Is the party finally over for Second Life in Japan?
J-Cast is reporting that on March 31 magSL, a company that offers rental services on Second Life (SL), announced it would be heavily reducing its services for businesses in Japan.
Through magSL you could rent space in the virtual world and promote your business, as well as buy the currency used in SL. Since April 1, however, magSL has no longer been offering realtime support for some of its services, nor in-game staff avatars. Come April 30 it will also be closing five of its “Tokyo” sectors in SL, concentrating on individual users and its remaining three districts.
SL first arrived in Japan in 2007 and is said currently to have between twenty and thirty thousand users. A swathe of big retailers and businesses opened up virtual outlets, including cecile and HIS. However, the lack of 3D support on home computers led to apathy and bewilderment, and corporations who initially were keen to exploit the service for PR started to withdraw even in 2008.
Linden Lab, the US firm behind SL, is actually making profits, though, and individual users are said to be increasing across the world.
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