Second Life Spending Habits
Second Life is a well known virtual world in which every single item of content is created and designed from scratch by the residents, or users of the platform. However, Second Life is simply miles ahead of the competition for one main reason. It has a booming virtual economy. Even as the real world struggled with global recession, Second Life residents continued to spend their ‘Linden dollars,’ and 2009 was a record year. Residents spent the equivalent of 567 million US dollars in Second Life.
Linden Dollars, the ‘currency,’ of Second Life can be bought through an exchange, the Lindex. They can then be spent in world and those earning Linden dollars in world can convert them to US dollars and cash them out of Second Life, thus meaning that the platform has immense earning potential for its users and actually generates a very real life income for many.
But what do people in Second Life actually spend their money on? Well, virtual land is big money business. Residents pay both an upfront fee and an ongoing monthly fee to rent the virtual space on which to set up homes, stores, clubs, relaxation or romancing locations or even spoken word venues. There’s also plenty of money gets spent on avatar appearance, Second Life fashion, skins, virtual hairstyles and shapes. People like to have their 3d representations looking great.
There’s money spent too on services including marketing, on hiring live musicians to perform at clubs and so on as well as on furniture or virtual homes. Essentially, whatever you could buy in real life, you can probably buy a Second Life version.
It can be difficult for those who have never used Second Life to comprehend how others can spend money on items that do not really have a physical existence. But the Second Life economy is very real and is a genuine income for so many. And for those who really don’t get it, I simply ask, do you pay for your Internet connection? Because you can’t physically touch that either…
