What is the secret of the success of Second Life?, we asked in
[VUSL], and we immediately confessed:
We don't know!
But in comparison to other platforms for immersive worlds,
including MMORPGs such as
World of Warcraft
and
Everquest,
Second Life seems to offer an optimal combination of
avatar modification options,
gesture animations, in-game construction tools,
and facilities for communication and social networking, such as chatting and instant messaging.
Incorporating elements of community formation, commonly denoted
as Web 2.0, and exemplified in
MySpace,
YouTube and
Flickr,
the immersive appearance, perhaps also the built-in physics
and the inclusion of elementary economic principles,
seem to be the prime distinguishing factors
responsible for the success of Second Life.
In addition, the possibility of recording collaborative enacted stories, [Stories],
using built-in machinima certainly
also contributes
to its appeal.