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Second Life marking 10 years next week

Linden Lab's virtual-world online game celebrating 10th anniversary June 23; 36 million have registered to date and spent more than 217,266 years in the world.

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Linden Lab's virtual-world online game Second Life will mark its 10th anniversary on June 23. To celebrate the occasion, the developer has released an infographic detailing player behavior and milestones recorded during the past decade.

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Second Life opened to the public on June 23, 2003, and to date, the game's 36 million registered users have spent the equivalent of more than 217,266 years in the virtual world. More than 400,000 new accounts are created per month, Linden Lab said, adding that the game sees 1 million players per month.

Total user-to-user transactions have reached $3.2 billion in virtual currency, while Second Life's total landmass is nearly 700 square miles, or 14 times the size of San Francisco, California.

Users log an average of 1.2 million transactions per day for virtual goods, with the most popular items being women's hairstyles, Linden Lab said. Check out the full infographic below for more.

To celebrate Second Life's 10th anniversary, Linden Lab will make available limited-edition virtual gifts, content, and in-world activities.

"Second Life is a vibrant shared creative space, filled with the creativity and imaginations of its users," said Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble in a statement. "It's impressive for a user-created world to reach ten years of age and more impressive still for it to see a million monthly active users!"

Second Life has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. The game was featured in a 2007 episode of The Office and the 1980s band Duran Duran has a permanent residence in the virtual world.

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