I was sitting in my Introduction To Management class the other day and some how we got on the topic of Second Life. We were talking about different industries and how some have monopolies in them. The prof asked how many people have heard of Second Life and mines was the only hand to go up. I was shocked at first and then I begin to realize that Second Life has barely made it out into the mainstream… regardless of
Second Life Logo
all the press it has gotten in the last few years.
This got me to thinking that maybe Second Life is only the first stage in a multi-level game. Maybe Raph’s Araea or Conduit Labs might have the right idea about the future of MMO/virtual worlds and help get it mainstream attention. I think Second Life has reached its potential in the long term and can only get better if they were to rewrite some of the underlining code within the system. Second Life has plateaued and I think we all need to move on and find our third life.
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[...] How Mainstream is Second Life Really? [...]
Creative Traction added these pithy words on Jan 01 09 at 3:26 am[...] year I wrote a great post about Second Life. Having a new professor bring up gaming and virtual worlds was great. We rarely get to discuss these [...]
Creative Traction added these pithy words on Jan 31 09 at 9:02 amDepends on how you define mainstream. The demographics of users are so broad that it cannot be said to appeal to any particular niche group or groups (at least not by any grouping criteria that we can figure out, other than by the use of SL itself).
It seems to only lack in raw numbers.
Tateru Nino added these pithy words on
Mar 12 08 at
4:21 am
Thanks for saying it! Second Life is NOT mainstream, nor will it ever be. That isn’t a negative – it’s simply that it’s a niche that some people will come to love and appreciate and others won’t understand.
Douglas Karr added these pithy words on
Mar 12 08 at
7:22 am
Hey Tateru – Love the Massively blog.
Hey Doug – Always nice to have your comments on my blog.
The game may not be mainstream from a traditional user stand point. However, I think all the press that has been printed/written over it in the last year would traditionally call it mainstream. If this was any other product I think it would have been flying off the shelves.
As I said I think Second Life sits in limbo.. somewhere between niche and mainstream… and it’ll never move beyond that (it has plateaued). Raph’s Araea or Conduit Labs are the future in every way possible.
Duane Brown added these pithy words on
Mar 12 08 at
2:24 pm
@ Douglas: I definitely disagree. Although nobody can predict the future, it seems obvious that Second Life or *something like it* will not even be mainstream, but the next big thing. The main reasons why it isn’t yet, are of technical nature. It takes advanced computer equipment and internet connection to be able to play it, and also it cannot be performed just like that without any practice. The first will change soon, the latter may also due to a simpler interface and increasing skills of new generations growing up with computers. But mankind will not spend its future in some kind of office folder, when it can virtually live in an exciting sensual threedimensional world.
Mo Eriksen added these pithy words on
Mar 13 08 at
1:23 am
Second Life is totally mainstream. If you’re into furries, that is.
Ry Tron added these pithy words on
Mar 17 08 at
3:26 pm
