents' who logged on in the last month disagree
with you.

[http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy-
data.php?d=2009-12-...](http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy-
data.php?d=2009-12-02)

Although I don't use it any more, the vitriol and scorn that SecondLife
engenders amazes me. I've no idea where it comes from. At heart it's basically
a huge 3D chat room, albeit a fairly sophisticated one.

~~~
potatolicious
It's the continual media love-fest for it, portraying it as a mainstream
revolution in how our society functions... when in reality it's a moderately
successful, _extremely niche_ app that few people in the mainstream have even
heard of, much less tried.

I think the vitriol directed at SL is somewhat justified - its creators have
cast it as some kind of world-changing social experiment, but in reality it's
a glorified 3D chat room. We in the tech community generally dislike this sort
of unsubstantiated hype.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_when in reality it's a moderately successful, extremely niche app_

What a testament to the exponential growth of things like Facebook and Twitter
that an app that has garnered millions upon millions of users in just a few
years can be described as "extremely niche" with a straight face.

And though I used to agree with you, I think SL will be remembered as a
somewhat paradigm-shifting social experiment, in that it first introduced many
people to the idea of virtual worlds, especially in terms of virtual economies
where people make real money.

------
abyssknight
There's all kinds of stuff being done with SL. For one, there's a .NET global
user group using SL for meetings. If I remember correctly, IBM has a large
presence there as well as several other big companies.

The economy itself chugs along and practically prints money for Linden Labs,
as well as the sellers.

They recently started selling servers to private companies as a means of
allowing them to bring the control 'in house' instead of being open to the
entire Grid.

To be honest, nothing happened to Second Life. It was just forgotten, for
awhile, and will inevitably rise again whether it be through extension of this
version or the creation of something new, like Blue Mars.

------
ilamont
This was a big story in 2007, when the Second Life hype bubble deflated. Seems
strange that the BBC suddenly notices/remembers.

~~~
electromagnetic
Did the author just do a system clean before a Win7 update and realize (s)he
hasn't touched it in years?

~~~
JacobAldridge
It's like you're looking perfectly into a newsroom.

Journalist: "How about this pitch: 'Second Life, where is it now?'"

CoS / Section Editor: "Brilliant. An exploration of how the media jumps on a
new technology bandwagon, defines it as essential, assumes it will last
forever, and then forgets about it almost immediately. Just be sure to put a
link on our Twitter feed when it's done."

------
allenbrunson
apparently, second life insiders don't think much of this article:
<http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/11/five-bbc-fact-fails.html>

------
gcheong
It got made into a movie starring Bruce Willis.

------
anonjon
I read an article that explained SL pretty well. There were essentially 3
things that drove the second life economy: Gambing, shoes, and porn.

I think right when Second Life started to decline, they also had a massive
crackdown on gambling in the virtual world. (Before then it had been common
place for there to be entire Sims devoted to gambling lindens).

So they killed gambling, so the only things left were shoes and porn.

But gambling had been the really big thing.

When I did second life I found it very difficult to meet anyone who was
genuinely interesting. (not that there was no one interesting, just finding
them was _hard_).

------
sabat
My own experience of SL doesn't quite match the article's analysis. I didn't
stay because it always seemed like a ghost town, even in its heyday, and the
GUI program itself is slow as a dog (not to mention the network response).

~~~
mechanical_fish
_it always seemed like a ghost town, even in its heyday_

I spent about ninety minutes on Second Life a couple years ago, back in the
days of its hype, and my vivid impression was that it was an urban planner's
worst nightmare. Kind of like Phoenix.

Everyone had land -- land was considered important and valuable, right? -- so
the world consisted of many separate buildings each alone in the center of its
acre of land. But the majority of the buildings were deserted, presumably
either because not everyone was online at the same time or because they were
all off someplace else. After all, if I wanted to sit around by myself in a
house full of rooms that I had carefully customized, why would I have logged
into Second Life?

So I wandered around looking for the mall, or the city, or the theme park, or
someplace which might actually have some _activity_. I spent a lot of time
traveling around -- all that suburban living makes for long commutes! -- until
I finally found a building full of people, but of course they were all robots
and when you talked to one they either started to have sex with each other or
offered to have sex with you.

Wake me up when they invent a virtual world that's more like Paris than post-
apocalyptic Las Vegas.

