The creators of the mega-popoular social MMO, Second Life, have announced a 30 percent staff reduction as they make the transition to becoming more accessible and relevant

Sad news for the gaming industry as Linden Lab, the creators of the popular social MMO, Second Life, have announced that they will be laying off about 30 percent of their staff as they restructure and "better align the company with . . . longer-term goals aimed at making Second Life more accessible and relevant." These kinds of layoffs are not incredibly common in the MMORPG world, but Linden Labs is specifically aiming to transform Second Life into a browser-based virtual world, as well as extending it to most popular social networking sites (we assume Facebook). In order to better pursue this new development, the Linden Labs team has decided to merge its product and engineering divisions, as well as consolidating its software development teams in North America.

Linden Lab CEO, Mark Kingdon, notes on Gamasutra that "Today's announcement about our reorganization will help make Second Life even more simpler . . . It will also enable us to invest in bringing 3D to the web and will strengthen our profitability." Perhaps Second Life could be the first truly successful browser-based MMO!