New World Notes

If Games Are Art, And Second Life is a Game, Then Second Life is a Work of Collective Art (Comment of the Week)

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Great comment from reader madeline blackbart bringing much needed nuance to the eternal "Is Second Life a game" conversation:

The whole "SL is not a game" or getting mad at that comparison always bothered me. It's rooted in the outdated concept that video games are toys and not the legitimate form of art that it is.

I mean I know how the concept arose. Namely that after the video game market crash (in the US specifically I believe it wasn't as bad in europe?) Nintendo more or less revived it by marketing video games as a high end toy for kids. I think for many people (not just in SL) who are not gamers the association with games as toys still exists which is a genuine shame.

In my opinion video games are definitely on par with movies in artistic merit. Look at games like Gris and exploration of the stages of grief through color and gameplay. Or Spec Ops The Line which explores PTSD in a way that puts you the player in the place of the sufferer, or Cuphead that utilizes hand drawn animation (a dying art sadly). These are things that require very talented artists and programmers to create who deserve far more credit then they get.

I'd add multi-player games as some examples here, such as the acclaimed game Journey, where the interaction of two or more players creates something profound.

Here's the problem with denying Second Life is a game, Ms. Blackheart goes on:

With Oculus' Mandatory Facebook Policy, It May Be Up to Congress or the EFF to Save the Future of VR

Image via Upload VR

Surprising nearly no one, Oculus recently added injury to the insult of requiring Facebook log-in to use the Oculus Quest. Not only will VR users need to log in via Facebook, they are now required to keep using Facebook on pain of losing their Oculus content:

If you’ve linked your Oculus account to Facebook and decide you want to delete your Facebook account, your purchases on Oculus will be lost as well... Conversation surrounding the account deletion policy continues to unfold and there was a recent House subcommittee report which seemed to suggest Congress should view policies like Facebook’s as anticompetitive.

That last line is especially on point, given the upcoming election, with a heavy likelihood of Democrats -- highly critical of Facebook's monopolistic behavior -- taking both the Senate and the White House. Up until very recently, Congress has seemed too out of touch with technology to sufficiently confront Big Tech, but that's changed quite a bit -- especially now that leading Congressmembers are actual, genuine gamers.

At this point, the Electronic Freedom Foundation may beat Congress to the punch, with the venerable digital rights organization firing a shot across Oculus' bow last Summer with this statement:

Top 6 Posts Last Week Including: AOC's Twitch Gets FOX-Level Ratings & Among Us Gets an Unofficial VRChat Version

• Play Among Us In VRChat: New Fan-Made Version Adds Visual Tasks & VR-Based Body Language Gameplay To The Original
• Second Life Registrations Down In 2020 Despite COVID Concurrency Bump
• This Artist Uses Depth Of Field & Dynamic Lighting To Make Screenshots From SL Seem Like Photos
• Carmen King Kicks Up Second Life User Concurrency -- YouTube Star's SL Videos Likely Lead To 1st Growth Since COVID Quarantine
• AOC's Twitch Viewership Already Competitive With FOX & MSNBC Ratings
• Founding Linden Hunter Walk: When Launching Second Life, "We Over-Indexed On The Community" Versus Broadly Appealing Content

Tomorrow in SL: Acclaimed Artists Bryn Oh, Cica Ghost & Mr. Wainwright Live Build a Sculpture In This Plaza, With Music from Skye Galaxy & Others

This looks like an amazing SL event from metaverse art patron Chuck Clip: Beloved artists Bryn Oh, Cica Ghost, and Mr. Wainwright will live build a massive "exquisite corpse" sculpture in this plaza of Clip's Sinful Retreat sim:

It is one artwork, which is sure to be perfectly strange, to reflect the overall intent of the sim itself. That sculpture, which even I have not seen, is complete, and will be unveiled for all of us during the event piece by piece. In addition to all the beautiful new art, Mariposa Upshaw and Tayzia Abattoir, two veteran curators, agreed to do a rotating exhibit of old Second Life works of art. These will change out roughly every month. With the collections at their disposal, it could take years for them to display every piece they possess. 

Famed SL/RL musician Skye Galaxy and others will also perform -- first show starts at Noon PT.

Click here to attend. More info on Clip's blog.

Play Among Us in VRChat: New Fan-Made Version Adds Visual Tasks & VR-Based Body Language Gameplay to the Original

Attention AOC and other Among Us fans: There's a new community-fan, playable version of the hit deception and backstabbing game in VRChat: Click here to play. (No, not the horror-themed fan version of Among Us I mentioned the other week, that's another project still in development.)

While this VRChat version of Among Us is faithful to official original game, longtime reader Adeon Writer tells me, adds some new and interesting gameplay features only possible in a 3D, VR-enabled world:

"We had a group play it for about 3.5 hours straight." (Highlights in the video above.) "If you're one of the impostors in this one, you actually have to fake doing your tasks and stuff since everyone can see what you're doing with your hands and such, which is unexpected if you're used to the original, but kind of great. If you've got good players it opens up a whole new aspect of trying to deduct who's faking everything."

Here's how:

Casual & Glamorous SL Fashion Shopping Tips from the Perfect Fashion Blog

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Look Perfect Fashion is a blog by Carol Bebb that features fun fashions with decor. This pic above drew me in by finding an orange pickup truck. It’s post number 1898, so Carol has been busy. I like her outfit, but I really fell for the pickup truck. 

• Pitaya&Tropix - Harvest truck @Kustom9

Superstar fashion after the break:

Second Life Registrations Down in 2020 Despite COVID Concurrency Bump

Recent SL sign-up stats via Tyche Shepherd's Grid Survey - click to embiggenate

Talking to Second Life data expert Tyche Shepherd about the Carmen King bump brought up another set of data points that aren't as fun. While it's true, as Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg said back in March, that "[w]e are seeing an increase in new registrations and returning residents during this [COVID] outbreak," that increase didn't last last very long. 

"Trend in signups is down," as Tyche tells me, sharing the chart above. "There was a boost in late March-April but these have been declining since May and there is no significant change in September... Overall this implies that any growth in concurrency is more likely explained by more frequent usage by existing accounts (either lapsed returning or longer online times by active users or a combination of both) rather than new users."

Also the decline in registrations is part of a longer trend: "It also looks like signups have been significantly lower than last year," Tyche adds.

And while SL concurrency did see a COVID bump, that didn't last long:

This Artist Uses Depth of Field & Dynamic Lighting to Make Screenshots from SL Seem Like Photos IRL

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Seeing “Hidden Lake 01,” it is easy to understand why Vivena was the official SLB photographer from 2014 to 2018. This is simply stunning. She has an excellent eye for capturing the details that make a striking picture. Depth of field gives it verisimilitude, the kind that makes you ask, is it life or is it Second Life? 

More masterful land and cityscapes ahead:

Carmen King Kicks Up Second Life User Concurrency -- YouTube Star's SL Videos Likely Lead to 1st Growth Since COVID Quarantine

Recent SL concurrency stats via Tyche Shepherd's Grid Survey

It's been over a month since YouTube gaming celebrity Carmen King started streaming hilariously raunchy Second Life videos on her channel -- September 3, to be exact -- but has that led to growth in Second Life use by her nearly 1 million subscribers? Based on data shared to me by Tyche Shepherd of Grid Survey, it sure seems that way. 

"There has been a rise since September (though there are signs this is falling in October) but not anything as dramatic as we saw in March/April," as Tyche tells me. March and April is when Second Life saw a spike in usage due to, well, the COVID-19 pandemic and a global quarantine. "See [chart] attached which shows the underlying trend in median daily concurrency after controlling for weekly seasonality."

See above, click to embiggenate. Before Carmen's videos, median daily concurrency for SL was declining to around 38,000. That's since grown to roughly 41,000 at peak. To be sure, her videos aren't the only factor at work (Tyche tells me the upward trend started in mid-August), but seeing as her SL videos have amassed over half a million views so far, they're almost certainly a major factor.

They've definitely been a major factor on Carmen King's inbox:

"All of my direct messages are filled with people asking me to help," she tells me laughing. 

Despite this sudden surge, she tells me Linden Lab has hardly connected with her -- but as a longtime social game doyenne, she does have advice for the company:

AOC's Twitch Viewership Already Competitive With FOX & MSNBC Ratings

As you already may have noticed if you're even somewhat online, US Congresswoman (and bonafide gamer) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hosted her first Twitch stream last night, a Get Out the Vote promotional effort disguised as an Among Us play stream (or vice versa). The viewership was massive:

Almost 700,000 tuned in on Twitch to watch her play with several streamers and fellow Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. At the broadcast’s peak, some 440,000 people went to the Twitch stream set up by AOC, while another 200,000 or so followed sepaerate broadcasts by gaming stars Pokimane, Jacksepticeye, HasanAbi and Moistcr1tikal.

Many have pointed out that this makes AOC one of the very top streamers on Twitch, but a better comparison point is probably partisan political media. And on that front, her Twitch stream is already competitive with the very top shows on FOX and MSNBC:

This Artist Makes SL Screenshots Come Alive With Virtual Light & Shadow

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I loved this picture the moment I saw it. I love the cats and how natural their poses are. We have all seen cats in spats. I love how it is lit from outside, from the bright lights of the city. It creates a chiaroscuro effect that is simply brilliant. I featured Paradox Ivory three years ago with an interview. Since then, her work has only grown in confidence and creative vision. 

Stunning images exploring light and shadow.

SLers Are You Feeling the Uplift Into the Cloud? 'Cause It's Happening

Originally announced to happen by end of 2018, it looks like Second Life will finally move into the Amazon cloud by end of 2020, says Oz Linden as only Oz can:

We've been working hard on the Uplift of Second Life. If you have not been following this project, that's what we're calling the migration of our Second Life simulators, services, and websites from a private datacenter to hosting in The Cloud (Amazon Web Services)... Overall, the Uplift project is on track to be complete or very nearly so by the end of this year (yes, 2020… I know I've said "fall" before and people have noted that I didn't say what year 🙂 ; the leaves haven't finished falling at my house yet…). It's likely that there will be other (hopefully small) temporary disruptions during this process, but we promise we'll do all we can to avoid them and fix them as fast as we can. This migration sets the stage for some significant improvements to Second Life and positions us to be able to grow the world well into the future.

More here. Cloud transfers are even being announced in grid status updates. Substantial performance improvements are promised. But are you feeling it yet from your part of the virtual world?

Philip Rosedale on How COVID Has Transformed Virtual Worlds -- And Helped Crystallize His Life's Work

Recent New Yorker story on Zoom fatigue (no jokes, please) features a number of its virtual world/VR alternatives, and focuses quite a bit on High Fidelity, capturing and expanding upon the sense of audio-powered immersiveness that so impressed me when it launched last May:

Re-creating offline interactions is difficult. Without video, High Fidelity has done away with visual cues. All the subtle movements we use to communicate beyond speech—the mirroring and the blinking, the smirking and the side-eye—are gone. But as we spoke I came to appreciate the lifelike quality of the audio, which was immediate and transportive. It felt like entering a room in a way that Zoom doesn’t. 

Philip Rosedale gives author Anna Russell a hands-on (ears-on?) tour of High Fidelity, capturing and expanding upon this strange era we're now in, where virtual worlds suddenly went from odd niche/kids' game to social necessity and with little warning you're suddenly helping fix David Lynch's avatar hair. 

Or as Philip puts it:

These Images Look Like Classic Still Life Paintings But They Actually Began as Virtual World Screenshots

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

“Blue Tits & Poppyseeds” is a stunning still life from Noco Hammerer. It is inspiring to see the virtual metaverse continuing in pixels what began in ancient Egypt funerary paintings on the walls of tombs. The oldest still life that has been discovered, from the Tomb of Menna, had birds on it, too. The blue tits and the yellow lemons give us complementary colors. He uses threes, as well. Three blue tits, the lemons number more than three but are in three parts, two singles and a cluster. There are also three vases, but one pitcher and one hydrangea. With eleven poppy pods, he uses the rule of odds throughout the picture. 

So many more beautiful still life pictures ahead.

Founding Linden Hunter Walk: When Launching Second Life, "We Over-Indexed on the Community" Versus Broadly Appealing Content

“Coming for the Content, Staying for the Community” Started With Video Games (Or Maybe Religion?) But Will Define Media This Decade [new blog post] https://t.co/cDfzgnidyc

— 👨🏻‍💻☕️ (@hunterwalk) October 19, 2020

Here's a really interesting new blog post by founding Linden Lab team member Hunter Walk, who helped drive a lot of the early decisions around the launch of Second Life, including the very naming of Second Life. (More on that here.) After leaving the Lab, Hunter went on to become a bigwig at YouTube/Google and is now a renowned Silicon Valley VC. From the vantage of those experiences, he believes “Come for the content, stay for the community” is the principle that will drive successful online platforms.

But notably, he believes Second Life didn't get that sequencing right:

Working on the virtual world Second Life at the time I had the proverbial “front row seat” to what online interaction could look like down in the future. It was, or rather is, a fully user-constructed shared virtual world. Think Minecraft but like 100x less successful! Although to be fair, (i) Second Life is still around and profitable and (ii) many of the design choices we made were quite influential on later products. Anyhow, we over-indexed on the community and left the content largely up to the inhabitants which was only appealing to a limited number of passionate users (about half a million). I spent about three years as part of that team and the notion of “staying for the community” lodged itself deep in my cranial matter. 

In other words, Linden Lab should have created more content that would draw in a mass audience, rather than leaving that up to the SL creator community.

But what does he think SL's content focus should have been?

Gumroad Online Marketplace "Another Peg in Place for the Metaverse"

I mentioned how there's a growing real cash economy for VRChat-based content on Gumroad, an online marketplace for digital content, and reader Joey1058 explored the site deeper, then came back with this brief report:

I took a look at Gumroad. This site is awesome. It's not tied specifically to a particular VR world. This means that somewhere up the road, creators can expand their line for any world they see fit to sell to. One more peg in place for the metaverse!

Quite possibly! In all honesty I didn't know much about the site before this, but it claims that nearly 72,000 creators are selling content on the platform; according to SimilarWeb, Gumroad gets over 12 million monthly visits in recent months, which is quite decent. My pal Leigh Alexander sells her fiction on Gumroad and has this endorsement on the homepage, which is good enough for me.

Also to Joey's point, the content for sale on Gumroad isn't locked to any specific virtual world. (It even has some Second Life-related items for sale.) I don't know if Gumroad will ultimately become the main commerce site for the Metaverse (single or plural), but I think he's right that some kind of independent marketplace like this will be key to making it viable.

Top 6 Posts from Last Week Including a VR Study That Seems to Reduce Sadism, The Emerging Real Money Economy of VRChat & A New Twist to the Eternal "Is Second Life a Game?" Debate

• Study: Men Who Experience VR-Based Sexual Harassment From Woman's Point Of View Exhibit Less Sadism In Subsequent VR Shock Test
• Among Us Inspires Full VR, Horror-Themed Version Of Hit Game In VRChat
• As Virtual World Grows, Real Cash Marketplace For VRChat Content Emerges
• Artist Transforms Second Life Screenshots Into Epic Cinematic Action Stills
• Saying "Second Life Is Not A Game" Is An Excuse For Not Demanding A Better & More Fun Virtual World
• How It Started, How It's Going: 1991 To 2020 Virtual World Edition

Explore in SL This Weekend: Spooky New Orleans With Adventure Game

Click here to directly teleport to Bloodbath New Orleans, a perfect place to explore as October creeps up on Halloween. Star SL YouTuber Naria Panther (with a delicious, mood fitting Eastern European accent) and friends explore the place with a working streetcar, an eerie fair ground, and many gorgeously detailed Gothic edifices to creep through. 

SL Halloween Shopping Tips & Photography Contest from Blogger Luane Meo

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Luane Meo is a Flickr blogger, providing credits in her picture descriptions. I loved Happy Halloween which cleverly shows off some lovely boots for fall and some decidedly ghoulish pets ready for Halloween.

• [Rezz Room] Dachshund Halloween Adult Animesh (Companion). Exclusive for ACCESS EVENT (NEW)
• [Rezz Room] Chihuahua Devil Animesh (Companion) (held version also available). Exclusive for Satan Inc (NEW)
• Eudora3D Cadence Boots and Socks . Exclusive for FaMESHed (NEW)
• DaD . "Let's Party skully Benjamin"

An adorable top and a photo contest ahead:

Study: Men Who Experience VR-Based Sexual Harassment from Woman's Point of View Exhibit Less Sadism in Subsequent VR Shock Test

Above: Male test subject in VR given the option to "shock" female avatar 

I recently told you about the VR-based recreation of Milgram’s infamous shock experiment, in which test subjects became traumatized, even knowing that the victim of their shocks was only an avatar. In an equally remarkable follow-up study, researchers recently used this VR Milgram's scenario to test another hypothesis: Would a traumatizing experience in VR influence how many shocks a volunteer would subsequently give out? 

"Milgram can be used as a moral thermometer of empathy,"  as Dr. Mar Gonzalez-Franco at Microsoft Research, a co-author of the original study, explains to me. "The idea is that if you have some priming experience before doing the Milgram test, it will change your performance. In this case, through triggering empathy."

In the follow-up study led by her co-author, Dr. Mel Slater at the University of Barcelona, this priming experience was a virtual reality simulation of sexual harassment. In it, a group of men in a public space become increasingly hostile to a nearby woman (video below): 

Tischa Uses Virtual Light & Shadow to Make Avatar Photos Come Alive

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Ticha’s “Un soir comme tant autres” shows an ordinary evening for many of us, absent-mindedly stroking our cat while reading a text or social media. I love its capture of an ordinary moment so naturally. Much of her stream features similar slice-of-life moments such as relaxing after dance practice or even practicing a pas-de-deux .

She also has a taste for aesthetic nudes, beautifully and tastefully done.

Among Us Inspires Full VR, Horror-Themed Version of Hit Game in VRChat

If anyone is interested, we are working on a VR Chat map based on #AmongUs Come check it out and join our discord! We would love to know what everyone thinks of it! https://t.co/cCfMGjaLSl#VRChat #VR #amongusfanart #AmongUsMeme pic.twitter.com/lGPtsyE3BN

— Shoobly (@Shooobly) September 25, 2020

Among Us, the wacky sci-fi party hit game of deception and betrayal, has quickly become the Fortnite of 2020. And because user-generated content communities inevitably schloop up and synthesize the interactive zeitgeist, it should be no surprise that a group of ten or so VRChat community developers have already been hard at work creating a fully playable VR-based version of the hit game. "Fully playable" might seem like hyperbole, but among the lead developers is "Markcreator", who also created this fully playable version of  Minecraft in VRChat:

"I'm working with a team of artists to make a realistic VR rendition of the game, fully playable using Udon scripting magic," he tells me. (Udon being VRChat's scripting system.) In other words, don't confuse it for Among Us-themed roleplay in VRChat.

In fact, to judge by the teaser video above and screenshots below, Mark and friends are turning Among Us into a game of goofball fun into a foreboding space survival game with the added suspense of being in immersive VR, with VRChat's voice communication enabled. (In VRChat space, everyone can hear you scream.)

Will Edge Computing Give Us the Edge to Create Sunglass-Sized VR HMD?

Will we ever really reach a VR experience where the headset is the size and weight of sunglasses -- you know, the Holy Grail form factor envisioned by Neal Stephenson in Snowcrash decades ago?  I explore this topic in my new article for Samsung NEXT's Component magazine, where some experts argue that edge computing will make this possible:

In theory, edge computing could obviate the latency issues associated with moving large amounts of data back and forth from the cloud, particularly high-quality 3D graphics and other assets that would be used by low-profile form factors like glasses.

“Since HMD [head-mounted display] and other XR devices essentially become simple data input/output and rendering devices,” Theta’s Mitch Liu says, “their form factor can be vastly reduced.”

Infinite Retina’s Irena Cronin sees edge computing as a necessary condition for next-gen XR headsets. “When we’re talking about visuals especially,” she tells me, “without having these kinds of features, and the massive amounts of data that are going to be used having to do with spatial computing, it’s a non-starter,” she said.

Jeri Ellsworth (above), CEO of AR startup Tilt Five and someone who's been creating variations of the sunglasses-sized HMDs since her time at Valve in 2012, injects some caution into this vision:

31 Days of Halloween Illustrated by Freaky SL Screenshots -- Including an Amazing Tribute to Beetlejuice

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I featured Grant Valeska’s blog Blond back in February, so under normal circumstances it might be too soon to come back around, however since Grant is devoting their stream entirely to Halloween for the month, I just don’t want you to miss out on this great project. Here is Day One. A spooky gatekeeper into a world of the spooky and spectacular. 

More spooktacular pics ahead!

 

As Virtual World Grows, Real Cash Marketplace for VRChat Content Emerges

VRChat content creator "Markcreator" (last seen on New World Notes showing off this impressive VRChat-based tribute to Minecraft he built) is now selling buttons for VRChat for USD $12.50. This might not seem like news in itself -- unless you're specifically in the market for VRChat-based buttons -- except that it's another indicator of a larger trend: As VRChat continues to grow in usage and content, a marketplace of VRChat content selling for real world money is starting to emerge.

"The VRChat avatar market is already pretty large on websites like Gumroad," as Mark tells me. This is because VRChat the platform itself does not (yet) have an in-game marketplace of its own -- while the user community does have a pent up demand for quality content for VRChat.

Indeed, a quick search on Gumroad (a site for selling 3D content) turns up over 300 VRChat-tagged items for sale, with some items selling for as high as $80.

"I know multiple people personally that are supplementing or completely sustaining themselves on avatar sales," Mark tells me. "There is much demand from people that wish to express themselves through their avatar, I see a lot of parallels to Second Life in that regard. It will be interesting to see if there is also a sufficiently large market of world creators looking for the next thing to improve their personal projects."

Which brings us back to Mark's buttons: