It's a social platform for education,business,meetings,building,concerts and the like. So why is it listed as a game?

because it´s the ultimate sandbox. People create content, including games, and DO roleplay some.

There are tons of games in there, some of them quite popular.

Originally posted by Kenaoshi

because it´s the ultimate sandbox. People create content, including games, and DO roleplay some.

This.

However I also don't get why people continue to question why certain things are listed, as if it will change anything. :[

EDIT: My DP is from SL, yay! lol.

Probably easier for MMORPG.com to list virtual worlds in the same category as games. That or they're confused.

I used to come from the same camp as the OP, and while I still have yet to try it out, there is plenty of evidence of there being games within it. Players themselves have to do all the work themselves, but they are there nonetheless. When I do hop in I think I'll try out the vampire or pirate warfare worlds.

Originally posted by GTwander

I used to come from the same camp as the OP, and while I still have yet to try it out, there is plenty of evidence of there being games within it. Players themselves have to do all the work themselves, but they are there nonetheless. When I do hop in I think I'll try out the vampire or pirate warfare worlds.

For Vampires, IMO the best is Dark City if you want dark grungy modern type or Crossroads for the more victorian feel, and for Pirates I would say Antiquity, they have ALOT of space to sail / fight other people in your ships.

Just a heads up on the decent places, there are WAY more but just a little tip! : D

It's a double-edged sword with the vampire communities in SL. Well, with any of the gothic communities in SL really. I played SL for almost 6yrs. The gothic communities, especially the vampires, are more drenched in drama than the soap opera TV network. I don't mean RP drama either. I mean RL gamers dragging their RL issues into the game and forcing other gamers to deal with their mental cases.

One of the major things I used to warn new gamers about when they first try SL is to beware of the drama and how bad it can quickly get if you aren't careful. Most of the time they don't listen at first until about 3 days later when it hits them in the face.

On one hand, the vampire communities have great scripted FX, as well as scripted gadgets for RP & combat. On the other hand, be prepared to deal with so many emo drama queens that it would make Marilyn Manson's head spin.

SL is best used only for the business and education opportunities imho. That's the only reason I stayed involved with the game for so long is because of my business I have there and it's currently only running on autopilot basically.

Haha yes..way too many emos who think their personal angst is everyone's problem.

Originally posted by axlebookmite

It's a social platform for education,business,meetings,building,concerts and the like. So why is it listed as a game?

I think that was the marketing angle from Linden Lab for a minute but it's not really what people are doing. Even on a busy weekend, somewhere around 1% of SLers are at concerts and I would imagine edu & biz stuff is somewhere below that.

I think it's odd to call SL a game too, but RP sims are some of the busiest places in SL. For whatever reason, LL doesn't seem to ever promote it, but there's plenty of gaming going on.

Originally posted by Erie_Isle_SL

Originally posted by axlebookmite

It's a social platform for education,business,meetings,building,concerts and the like. So why is it listed as a game?

I think that was the marketing angle from Linden Lab for a minute but it's not really what people are doing. Even on a busy weekend, somewhere around 1% of SLers are at concerts and I would imagine edu & biz stuff is somewhere below that.

I think it's odd to call SL a game too, but RP sims are some of the busiest places in SL. For whatever reason, LL doesn't seem to ever promote it, but there's plenty of gaming going on.

 Depends on what you mean by "business".

12 million USD in user-to-user transactions occur in SL a month and rising, and SL has long since broke the 1 billion USD in user-to-user transactions mark. Roleplaying and meter fighting doesn't account for that.

But you could argue the roleplay and gaming community are a big market for those who're buying clothing and prims, and do things like pay rent in RP sims for residences and etc. That counts as "business" to me though because most successful RP sims that've been running for years on end, have had to approach it with a profit or break-even angle considering how much tier costs and how time consuming it all is.

The roleplay community is a superset of the meter (MMO-esque ruleset systems) community, and it doesn't make up nearly a majority of what people use SL for.

That's why my advice remains to randomly search for something you're interested in on the text web in Second Life. You might find a group or sim realized in-world analagous to what you find in HTML.

Lotta stuff is experimental but a lot of stuff works.

Second Life isn't a game, yet it has games in it like they said.  Second Life is quite literally what you make of it.  You can basically do whatever you want, create whatever you want and invest your time however you want.

In my own opinion though Linden Labs has horribly mismanaged their product.  They consistently chase after ways to bring businesses, schools and things of that nature into the world.  All the while alienating their content creators, land owners and people who do the most to make the world what it is.  I think they should have improved the physics engine and worked on sims that were specifically geared towards "gaming" and tried to draw in players who wanted to build their own mini-worlds to run games in. 

They also should not have done so much to sabotage land lords and store owners.  I used to own a sim and ran a store for years, I've cashed out plenty from Second Life.  But nowadays it is getting real hard to make a living there in that way.  Lots of free players who have zero money, lots of freebies around and just a huge logistical nightmare of a mess to try to find much of anything.

Someday another more well managed virtual world is going to come along into the arena with Second Life and likely destroy it unless they do start to adapt better.  By losing some of their focus on being "clean" and bringing in businesses and simply admit they got a giant porn factory that also has a lot of more nice side things like roleplay sims, stores, land, homes, clubs and mini-games.

PS hope it is ok I used the word porn? if not just edit it out, hehe