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Who will provide Linden Lab serious competition to
Second Life?
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- “Linden Lab holds a virtual monopoly on
a well developed VW economy in Second Life. Their business model
depends largely on virtual land sales for revenue. There are
thousands of small business entrepreneurs who have been treated to
monthly fee increases of 70% and virtual land price adjustments +/-
40%. Economic and platform stability are a challenge that Linden Lab
has yet to overcome. Will Google, Microsoft, Intel, or Sony
introduce the next VW economic model? What are your thoughts?”
- Discussion point as posted by Gabriel Paci, Owner of Angelic
Dreams Virtual Estates (and member of LinkedIn Virtual Worlds Group). The following is
a response.
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- December 10,
2008
- By Eric M. Scharf
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Consider that Second Life was developed as much for
profit as it was to provide freedom, in the past, from similar,
costly, monopolizing virtual world technology. It is not always the
case that someone jumps out of the woodwork and creates a
world-building tool like Second Life and runs up the costs on its
user base.
There have been dozens of people, over the past
few years, who have innocently or brazenly stated that, like Firefox
to Internet Explorer, the hobbyist society of engineers will rise up
and create an inexpensive-and-more-robust alternative to Second
Life. Every hour, day, week, month, and year that passes with nary a
whisper from this phantom group of people just allows the Second
Life product and user base to become larger and larger.
Linden Lab, as a business, has every right to
charge whatever it sees fit. It has every right to pledge to release
source code at no charge to the Second Life user base and, then,
change its mind. Is there a moral issue there? Yes and no. Nothing
truly good or useful comes absolutely for free, and, yet, maybe,
Linden Lab should adjust its monthly fee in consideration of the
size of its user base (which should be rather "large enough" by
now).
The fact remains that until an individual, group,
or for-profit company decides it is worth the effort to create the
next coming of Second Life (as Second Life was the next "something,"
too, when it came out), Linden Lab will continue to rightfully rule
the roost.
Linden Lab is actually calling the technology
community's bluff by not creating the most robust patches / updates
it can for Second Life. There has been an open invitation, or,
better yet, a dare, for someone to come "knock that battery off
Linden Lab's shoulder" (age old Robert Conrad reference).
Who is ready to answer the call? Who is ready to
prove there is no bluff? Who is ready to show some substance behind
the claim that "somebody, someday, is going to save us all with a
brand new, low-cost, or free, virtual world technology?"
All I hear is the same thing I always hear when
the Second Life user base speaks up: silence.
DISCLAIMER: the last time I
got involved in a blog response regarding Second Life, I was accused
of being a Linden Lab employee. I assure readers of "The
Genuine Article" I am not an employee of Linden Lab, but I
have, indeed, used Second Life.
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- This response was posted publicly on
the associated LinkedIn Virtual Worlds Group discussion blog.
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