Linden Lab, the creators of the popular virtual world Second Life, has revealed that the total number of regions owned by players increased by 44.2 percent. That places the game area to slightly over 1.5 billion virtual square meters!

Linden Lab attributed this sudden growth spurt in the second quarter to the launch of their new Openspace land product as well as a change in the pricing of the regions.

For those who aren't too familiar with this, Openspace regions are 65,000 square meters and cost US$ 250 initially, with a monthly fee of US$ 75. Full regions, on the other hand, have had its cost reduced by 40% to US$ 1,000. The monthly fee is still fixed at US$ 295.

According to the report Linden Lab released, land represents almost eight times more revenue than premium accounts. Therefore, following that line of thought, the company is probably earning quite a sizable amount with this increase in purchases.