Second Life had a backlash coming. The overhyped virtual reality world with amazing public relations and highbrow academic love is now the focus of an increasing number of reports calling foul to their claim of 2.3 million residents. American Public Radio's Marketplace says it's actually more like 250,000.

Clay Shirky, a reporter for Fortune says, "So these aren't terrible numbers, but it's certainly a much more modest success than we've been led to believe by the business stories saying 'there are millions of people using Second Life and it's growing by leaps and bounds.'"

Linden Labs refused to comment on the Marketplace piece, which is par for the course at this point. Expect more stories like this in the near future because it's been a long time coming. Although it is good to see Linden Labs beginning to release some actual data to help diminish the backlash.

See also: Second Life millionaire pummeled with penises

For the past few years, journalists in both the gaming and mainstream press (Joystiq included) have been enamored with Second Life, covering every minor new "first" in the quickly growing virtual world as more evidence that it is destined to become the first true metaverse. Valleywag contributor Clay Shirkey has taken a good look at this press hype and determined that Second Life is a phenomenon "built on sand."

Shirkey's major argument is that Second Life's impressive registered user numbers are inflated by a "Try Me" effect where people sign up, tinker around, and then leave in relatively short order. While there are over 1.9 million registered Second Life accounts, Shirkey estimates that there are less than 10,000 or so active users walking the game's servers at any one time. That's not nothing, but as Shirkey puts it, "in a billion-person internet, that population is also a rounding error."

Shirkey points to other failed metaverse experiments like MUDs and VRML that were once touted as the holy grail of virtual spaces only to quickly fade to obscurity. He doesn't quite make the same prediction for Second Life's eventual fate, but he makes a good case for the virtual world becoming more of an social niche than an Internet revolution.

Maybe we're all just focused on the wrong virtual world -- after all, World of Warcraft just recently passed seven million registered users.

[Via Boing Boing]

GameDaily dares confront the hype tsunami with an opinion piece detailing why the Wii will ultimately fail to deliver on its promises. We summarize (and oversimplify) their editorial:

• Lack of software support
• Inferior graphics (and yes, graphics really do matter)
• Wii remote control scheme is clumsy in some situations
• GameCube's lackluster sales translate into fewer loyal customers
• Wii price advantage won't last

Here at Joystiq, we're actually divided on the extent to which Nintendo's new console will deliver on its lofty goals. At least we're starting to see some balanced coverage thrown into the mix. Devil's advocates keep us all honest.

With their ears to the rails, listening intently for the faintest sounds of an oncoming hype train, our buddies at PS3 Fanboy finally heard the much delayed Sony marketing machine leave the station, albeit a couple months late.

During their routine screening of the OPM podcast, they learned that the November issue of OPM (Official PlayStation Magazine) would reveal a title "that you have not heard of and won't heart about" ... until November that is. Choo-choo!

We're just wondering how OPM is supposed to oversee the review of the game when their Managing Editor already said she's not buying a PlayStation 3?

This presentation of ultra-super-fantastic-glee-splenderific hype machine has been brought to you by OPM.

Listen - Secret game discussion starts around 40:20

We're regular readers of Superhero Hype!, a fact rendered unsurprising given our unhealthy obsession with gravity-defying men and women in brightly colored garb. The site recently posted a drab interview with Matthew Paul, producer of the upcoming altruistic all-stars adventure, Marvel: Ulltimate Alliance. Little did we know that the article would contain such a high volume of fluff, reading it would be akin to getting smothered by a pillow in your sleep. Locking an Activision PR person in a room and having them read a press release aloud would likely have resulted in a more intriguing investigation into the game's features. Features like unbelievable, hyper-real graphics!

When queried about the game's graphics on next-generation systems, Mr. Paul points out the "life-like" textures on Captain America and The Thing, commenting that there are times when "you feel more like you're watching a blockbuster Super Hero movie as opposed to a video game because it looks so real." Right. Ignoring the fact that the official PS3 screenshot above flamboyantly contradicts such a claim (and such acclaim), it's unbelievable that the interview doesn't change course when it suddenly finds itself covering the "real" nature of comic book characters and movies. It looks so real it's like watching a movie? That must be the one directed by Hyper Boll -- we've seen it far too many times already.

Wanna see a hype fest? Do you? You do?! Well just head over to Eurogamer, where the site decided to give Peter Molyneux a free license to hype up his unannounced projects.

In an "interview" that in fifty years will be regarded by scholars as the definitive example of hype creation, Eurogamer asked Molyneux "what's your next game, and when are we going to find out about that?" The rest of the interview consists of Molyneux spouting hyped, fluffy nonsense about how he can't tell us what the game is about, but that it'll definitely be awesome+1 to the max!

I just can't blame Molyneux for this mess -- if you give one of the game industry's most savvy game developers/marketers an open microphone, it's practically a law that he will use it to hype his product. Since Molyneux didn't actually say anything about his next game that might not be included in the game (like what happened with Fable) Molyneux is totally covered. The real blame lies with Eurogamer. This goes way beyond them failing to rein him in; they've gone out of their way to construct hype out of the interview. The accompanying article is dedicated to encouraging readers to guess the word that defines Molyneux's next project. Do they think that the average Eurogamer reader is five years old?!

As Winston Smith says in 1984, "if there is hope, it lies in the proles gamers", so it's encouraging to see commentators calling Eurogamer out on this trash. Stoatboy says "Oh ffs - that was a terrible interview. Love him or loathe him - that interview said NOTHING above any beyond "it'll be GREAT", which is the very least anyone would say about any game they happened to be working on."

See also: Joystiq's interview with Peter Molyneux

Bungie has posted a video featuring a behind the scenes look at the creation of the Halo 3 trailer, complete with commentary from several Bungie employees and footage of the orchestra and choir that was used to create the backing music. If, for whatever reason, you can't view the video, here's a quick summary of the content:

• Amusing quotes if taken out of context: Marty shows early signs of dementia with his paranoid "Where are we? Who is this? What's happening?" sound bite.
  
• A few snippets of unseen footage, mainly from different angles of the Halo 3 trailer. This could possibly be proof that the trailer was rendered in real time, although it's very likely that the sound, AI and everything else was pre-rendered.
  
• Some more mystery surrounding cortana: dare we say she's gone rampant?
• A lot of meaningless marketing lines that amount to not much more than hype. Phrases like "dynamic", "real stuff" and "that epic feel" don't tell us much about how Halo 3 is coming along.

Overall, there isn't that much new to see here, although if you're a fan of Halo (who isn't?) the video is probably worth a few moments of your time.

[Image: Emily Fulford]