Second Life is not a game Categorised as a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), SL is closely aligned with massively multiple-player online role-playing games (MMORPGS) populated by such titles as World of Warcraft, Everquest, Ultima II and the Sims , but it diverges from them in three key ways:
- Users create the content. Virtually every object, terrain and animation is the creative work of its membership. They use the built-in scripting tools to construct objects or actions from their imagination.
- Users retain the intellectual property of their creations and are free to trade, copy or exploit it in the virtual or real world environment, resulting in a robust virtual economy with real world consequences.
- There is no top down game plan or overarching narrative. Users determine their activities, ways of grouping and social codes. Second Life ‘residents’ therefore give up the notion that they are playing a ‘game’, (although games may be created and played within the construct) and prefer to identify themselves as citizens of a synthetic world, a ‘metaverse’.6