Second Life: Midlife Crisis or End of Life?

When we exit from first/real life, the exit is final. Yes, religions and cosmologies and philosophies talk of the afterlife, the next life, heavenly abodes, nightmarish hells, limbo, 64 virgins and harp music, and so on. But deep, deep down we all really know -- it's over when it's over.

In metaverses such as Second Life, things are different. Not only can we exit (or be ejected unceremoniously by Big Brother-Big Sister bouncers), we can reincarnate or multiply in the form of several avatars.

But there is a bigger issue.

There are possibilities, of course, of our real-life world as we know coming to an end -- dramatically through a comet collision or nuclear holocaust or slowly through global warming. But these possibilities are so remote that we relegate them to the realm of "unthinkable" and use them as sci-fi movie fodder to amuse ourselves. Not so with Second Life and other simulated worlds. The chances of these metaverses folding suddenly or dying a painful death via massive exodus are finite and reasonably large.

There have been rumblings of poor performance and limited capacity about various metaverses, including Second Life. Unlike the first/real life, Second Life is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

In March 2007, Second Life Herald writer with the screen name Onder Skall posed these questions: (1) If Linden Lab [the creator-owner of SL] created a separate, completely rebuilt-from-the-ground grid and client (Second Life v2) that was essentially the same but could handle much higher loads, would you cash out, leave the old grid behind and switch? (2) Do you think the corporations will?

He got an interesting array of responses. Excerpts from some of these responses:

• "...Yes, sure if ANYONE would come up with a more stable, faster, better graphics version of SL, I would leave in a heartbeat..."
• "... Would I? Yes. Corporations? Of course. SL is, imo, a nice experiment. It's inevitable that something more compelling will replace it. Whether that's SL 2.0 or some other application, who knows?..."
• "...To make the metaverse into what it needs to be... requires massive investment... There are only a few companies on this planet that can make the sort of investment needed to create the kind of world we'd all like Second Life to become..."
• "... yes, i would move. as to whether the corporations would move i care not a wit..."
• "... I have been in SL since 12/05. According to may bank statements, during this time, I have spent about $6000 US in game, and about $7,000 US for a gaming set up tweaked for competitive prize fighting. That is a fair amount of houses, weapons (I play in a Gor sim), clothes, what have ya. Having said that, I would start from zero in a heartbeat for a vastly improved SL type experience..."
• "...Yes I would... assuming the only thing I could take with me are the textures I made myself..."

So, the "End of the Universe" in metaverses in not proclaimed by bearded guys in long togas bearing placards about "The End is Near". It is triggered by hordes of committed techno-savvy residents/players jumping ship.