Editing Openai/69557275-0da8-8004-a03a-8eb02e10a61f (section)

===== XII. Life Is a Game =====

Second Life launched in 2003 and proved something important: people will treat a virtual world as a real place—social life, economies, identity, status. lindenlab.com<ref>{{cite web|title=lindenlab.com|url=https://lindenlab.com/press-release/original-metaverse-second-life-celebrates-20th-birthday|publisher=lindenlab.com|access-date=2026-01-02}}</ref>
It also hit moments of real scale for its era (e.g., recorded concurrency around 88,200 in early 2009). Wikipedia<ref>{{cite web|title=Wikipedia|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2026-01-02}}</ref>

Now fast-forward: there are about 3.58 billion game players projected in 2025. Newzoo<ref>{{cite web|title=Newzoo|url=https://newzoo.com/resources/blog/global-games-market-to-hit-189-billion-in-2025|publisher=newzoo.com|access-date=2026-01-02}}</ref>

So imagine the “Second Life impulse” returns—except now:
* VR is optional (desktop-first; goggles when you want)
* NPCs can talk (not scripted—improv)
* worlds are generated on demand (not handcrafted from scratch)

In ~18 months, it won’t be utopia. It’ll be janky and magnetic.

A friend texts:

“Afterparty at my place.”

You click and you’re in their world—on your laptop—where an NPC bartender remembers your name and a historical figure is available as a guest character, not a museum exhibit.

Life doesn’t become a game.

It becomes game-like: persistent worlds, quests, status layers, digital hangouts that start bleeding into real plans.