The virtual world community game Second Life has effectively withdrawn from the local market.

According to industry sources, the U.S.-based developer of Second Life, Linden Lab, failed to extend the contract with the local game company Barunson Games Corp. Barunson was first contracted to operate Second Life services in Korea in October 2007.

However, the Korean Second Life community Sera Korea will continue to be serviced.

Linden Lab`s official position is said to be temporarily closing local operations. However, the company is reported to have no plans to revive the operations as yet.

In addition, Linden Lab seems to have been preparing to withdraw from the local market before the contract expired.



Before the contract expired, Linden Lab stopped providing Second Life in Korean and closed the Korean language site kr.secondlife.com and directed traffic to the English-language site.

As with other social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter that have proved hugely popular in the global market but failed to establish a significant presence in Korea, Second Life appears to have failed to adapt to the characteristics of the local market.

According to industry officials, Korean users tend to prefer more closed environments where they can interact with people they already know or relatively small groups of people, and are used to fast-paced online games.

In addition, the lack of localization efforts from Linden Lab is also said to have held Second Life back from attracting a larger number of users here.

Second Life`s withdrawal from the local market also comes only a few months before the launch of a locally developed virtual world.

According to industry sources, a local developer Tri-d Communications is planning to begin testing its virtual world C2Town in February.

(cheesuk@heraldm.com)



By Choi He-suk