Second Life: Simply A Game?

From the MySpace craze to Google power, web technology has completely reinvented communication, entertainment and even business practices. A new marketplace is emerging; according to eBay Inc. founder and Chairman Pierre M. Omidyar, “this generation that grew up on video games is blurring the lines between games and real life.” Where is this marketplace? What can it offer consumers? What are businesses doing to take advantage of this new technology? These answers lie within Second Life.

As stated in the Business Week article My Virtual Life, “participants launch Second Life's software on their personal computers, log in, and then use their mice and keyboards to roam endless landscapes and cityscapes, chat with friends, create virtual homes on plots of imaginary land, and conduct real business”. A player’s virtual representation of self is found in a creation called an avatar. These avatars are free to explore endless areas of the Second Life world for business or entertainment purposes. Thousands of players can play simultaneously. Though this sounds completely absurd to most people upon the first time that they hear about this virtual existence, millions of users are enrolled in Second Life. What is even more bizarre to most is that users actually pay real U.S. currency to play the game. My Virtual Life claims that, “Second Life participants pay ‘Linden dollars,’ the game's currency….players can convert that play money into U.S. dollars, at about 300 to the real dollar, by using their credit card at online currency exchanges.”

Is this simply a game, or possibly just an escape from reality? In my paper, I propose to research the full customer experience that participants receive from taking part in Second Life. I hope to uncover the complexity and dynamic experience of Second Life and how it is used by participants to please their needs. Furthermore, the article additionally discloses that, “a lot of other real-world businesses are paying attention. That's because virtual worlds could transform the way they operate by providing a new template for getting work done, from training and collaboration to product design and marketing.” I would like to expose how companies are utilizing this virtual world to grow their business, cater to customer needs and provide a complete customer experience for their target markets.


"My Virtual Life." Business Week. 1 May 2006. 26 Feb. 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm.