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Second Life and PS3 Home

The Internet will eventually be full of such 3-D environments; Second Life might even be one of them. But in the meantime, it's just slurping up corporate dollars and delivering little in return (Wired).

Update, 01/30/08: Massively points out that we seem to be flinging mud at SL with this posting. Seriously, it’s not our intention to badmouth SL, or anybody else, for that matter. I apologize if the posting appears to be hitting a wrong tone. Our blog contains some completely biased opinions, admittedly—we’re gamers too, and besides reporting on the progress of our product Coobico, we write about things we like or don’t like on the internet from time to time. Even if SL has its own problems, its still a great site.
Lutz Winter



Second Life does not cut a very good figure in the blogosphere currently; take Techcrunch, Kotaku, Intuitive.com or The Onion as examples; they just don’t get a break from making bad headlines about pedophilia, bestiality, illegal gambling, technical bugs, laggy support (especially when it comes to billing-matters) and user-initiated law-suits. Even Time Magazine joins in by declaring SL as one of the five worst websites lately.

Sure, those are all just snapshots, but each of them leave their mark on Second Life’s reputation and their attractiveness towards business-partners. Wired broke news about Second Life’s technical issues and second thoughts of Linden Labs’ sponsoring partners lately:

“Once you put in several hours flailing around learning how to function in Second Life, there isn’t much to do. That may explain why more than 85 percent of the avatars created have been abandoned. Linden’s in-world traffic tally, which factors in both the number of visitors and time spent, shows that the big draws for those who do return are free money and kinky sex… The Internet will eventually be full of such 3-D environments; Second Life might even be one of them. But in the meantime, it’s just slurping up corporate dollars and delivering little in return.”

Linden Labs will need to work hard on ironing out bugs and developing their product to stay competitive. Especially if you take a glance at previews of PS3’s Home. Probably an unfair comparison to draw, but probably something Linden Labs will need to see to, once Home is out of private beta. Havoc Havok, the engine which Linden Lab has licensed to run SL, will be aquired by Intel shortly, by the way; Intel and Havoc Havok signed a definite agreement as Gamasutra reported yesterday.

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