- Second Life holds on to first place even after the heavy investments in competitors.
- Metaverse has not managed to come into its own even after investments worth billions of dollars.
Second Life, an online virtual world pretty similar to Metaverse, was launched in 2003. Although many expected that Metaverse would replace Second Life with an improved version of its own, reality has turned out differently. Second Life will celebrate its 20th anniversary this month and to commemorate this landmark event, Linden Labs, the developer of Second Life, announced that a mobile version may be released soon.On average, the Second Life marketplace sells an impressive 185 million items each year, with approximately 1.6 million transactions taking place daily. Moreover, demand for Second Life continued to soar during the pandemic as new registrations occurred daily.
Metaverse’s performance since its launch
Despite Second Life enjoying huge popularity among users present globally, it was not able to attract more than a million monthly users. This prompted Meta, formerly Facebook, to claim that running a business would become quite difficult with those numbers. Thus, Metaverse entered the picture with backing from numerous emerging technologies like blockchain, headsets, and VR. This opened many opportunities across the Metaverse like allowing people to become virtual landowners.
In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, claimed thatMetaverse was “the successor to mobile internet.” To clarify this statement, Nick Clegg, president of Meta’s global affairs, said that at least a decade would be required to bring about such huge changes. Surprisingly, despite a staggering $36 billion investment, the Metaverse project has come to a halt with no signs of progress, a mere two years since its inception.
Horizon World, Metaverse’s first draft that allowed people to enter virtual reality with a VR headset, has continuously lost its users. After registering themselves in Horizon Worlds, most users do not seem to stick around for long. To add to the disappointment, Horizon Worlds could only conjure a revenue of $470m globally.
Current scenario of Second Life
Multiple similar projects to Second Life entered and left the market without having any significant impact whatsoever. However, Second Life has continued to maintain its relevance by facilitating human creativity on a new level. When people are given a chance to show their creativity in an environment of their choice, that is where they bloom.
For instance, Aufwie, a Second Life user, attended a concert performed by Skye Galaxy. This performance inspired him to become a musician, leading to 300 concerts of his own in Second Life. Remarkably, Aufwie continues to captivate audiences and secure a substantial number of bookings for their virtual concerts.
Most users across Second Life are supposed to be adults. This means that non-video game activities are the center of this virtual world. Amid all the attractions that Second Life has garnered, Rosedale is not quite satisfied. He had assumed that Second Life as a platform would become much better than the real-world people who exist.
Conclusion
Second Life has shown that a virtual reality world can only achieve growth through continuous human interactions. Although Meta has continued to pour billions into its metaverse project, it has not been able to adequately maintain user interest.