Second Life: real states put together in virtuality

The owner of the world Second Life originally wanted to earn a paid registration. He did not expect that the game would turn into a "second life" for the millions of investors who will spend here and earn real money ...



This is a parallel world that first burst into the lives of American inhabitants, then European, and now also captures Russian Internet users. Second Life is an online game that simulates life, the most rapidly growing online community, whose inhabitants can choose their own name and physique, build ideal houses in their understanding and indulge all the whims of their second "I".



In addition, this is a place where social networks have reached a fundamentally new level: real life is intertwined with the virtual one, and residents turn the virtual environment into a source of real income in the material world. Today, just five years later, there are millions of registered users in Second Life. It has its own currency, and the world's largest corporations open their representative offices.



“I am not creating a game. I create a country "

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For the first time, the idea of ​​a virtual world of Second Life came up with the young programmer Philip Rozdale in 1991. From his youth he was fond of the literary movement "cyberpunk" and especially appreciated Neil Stevenson's book "The Snow Collision". He took over the idea of ​​virtual metamira from Stevenson, in which participants can communicate with each other, play, conduct business, etc. For eight years, Rosedale was thinking about the principles of Second Life. During this time, he managed to grow to the post of vice president and technical director of a large company RealNetworks. In 1999, a successful IT-manager unexpectedly leaves it in order to devote himself entirely to haptics - the science of touch and touch, of skin as an organ of perception, of tactile forms of activity and self-expression.



The ideas of the remote haptic Roosedale and tried to further implement in a new project. In 1999, he created the Linden Lab company (now she is the main owner of Second Life), and after three years the game itself appears on the market, which is beginning to quickly gain popularity. In 2002, the first public demonstration of Second Life took place, and in the summer of 2003, the service opened for everyone. The real popularity came to the game immediately. Second Life registered its first million registered users only in October 2006, but today there are already almost 9 million of them - and the explosive growth continues.



When Second Life was just starting up, Rosedale told his partners and co-workers: “I am not creating a game. I create a country. ” And indeed: with classic multiplayer games (such as CyWorld or World of Warcraft, for example) Second Life is only three-dimensional, and the avatar is the hero that the player sees from the back. As such, the game component, on which all previous online worlds were based, is absent in Second Life. There are no points, winners or losers, levels and other signs of familiar computer games. Most experts attribute Second Life to low-structured virtual shells, where participants (through their avatars) can engage in various activities for entertainment. The space of the game consists of the continents belonging to the developer, and more than 7 thousand private islands. In Second Life, you have the right to become whatever you want. For example, a male user can create a female avatar for himself, and the general director of a large corporation can run around the virtual world in a T-shirt and with a stupid cack on his head.



Traveling around the world Second Life resembles Internet surfing: most private islands are like three-dimensional themed sites. On some, with the help of your virtual hero, you can make purchases (both real and virtual), on others you can go to the disco, on the third you can play in a casino or take part in car races. Even in Second Life, you can study (there is an island with classrooms from a number of well-known universities), read the news in the virtual office of Reuters, or indulge in one of the most popular islands, which in architecture and spectrum of services is similar to Amsterdam. Second Life is different from other games and the variety of virtual entertainment offered.



Many companies buy islands and organize virtual offices for them, where workers meetings, press conferences or presentations take place. What does this look like? Residents of the game at the appointed time gather on the island, and a three-dimensional avatar holds a lecture for them. Other islands are similarly arranged: somewhere you can visit the disco and dance, go somewhere in the company of three-dimensional friends in a car or fight with swords.



$ 1 billion virtual land



An important feature of Second Life is that it is an open source online community. This means that programmers from all over the world can write program code along with Linden Lab employees. In fact, the creative activity of qualified programmers in the country Second Life is not limited in any way - they have the right to create consumer goods, buildings or services, to change the images and capabilities of their characters. At the same time the copyright for all their creations belong to them.



The original concept of Second Life immediately attracted the attention of investors. Among those who invested in Linden Lab are the founders of Amazon, eBay and Lotus Software, as well as senior staff from Apple, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. The company Linden Lab today employs 31 people.



However, not only the interest of American venture capital made the project Second Life famous, but Philip Rosedale became the hero of business chronicles. Second Life laid the foundations of the new virtual economy. This is a world that, as it turned out, allows you to earn good money without much investment and special skills. It’s all about the economic principles of Second Life, which are almost the same as those in real life.



Within the virtual world, users can buy and sell services or virtual goods on the open market. Services include construction assistance, business management, entertainment, etc. Virtual goods are buildings, vehicles, art objects. As a result, the opportunities for profit are very wide: from creating virtual nightclubs and selling virtual jewelery to speculating in the virtual real estate market. The latter exists due to the presence in Second Life of virtual land.



Initially, all land is acquired from Linden Lab (which provides real income for the company — virtual land is bought for real dollars), but then it can be sold and purchased for linden dollars. A private island of 250 by 250 virtual meters can be bought for 1.7 thousand dollars, plus an additional 300 dollars of rent per month. Islands are purchased by users mainly for the construction of virtual housing and the development of their own business. For entertainment and spending electronic money registration on virtual meters is not required. According to some data, the capacity of domestic markets within Second Life (above all, the real estate market) today amounts to $ 1 billion. According to some estimates, per capita GDP (that is, the cost of services rendered and virtual goods produced) in Second Life will reach about $ 700 in 2007 — not linden dollars, but real ones.



Giant designer



Now in Second Life are many existing organizations and businesses. In particular, the leading universities of the real world, who believe that the representation in Second Life is the most important innovation in education. So, in the virtual world there are Harvard, Stanford, universities of Houston, Ohio, New York, universities of Ireland, the Netherlands and Israel.



Big companies buy land in Second Life for promotion. The global giant IBM has bought several islands in Second Life. As they say in the company, for them these islands are a platform for experiments, a place for exchanging ideas and working on projects, and possibly an intermediate step towards creating their own virtual spaces. He opened his office in the game Dell. Last year, Starwood Hotels built a prototype of its new hotel in Second Life. Toyota, Nissan, General Motors with might and main produce and sell their own cars in the game (of course virtual).



And Nike and Puma will present the latest collections for the players. Not so long ago, American Apparel, a major American manufacturer and seller of clothing, was the first real-world retailer to open a giant clothing store in the vastness of Second Life. Clothing for avatars is priced at $ 1 apiece. The management of American Apparel was not going to make money on the residents of Second Life - the goal was different: promotion and, as they say, the study of consumer demand. Any thing you like in the Second Life store can be bought for home delivery in real life, having received a 15 percent discount.



The interest of well-known companies to the game is clear. Second Life is a giant constructor in which almost everything is created by the hands of "players." An interesting fact: thanks to the open code, residents spend a total of about 23 thousand hours a day, experimenting with the building blocks of Second Life and creating objects and objects that other inhabitants of the world are entitled to use. Linden Lab calculated that a team of 4,000 programmers and designers could have done this work for the year. If we imagine that one employee earns his company $ 100,000 a year, we get a product worth $ 410 million, which Second Life owners got for free - more precisely, residents had to pay from their own pockets for a premium account and land rent. This simple arithmetic suggests the owners of companies the following thought: is it possible to use all this creative energy and the desire to play in your own interests? After all, even routine operations in the form of a game are carried out with enthusiasm by people.



Just a pyramid?



No less peculiar is the financial system Second Life. Linden-dollar is a fairly stable currency, whose rate is in the range of 270-300 linden-dollars for 1 US dollar. You can withdraw money from the game on several exchanges, one of which is owned by Linden Lab. There are no restrictions on the volume of stock exchange transactions in Second Life. Theoretically, it is possible to play the difference in courses, but the economy of the game is extremely unstable and subject to the influence of a huge number of non-market factors, such as the attack of flying members on the trading floor of the exchange or virtual counterfeiting. In general, the banking system here is much more liberal than its real counterpart: any inhabitant has the right to open a bank, accept deposits, pay interest, issue loans - and without any regulation by Linden Lab.



The most famous bank in the game until recently was Ginko Financial. He paid on demand deposits of 44% per annum (0.1% per day). By the summer of this year, the bank held 189 million Linden-dollars (more than 700 thousand real dollars). Meanwhile, for a long time, many of Ginko looked like a pyramid, and the fears came true. In August, Ginko was declared bankrupt, as he was unable to return to users deposits totaling $ 180 thousand. The reasons for bankruptcy were the fact that after the introduction of the ban on gambling into Second Life, Ginko's customers began to take their assets from the bank on a large scale, which lasted for a week. “We hoped that this flow would soon subside and we would be able to return to normal operations, but this did not happen,” the statement on the bank’s website said. “We are not going to disappear, and all the investments we have made still exist and will not be sold.” Ginko account holders' assets will be converted into bonds, which will then be traded on the virtual World Stock Exchange, which will allow depositors to recover their savings.



After this incident, voltage users are watching another large bank in Second Life - My Second Bank (M2B). The bank pays the same interest on demand deposits - 44% per annum (0.1% per day), but declares the issuance of loans to residents for their businesses. On the security of land, the bank offers standard credit terms: a period of 30 to 90 days, 0.25% per day, a reduction for large purchases is possible, weekly payments, the bank sells the land and returns its losses if two week payments are delayed for more than a week or in case of delay of three payments. The bank does not disclose the size of deposits received, loans issued or the size of reserves.

Private sector



Regular users have recently become active participants in the Second Life economy. Most of the “inhabitants” of the virtual world do not earn a cent from their hobby. However, as auditors and business consultants believe, several tens of thousands of people earn incomes of several thousand dollars a month and, accordingly, can fully earn their living. Opportunities for earnings a few. The developers offer a number of options for the appearance of the avatar, the simplest clothes and hairstyles. However, the first desire that appears for a Second Life resident is to change the “patterned look” to “design shell”. Therefore, all sorts of shops are popular, where not only clothes, accessories are sold, but also hair, leather, secondary sexual characteristics, specific movements that an avatar can use, for example, for dancing or practicing virtual sex. The second thing that a Second Life resident thinks about after expanding his wardrobe is an apartment or a private house where you can invite friends or, say, lying on the sofa alone, admiring the well-acquired desk lamp of a famous game designer.



The most profitable and promising business in Second Life is not land trading, but the development of existing space. Competently design and create a large 3D object can only be professionals - a programmer who works in tandem with the architect. For a good representation of the company is now ready to pay from 20 thousand to 50 thousand dollars.



There are many examples of successful private business in Second Life. Thus, the story of Christopher Mead from the depressed English industrial city of Norwich is well known. Two years ago, he tried to hide in Second Life from life's problems. Today he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of Second Life, the owner of four Bits and Bobs stores, who are confidently earning 7-8 thousand dollars a month. Enough not only for a comfortable life, but also for early payments on a mortgage loan. Mead sells emotions - or rather, their external manifestations. Bits and Bobs specializes in animations for couples: when avatars are next to each other, Mead products help them embrace, throw each other on the neck or, say, exchange slaps.



Have grown to taxes



Of course, many are suspicious of Second Life. Increasingly, experts argue that the economy of the game is a bubble, inflated by the media and by the developer. They speak about the absence of guarantees acceptable for serious investors. Thus, according to the contract, which is signed by every resident of Second Life, real estate and all virtual values, even purchased for real money, can be removed from servers at any time.



The question of withdrawing money outside the game remains open. Although in words Linden Lab does not limit the cash flow, in practice it turns out that it is rather difficult to withdraw a more or less serious amount (over $ 5,000). The fact is that in Second Life, as in any other games, there is a danger of fraud. For example, a hacker can hack an account and withdraw a player’s money without his knowledge. Therefore, any more or less large operations to withdraw money from the game are controlled by the developer.



Recently, the tax authorities have become interested in the economics of Second Life. So, the tax committee of the US Congress has already launched an investigation into the virtual world. And the UK Treasury Department recently turned to KPMG, a consulting company, for advice on how it would be able to tax income received in online games. The main object of interest from the treasury was precisely Second Life. Philip Rosedale is not afraid of the growing interest of the authorities in his project. He is sure that he has invented and created a unique business model - a huge Internet world, the economy and the life of which is more and more connected with reality. Such a construction, he says, will live forever, survive both internal crises and external attacks.



Callouts



Second Life registered its first million registered users only in October 2006, but today there are already almost 9 million of them - and the explosive growth continues.



Second Life laid the foundations of the new virtual economy. This is a world that, as it turned out, allows you to earn good money without much investment and special skills. It's all about the economic principles of Second Life, which are almost the same as those in real life.



The story of Christopher Mead from the depressed English industrial city of Norwich is well known. Two years ago, he tried to hide in Second Life from life's problems. Today he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of Second Life, confidently earning 7-8 thousand dollars a month



Increasingly, experts argue that the economy of the game is a bubble, inflated by the media and by the developer.



Source: IA “BisHelp - Business Assistance”

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