Second Life

[zago]

Hello everyone.

Well, college is not for me. I already have a degree, and one is enough. Alas, I shall not be going to classes today. I will, however, be downloading secondlife.

How much I will play, I don't know. I am wondering about the potential of it. I am aware of 2 main things, though. First, the line between virtual reality and real reality is diminishing, and I presume it will pretty much be gone sometime in the 2030s or 40s. I used to think secondlife was for losers, now I think that this sort of thing, whether or not it winds up being called secondlife, will only continue to expand and everyone will eventually embrace virtual life.

Second, it is possible to make money in secondlife. Whatever in-game money you have translates into real money. Literally. I don't know much about it at this point, but that sounds pretty appealing. Perhaps it isn't particularly feasible to make a living on secondlife money at this point, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it became feasible in the coming years.

So does anyone here play secondlife and have more to tell me about these things?

 

[spirilis]

I looked at it years ago, tried it for a week. Was interesting....... but after a while I sort've lost the point of it. There's plenty of stuff to do in real life, although the social aspect of life is easier to augment with online communities I've found. But I can't shake the thought that every minute spent there is somehow wasted, not producing anything worthwhile to others, beyond the fantasy realm of an ephemeral game.

 

[Rasofy]

Second Life probably peaked already.

Once too many people have figured out viable ways of making money out of the game, the supply/demand equation makes things hard.

Your chances of making money with mmorpgs or equivalents are optimal when you're one of the pioneers. I once had a character on Tibia that was worth about 1k dollars. Nowadays, I'd be lucky to get 40 dollars for it.

 

[zago]

It took me all of 15 minutes to lose interest in the thing, at least for now. What exactly does one do? I don't care to socialize unless it also involves some sort of gain. I went to some "fitness center" and rode an exercise bike and didn't really see the point.

 

[Totenkindly]

Second Life probably peaked already.

Once too many people have figured out viable ways of making money out of the game, the supply/demand equation makes things hard.

Your chances of making money with mmorpgs or equivalents are optimal when you're one of the pioneers. I once had a character on Tibia that was worth about 1k dollars. Nowadays, I'd be lucky to get 40 dollars for it.

Yeah, I was into SecondLife back in 2004-2006 or so? (can't quite remember when it started).

But already it was peaking / had peaked. The initial people in got established and found ways to capitalize, but when everyone else jumped in, all the business got diluted. The land baron thing diminished; too much glut in the market for other goods. The whole idea was an interesting experiment.

I remember the big hubbub too about the porn industry aspects. Apparently people could go in and sext and make decent money doing that. Then all the webcam girls hit up SL, and no one was interested in sexting anymore, and what was stupid was that the webcam girls were making far far less than what they would have made if they just joined a normal webcam service.

I remember liking the graphics engine / rendering at the time, but I'm not sure what it's like today.

It took me all of 15 minutes to lose interest in the thing, at least for now. What exactly does one do? I don't care to socialize unless it also involves some sort of gain. I went to some "fitness center" and rode an exercise bike and didn't really see the point.

There was kind of no content back then, has it changed at all?

Basically any content would be user-created, so you would be purchasing content from other users.

The whole point would be to have a large sandbox anyone could play in.

 

[spirilis]

It took me all of 15 minutes to lose interest in the thing, at least for now. What exactly does one do? I don't care to socialize unless it also involves some sort of gain. I went to some "fitness center" and rode an exercise bike and didn't really see the point.

Sounds about right.

 

[skylights]

I played it once, years ago. I made my character... was super excited I could fly... and then I had to get a job.

That was the end of that.