It sure seems like Linden Lab was all the talk in the virtual world industry for a few weeks when they launched the much-anticipated Second Life Enterprise. Well the SL Enterprise glitz and glamour has fizzled out and now Linden Lab is even making more changes which has its user base up in arms. The pillar of the virtual world industry, who was the pioneer and stage setter has now gone even as far as increasing their pricing structure for non-profits and educators. Admittedly, SL is still granting Homestead and Open Space to qualifying organizations, but non-profits and educators make up a large part of overall publicity around SL and a 200 percent price spike is quite substantial to these already budget-strapped organizations. We also know they have had internal changes as well, so what does all this really add up to? Did they put the cart before the horse? Did they price themselves out of the market? Is the loyal SL user base still there? Are these really the best business decisions or is this the beginning of the end for Second Life? My projection is that many will now turn to OpenSim grids and give up on the high’s and low’s that has become common place for Second Life. Even fundraising efforts have declined within Second Life. SL’s 2010 Relay for Life only raised $222,804 for cancer research while the 2009 event raised $274,000. Maybe they will surprise us all but as of now the business decisions being made seem to have no real rhyme or reason behind them (at least not to us outsiders), but maybe I will be proven wrong in the future. Will Microsoft be part of the picture…I guess time will tell.

Here’s a link to a prior post on Linden Lab and the Future of Virtual Worlds:
http://blog.visualpurple.com/2010/07/06/linden-lab-future-virtual-worlds/

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