Reg hacks continually slate "Sadlife" and its players, which leads me to the assumption that nobody who reads the Reg plays this game. So why are you writing articles about boring statistics relating to a game that none of your readers play?

I think the reason is (not so) hidden in the last paragraph - you're the one that plays it, saddo. Why not post this sort of "news" on a blog, so that nobody else wastes time reading it?

I found the article amusing although, naturally, I've never played the game. I think it is actually relevant in the scope of general technology awareness to hear news about these virtual sub-cultures from time to time, even if it's just poking fun. Not terribly intelligent I admit, but I really don't see the harm in some light hearted 'reporting' from time to time.

MMORPGs of any flavor, especially gay trendy ones = zzzzzZZZZZ

no, no its for real....

I have mentioned Second Life to a number of friends - none of whom have ever heard of it. I always call it Sadlife, they assume this is its real name. Everyone, and I mean everyone I have introduced the concept to seems to accept that the name Sadlife goes with the territory. Go El Reg !!

hmmm, I barely have time to s**t shower and shave, plus do my job plus see friends, oh and grab a bite to eat.

What an earth do these players do for a living that gives them soooooooooooooooooooo much free time,(I want that Job) along with socialising in reality? or have i missed something and these games are thier socialising?

tis a dark dark day that the only way to make friends is via a VDU

How about online dating?

Not so long ago most would never admit to chatting, online dating or even participating in discussions such as these.

Another question. Is gaming sad? Is playing Sims sad?

...with the constant tone of "moral high ground" from people who profess to detest Second Life and go out of their way to belittle it, but seem, at the same time, to know an awful lot about it. I think you'd be a lot happier if you stopped sneering and just came out of the closet wrt to Second Life.

You can take the piss out of stuff (the press conference interrupted by a horde of flying penises was hysterical) without taking some rubbish "holier than thou" tone about it. Compare the tone of most of your Second Life articles (though not all - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/20/second_life_analysis/ was the most thoughtful article I've read on the subject) with, say, the article where the editor of the Economist laid into the Microsoft sponsored love in.

I'd like to make a few points in defence of SL...

1) It's not a game, it's an environment for building/scripting and designing and performing for a worldwide audience, which also happens to allow some residents to make money and also, yes, socialise/chat.

2) Socialising in SL is no different to having a chat via IRC, or a yahoo chat room, and I'll assume, that given that most of us have a background in IT, we've all done one or the other, or even both, at some point in our lifetimes.

3) Yes, some people actually do use it to socialise in virtual sense, rather than in their real life, because some people have a disability that stops them from having a "life" in the real world. You'd be surprised how much power they can regain from having the freedom and control that they don't have in their real lives.

3) er, yeah, I can't really think of anything else, but there is more to it than just sad people having cybersex. Ignorance

... that a lot of organisations are falling for the hype that currently surrounds Second Life.

At the recent Museums and the Web conference in San Francisco Second Life turned out to be one of the big hypes, and so it now looks like some people in the museum space are actually thinking about investing their very limited budgets on creating an experience that is expensive and hard to set up, almost as hard to navigate and has a very limited audience.

It's annoying when a "novelty" like this grabs more headlines than truly great new developments going on all over the web.

Move away from your computer, go outside and get a life.

Computing is good for work, or for the odd distration while the missus is watching soaps...

The Sims I can understand, but this is just ridiculous. I mean, people actually buy property!!!

I suppose you could be a ganster, and destroy other peoples properties, at least that would be a laugh.

Robert Ramsay:

"...with the constant tone of "moral high ground" from people who profess to detest Second Life and go out of their way to belittle it, but seem, at the same time, to know an awful lot about it. "

I suppose you would also rant had the author slagged off the game without knowing much about it!