Former Electronic Arts Man Takes Charge of Second Life

Rod Humble, who was the executive vice president of the EA Play label, has been named as the Chief Executive Officer of Linden Labs, the company that is developing Second Life, the best known virtual world currently in operation.

The former Electronic Arts man takes over from Mark Kingdon, who resigned earlier in the year, just after a major restructuring effort was announced, with the company letting go of no less than 30 percent of its employees.

At the moment Linden Labs has more than 200 employees and, when not taking into account the costs associated with the restructuring effort, it has made money for the last three years, with more than 1 billion users logging into the world and more than 1 billion generated in transactions.

Philip Rosedale, who is the founder of Linden Labs, has stated, “With Rod's fresh insights and deep experience in creating and leading the development of fun, intuitive, immersive entertainment experiences that have attracted massive audiences of loyal users, he's the right leader to understand what makes us special and bring the next level of growth to Second Life.”

Rod Humble has previous experience working on EverQuest, the long-running MMO from Sony, and could introduce more game like elements to Second Life.

He added, “Second Life has become a consistently large and profitable business with a thriving virtual economy built together with its passionate Resident community. This has always been a big, long-term vision, it is still early and there is enormous opportunity for growth.”

Humble has also expressed his enthusiasm about Second Life, saying that it is something special and has a huge potential for the future.

When it initially appeared, Second Life redefined the meaning of a social virtual experience, but its brand of interaction has become less interesting in the last few years, with users apparently more interested in the more limited engagement of Facebook.