Merchants pin hopes on back-to-school rush
By Eric Reuters
SECOND LIFE, Aug. 29 (Reuters) - As Kenny Hudson toured the prison, he took in the peeling paint in the common area, the graffiti that covered the bathroom stalls, and the hidden nooks where inmates hide contraband. Another school year in Second Life was set to begin.
Hudson’s prison is part of a training simulation run by Ontario’s Loyalist College to prepare young Canadians for jobs as corrections officers and prison administrators. “The idea is in the role play,” said Hudson, known in Second Life as Kenny Hubble. “The students usually do one on one in real life. Instead we’ll do two [guards] to twelve [inmates].”
Loyalist’s pilot Second Life program brought twenty students to the virtual world last spring. The program was so successful Loyalist plans to bring 300 students, or about 10 percent of the student body, into the virtual world when classes start next week.
Thanks in part to schools like Loyalist College, Second Life is set for its biggest ever back-to-school rush. About 300 colleges and universities have established a presence in Second Life, and thousands of students at other institutions are expected to visit the virtual world, equipped with shiny new laptops and speedy broadband connections.
An influx of new users couldn’t come at a better time for Second Life’s beleaguered business owners, who have suffered through a difficult summer filled with bank runs, gambling bans and declining usage numbers. Aside from Linden Lab’s own statistics, audience measurment firm Nielsen has seen Second Life fall from the 26th most played PC game in May to 91st in June.
“After June, Second Life just fell off the radar,” said Nicolas Covey, an analyst with Nielsen Games. “We only track the top 100.”
Second Life’s entrepreneurs are optimistic that the summer’s slump is only a seasonal downturn.
“Does it every year,” said Simone Stern of Simone! Design, who’s been selling virtual clothes since December 2004. Stern estimates her own sales are down 50 percent this summer, but predicts the fall season will bring renewed growth. “It was worse in earlier years when my work wasn’t as well known. I totally remember L$700 weeks in the first summer,” she said.
Luth Brodie of Reel Expression, an animation vendor, saw her sales drop 5 percent this summer. Like Stern, she’s been in Second Life for three consecutive summers, and sees the virtual economy contract at this time every year. “I think it’s much more noticed this year because of how fast the sales grew this past fall and especially at Christmas time,” she said of the summer slump.
Brodie delayed the opening of her revamped store and the release of her new product line until the autumn to avoid the summer doldrums. “If you didn’t work here, would you rather sit all day inside at the computer in Second Life or go the beach?” Brodie asked.
For Brodie, the rebound has already begun, and hopes are high the large number of students set to take classes in Second Life will help jumpstart the economy. “Of course I’m looking forwards to the fall,” she said. “Sales have already started to reflect U.S. schools being back.”
“My courses alone will bring in 127 new users,” said Beth Ritter-Guth (Second Life: Desideria Stockton), a literature teacher at Lehigh Carbon Commnunity College and DeSales University, both in Pennsylvania. “I use Second Life as a teaching tool for all of my courses.” Traditionally, her students have hated such classic texts as Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. But within Second Life, her pupils dressed up as some of the characters and went on a virtual pilgrimage.
Active within the Second Life education community and a speaker at the Second Life Community Convention, Ritter-Guth estimated that at least 150 of the colleges and universities that have established a virtual presence will be bringing new students into Second Life as the fall semester starts. “I would say a low estimate would be 100 students per school,” she said. “Some schools have a lot more.”
One of Stockton’s students was John McGowan, who created an avatar named Johnnie Kungfu. Before taking Stockton’s class through DeSales, McGowan had tried Second Life, but decided he didn’t like it. “I didn’t have any guidance,” McGowan said. “I didn’t know what to do or where to go.”
Spending time in Second Life for class gave him a reason to get involved in the community, and the friends he made in class were people he looked forwards to meeting when he logged in. “Now I’ve done a lot,” he said. “I’ve got some pretty cool clothes, and I’ve built a really snazzy apartment.”
