Sony briefly tinkered with a SL clone with the PS3. Some sort of customizable social space where you could buy virtual furniture and stuff. I forget what it was called. It was a neat tech demo, but of course I would never have paid real money for anything.
SL for a hot minute was the Next Big Thing. Everyone was going to have work meetings there, and have virtual homes and participate in the virtual economy. To be honest, they were more successful than I ever thought they'd be.
Thank you. Yes, it had more graphical polish, but far less extensibility.
This many years later, it's become clear what sort of crazy next-gen platform will become our "second life". It's not something with a high barrier to entry like Second Life, or VRChat.
It's the ones with the least barrier to entry. Like Facebook or Twitter.
I think we can give up on anything common from the real world happening in VR (including SL style 3D worlds). Why have meetings in VR when Zoom is better? Why shop for things in VR when Amazon works just fine?
No thread on SL is "complete" without mentioning that despite not having much in terms of gameplay in it, it managed to attract lots of "orphans" from Star Wars Galaxies - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Galaxies - specifically those who liked SWG for the non-combat elements, including social gatherings and roleplay.
