I've been playing SL for 3 days, and have already spent nearly $75 USD. On that note, I would like to add a few details to this conversation. For one thing, it's advertised to be a virtual simulation game, but in a virtual game, why are people having to spend real money? I've played Ultima Online, and The Sims Online, and have never ever, EVER had to spend 1 dime of my real money to earn virtual money. You of course have to pay a monthly fee of $10-15 to play the game, but earning money in the games are pretty easy. You can actually become a virtual millionaire in-game in only a few months if you're good. But SL is much different. It says you don't need any money, but without any money, you're stuck in a horribly ugly avatar that desperately needs a new hairdo, skin, eyes, body shape, clothes, and shoes. after purchasing these things, you have already spent all of your start up money, and spent some of it on clothes that don't even look good once you put them on. So now you have to buy some more money so you can get some more clothes. You go onto the website to purchase money, and there you type in the amount of money you are willing to spend, for example, US$5. For that, you get about1250 game dollars. that sounds like a lot to you, so you go ahead and purchase the money. while looking around for a new outfit, you notice that most of the high quality clothing for sale costs about as much as you've got. So, in actuality, one virtual outfit is going to cost you about $5 in real money. Ok, so you spend the money, because you've learned that nobody will take you seriously in the game unless you have an attractive avatar. Next thing you know, you're broke. I learned that the only way anyone is making any money (besides the big shots) is by owning a business. They create virtual objects and sell them over and over and never have to restock. And they are selling these things for way more than they are worth. I have built plenty of 3d objects in extremely complex 3d editors and rendered them into The Sims 2, and I give these things away for free. I spend days making one object, and just give it away for free. Some people might build a website to see their Sims 2 objects, and make you pay a membership fee, but we're talking about maybe $5 for a lifetime membership and you can download everything they've got. that's the way it should be. This is digital money we're talking about. It's nonexistent. It's unlimited to the creators, and they can make as much as they want and sell it all for much more than it's worth. this is one of the biggest scams I've ever seen. It's not a simulation game, it's a pyramid scheme online. To anyone who reads this, never spend any real money of Second Life. It's all going to the same person, the one who's making millions by drawing in suckers.