Do these two graphs look related to you? This blogger concerned with virtual world Second Life thinks they might be, using them to suggest that the current global “credit crunch” has driven the growth of virtual world Second Life’s economy.

As many people point out in the comments on his post, he’s simply presented two graphs that both increase over similar time periods. There’s no evidence of a link - and proving one existed would be difficult.

But perhaps it wouldn’t be so odd if there were a link. It is widely believed that relatively cheap luxuries like food, drink and gambling do well during recessions. Although we should remember one has not arrived quite yet.

Dabbling in a virtual world could fit into that list of recession-proof spending quite well - it is certainly a cheap way to spend a lot of time. But it will take more rigorous analysis to find out if that is true.

Perhaps a more interesting story is that despite the rosy-looking graph showing Second Life’s growth, some people claim the virtual world itself is in a recession. That assessment is based on figures that suggest that, on average, users no longer make a profit, in terms of the in-world currency, and that the number of total hours spent in the world are falling.

A number of academic economists study Second Life and other virtual worlds to try and figure out what makes their economies tick. They’re likely to be able to tell us just how the activities of users change during a virtual recession - and just what recession means in a virtual economy. For example, do sales of certain virtual goods, say, new hairstyles, actually benefit in such conditions? We’ll just have to wait and see what they find.

Tom Simonite, online technology reporter

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