Business on Second Life

Since its start in 2003 Second Life has come along way, what originally started as a game has now involved into a thriving world, where people can start their own businesses and earn money. As there are no limitations in terms of creativity Second Life has brought forward a big list of entrepreneurs who have started their own businesses and started making money.
On Second Life there are two kinds of businesses we have to consider. On of are the businesses which have been created in Second Life and purely for it. Those businesses were started by residence who saw the opportunity of making money with their imagination and their skills.
On the other side of the spectrum there are businesses in the real world who have realized Second Life’s potential and realized that their presence in SL is helpful in making more business, as much on there as in the real world.
On Wikipedia I found a long list of businesses in Second Life. Not all of them are making enough profit to give their founders enough money to cover costs of their real lives. But enough to keep them going.
Others have managed to make enough money on Second Life to give up their real life jobs and concentrate on the SL market. But looking at my research that is rather the exception than the norm. I will not list all the businesses on there as it would be too many to concentrate on. However here is the link which shows a list of all the businesses available on SL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Businesses_and_Organizations_in_Second_Life

I will concentrate on one of the most profound and most successful entrepreneurs so far on Second Life, who has been so successful on Second Life that she continued her success into the real world and now has businesses in both.
The business I am talking about is the real estate selling business called Anshe Chung Studios, a business that has been talked about a lot when it comes to successful business stories on Second Life. Anshe Chung is an Avatar build by a German born Chinese women, who decided that she would buy loads of land on Second Life and rent and sell it to residence. She and her husband own around 1/7th of the whole of the Second Life world, and are making around $250.000 to $500.000 real money from their Second Life business. Her business also owns a money exchange system which gives them additional income in both worlds.
As good as it sounds, she can not believe herself how well she has done and how much interest her business has received in the last few years.
Like Anshe, a lot of residence start their business, and there are a lot residence who do have small businesses. Although they wont by far make as much money as Anshe’s business does.
I personally think that money on Second Life can mainly be made on real estate, marketing, programming and building(which basically is programming). Those I found were the most successful ones out there. As avatars can create a lot of things themselves there is always competition to think of. As in the real world, one has to promote ones business, in order to gain recognition.
So advertising agencies on SL are one of those businesses which can be very profitable.
Also if you are really talented in programming and inventing games you can make a lot of money too.
One of the most successful one is Kermitt Quirk, he invented a game called Tringo on Second Life for residence to play. He then took his game into the real world and sold it to Nintendo making a lot of money doing so. He sells his game in SL at around L$15,000 a pop which is quiet a lot of money.
He is another success story of how to make money in SL and transfer it into the real life.
As there are no set rules of business and Linden Lab unaware of what actually goes on between transactions it is really hard to make sense of the business world on Second Life. Here we not only have the problems of not getting rid of our product but also the technical problems we have to think of.
In 2006 Arlene Ciroula who is the chief operating officer of a 100 person accounting firm in Baltimore, had decided that businesses in Second Life would need some help and guidance and she set out so set up a business in Second Life which would help residence with their businesses. She started a business consulting agency which so far has been very successful. Against a fee she helps businesses to come up with plans, and her business also helps them to set foot into the businesses and just gives tips and advice.
This of course can be very tricky as she not only has to deal with the business side of things but also with the technical problems that might arise, as mentioned above.
On the Second Life Linden blog there are a few tips for people who want to start a business. There is a small list of businesses available and ideas of what one could get into.
I will list a few I found interesting for myself, and which I think I could do if I would get my head around it and wanted to spent a lot of money and time setting it up.
-Party and wedding planner
-nightclub owner
-fashion designer
-tour guide
-dancer
-vacation resort owner
-bodyguard

Most of the jobs and businesses on there involve a vast knowledge of the programme and computer skills in general. Most jobs can only be done by people who know computers very well and can programme. Someone like me who only uses her computer for the general things, would be completely out of their depth and wouldn’t know where to start.
And I wonder why on earth would someone in Second Life need a bodyguard for? You can not die, and teleport yourself to any location you wanted, to escape a weird conversation or a fight. So why would you need one? This might be just me but this doesn’t make any sense.
Well a lot of things I wouldn’t pay a penny for like clothes and guns, skins, and so on as you get all the basic ones and some really good stuff for free, so why bother?
On the other hand this is a consumer based world, where just like in the real world everyone wants something new, exciting, and something different, and there are people creative enough to build those things. So why not make money out of it? If there are people willing to pay money for something, why not give them the service they want? That’s what businesses is about isn’t it?


It says that these are examples of a few in-world business occupations which residence have come up with and that it makes part or all of their real life living from.
So even here it is mentioned that money can be made but sometimes not enough to survive in the ourside world. Unless of course you already have a stable business in the real world and only use Second Life as a second base for your business. I don’t think personally that there can be enough money made in most business to substain a comfortable life in the real world, as much as one would like to. Wouldn’t it be great to only work in a virtual world without the stress and hassle of the real world? Well to be honest this is only an illusion and most of the people reading about businesses will be disappointed I think if they would really start a business in SL and realise that there is only so much money to be made.
I don’t want to deny that money can be made on there but I think it is rather the exception.
I also found during my research that a lot of businesses are thinking about withdrawing their base in SL as they have realised that the hype around SL does not live up to their expectations.
Although that might be true now, I think that in the future this will grow and only get bigger, more and more people will join and have that experience but it will all take time.
The writers of the Offical Guide to Second Life make a very good point in their book.
They say that:
“The bottom line is this: making money in a virtual world is much more fun than in the real world. To keep it that way, don’t focus on making money in itself, but on doing something you like that just happens to be profitable.” (Linden Lab: 2007:221)
We just have keep reminding ourselves that Second Life is after all just a game. It is suppose to be fun and make you thrive in your imagination and give you chances to do thinks you could not do in the real world. And if you decide you want to give it a try in starting a businesses, why not, it might be helpful in terms of experience and give you an idea how you could maybe translate that into the real world.