New World Notes

SL Meshers/Riggers: How Much Money Do You Make Subcontracting in Second Life? Take This Anonymous Survey!

NOTE: Take survey using mouse/trackpad to scroll!

UPDATE, 3:45pm PT: If you feel uncomfortable naming specific SL brands that pay well, feel free to describe them by content category they're most known for, i.e. furniture, clothes for men, etc.

Since my post on "Shadow Meshing in SL" attracted outsized interest and controversy, I'm delving deeper! Specifically, I want to know how much SL meshers and riggers are paid, on average, so we can establish benchmarks.

If you work on mesh content for Second Life, please take the anonymous survey above or at this link.

Results published first on Patreon and then on this blog soon! And please consider the last two questions where you can share your advice to new creators, and name SL brands which pay well.

Updating My Metaverse Platform Leader Chart for 2025: First Draft Numbers

I'm almost done writing a new 2025 edition afterword to my book, which means updating my top 10 chart of leading metaverse platforms. These are platforms which qualify under my book's broad definition of the technology:

The Metaverse is a vast, immersive virtual world that's simultaneously accessible by millions of people through highly customizable avatars and powerful experience creation tools that are integrated with the offline world through its virtual economy and external technology. 

This is very much a first draft, as I run down some more leads, but here's the most current numbers I have now:

• Roblox: 390 million MAU (Source: RTrack + my estimate)
• Minecraft: 170 million MAU (Source: WN / Game Industry Ecosystem)
• Fortnite: 126 million  MAU (Source: Business of Apps as of 2023)
• Rec Room: 40 million MAU (My estimate based on sources)
• ZEPETO: 20 million MAU (Interview with company as of 2024)
• VRChat: 12 million MAU (My estimate based on sources)
• IMVU: 3 million MAU (My estimate based on sources)
• Avakin Life: 1.5 million MAU (Interview with CEO, see below)
• Second Life: 500,000 MAU (Interview with owner)
• Horizon Worlds: 200,000 MAU (Source: WSJ as of 2022)

Note: Not a final estimate -- please do not cite without that qualifier!

The term "current" is doing some heavy lifting, seeing as it's been difficult, for example, to get a new stat from Horizon Worlds more current than 2022. Also, I suspect the Minecraft number is at its peak right after the Jack Black / Jason Momoa movie came out a few months ago, but has since fallen somewhat.

Anyway, if you have insight on any of these figures, please get in touch off the record and on background! Hit me up on Bluesky or on Reddit here.

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Amazing Images from Wonderland 2.0, Incredible New Sim Experience

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

Cat Afarensis posted this glorious picture to the Flickr group Wonderland 2.0, which is named after the sim Wonderland 2.0, Realm of Wonder. [To teleport, click here] 

I love her choice to do the picture in sepia, without all the bright colors that would distract from the picture and confuse the emotional context. She is framed by the moon. If you want, you could imagine her hair is a black full moon, perhaps in eclipse. 

For more Wonderland 2.0, click here:

The Pros of Shadow Meshing vs Going Solo in Second Life: One Mesh Maker's Take

There's been a really interesting reader conversation in last month's article on "shadow mesh" subcontractors in SL, including these thoughts from Dino Sophers, who explains why they themselves prefer shadow meshing -- this is her subcontractor site, I believe -- as opposed to running their own mesh brand, which they have also done before:

I'm a shadow mesher — though I personally prefer the term ghost mesher. I currently charge L$7,500 per hour (about $28 USD), but let’s break that down. Linden Lab takes 5% on cashouts, so that’s immediately $1.40 gone, bringing it to around $26.60/hour. Then, as someone in the UK, after currency conversion, that becomes roughly £19.75 per hour. That puts me somewhere in the mid-range of hirable mesh creators.

I’m experienced and support several stores, but I’ve seen many ghost meshers taken advantage of — especially riggers. Rigging is complex. A full outfit can take anywhere from one to four hours, yet I’ve seen riggers pricing their work at just L$6,000 per body. That means someone might be working four hours for only $23 — that’s $5.75 an hour, which is below minimum wage.

But what about when some big brands take credit for mesh work? She has thoughts there

What Blockchain/Web3 Virtual Worlds Should We Add to the Virtual Worlds Museum Gallery?

Check out our latest wing of the Virtual Worlds Museum (tm), this one devoted to Blockchain Worlds, i.e. virtual worlds integrated on some significant level with crypto/blockchain, or what's often called web3. This is very much a work in progress, and we're looking to add other web3 virtual worlds beyond the twenty or so we're tracking, and as we work with marketing partners to expand the exhibit. Here's just some of the worlds I've covered on New World Notes:

Decentraland: Browser‑based, Ethereum‑powered 3D virtual realm where users truly own their creations—from parcels of digital land to wearable NFTs—and shape the world through community governance.  (Read some NWN coverage here)

Sandbox: Decentralized virtual world built on the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to create, own, and monetize interactive experiences using NFTs and the native SAND token. (Read some NWN coverage here)

Somnium Space: VR‑centric metaverse built on Ethereum, accessible via PC, mobile, and major VR headsets. (Read some NWN coverage here)

Upland: Property trading metaverse mapped to real-world cities, built on EOS. (Read some NWN coverage here)

Read the rest of the list is here or after the break:

Cajsa's Second Life Flickr Choices: Beautifully Framed Photos by Boots

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

Boots ™ posted this marvelous “Be the Lighthouse” is a great example of clever framing, using the life preserver as a “viewing window” to see the lighthouse. Ships and lighthouses go together like bacon and eggs. I love that she found a new way to see the lighthouse. This is such a great picture. 

For more of Boots’ lovely pics, click here:

Top Four Posts Including "Gatekeeping" in SL Shopping Events & Philip Rosedale on the AI-Driven "Ultraviolet Catastrophe" Coming for the Internet

• SL Brand Spotlight: Readers Recommend These Newer/Smaller Stores!
• Quality Control vs. Feudalism: Two Views on Second Life Shopping Event "Gatekeeping"
• Philip Rosedale Believes AI Will Soon Ruin the Internet As We Know It. So I Asked Him if He's Worried AI Will Also Ruin Virtual Worlds.
• Should Linden Lab Add Revenue Sharing Tools for SL Merchants & Their Subcontractors?

SL Brand Spotlight: Readers Recommend These Newer/Smaller Stores!

Here's three new-ish/small-ish Second Life brands to check out over the long weekend, recommended by readers:

Sanny advises checking out **..NL..**, "a shop that sells useful tools for Second Life. My recommendation is the *..NL..* Pos Adjuster HUD. It allows you to adjust the position of your avatar when taking group photos. What's more, it's a bargain at L$60."

I'm also intrigued by this intriguing avatar enhancement by **..NL..** : Cold Breath! Not sure how it works (the listing doesn't have any info) but then again, it's free.

Two more new and/or small brands to check out:

 

Cajsa's Choices: Dramatically Pensive Avatar Dudes, Beautifully Photographed by "Pxtrx"

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

P x t r x describes himself as a simple lover of photography and editing, but there’s nothing simple about his skills in bringing avatars to life. I love how natural this is, with the three sources of light illuminating him and it looks just right. 

For more of Pxtrx’s pics, click here:

Quality Control vs. Feudalism: Two Views on Second Life Shopping Event "Gatekeeping"

Originally published on my Patreon here

A recent SL influencer video (watch above) provoked a mini-firestorm within the SL community, and that's no surprise, as it alleges that highly popular in-world shopping events are unfairly controlled by gatekeeping "cartels", among other hyperbolic descriptors.

I've heard similar complaints for years, so it's worth airing another perspective -- in this case, from Axl XOXO, co-owner of BackBone, frequent shopping event participant, and one of the largest furniture brands in SL:

Less than 10% of sales comes from events. We do events cause we want to, they make SL fun and a shopper has an opportunity to see from all of us in one place.

The reason event owners only allow certain designers in isn’t to gatekeep. It’s to protect the event’s integrity. There have been cases where people using stolen mesh or violating IP rights slipped through, and that puts the entire event at risk.

Event organizers do want to bring in fresh talent, and they’re always on the lookout for new faces. But it can’t be a free-for-all, because once an event’s reputation is damaged, it affects everyone involved. Trust goes both ways. If I saw an event owner letting in creators who use stolen content, I’d leave that event immediately.

At the end of the day, the goal is to give customers a space where they can find 100 high-quality designers they know they can trust all in one place.

As evidence of this, he shares this chart on BackBone's sales sources:

Cajsa's Choices: Final Favorite Photos From This Year's Pride Month in Second Life -- And Thoughts on Pride for Every day

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

Juliana Rhys posted “Gayer Together” which is an important truth about the LGBTIQA+ movement, that there is strength in numbers. That’s why homophobes try to ban IRL Pride parades and Pride events. That’s why the homophobes try to erase gay and trans history and their contributions to science, arts, technology, and history.. 

But even when they are banned from marching, gay people are showing up in numbers greater than ever - including, as it turns out, in virtual worlds like Second Life. In fact, it’s platforms like these where they often turn, when they don't feel safe expressing their full identity in their real lives.

Since Pride month just ended, I decided to take a look back at the pictures from the month. Flickr Search was a bit wonky, and there were over 1700 of pictures from just in June. But I still found a lot to like

For more Pride pictures, click here:

Philip Rosedale Believes AI Will Soon Ruin the Internet As We Know It. So I Asked Him if He's Worried AI Will Also Ruin Virtual Worlds.

Since no post about virtual pro wrestling is complete without a follow-up about the AI-driven death of the Internet as we know it, here's a provocative new Philip Rosedale essay predicting just that, in what he dubs the Ultraviolet Catastrophe:

AIs are now easily able to create accounts, establish IP addresses, and send plausibly important or interesting messages at effectively zero cost. This means that the internet will soon be saturated with websites, social media, YouTube, and Twitter accounts creating messages at millions of times the rate at which humans can create content. Worse yet, many of these messages will deceptively claim to be from real people.

[Y]ou may be also suffering from the fantasy that these messages for some reason won’t fool you. In sufficient quantity and quality, they certainly will. And even when they don’t, they will “flood the channel”, making it impossible for you to find actual useful information.

I've definitely seen early signs of this effect while researching my various writing projects.

This is so bad.

In the legendary D-Day scene of "Saving Private Ryan", @tomhanks says something like "gatac gatac" into a walkie talkie. So I checked Google to find out what he said.

And @GoogleAI... just totally made some shit up. 👇 pic.twitter.com/cQChICkTDr

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 22, 2025

Google Search is being eroded by "AI summaries" which are often wrong or just rampant bullshit, even on well-known topics (see above!), while whole channels of content are AI slop. Earlier today, I came across a YouTube channel called "Second Life" which has nothing to do with virtual worlds, but is instead a slew of weirdly messianic gen AI videos. (No, I'm not linking to it.)

Anyway, as a consequence of all this, Philip believes we'll begin withdrawing from the Internet as we know it -- though I'm not sure this will include legacy virtual worlds (i.e. Second Life, etc., but more on that down the way):

The Fourth Wall is an RL/SL YouTube Show Recorded Live for Second Life's Pro Wrestling Community. Next Week Friday, I'm Joining as a Guest!

Next week Friday (i.e. July 11) at 1pm SLT/PST, join me for a live recording of The Fourth Wall, a YouTube podcast (watch below) devoted to Second Life's pro wrestling community (!). I'll be taking on Zuckerberg, crypto bros, and all the other heels out there in a steel cage death match to determine who really makes the Metaverse matter.

To send live questions during the recording, text them through The Fourth Wall's Discord server -- click here to join.  

The show's hosts, Paul Slater and BK Tigerfish, fully focused their first season on the SL wrestlers, so I'm face-slammingly honored to be their first non-wrestling guest at the start of season two.

You might be amazed there's an SL community of wrestlers and their fans that's large enough to have their own YouTube show. After all, there's other online fighting games which might seem better suited for melee grappling. 

But Paul tells me Second Life has advantages that other platforms don't:

Cajsa's Second Life Flickr Choices: Perfect Posed Portraits by Olorenn

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

Olorenn is new to me, someone faved this picture and I loved it and had to check out her stream. It’s great. It’s so great you should say that with Tony the Tiger’s voice.

Take this picture. She’s doing something interesting, not just standing. Her avatar has a hobby or, possibly, a profession, at least for the duration of this photoshoot. Even the title is a clever play on words. Does she mean the outfit she is wearing or does she mean that she is part of a musical ensemble? 

For more of her Gr-r-reat! stream, click here:

Should Linden Lab Add Revenue Sharing Tools for SL Merchants & Their Subcontractors?

Lots of interesting comments on last week's look into Second Life's shadow mesh economy, including this one from Peter Stindberg, creator and lead scripter of popular SL-to-Discord bridges. As he explains, mesh makers and mesh riggers aren't the only ones whose skill are often subcontracted:

The same goes pretty much for scripting: There is a demand for commission scripting, and I get 2-3 requests per month, some of my scripter friends even more. I usually turn them down and refer them to my scripter friends (and help them negotiate prices, as I am the biz-mind).

The key is to negotiate a good rate for the project, and make sure you actually DO get paid. Everyone knows that the scripts you write as commission get used in commercial products that will make the merchant many times over what they pay for the script. But that's fine. They do the marketing, they do the sales, they do the customer service. A freelance scripter can focus on the scripting, and does not need to deal with other people.

Peter goes on to discuss the topic of shadow subcontractors getting a cut of sales from brands they work for. Is that even feasible? 

Maybe, he suggests, if Second Life had the tools for sharing sales with many creators:

Top 4 Post Including: VRChat's Hiring Spree, VR Usage Data, and Inside Second Life's Secretive World of Shadow Subcontractors

• Are Second Life Shopping Events Run By Gatekeeping "Cartels", or Is There More to the Story? Find Out on My Patreon!
• VR Market Data from S&P Global Analyst Neil Barbour -- Slow HMD Sales, But Passionate Niche Gamers
• Shadow Meshing: The Truth About Second Life's Secret Subcontractors
• VRChat on Hiring Spree Exactly One Year After Heavy Cutbacks!

Are Second Life Shopping Events Run By Gatekeeping "Cartels", or Is There More to the Story? Find Out on My Patreon!

New on my Patreon: Prisqua Newell's latest video (watch above) has provoked a mini-firestorm within the SL community, and that's no surprise, as it alleges that in-world shopping events are unfairly controlled by gatekeeping "cartels", among other hyperbolic descriptors.

I've heard similar complaints for years, so it's worth airing another perspective -- in this case, from Axl XOXO, co-owner of BackBone, frequent shopping event participant, and one of the largest furniture brands in SL... Join the conversation here.

And speaking of shopping, go here to nominate some smaller or newer SL brands that deserve more attention!

VR Market Data from S&P Global Analyst Neil Barbour -- Slow HMD Sales, But Passionate Niche Gamers

Courtesy Neil Barbour, Research Analyst at S&P Global, here's some potent, data rich slides on the state of the VR market for developers to chew on this Summer. As the top slide indicates, hardware sales have been steadily trending downward after a brief COVID bump. (Click to embiggenate.) I haven't regularly tracked VR sales in recent years as it became clear HMDs were a hardware niche. 

However! That's only part of the story. Because those who do own and regularly use an AR/VR headset are super passionate about the form factor, on average spending nearly 6 hours per day using them and other devices, mostly for games:

Cajsa's Choices: Highly Adorbs Avatar Pics by Artist Inevitably Named Bunny Fluffz

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

Bunny Fluffz’s pictures are adorbs. And what else can they be? If your name is Bunny Fluffz, you are not going to be posting a lot of post-apocalyptic grit and grime. You will offer darling pictures like “On Cloud 9.” Bunny’s photostream makes me smile because we all need rose-colored glasses from time to time. Why not see the world in pastels and bright lights, especially in a world you can create to your specifications? In our Second Life, we can be optimistic and frivolous and choose happiness even when our first lives beg to differ. 

For more sweetness from Bunny, click here:

Virtual World Museum Offering Marketing Partnerships to Reach 200K+ Virtual World Fans

The Virtual Worlds Museum(™), my longtime media partner, now has a marketing program for virtual world companies/brands interested in promoting their projects to our 200,000+ followers, while also supporting the Museum's mission as the most comprehensive online resource/community devoted to virtual worlds. (New World Notes is also part of this marketing program, of course!)

VWM just joined NVidia's Inception program for startups and recently won the 2025 AUREA “Impact” Award, so this is a chance to become part of our growing project and community.  We just added hubs in Roblox, Rec Room, and Second Life, and are rolling out several pretty cool features, including an immersive 3D map of virtual worlds, and an LLM-based docent offering answers to all your virtual world questions.

Interested? Here's how to find out more:

Shadow Meshing: The Truth About Second Life's Secret Subcontractors

Originally published on my Patreon here

There’s a controversial social media post that’s currently going viral within the Second Life creator community, written by a professional mesh modeler who works in SL. By the author’s request, I won’t share their name or link to their post here, but clearly, their assertions about the Second Life mesh economy are shocking to many. 

Roughly summarized, they charge:

• Many top Second Life brands outsource much or all of their mesh work to “shadow mesher” subcontractors without fairly compensating them. 

• If shadow meshers do outsourcing work for a brand, but are unable to access the brand owner’s sales/vendor data, aren’t recognized publicly, aren’t given legally binding revenue shares, or retain rights to reuse/resell their work, they are being unfairly treated.

• Many shadow meshers could make much more revenue if they just sold their original content directly, instead of outsourcing. (And then would still own the rights to their content to resell/reuse on other platforms.)

• In the real world (i.e. the game industry), professional mesh modelers are paid anywhere from $100 per item to $5000 or more for a detailed avatar/character model, with a profit share on top -- and SL assignments will often require much more work, due to dealing with Second Life’s aging platform quirks. 

• The larger Second Life brands can often make over USD $5,000 per release -- and a shadow mesher’s compensation should be a decent cut of that revenue.  

Or to put it more bluntly: Shadow mesh artists of Second Life, know what you're worth, and demand better pay/treatment.

How large is the shadow mesh subcontracting economy? In my 2024 report on the SL economy, my survey of merchants suggested that only 7% had large teams of contractors. Then again, when you consider that around 1600 Second Life merchants gross $10,000 or more a year from their SL content, that could mean an estimated 100+ SL brands outsource mesh work.

"It's very prevalent, especially on the bigger brands. " a top virtual world/metaverse developer confirmed to me, when I showed them the post. "A lot use Upwork to hire artists. Also keep in mind exchange rates and cost of living. A full-time artist in China, Vietnam or India can cost anywhere from $500 to $2,000/mo. So it's affordable to hire artists that way."

My source also confirmed that yes, professional game industry mesh creators do get paid $5000 or more, for detailed avatar/character models: "A full AAA character, from concept to rigged output, would probably cost $30,000 for a triple A game, maybe more."

I also showed the post to several professional mesh developers deeply familiar with the Second Life economy, to get their feedback. How much of a problem is this, both for the shadow meshers themselves, and the overall community they serve?

 

Raph Koster Unveils Amazing Pics of Procedurally Generated, UGC-Enhanced Worlds from His Upcoming MMO Stars Reach

MMO game designer guru Raph Koster just updated his venerable blog with a slew of screenshots from the closed beta version of Stars Reach, his upcoming sandbox MMO. (Which had a highly successful Kickstarter earlier this year.) The worlds themselves are created through procedural generation, and then the early player base is using the game's UGC tools to build on top of them: 

Remember, our worlds are effectively created on the fly. They’re run by AIs in every cubic meter. Everything you see is malleable and changes around you, and players can resculpt every inch of it. Heck, every tree and every bush is a mobile object.

Players have invented ice rinks and heat pumps and most recently, even an elevator, using the in-game physics. They’re building crazy stuff. It’s awesome to see. All of this stuff is player built, using one of the three building methods (or all three!): terraforming, block building a la Minecraft, and tile building.

Much (much) more here, then read Matt Daly's guest post on the early Stars Reach building communities that are already emerging. Between this and Nyric, another AI-meets-UGC multiplayer sandbox game, I think we may be seeing the emergence of a new subgenre -- super-charged sandbox MMOs where the sandbox actually contains a galaxy of AI-generated, user-enhanced worlds.

Cajsa's Choices: Smoochable Slice of Second Life Life Pics From Call Me Kiss

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

Call Me Kiss posted this gorgeous picture of her virtual cat in a bike basket. At the very moment I saw this pic, my IRL cat gave me some vicious sideeye. She's very good at sideeye. 

I have to laugh at the idea of giving my cat a ride in a basket. Forget the ride. I couldn’t get her in a basket in the first place. Still, as improbable as this picture is in my life, it’s a lovely shot in Kiss’ virtual life. I love how her color choices and the lighting make this seem almost like an aged sepia photo from the distant past. Just think for a moment how much less coherent this pic would be with a bright pink blanket on the back of her bike and you will see the conscious choices she made in creating this gorgeous picture. She shot it using Aperture’s lighting. It works. 

For more from Kiss, click here:

VRChat on Hiring Spree Exactly One Year After Heavy Cutbacks!

Here was the news with VRChat in June 2024:

In brutal news for VRChat employees, 30% were laid off late yesterday -- though fortunately, with generous severance packages. In a refreshingly honest email to staff, co-founder/CEO Graham Gaylor puts the blame on himself, saying he over-hired while also taking too long to add management, making it difficult for the startup to reach profitability before they run out of funding...

With these layoffs, VRChat will now have the breathing room to achieve profitability. As I mentioned to one staffer last night, this reminds me of the time early on when Linden Lab also laid off 30% of its staff -- and then soon saw Second Life take off like a rocket.

In all honesty, I wrote that last sentence hoping it wasn't just over-optimistic pro-metaverse spin.

But now in June 2025, here's the news from Chandra Janakiraman, the Meta / Zynga veteran who took on the Chief Product Officer role for the company shortly before the layoffs:

We are hiring across a range of functions & positions. It's an exciting time to join us, as we write the next chapter of immersive social connection at scale!

Here's the current job listings, with 10 roles on display, including Avatar Marketplace Content Reviewer, to help grow that new feature which also went live this month, and Director of Product, New Audiences:

Message Me to Get Early Access to an Upcoming Minecraft Server Enabling Up to 100,000 Concurrent Users!

In case you missed it, a UK company called MetaGravity is developing a Minecraft server enabling up to 100,000 concurrent players -- up to 5,000 in a 100 square meter space. It's part of their effort to showcase the company's Quark engine, which uses "Causal Partitioning" to enable extremely high concurrency in virtual world. So if this Minecraft server project is successful, we'll likely see Quark adopted by other virtual worlds.

Anyway, the MetaGravity team is giving me some early beta access invites, so if you want to be first to try this out (surrounded by tens of thousands of others!), hit me up, an I'll add your e-mail to the list (space permitting):