- The metaverse.
- Metaverse.
- [Narrator] Everyone in tech
is talking about these new virtual worlds
where people will be able to do plenty of things.
- Work, learn, play, shop.
- [Narrator] But many years before them,
a man had already created an online world
that was also advertised as a place to work, play, learn
and shop.
- Second Life is in many ways the only kind
of real metaverse sort of experience that yet exists,
at least, especially for grownups.
- [Narrator] That's Philip Rosedale,
the founder of Second Life,
and this is his avatar in the game.
Yes, remember the world you'd enter
from your Windows XP desktop in 2003?
It had its own virtual economy,
and some people even said they made millions of dollars
trading in it.
Over the years, interest in the platform waned,
but Second Life now sees an opportunity to stage a comeback.
Rosedale is returning to the world he created 13 years
after leaving the company to be a strategic advisor.
His plan is to improve the platforms experience
without the use of VR headsets
and to make it work better on smartphones.
- If you looked aspirationally
at what people could do with a metaverse,
Second Life in many ways is still the one to watch
and even the one to beat.
- [Narrator] So we look at Second Life's vision
and why it's past struggles can serve as a lesson
for virtual worlds of the future.
Rosedale began developing Second Life in 1999,
as he toyed with how to escape his own reality
and to see how far he could push his technical expertise.
This is what an early version of the game looked like.
- I certainly was looking,
asking myself the question
of whether I could just build a whole other world
and disappear into it.
- [Narrator] Rosedale's goal was to make this virtual world,
seen here in 2003,
look as life-like as possible,
as well as being free from the limits of reality.
Part of that was giving users the power
to shape the digital realm.
- They immediately bought the land
from underneath all the things we had built
and tore them all down to create their own vision
of what they wanted the place to be.
- [Narrator] The game's virtual economy,
digital tokens, called Linden dollars,
that can be exchanged for US dollars,
allows members to earn while playing the game.
Some forged careers as virtual real estate barons.
- We're definitely pioneers at Second Life
in identifying that sort of right
to take things you'd made with your hands in a virtual space
and own them and sell them to other people freely.
- [Narrator] In 2007, Second Life had some 1 million
active monthly users and even featured in television shows.
- [Male Voice] In my second life,
I was also a paper salesman.
Absolutely everything was the same, except I could fly.
- [Narrator] But by 2019, Second Life reported
it had lost a quarter of its monthly users.
Reentering the world today can help us understand why.
It's complicated to use.
Creating an avatar involves using sliders
that can change shape of each part of the body.
Trying to change clothes requires multiple steps
and brings you to a separate marketplace.
It's also glitchy.
In some areas, items take minutes to load,
and it can be hard to find people to interact with.
- That the interface is difficult.
- [Narrator] Tech giants like Meta,
formerly known as Facebook,
have shared visions of a metaverse
operating in a completely new internet environment,
allowing users to move assets between different networks.
Second Life says this platform still has potential
and is betting on an immediate refresh,
starting with trying to streamline this interface
and make it more accessible on smartphones.
It currently doesn't have an official app in the Apple Store
or Google Play.
Second Life says one of its strengths
is that avatars offer more customization options
than other competitors.
For example, the gaming platform, ROBLOX,
which is also developing metaverse concepts,
and Horizon by Meta.
For Rosedale,
continuing to enhance the already realistic figures
is key for the platform to stand out.
- I like to focus on this idea
of like, how do I wiggle my hands
when I talk to you in the metaverse,
how do we feel visually connected to each other?
And I think that work can be done without VR headsets.
- [Narrator] While Meta has made VR and AR devices
an integral part of its vision for the metaverse,
the creator of Second Life believes webcams could be used
to help simulate more authentic character movements.
When it comes to audience,
Second Life is not on the same scale as its competitors,
Meta's Facebook, Instagram, and other services
have 3.5 billion monthly users combined.
And the two companies don't have the same resources either.
Second Life has said it's investing millions
in improving the platform,
Meta said its initial spending on the project
is around $10 billion.
Second Life has survived over the years
because of a smaller group of loyal members
and says it makes money by taking a commission
on the sales of their creations.
The company said the total volume of sales and transactions
in its virtual world was worth $650 million.
While tech giants say the metaverse
is set to be a massive global industry,
Rosedale's skeptical that any company will be able
to keep large audiences interested
in these virtual platforms.
- Most of us who have a comfortable existence
in our real bodies, in the real world,
are going to still tend to prefer that
virtual worlds are a choice that you have to make.
And it's a very substantial and considerate choice.
And it's not necessarily something
that all of us are gonna want to do.