Linden Labs, creator of Second Life has announced that users in its virtual world have logged over one billion hours in the game along with spending over one billion in-world money on game transactions. As stated in the press release, this achievement is a "significant milestones for the virtual worlds industry."Some of the more astounding numbers are as follows:
- Users around the world have spent more than one billion hours in Second Life which rounds out to around 115,000 years with user hours growing 33 percent year-over-year to an all-time high of 126 million in Q2 2009.
- Users spend an average of about 100 minutes in-world per visit.
- The equivalent of more than $1 billion has been transacted between Residents in Second Life, who purchase virtual goods and services from one another. The in-world economy grew 94 percent year-over-year from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009. Now at nearly $50 million each month in user-to-user transactions, the Second Life economy is on an annual run rate of more than a half billion US dollars, making Second Life the largest virtual economy in the industry.
- Residents create more than 250,000 new virtual goods every day. There are now more than 270 terabytes of content and this is growing by approximately 100 percent every year.
- More than 18 billion minutes of voice chat have been used since voice was introduced in 2007. Voice minutes grew 44 percent year-over-year from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009, and more than 6 billion minutes of voice have been delivered in 2009.
- 1,250 text-based messages are sent every second, and more than 600 million words are typed on an average day. Roughly 60 percent of active Second Life Residents are based outside of the US, representing more than 200 countries, and the Second Life Viewer is available in 10 languages.
- The total land area of Second Life is now equivalent to approximately 2 billion square meters – roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island. Land in Second Life has grown roughly 18 percent since Q1 2009 and approximately 75 percent since Q1 2008.
Wait. That's REAL money? I don't get it (but then again I don't play the game).
More social networking than a game.
It's a heavily debated thing "game or SN" but games have purposes... checkpoints... strategies... set functions... goals. Second Life doesn't have that as its sole purpose.
Hence the mass amount of hours spent on it. There is just that many lonely people in the world. If only the uglies stop screwing each other, we'd all hot everyone mating someone prime. So we think D:
...I'm too busy playing WoW
Being in Second Life takes a lot more effort than being handed a few silver and a wooden sword and told to hit tiny elfs. You are not given more than a virtual body and some basics on how to do stuff. There is no leveling. It takes more brains and effort to "live" in SL than it does to spend 15 dollars a month stabbing virtual monsters (which you can do in SL too for those who did not know for no monthly fee if you wish).
There is sex in SL, but guess what? I've seen sex in WoW and other games too. Put horny people online somewhere and they will find a way to pervert it. Now, do those perverts getting off on loin clothed night elves ruin your normal game when you are off in a raid? Probably not. This is the same in SL, if you look for sex you will find it, if you look to be away from it you will be blessed with beautiful virtual beaches or mountains if you wish.
You've drank too much of that Linden Kool-aid, haven't you?
Second Life isn't some wondrous new world/game with "beautiful beaches or mountains". It's a cruel Social *experiment* run by Linden Lab (Linden Research), a semi-corrupt griefer-hugging company, who has failed numerous times to protect it's users' Intellectual Properties (IP).
Linden Lab/Linden Research practices an extreme form of Favoritism. In-world "businesses" and other customers have to literally "suck up" to Linden Lab/Linden Research to actually succeed and have fun. People who don't nod and clap at every single move made by Lindens eventually have their account suspended (for no reason) and/or leave.
An extremely stressful environment, overall. In-world everyday Griefers. Buggy client (software). Laggy Simulators. Misleading "Official" press releases.
Not a nice place to blow off some RL steam in.
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