New World Notes

Six Huge Second Life-Themed Flickr Groups to Follow

Caroline Apollo very kindly shared her list of Second Life-related groups on Flickr, and they're considerably larger than the ones I previously listed:

• Flickrites of Secondlife, 19631 subscribers
• Second Life - Avatars, 13138 subscribers
• SecondLife, 12643 subscribers
• i ❥ Second Life, 12578 subscribers
• Second Life Fashion, 11207 subscribers
• Avatars with Attitude!, 10278 subscribers
• Photographers of Secondlife, 10046 subscribers

Any others in the five or six-figure subscriber range readers should know about?

The Linden Dollar Exchange Rate Dipped When Sansar Launched (Comment of the Week)

The loss of private sims in Second Life has slowed this year, likely in part due to the launch of Sansar, renewing interest and confidence in virtual worlds and Linden Lab. But reader "Pulsar" points out another notable data point -- the Linden Dollar exchange rate significantly dropped after Sansar's launch:

I think it's true that Sansar renewed some interest for Second Life, indirectly (and among outsiders and ex-SLers). Inside SL instead, it looks like it had the opposite effect, when it was launched. [See chart] It looks like people in SL were cashing out scared (the red line is the moment when Sansar was released). The subsequent Linden Lab announcement of SL updates may have helped to reassure the crowd. But the launch renewed the interest for virtual words and other LL products indeed ("So Linden Lab released a new virtual world? Ah, LL from Second Life? Is that one still around?"), so journalists wrote various new articles about SL, which may have helped a little.

It's possible Linden Lab made last Summer's announcement of updating Second Life in response to this Linden Dollar dip. Pulsar doesn't buy my theory that the company's grid-wide new Glytches game also helped slow the sim loss, especially compared with other factors:

The Experiences of Those Who Left Second Life Are As Important As Those Who Stayed (Comment of the Week)

Discussing her approach to her Atlantic Monthly feature on Second Life, Leslie Jamison wrote:

I also wanted to be upfront about my own visceral reactions to Second Life over the several months I spent there, confessing subjectivity rather than pretending to be a neutral observer—in that particular sense, perhaps, I was representing an experience of SL more akin to the 200,000 people who show up each month and leave, rather than those who stay.

Inspiring this reply from reader Irihapeti:

This is a pretty important point. As a long time player I do find it odd sometimes when the long time are a bit dismissive of the stories of the leavers. Like somehow in leaving, the leavers have some personal failings or something. As Leslie also mentions the article is also highly subjective from a particular leaver's POV. Altogether I thought it was a good article. For sure there is quite a bit in the article that I don't see as relevant to my own understanding/experience of SL. But that's the point really. It's not my story that's being told here.

Subjectiveness is a good thing in storytelling. Context also.

Seconded by me. Not only is it unfair and unfeasible to expect that a journalist fully learn and understand how to use Second Life before writing about it, that expectation can easily lead to an inaccurate depiction of the actual SL experience:

Broken, or Resilient? Dialog on Second Life Users Depicted in Leslie Jamison's Atlantic Monthly Feature

Interesting dialog in last week's open forum with Leslie Jamison, author of the Atlantic Monthly feature on Second Life, on her depiction of two SL users and the challenges they each face in real life. NWN contributor Cajsa Lilliehook suggests that a thematic focus on pain in Leslie's writing is reflected in how she writes about them:

[It] seems you have a fascination with brokenness, with loss, loneliness, alienation, illness, and suicide. An empathetic writer, it seems you seek out brokenness. I also know that our own experiences, biases, and fascination effect how we synthesize the information we take in, so my question is whether your own fascination with brokenness leads you to see brokenness among people who are not broken. I suggested you talk to Gidge because she is hilarious and because she is the opposite of the trope of "special needs" mothers. She does not feel sanctified by her challenges or see autism as a blessing that transforms the family into a morality play. But she sure is not broken. She is coal under pressure, a diamond that finds joy and laughter in her life. She is smart, funny, and frank and realistic. She doesn't pretend she loves changing diapers on teenagers, but she doesn't let it break her, ever.

You misread Alicia, too. Since you expressed interest in how people find community, I thought she was a great representative of the family community. She is also not broken. She can't have children in her first life but found a way to find joy and family in SL. That's not broken. That is taking the lemons life handed her and adding some salt and tequila and making a party.

So that's my question. How much did your own fascination with brokenness influence how you perceived the strengths of people with challenges as fractures?

Leslie's reply:

Sansar Repeating Second Life History by Valuing Immersive-ness Over Accessibility (Comment of the Week)

There's been lots of interesting reactions by SLers to Leslie Jamison's seminal Atlantic feature on Second Life, including observations by reader "Pulsar", reflecting on this passage from Leslie's article:

But when I spoke with Peter Gray, Linden Lab’s global communications director, and Bjorn Laurin, its vice president of product, they insisted that the problem doesn’t lie in the concept, but in the challenge of perfecting its execution. The user plateau simply testifies to interface difficulties, they told me, and to the fact that the technology hasn’t yet advanced enough to deliver fully on what the media hype suggested Second Life might become: an utterly immersive virtual world. They are hoping virtual reality can change that.

Puslar demurs there, writing in comments:

I remember when Blizzard released World of Warcraft, they said they weren't making the best graphics, but something that would work for a larger audience. That was a good idea. Of course they had the already successful Warcraft brand pushing the new game, but making the game more accessible I guess it gave a good hand. It doesn't mean it should run on a Commodore 64, but they look at the then current average machine. I remember Blue Mars, built around CryEngine 2, sporting some top notch graphics for the time. And the hair! OMG! Moving naturally, falling on your shoulders as you move, like real hair would do. That rendering engine was a technology marvel, way more advanced than SL, but... do you know that old joke and meme? "But can it run Crysis?". Of course it wasn't the only factor, but it didn't help to make Blue Mars massive success.

From my personal perspective having briefly consulted for Blue Mars, I can confirm the heavy Crysis engine (which lacked a Mac version), was a huge challenge. In any case, Pulsar compares the rise of Facebook against Second Life's stumbling -- and why it seems like Linden Lab is repeating that history with Sansar:

MMOs & Games Need a #MeToo Movement Too (Comment of the Week)

"It's great that she shared this," Ayesha Lytton writes about Isabelle Cheren's avatar-based video on real life harassment. "But we should also talk about the harassment towards women / female avatars that occurs IN Second Life. Yes, we have the ability to block, teleport out, and report abuse, but the sheer frequency of abusive behavior and level of entitlement I see in SL is much higher. Men think they can join SL and demand sex from any female avatar they see... and that says a lot about our culture."

That's all very true -- and Second Life is hardly alone in this problem, which pretty much besets every online world/game. (In fact, a female friend from the game industry just shared the Overwatch video below, depicting all the harassment women and girls face in that online game, despite Overwatch being notably popular among them.) Maybe what's needed is a #MeToo movement on YouTube where female gamers talk about this problem until the game industry finally takes substantial steps to address it.

Should Linden Lab Just Sell Sansar Already? (Comment of the Week)

Reader "Pulsar" previously posed that bold claim:

A rich company could buy Sansar even if it isn't profitable, just to grab some asset, tech and patents, and then close it. Yahoo did that with Cloud Party. That would be a preferable scenario for LL, rather to just fail and lose the investment. Either a radical change happens, or it's likely that Sansar isn't going to be profitable, given the current setup.

Here's why Pulsar postulates that:

SL Consumers Should Support Creators Instead of Just Gacha Events (Comment of the Week)

SL creator "Flo" shares her insights on the trouble with Second Life gachas run by popular gacha events: 

[M]any creators have been talking and strangely it seems they are ALL are fed up with gacha and SL events too. [Some gacha organizers] now take 5% of each creator's earnings -- doesn't sound much, right? But calculate that against the normal 6 weeks work effort to make the gacha prizes for the creator x 100 creators at the end, and shockingly, these event organizers are taking probably in excess of 100,000 USD out of creators each year, and many of those creators, if you equate hours, are hovering around minimum wage. So creators put up lack luster work, born out of tired and stressed work, and us consumers suffer because we were silly enough to support gacha.

How do we as users, creators, consumers change Second Life? Events have become a blight for many creators, but also a necessary evil for those who rely on SL for RL income. Creators have to keep hitting deadlines, creativity goes down the plan, creators burn out. And we end up not realizing we just brought the same mini-skirt 20 times over from different creators in a year, in essence. Where are the Paper Couture folk, the innovators who gave us a wand that created a tornado, and the beautiful quirky designs that transformed our second lives?

I strangely believe that given time, it will be the "invention" of the gacha event that actually leads to just a place becoming too much like the RL weary treadmilll of life versus the our world our imagination platform that held so many possibilities. Full of grey, drab, over baked mini skirts with thigh boots (Epihany Event, this round again, haven't we seen ALL of this before? Put on Daz models to try and fool us this looks new!)

Flo argues that Second Life consumers must resist this trend with their virtual dollars:

Second Life Users Genuinely Grumble About Gacha-Based Gambling

Unsurprisingly last week's post about gachas taking over much of the Second Life economy generated a lot of comments, both here and on Facebook. (And "taking over" is not an exaggeration, see above -- in the SL Marketplace online, over half a million items are tagged with "gacha".)  For some readers, they've soured their engagement with the overall virtual economy:

A world gone gacha is a nightmare. Gacha actually ruined SL shopping for me. I miss buying what I want, the color and style that I want, right away, without having to think about missing out on anything because everything was always in stock whenever I wanted it. I didn't have to trade with others for anything. It was less complicated. I used to shop every day while exploring the grid. Now I might shop twice a year. Gachas, exclusive body mesh, limited clothing and accessories for exclusive body meshes, are three changes that have ruined shopping fun for me. The flip side is that I have managed to save a lot of money as a result.  -- Dusky

One reported complaint is price inflation:

Back when gachas were new in SL they cost me between 1 and 30 Lindens per go, with mostly similar items in varying colors and styles. Alas, over the years, they've rocketed to now often stupid prices (recently saw some over 150 lindens a go) and the widespread use of split up outfits and furniture really puts me off. I know some people can afford to throw cash at a machine to get the full set, but a lot of people can't, especially with the seeming average new norm of 75 lindens a go. I tends to hit up the market place for things I really want from events now, but even then I feel bad leeching off people who can afford to play and it's not really fun. --  QD

Patchouli Woollahra makes a very interesting point: The prevalence of gachas in Second Life more or less makes the never-ending question "Is Second Life a game?" moot:

Virtual World Artist Jeffrey "AM Radio" Berg Has the Final Word on Whether Reality Itself is Actually a Virtual World

Ironically, the long-running debate on whether reality itself is a virtual world created by an advanced civilization is mainly advocated by people with little actual experience in existing virtual worlds. (Looking at you, Elon, Ray!) So fittingly, the best and hopefully last word on the topic for my money comes from Jeffrey Berg, the artist and Webby-winning technologist who for many years, was also known as legendary Second Life artist AM Radio. Writing on my Facebook wall, Jeffrey recently put his skepticism with the theory this way:

The substrate of reality requires more dimensions than we can perceive, and we can prove they exist with mathematical models. Judging the universe's ability to conjure macro and micro connected systems of networked information that gives rise to self awareness among those dimensions based on the evolutionary trajectory of the Babbage machine is frankly pretty stupid. Calculating the size of such a machinery that could give rise to a complex reality using a bounded solution is inexplicably narcissistic and overly proud of the internet technological terror we endure every day. An unfettered perfect reality whose occupants have unfettered access to its entirety would not raise suspicion or doubt about their surroundings.

For him, another reason to believe we're not in a virtual world is the fact that we're passionately discussing the theory at all.