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Second Life Scores $11 Million
News.com reports that Second Life, the virtual world run by Linden Labs, has netted $11 Million in venture capital funding from the Globespan Capital Partners group. From the article: "The company makes its money by charging players use fees for land they buy and build on. For now, the company isn't profitable, and it's not clear when it will be, said Catherine Smith, Linden Lab's director of marketing. However, she told CNET News.com that Linden Lab plans to use its new funding for aggressive international expansion, as well as for hiring intended to boost its infrastructure. "
I strongly believe that Linden will become profitable soon by reaping money from what amounts to a foreign money exchange tax. What I'm not sure about is whether they'll be able to balance what makes Second Life compelling against the requirements of external shareholders.
SL is very much an idealist playground. Even without external forces calling for profitability, there will be many challenges to maintaining a thriving community.
However, whether SL ultimately becomes profitable without losing appeal - or whether it sinks, the lessons learned will be worth it.
$15/month has always felt like a lot to me... but maybe that's because I always multiply the monthly fee by a year to figure out how much it's actually setting me back in any given tax year... This is why I don't play online games I have to pay for... I subscribe to XBox Live, but that's just $50/year--the same cost as one new game. That I'm ok with, but spending the same amount I'd have to pay to buy 2-3 new games... I don't think so... ESPECIALLY when they also make you buy the software. My rule is that either the software has to be free, or the game has to be free to play. And if I'm paying to play, then I better not see any ads.
Hmm, party like it's 1995...uh not exactly. But it does seem that the venture capital tends to follow whatever is hot at the moment. And for better or worse, the success of WoW has probably raised the profile of virtual worlds, hence the VC interest in things like Second Life. Now obviously, SL and WoW are quite different, but the social networking aspect of SL and an above board real money trade for virtual items probably makes SL particularly attractive.
I don't know if SL has profit potential or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if some giant media corp like Viacom or News Corp came aknockin' with big fist fulls of cash. A buyout like that may be what the VCs are angling for.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I struggled with Second Life for a few days before becoming tired with the hideously bad performance. In addition to the player models looking ugly and out of date the game was slow as molasses even with alot of the settings turned down to nubs.
Oblivion runs fine on my machine with medium settings so there's no excuse for a game as ugly as Second Life to run so poorly.
Been there a week myself. Not sure how long I'll be there before I get bored, but one of my favorite things is seeing what folks have come up with.
Some of the neatest avatars can be found in Luskwood, for instance. I saw a very finely detailed, beautifully animated dragon there just a couple days ago. Sure, the environment has limitations, but it's pretty astounding what folks have come up with despite those limits!
-Z (Zorin Frobozz in SL)
This is what Furcadia does, and it scares me that it actually works.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.