SecondLife.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing environment created

by Linden Lab.

A virtual world, also called a metaverse, is “a synchronous, persistent

network of people, represented as avatars, facilitated by networked

computers” (Bell 2008, p. 1). Social-oriented virtual worlds and online

communities are used for playful consumption, for marketing and brand-

building, and as tools to study consumer behavior (Kozinets 1999, Muniz and

O’Guinn 2001). Among the many virtual worlds, Second Life (SL) received

overwhelming early academic and media attention.

Launched by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life (SL) is a massively

multiplayer online role-playing environment. SL users (called “residents”)

construct and reconstruct virtual self-representations, called avatars, and

experience the world through these bodies. With the tagline “Your world-

Your imagination”, SL has user-owned “lands” which residents access via

teleporting, walking, or flying. SL lacks the goal-oriented structure of other

online games. This virtual world is simply created, designed and owned by its

users. SL triggered an explosive burst of creativity, resulting in a

multifaceted metaverse society with its own value systems, social structures,

and a fully integrated economy based on the trading of user-created content.

In 2008, SL housed approximately 15 million residents and more than

US$100 million worth of Linden dollars (L$), SL’s micro-currency, were

bought and sold on the official virtual currency exchange of SL (Second Life

The Marketplace, 2008).

Consumption in SL: Virtual Consumer
Consumer research has begun emphasizing the symbolic and

experiential element of virtual worlds (Vicdan and Ulusoy 2008). The open-

ended design of SL allows its residents to construct a complete alternative

reality with possessions and communities. Through building and scripting, SL

provides a virtual world in which residents interact with each other and their

environment in a variety of ways and explore and experiment with different,

often multiple, selves.

Avatar, in virtual environments, is defined as “a perceptible

representation whose behaviors reflect those executed, typically in real time,

by a specific human being” (Bailenson and Blascovich 2004, p.65). This

digital representation of self is the locus of identity in SL. From the moment

of avatar construction, postmodern self-identity becomes an ongoing

consumption project (McCracken 1988), where consumers can choose from a

range of cultural narratives and identities (Thompson and Hirschman 1995).

The postmodern consumer no longer consumes objects but rather consumes

the symbol, a sign value consumed and produced in a perpetual cycle

(Venkatesh 1999). SL avatars can try out different heads, body types, skin

colors, clothes, and even accessories. Bodily movement and facial

expression features are also available to SL residents. Thus, SL grants

consumers opportunities to create virtual roles and identities (Zwick and

Dholakia 2004). SL offers control and unparalleled freedom over the

construction of avatar identities (Roberts and Parks 1999). Because of such

versatility, SL is a prime context for identity and selfhood studies.

Consumption in SL: the Marketplace

Consumption is moving into virtual worlds through the presence of

virtual goods (Poster 2004). Virtual goods can be rendered visually onscreen

(Bartle 2004), becoming visible to both the immediate user and to other

inworld users. Lacking inherent use-value, it is the symbolic role of virtual

goods that determines their exchange-values and selling prices. Substantial

work exists on the economic implication of the consumption in virtual worlds

(see Castranova 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005).

The SL economy is a vital element of the virtual world experience. On an

average day in 2007, about 50,000 people logged in to SL and about $US 1.5

million changed hands (Linden Lab Research Inc 2007). Residents’ desires to

acquire virtual goods are major drivers of the SL economy. Users actively

seek, and are even willing to work for, and spend offline money on these

goods. SL provides an avenue for its residents to explore and realize desires

that may not be actionable in the offline world. Consumers live out their

desires, and thereby, imagined sides of the self (Molesworth 2006), through

the exchange of Linden dollars (L$). Lindex, a peer-to-peer trading platform,

allows the exchange of about L$270 for US$1 (Linden Lab Economics

Factsheet 2007). According to SL founder, as many as 40,000 residents were

making their full-time living from Second Life (NY Times Freakonomics blog).

In the virtual SL real estate market, residents can rent or purchase a

space or even bid on an auctioned space. An entire private region,

measuring 65,536 square meters, was priced in 2008 at US$1000, with a

monthly maintenance fee of US$295. Additionally, the buying and selling of

SL land is abundant on online auction sites including Ebay.com.

SL hosts user-generated products as well as commercial brands like

American Apparel, Ben & Jerry’s, BMW, Fiat, IBM, Wells Fargo, Reebok and

Reuters. At one point, IBM reportedly had over 230 employees spending part

of their work day inside Second Life, and owned 24 private islands for

meetings, recruitment and training (Fitzgerald 2007). For Castronova,

“virtual worlds may be the future of ecommerce, and perhaps of the internet

itself” (2001, page 3).

References
Bailenson, J.N., & Blascovich, J. (2004) Avatars. Encyclopedia of Human-
Computer Interaction, Berkshire Publishing Group, 64-68.

Bartle, R. (2004). Designing virtual worlds. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders

Publishing.

Bell, M. (2008). Toward a definition of “virtual worlds”. Journal of Virtual

Worlds Research. 1(1). Retrieved on January 1, 2009, from
http://www.jvwresearch.org/v1n1_bell.html
Castronova, E. (2001). Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and
Society of the Cyberian Frontier. CESifo Working Papers.

Castronova, E. (2002). On Virtual Economies. CESifo Working Papers.

Castronova, E. (2003). Theory of the Avatar. CESifo Working Papers.

Castronova, E. (2005). Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online

Games. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Linden Lab Economics Factsheet (2007). Second Life. Retrieved March 11

2009, from
http://lindenlab.com/pressroom/general/factsheets/sloverview

Fitzgerald, M. (2007). Only the Money Is Real. Inc., 2007, 80-85.

Dubner, S. (2007). Philip Rosedale Answers Your Second Life Questions. The
New York Times- Freakonomics. Retrieved April 4, 2008, from
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/philip-rosedale-
answers-your-second-life-questions/

Kozinets, R. V. (1999). E-Tribalizing Marketing? The Startegic Implication of

Virtual Communities of Consumption. European Management Journal,
17(3), 252-264.

Linden Lab Research, Inc. (2007). Second Life. Retrieved April 25, 2007, from
http://www.secondlife.com/

McCracken, G. (1988). Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the

Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities, Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press.
Molesworth, M. (2006). Real brands in imaginary worlds: investigating
players' experiences of brand placement in digital games. Journal of
Consumer Behaviour, 5(4), 355.

Muniz, A. M. and O'Guinn Thomas C. (2001). Brand Community. Journal of

Consumer Research 27 (March), 412-432.

Roberts, L.D. and Parks, M.R. (1999). The social geography of gender-
switching in virtual environments on the internet. Information,
Communication, & Society, 2(4), 521-540.

Poster, M. (2004). Consumption and Digital Commodities in the Everyday.

Cultural Studies, 18, 409-423.

Second Life The Marketplace (2008). Second Life. Retrieved March 11, 2009,
from http://secondlife.com/whatis/marketplace.php

Thompson, C. J. and Hirschman E. C. (1995). Understanding the Socialized

Body: A Poststructuralist Analysis of Consumers' Self-Conceptions,
Body Images, and Self-Care Practices. Journal of Consumer Research,
22 (September), 139-153

Venkatesh, A. (1999). Postmodernism perspectives for macromarketing: An

inquiry into the global information and sign economy. Journal of
Macromarketing, 19 (2), 153-169.

Vicdan, H. and E. Ulusoy (2008). Symbolic and Experiential Consumption of

Body in Virtual Worlds: from (Dis)Embodiment to Symembodiment.
Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. 1(2). Retrieved on January 1, 2009,
from http://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/347/257.

Zwick, D. and Dholakia N. (2004). Whose Identity Is It Anyway? Consumer

Representation in the Age of Database Marketing. Journal of
 Macromarketing, 24 (1):31-43.

Nikhilesh Dholakia
Julianne A. Cabusas
University of Rhode Island