20 Years of Second Life: Metaverse Lessons Apple, Meta, and Roblox Learn From Pioneering Virtual Worlds

Author: JANKO ROETTGERS

Translation: MetaCat

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Second Life had loyal fans, but never became mainstream. Its story reveals why building virtual worlds remains so difficult.

This week, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to join their avatars in "Second Life" to celebrate the groundbreaking virtual world's 20th birthday. There will be live music, DJs, dance performances and a massive bazaar with more than 1,000 vendors selling avatar costumes and other digital creations. Over the past few years, as many as 300,000 people have attended the two-week birthday party. The number of participants is expected to be even higher this year.

"There are a lot of people who have been working at Second Life for 20 years now," said Second Life founder Philip Rossdale, who wants the event to be part virtual world expo and part party. "It's going to be exciting", he promises.

The birthday party will no doubt also be a point of reflection for Second Life insiders and industry watchers. For one thing, the event is expected to draw a larger crowd than the user base of some VR Metaverse platforms, including Meta's Horizon Worlds.

But it's also a stark reminder that Second Life has never lived up to its own hype. According to Second Life owner Linden Lab, the platform was once hailed as the future of the internet: having attracted investment from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, it currently has $100,000 a month. 750,000 active users. "By most metrics, it's the biggest ever," Philip Rossdale said.

For comparison: Facebook, which launched two years after Second Life, ended its most recent quarter with 3 billion monthly active users. "Virtual worlds are not for everyone," admits Philip Rossdale, "in fact, they're not for most people."

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This acknowledgment stands in stark contrast to the early enthusiasm surrounding Philip Rossdale's creation. Its Second Life, launched in 2003, was inspired by Burning Man, a celebration of community and self-expression that draws thousands of people to the Nevada desert each year. Like Burning Man, Second Life positions itself as a blank canvas, inviting people to be and do whatever they want.

"It has the most powerful authoring tools, allowing users to create basically anything they can imagine," said Wagner James Au, author of the forthcoming book "Making a Metaverse That Matters."

Some of its prolific creators use the tools to build impressive 3D scenes, including detailed recreations of real-life cities, tranquil Zen gardens, trendy nightclubs, and post-apocalyptic wastelands. There are also people who specialize in the avatar clothing and accessories they sell on the platform. According to a Linden Lab spokesperson, Second Life conducts $650 million worth of C2C transactions annually, with 1.6 million transactions occurring every day.

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But while some early adopters thrived, many more were turned off by Second Life's openness and lack of direction. "It freaks out 99 percent of the people who try it," Au said.

Three years after Second Life launched, another virtual world has emerged that takes a more instructional approach. Roblox also empowers its users to create their own worlds, but takes casual gaming very seriously. The move appeals to a younger but also much larger demographic: Roblox was used daily by 66 million people at the end of March 2023. "The reason Roblox is so big is that it's basically Second Life, but for kids," says Philip Rossdale, somewhat dismissively.

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Linden Lab, on the other hand, wants Second Life to be a place for grown-ups, which is why it's trying hard not to confuse it with video games. According to Au, this was a huge mistake that other Metaverse platform creators could learn from. Just like in the real world, the game acts as an icebreaker between strangers. "You need something fun to do," he said. "It should always be a fun, game-like experience".

Roblox is also benefiting from an early bet on mobile; "Second Life" is only preparing to launch a smartphone app this year. "We missed the mobile Internet," admits Philip Rossdale.

Linden Lab briefly worked on virtual worlds optimized for VR headsets, but sold those efforts in 2020. Today, Second Life competes more with virtual worlds optimized for VR headsets like VRChat and Rec Room. Meta has struggled to gain traction with its own Horizon Worlds service, but Meta is reportedly in talks with Roblox to bring the service to its Oculus headset.

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Meanwhile, Apple has avoided the metaverse term (opting instead for "spatial computing"), but next year's Vision Pro could further accelerate the development of immersive virtual worlds.

Whether Second Life will be part of those efforts remains to be seen. Philip Rossdale has been a known VR skeptic and still worries about motion sickness and other issues with the technology, but he's been trying out some VR products in recent months.

Au believes Second Life will somehow make its mark on the future of virtual worlds. "It still has a chance to grow its core user base," he said, "and they're definitely paving the way for latercomers."