In the past few years, there have been web programs similar to Second Life which have flourished at times. However, much of the reason Second Life has grown , according to those interviewed, is that this world offers a level of freedom that the others (up until only recently) don’t.

“ It’s a distinct thing to understand because Second Life is all user-created content,” Au said. “Some of the land and houses were created by the company, but 99.9% of everything you see in there is created by users. ”

Heider added, “People would go to The Sims Online and they would create their own little role-play that EA did not want and people did it anyway. But Second Life encouraged those same behaviors…a lot of people came to Second Life from The Sims Online and There.com because they felt there was more freedom in Second Life .”

Linden Labs also lets Second Life users keep the intellectual property rights to whatever they create inside the virtual world.