AI overview
Second Life is a virtual online world where people create digital characters and interact with each other in a computer-generated environment. It gained significance as an early example of a large-scale persistent virtual world where people could socialize, build things, and conduct various activities entirely online.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Game data
- Released
- 2003-06-23
- User rating
- 3.33 / 5
- Genres
- Massively Multiplayer, RPG
- Platforms
- PC, macOS
via RAWG
Key facts
- Developer
- Linden Lab
- Initial release
- June 23, 2003 ; 22 years ago ( 2003-06-23 )
- Written in
- C++
- Engine
- Open-source ( C++ , OpenGL )
- Platform
- Windows macOS Linux (in development) iOS (beta) Android (beta)
- Available in
- 12 languages
- License
- LGPL-2.1-or-later
Article
Second Life is a multi-user virtual world that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users (known as 'Residents') and user-created content within a multi-user online environment. Developed for personal computers by the San Francisco-based firm Linden Lab, it publicly launched on June 23, 2003, and saw rapid growth for some years; in 2013, it had approximately one million regular users. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017, the active user count had fallen to "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, Second Life is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing video games; nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective."
The virtual world can be accessed freely via Linden Lab's own client software or via alternative third-party viewers. Second Life users, also called 'residents', create virtual representations of themselves, called avatars, and are able to interact with places, objects and other avatars. They can explore the world (known as the grid), meet other residents, socialize, participate in both individual and group activities, build, create, shop, and trade virtual property and services with one another.