Prehistory consisted of Zorks and Mysts and Asheron's Call but no VW experience. What struck me when I came into Second Life, in November of 2003, was the ability to create my own environment. The overwhelming hole that I noticed in the existing builds was a variety of foliage and flowers. A goal of helping people landscape their ideal virtual environments sprang to mind; however, my knowledge and experience of creating and manipulating prims and textures was best described as dismal.
It took several months of learning and experimentation for me to feel comfortable releasing a set of freely copyable plants to the public. A year later, Fate Gardens opened for business and began selling scripted trees and flowers. Sales were immediately good enough to cover my annual account fee and the tierage required for a reasonably sized garden (currently under reconstruction, again). As business improves, the tierage can increase and the gardens will continue to grow and evolve offering more items and services. It certainly makes sense to roll the profits back into SL.
Now I realize that SL is a platform that facilitates a self-supporting hobby. It compares most closely with our local ceramics shop where people paint molds, create their own pieces, or bring outside materials to build mosaics, papier mache or whatever they can imagine. Some people take the finished products home, others use them as gifts, still others sell them in the little store to pay for their supplies.
The point though is that everybody is having a good time participating in a fun based hobby. To me, it mirrors our participation in, and uses of, Second Life. So I would've said to call it "Hobby Life" or "Craft World" or something like that.
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