Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life, is returning as a strategic adviser to its parent company Linden Lab to breathe new life into the veteran social virtual world game and guide its metaverse expansion.

Founded in 2003, Second Life is one of the oldest virtual world games and set the bar for today’s online realms for people to enter into 3D spaces where they can socialize with avatars, customize their environments and make purchases.

Nearly 20 years ago, Second Life was already providing places for people to open up virtual storefronts where they could sell virtual goods and make actual money. Users were also building social gathering places, bars, libraries and even housing. Sweden opened a virtual embassy in Second Life as well.

In spite of its early start, Second Life was too far ahead of its time and still remains behind many of the largest metaverse companies today. According to a spokesperson, the virtual world has seen approximately 1 million users since 2008. Roblox, another virtual world game with metaverse interests, met a milestone of 202 million active users in 2021.

After leaving Second Life, Rosedale co-founded High Fidelity Inc., a company that initially focused on high-end, low-latency virtual reality. However, in the past few years, the company has begun to shift away from VR and toward spatial audio.

High Fidelity will be investing in Linden Lab and bringing with it a small team of developers and a number of patents.

Rosedale would also be working alongside Brad Oberwagner, chairman of Linden Lab, to build on Second Life’s already existing foundation and expand it as a metaverse app. High Fidelity’s technology would fit well with the virtual world and user base that already exists.

Second Life already has shops and the ability for people to sell virtual items for cash, something that Oberwagner believes will be attractive to users. The addition of spatial audio would also make the platform even more social by creating a sense of presence and the addition of immersive VR would put it back into the running alongside current competitors.

“No one has come close to building a virtual world like Second Life,” said Rosedale. “Big Tech giving away VR headsets and building a metaverse on their ad-driven, behavior-modification platforms isn’t going to create a magical, single digital utopia for everyone. Second Life has managed to create both a positive, enriching experience for its residents — with room for millions more to join — and built a thriving subscription-based business at the same time. Virtual worlds don’t need to be dystopias.”

Image: Linden Lab