Second Life will be released as an app on smartphones
When we talk about the metaverse, the game – or rather online life – Second Life often comes up. It was a huge hit in 2007, in which you could create an avatar that could then talk online with other avatars (which also had people at home), play games and more. No wonder then that the link with the metaverse is quickly made. For anyone wondering what has happened to Second Life over the years: it will soon be available in app form. Soon you will be able to continue with secondlife on your smartphone or tablet.
SecondLife
Second Life owner Linden Lab has announced in a video that a mobile version of the online platform is coming, and immediately shows what you can expect. It has often been attempted to get this virtual world in app form, but that always went wrong in terms of the graphics capabilities of phones and the engine. Now, however, it seems to have succeeded with Unity, an engine that is also widely used for games, but Second Life still does not want to be called a game.
There is not really a very clear goal. You can build a community, make a property and shop (also with real money, which you have to put in to buy Linden Dollars). Second Life was a kind of ultimate place to be yourself, or a better version of yourself, or a ball. or a dog. After all, you could choose how you looked and go through life like that. There were people who were kind of punk rock musicians and actually composed and played music in Second Life. People have fallen in love in this online world. And there are people who have just visited Second Life every day for twenty years.
Metaverse in app form
A bizarre thought, but if the Linden Lab manages to make the app very attractive, Second Life can just get a second life. Maybe by people who want to take another look out of nostalgia, or people who didn’t try it at the time (perhaps because they were too young) and now want to experience how such a metaverse-like environment works for them.
Twenty years after the online ‘game’ appeared, an app of Second Life was only made. The beta is expected this year and it is planned to release the app on iOS, iPadOS and Android. And you’d be amazed at how many people still use regular Second Life on the PC: it still has 900,000 active users and 375 million worth of items are purchased annually at $2 each. So it is certainly a very vibrant community that still makes many people filthy rich. That 900,000 people is certainly not as much as the total number of accounts of 73 million, but it is still a large chunk of people. Especially for something that you can’t even access on your smartphone. Well, not yet.
Laura Jenny
When she’s not tapping, she’s traveling around the wonderful world of entertainment or some cool place in the real world. Mario is the man of her life,…
