For the last few months, Second Life has been all the rage with real world companies. We have seen companies like IBM, Reebok and others enter into the virtual world looking to sell virtual versions of their products and services. Even presidential candidates have started campaign offices in the world of Second Life.

But now word is that a lot of these companies are starting to leave the virtual world. Some have stated that the reason is that the eight million members claimed by Linden Labs is grossly overstated. Others do not see any money being generated, and some have received some hostile responses from the players in the world.

Actual visitors to the world actually clock in at about 40,000 regular playing members of the community. American Apparel and Reebok have had their storefronts involved in staged attacks by members. Even though there are a lot of subscribers to the game, most are players that have taken the free account and have not invested any money in the game world or any of these companies.

There are other virtual worlds out there like There and Entropia Universe, and it sounds like the corporate dollars may go into these worlds instead. But I think the bigger issue is that people who sign up for these worlds get the free services, but do not want to pay for any of the other services in the game. While you may have eight million subscribers, it won’t matter if only 40,000 are actually paying for stuff and driving the online economy.

via Slashdot.