Second Life usage down over five percent in November
By Eric Reuters
SECOND LIFE, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Month-to-month usage of Second Life declined sharply in November, according to new statistics released by Linden Lab.
Residents spent a total of 24.6 million hours in-world last month, down from 25.9 million in October, a decline of over 5 percent.
November’s drop is the second time on record Second Life scored fewer hours than the month prior. In August hours dropped less than one percent from July.
Linden Lab added 982 premium accounts in November, a one percent gain. Premium accounts pay a subscription fee to Linden Lab in exchange for a stipend of game currency and property rights on Second Life’s mainland.
Figures for “unique residents” are no longer being tabulated. The count of unique users was considered a key metric for followers of Linden’s virtual world as many people have multiple accounts, or “alts.”
“We are discontinuing publishing this figure,” wrote Meta Linden on the company Blog. “It had several challenges, regarding retroactive cancellation of accounts and the algorithm used for determining uniqueness.”
Second Life caters to a mature audience, with 83.6 percent of hours spent logged by residents age 25 or over. That puts Linden Lab in stark contrast with competitors like Virtual MTV or Habbo aimed at the youth market. Second Life avatars under 18 are restricted to Teen Second Life, which amounts to less than one-half of one percent of all Second Life usage.
