How likely is SL to cease existing?

I've seen a few mmorpgs go out of business, including Wish (right before my very eyes...that was heartbreaking for many!) and even though I'm enjoying SL like never before, deep down inside I'm dealing with abandonment issues Just wondering whether the same thing will happen to our precious SL! If that would happen, why would it happen?

It would be really heartbreaking because there is nothing like this out there. Nothing comes close.

I felt soooo lost when Wish closed

after being around this long and still going strong it's probably ok for the long run at least til something way way better comes along.

I think Wish had to much invested and had to have to many for the innitial player base is why it closed. Two days after Wish closed their main server was up for sale on ebay for 250K.

To me SL is taking it slowly, one step at a time so Im not to worried about SL floundering.

In the case of Wish, it was a beta product in a crowded market that now has World of Warcraft to contend with. It is not surprising that they cancelled it. Second Life faces no direct competition, and Linden Lab has found a way to get a small subset of players to pay the largest monthly fees for any online environment, which is a feat in and of itself. I think the likelyhood of the plug being pulled on it any time in the next few years to be very remote, unless they pull a There and suddenly start to mismanage the entire thing. The fact that players can profit from the success also is a big factor in its continued growth.

Even good old TSO is still limping along - the rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated. The online games that have closed up shop - Wish, Earth and Beyond, MCO, etc.. were closed because they just were not financially viable, served a niche market, or faced nearly impossible competition. Second Life is so completely different from anything else out there that unless a really strong competitor emerges, it really is existing in a space all its own and has thrived in that space.

There is TSO, There, ActiveWorlds. In theory, SL should eat all of their lunch.

Unfortunately, one problem - 9.99 for unlimited bandwidth.

However, I do agree. SL going away is unthinkable. Go buy land!

About the same odds as blaze not starting a new thread.

So I think we're fine

and, forgive my ignorance, but, SL is very much a co-ed game, tech geeks can make scripts, artists and graphic designers can make things, buying/selling, playing dress up and doll houses and chatting, fighting, robots, guns, flying etc etc what other games are THIS opened ended and appeal this widely? I doubt there are as high a percentage of females who would pay for a war sim....

You know, not that I would look forward to a flood of horny internet geeks, but I suspect Linden Labs could make a killing if they focused on the 40% : 60% female to male ratio in their marketing strategy.

They do. I have yet to see an interview with philip that neglects to mention that around half of the users are female.

Not sure what an ad slogan would be though.

"we've got chicks chicks chicks!" ?

The population might be 60% female *avatars*. Who knows how many actual female users there are. Two?

Philip?

hey people still play Ultima Online don't they? it's like a million years old now.

Like with men, it's always best to leave a game before it leaves you.

coco

I forget the exact percentage, but Philip made a statement a few months ago that while 60%(?) of subscribers are rl male, rl females stayed online longer so the chances that any given av you might meet was a female player was about 50/50.

TSO, There, and Activeworlds are all barely alive, last I checked... AW is a ghost town, TSO is hemorraging users, and the There community is very xenophobic after the "There Public Address" debacle.

I want to start a bet on when TSO will shut down, because it's only a matter of time... EA hasn't had a successful MMORPG since Ultima Online (since then it's cancelled two UO sequels, MCO, Majestic, and Earth and Beyond -- more than any other company)

LF

SL isnt going anywhere. Because it's perfect for everyone, right? You could be a war gamer, build a giant tank-o-tron, or some sort of... person... who uhh... plays games. You could make a game or something?

Anyways, I doubt SL is going anywhere. And if it does, Im moving to Loon.

Wow...Activeworlds. Is that STILL around? I first went on that puppy back in 1999. It seemed pretty dead even back then.

And out of curiosity, what is this "There Public Address" problem you speak of?

In the old days on IRC and Fidonet (anybody know what I'm talking about?!) there were people at the meets with shirts that said:

"IRC: Where the boys are men...and the women, too."

And now you all know why I need an avatar to be cool.

I was in Activeworlds in 1997, and it was dying back then too...

The There thing was I think last year. Basically the company announced it planned to cease development of There in a high-falutin radio address; There users jumped ship in droves, mostly to Second Life. The ones that stayed keep a rather paranoid skepticism of anything remotely having to do with SL.

LF

That might have something to do with the perception by many There members that SL was "poaching" customers. SL bought banner ads through an automated system on a There fan site and when the site's owner found out it was pretty dramatic. There were also some foolish forum incidents where people who'd left for SL saw fit to return to the There forums and start a flamewar.

But what really stirred things up was when LL decided to offer a special SL membership deal to There members. Signup for the special trial required submission of There avatar name and *PASSWORD*. In view of that sort of stunt, it's no surprise that some There members have a paranoid skepticism regarding SL.

Baaaad karma.

Maybe someone was reading too much art of war, but you don't do that sort of garbage and not pay for it at some point.

I believe it's called capitalism, and it works, you pinko running panda commie.

Heh. Fidonet still exists, actually. Before internet connectivity was at all even in the realm of affordable for BBS operators, that was the only way to connect to the outside world. Well, except for x.25/Telenet (not telnet), but that wasn't cheap either.


I've been tempted to 'see whats going on in There' lately, but the 'xenophobic' attitude has kind of shoved me off of that idea. I was on both SL and There before 'the big announcement', and they seemed nice enough, if not a little two-dimensional.

It'd take a lot of R&D for another company to do what LL has done, and i'm not so sure anyone is working yet to compete. The open source efforts I believe will always be niche.

One thing I do see, is that there are a lot of folks vying for 'anarchy' around SL. Perhaps when one of the open source offerings gains ground, they'll leave SL for that.

i can predict with 100% accuracy that one day SL will cease to exist.

here are possible reasons:

1> a better game
2> a new mediative technology
3> triingo goes offline
4> cataclysm
5> nuclear winter
6> white house cracks down on sex balls.

see, there are too many things stacked against SL. it's end is inevitable.

That sounds painful - a lot of politicians may have to take some <more> time off as a result!