How to Compete in the Metaverse: The Business Models in Second Life

Abstract

Second life (henceforward, SL) has captured the interest of many scholars and practitioners. Indeed, the entrance of many real world companies, attracted by the potentialities of Virtual Worlds (henceforward, VWs), has been interpreted as the signal for the discovery of new web-based business models. Therefore, in this work, we address the topic of how VWs, and SL in detail, can impact on the business models of the firms. In doing so, we are going to examine the literature about business models and VWs, in order to define how they interact each other. As a result, we propose a mapping framework able to support companies in determining the characteristics of VWs able to impact on business models. The major findings of this work, which is a work-in-progress relatively to VWs and business models studies, aims to determine which aspects of the former may affect the latter. In particular, we identified three main valuable areas: gaining new sources of value, catching the opportunities raised by a co-opetitive environment and finally extending the market to the V-commerce.

Keywords: Business Model, Virtual Worlds, Second Life, Strategic Behaviour

JEL Classification: L86, L96, M30, O32