Virtual worlds continue to enjoy good health, at least those dedicated to the "teen" and in general for users under the age of 25 years, at the end of June had reached a total of over 972 million registered accounts, on a total of approximately 1.4 billion accounts for all the virtual worlds. A success that involves, according to numbers released by consulting firm Kzero (you can find them here), worlds like Poptropica (platform dedicated to 6-15 years old users, which in the second quarter registerd 26 million of new users, reaching a total of 170 millions), Stardoll (+22 millions at 116 millions total), Habbo Hotel (+20 millions at 220 millions), Moshi Monsters (+16 millions at 50 millions) and for a lesser extent IMVU (+5 millions, reaching 55 millions total) and Minecraft (+5 millions at 10 millions).

Instead remains a niche far less lively virtual worlds aimed at users over 25 years,  like Second Life (at the end of semester up to 27 million of registered accounts), with a total growth of only 3 million (42 million total), just over 1,4% of the total growth of new accounts in the quarter (214 million overall). To be true, more users do not necessarily mean more loyal users or users who are most willing to "spend" in order to obtain a better online experience, so it would be interesting to know how many of these "newbies" continue to use the platforms to which sign up (apparently subscribing to multiple platforms, since the number of Internet users around the world should slightly exceed the 11-1,1 billion units) and what is the ARPU (average revenue per user) of the different virtual worlds.

As s consolation for "adult" users (over 30 years), Second Life remains by far the platform with most members, followed far from Utherverse (the second platform developed by Red Light Center, even in this case dedicated only to adult users) with 8 million registered users, while Blue Mars and Twinity are virtual worlds  collecting only a small fraction of users (generally around or less than one million accounts), with only eRepublic (2.5 million subscribers) able to overcome the barrier of 2 million accounts in all other virtual worlds for over 25 years users. In short, if you had not realized, for now the typical mode of use of virtual worlds is that of the online games, addressed to a young audience. For other uses, in the artistic, educational or business fields, Second Life with all its limits does not seem to have many alternatives (unless you look at IMVU, that is frequented by users with an average age around 22-23 years, or at 45 millions registered users of Dofus, which have an average age slightly higher, around 23-24 years).