New World Editorial: What Went Wrong With Linden Lab? The Dwight Schrute Echo Chamber

I've argued that five main factors led to Linden Lab laying off 30% of its staff last month (and presumably, the subsequent exit of CEO Mark Kingdon.) But as I said then, they're all symptoms of a much deeper problem. I call that the Dwight Schrute Echo Chamber.

You remember Dwight Schrute, the comically intense geek in the US version of The Office. In a now-famous scene, his Dunder Mifflin antagonist Jim sees Dwight playing Second Life, and asks him what "game" it is. And Dwight replies, huffily:

Second Life is not a game. It's a multi-user virtual environment, it doesn't have points or scores, it doesn't have winners or losers.

Jim's classic reply: "Oh, it has losers." Some assume Jim means Second Lifers in general are losers, but I think he really means Dwight's a loser for refusing to acknowledge the fun, game-like aspects of Second Life. After all, at the end of that episode, we find out Jim himself plays Second Life, and even shows off his rockstar avatar to Pam, his girlfriend. Jim understands Second Life is at its best when it's fun. And in point of fact, he's basically right: The vast majority of Second Life Residents use SL as a kind of game, be it for Barbie doll fashion dress-up of their avatars, or for thematic social roleplaying, or as a Lego-like construction space, or otherwise.

More Schrute from the show's next cutaway:

I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then, my life was so great I literally wanted a second one. In my Second Life, I was also a paper salesman and I was also named Dwight. Absolutely everything was the same, except I could fly.

In other words, Dwight is using Second Life to recreate a real world work environment, a remarkably wacky goal. But then again, how different is that from all the companies which recreate their corporate campuses in Second Life, or educators their university campuses, but can't quite explain who this benefits, beyond the relatively small number of people who are already Second Life enthusiasts? IBM, it's been said, has 10,000 employees who regularly meet in Second Life. Which seems impressive, until you realize that IBM has almost 400,000 employees, 390,000 of whom don't.

So Dwight Schrute's attitude to Second Life is this: Adamant denial (despite all evidence to the contary) that SL is a primarily a game and entertainment platform, and a reflexive insistence (despite little evidence to the affirmative) that Second Life is best used for real world work. The Dwight Schrute Echo Chamber are all the people in Linden Lab and in the company's orbit who've repeated Dwight's mantra in various forms, until it seemed obviously true, and that a sizable market for real world applications of SL already existed. (As opposed to what it more likely is: a very interesting but numerically small niche.) This flawed assumption is probably why Linden Lab has devoted so much money, labor, and time attempting to turn SL into a platform for real world businesses and organizations.

Who are the key figures in the Dwight Schrute echo chamber?

Dwight's words are so iconic, someone named Jen Cotton rendered them into stylized animated typefont

As I see it, these four drove the Dwight Schrute Echo Chamber:

• Linden Lab: Back in 2005, when I was still with Linden, the head of marketing at the time sent out a company-wide decree that Second Life would no longer be described as a game, but a "platform". Up until that point, there was some ambiguity around how SL should be described, but I can definitely say The Sims Online was once considered a direct competitor. Looking back at the website of 2004, for example, you read a description that mainly emphasizes SL as an entertainment/play space.
• For-Profit Metaverse Developers and Evangelists: Both by Second Life advocates in large corporations, like IBM, and in small start-up studios launched after the BusinessWeek cover story of 2006, to serve real world clients. By definition, all of them were invested in the idea that Second Life was a real world business platform, so heedlessly repeated the Dwight Schrute mantra.
• Education and Non-Profit Advocates in SL: Second Life is not very popular with kids in the teen-college age demographic, who overwhelmingly prefer social games, web-based virtual worlds, or console/smartphone games. Despite this, hundreds of universities and non-profit organizations have devoted substantial resources on SL, often arguing that they're doing so to reach the younger, Internet-driven generation. And while there are a number of genuinely great non-profit applications of SL (like this one), the fact remains that it's generally speaking not the ideal means to reach a wide online audience who would benefit from the services offered.
• Media Advocates of Second Life: Including, I should say, me. Back in 2006-08, I wrote a lot about how Second Life was probably the next generation of the Internet (indeed, the cover of my book asserts that very thing), a place where we'd broadly conduct all kinds of real world work. Please keep this in mind, because if what I write here is taken as a criticism, it's also directed at much of what I've wrote in the last few years.

Taken together, these figures generated a feedback loop which inadvertently created the mistaken impression that a large market for real world applications based in Second Life existed, years before it was even a mass market phenomenon (which it still isn't.) This is probably why Linden has spent so much developing an enterprise solution (which hasn't sold very well), adding VOIP (which is still only used by half the user base, and mostly for entertainment, not real world meetings), pursuing education clients (who have bought a lot of land, but whose students haven't meaningfully contributed to the user base.) And so on.

How many people regularly use Second Life primarily for real world work? As an educated guess, I'd generously suggest less than 50,000, and despite incessant media coverage, that number has not substantially grown in recent years. Whatever the number, it's a fraction of the total user base, and you can't grow a company by servicing their demands. (Besides, how many people who regularly use Second Life primarily for real world work are also fans and enthusiasts of SL as a game/entertainment platform? I'd estimate roughly all of them.)

All this is probably why Second Life founder Philip Rosedale recently described education and enterprise as "peripheral" applications of the world he created. And this is probably why he's right that the best thing Linden Lab can do right now is concentrate on the core experience of SL.

That's a good start. But in the next couple years, what really matters is making Second Life fun, developing it to serve the extremely large market of consumers who already use virtual worlds for play and games, not real world work. Only then will Second Life gain a mass market, and only then may it be feasible to turn SL into a full-fledged platform for real world work that people who are not already well-versed in SL can use.

Until then, the Dwight Schrute mantra is just what Jim suggested it is: a losing proposition.

Comments

[Annyka Bekkers]

Jim, not Mike. Micheal's the idiot boss.

But I agree with you on your main point. All that serious importance makes SL look like a very dry and dull place

[Memory Core]

You mean Jim, not Mike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Halpert

[Hamlet Au]

Ack, thanks you two, fixed! I just read the New Yorker profile of Steve Carrell, guess I had Mike on the brian.

[Grace McDunnough]

Nice post Hamlet. Here's my "parsing" of the meeting speak http://phasinggrace.blogspot.com/2009/05/second-life-killer-apps-and-weak-ties.html

[LokiLoki]

I like what you have written, and it is about time!

[Adric Antfarm]

Golf clap.

Well played.

[HeadBuro Antfarm]

Nice post Hammy - about bloody time someone told LL they have made a sodding game and that's what we, the users, use it for. We play with it. The dullest person I know in SL is a resident-business evangelist who just sounds like a happy-clappy Linden brown-nose who simply can't accept the fact that LL jumped the shark an aeon ago. For me the Lab not on jumped the shark but made sweet, sweet love to it live on Sunday morning TV when they let their naked greed loose on Xstreet and screwed the freebie providers. I'm still furious about that - that one act has shaped my thinking about the Lab and SL itself ever since and it will take something bloody special by the Lab to get my faith in them back.

[HeadBuro Antfarm]

One thing springs to mind, Mr Au... if you are part of the problem, to paraphrase you ;-), do we really need posts on "10 Business Tips..."?

[Vax Sirnah]

I have to agree, I think you've hit the nail on the head here. While the drive for stability by LL is a good one, they moved away from what made SL popular - that it something different from the real world. This is why I am encouraged by the return of Phillip - he seemed to have a clue on that from his transhumanist leanings. Social media and online business collaboration are all pretty good things, but SL is not the tool for them.

[Hamlet Au]

Haha, of course, Mr. Antfarm -- that's advice for SL-based business folks, most of whom do not make a substantial real world income from their work. (I.E., They probably sell SL content more as a hobby and fun challenge, than RL work.)

[Jovin]

"what really matters is making Second Life fun"

I think I'd put it this way - what really matters is LETTING Second Life be fun. The problem with Linden Lab and their misguided efforts to court Enterprise and other 'serious' users was that it made them seem embarrassed by their existing users. But we're the ones that already know how to have fun in SL, we ARE the fun in SL and we're the reason new users might stay. LL need to support and cherish that and, in the nicest possible sense, get out of our way! :-)

[Botgirl Questi]

For sure, the primary draw of Second Life is recreation, not education or corporate collaboration. And I suspect that whatever educational market there will be in the near term is going to move to cheap or free platforms. And low cost virtual meeting space solutions catering to the enterprise are starting to spring up.

Second Life's main challenge, as I see it, is that it is also going to be squeezed by the more lightweight 3D Chat worlds (like IMVU) and the emerging Unity 3D-based worlds like FriendsHangout.

http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2010/06/friendshangout-launches-virtual-world.html

And then you have Blue Mars, Twinity, MyCosm, VastPark, etc. on the high end.

But the heart and soul of Second Life are the large, established user communities and their cultures. That is the one thing that no competitor can offer. I think that if Linden Lab had spent the money and resources over the last couple of years on community-driven improvements instead of chasing after enterprises and the mass-market, everyone involved would be much better off today.

I've just started seeing Agile Software Development Methodology as a promising paradigm to move forward, with respected community members participating along with Linden corporate representatives as "customer" within the iteration and release planning.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what direction Philip and Company end up taking.

[Ann Otoole]

There is a basic flaw that unlikely to change. You could have spotted it in LL's two month long refusal to entertain suggestions the new search was causing a problem and that the gsav6 deployment immediately resulted in an arterial bleed in the SL economy. The new marketplace activity and results is also exhibiting this trait.

Let me know when LL establishes some sort of formal feedback loop (that cannot be overridden by LL staff) with it's paying customers and begins soliciting requirements and use cases from paying customers before engaging in design activities and LL begins using actual professional data analysts and other key skilled people with decades of wisdom (instead of throwing some to the curb). Then I'll know positive changes are in progress.

If LL wants SL to be social network hub capable then all they have to do is create the interface to manage social network credentials and add the capability in to have a twitter, plurk, facebook, myspace, etc. 2 way chat feeds. Then you have it all in one place. Would love to have my twitter feed scrolling in world as part of the UI and not a hud. etc. etc. Simple solutions are sometimes quite significant.

I won't hold my breath. After all LL's results demonstrate how they are the experts and know what is best for SL and that we have no business making any suggestions or complaining about defects right?

Come on LL. Fix the search lol. We love SL and want it to be a huge success as much as you do.

[Latif Khalifa]

I think Hamlet confuses two things here. He seems to think that the people who say "SL is not a game" must be thinking that "SL is for real world work". This is not true.

Most people who say "SL is not a game", and I am among them, mean in it a way "SL is a world". For sure this world of ours is used for entertainment a lot. And I like it that way. I enjoy visiting clubs, hanging with friends, travelling and exploring, listening to music. Shopping around for cool gadgets is a lot of fun too!

I guess it depends on how immersed you are in the experience. For someone like me who gets immersed in the wonderful world of SL, calling it a game, makes it more superficial, more shallow. It does not mean at all that I think SL is good for the real world business really.

[Chestnut Rau]

I suppose it is bad form to applaud your boss, but I am going to do it anyway. Excellent Post Hamlet.

[Mark A. Urquhart-Webb]

I tried, really tried to like SL. Problem was it was just so dull. After flying around a bit and visting some steep-learning-curve locations/apps that frankly I didn't give a damn about, I left, muttering "I'll get back to that when I have some more time".
Honestly, my kids use 'ToonTown' and 'Wizard101' and they are a LOT more fun.
Perhaps just allowing people to wander around and shoot each other would be the best solution for SL?

[Gary Hayes]

Good post Hamlet and one of integrity given this blog is usually very much pro-SL. I think another couple of factors, which I have mentioned in previous comments, which have put constant pressures on the Linden Lab 'service' have been 1) traditional media - SL was hyped by 'gold rush' press and then slowly eroded by filler, silly, mainstream stories of the 'loser/darker/scandal' side. This fueled the 'loser' image - I was caught out by parody TV a couple of times myself! 2) The name. Yes, although Phil R thinks 'Second Life' is a great name, appropriate etc etc: it has over time, worked against the multi-faceted potential of social & business virtual worlds. Socially it just sounds naff when you say you have a 'second life', easy to pick holes in and enterprise-wise it doesn't quite have the ring of MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite or the many variant biz focused clone Mirror Worlds - so I think if things are getting desperate at LL might be time for a big branding exercise, some clear differentiation between the social, business, educational fragments/components of SL and really targeting a gap in the market of browser based 'social virtual 3d worlds' that is fully integrated with Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Flickr APIs etc: Rather than a purposeful Farmville Game element though I still think the more open social aspects in 3D, instantaneous, sitting alongside FB & Twitter has yet to have its day - I can boot my SocMed sites in seconds & the asynchronous elements are still as important (seeing a historical view of the past hours/days) as the instant real time presence. To finish I really hope LL get someone who truly understands what drives present day social media and why a great, instant 3D world that integrates with that has real potential. I would suggest the hardcore SL'ers who will now scream 'bastardisation' can still be accommodated by a continuation of the wonderful rich immersive browser - but I would suggest consolidation of the current sprawl as part of a complete overall of SL. Finally if all comes to nought but half a page of scribbled lines then over time OpenSim & a range of browsers/themes may become as widespread as wordpress...

[Gaius Goodliffe]

I have to admit, I haven't been terribly active in Second Life lately. I use to be pretty active, working on ideas and projects, attending meetings every week with Andrew Linden and crew discussing Havok 4 back when it was in beta, then later general issues with SL. It was a lot of fun, and worthwhile as I discovered the Lindens really do listen to residents, if you bother to show up and politely talk to them about issues. However, before long it seemed like LL's focus was shifting away from improving the infrastructure in ways that facilitate the work of people like myself, who view Second Life as a platform for entertainment. Issues affecting the vehicles I make stopped getting addressed quickly, or even at all, and it seemed like they'd lost interest in making it a better platform for gamers.

I'm hoping we'll see a reversal of that soon. I'd love to get back into making fun vehicles and games for Second Life, but numerous improvements need to be made to the platform and bugs fixed before it can be what it needs to be (or for that matter, to even be what it was when I first started -- in many ways the platform has degenerated since I started flying the skies of SL). I'm hoping what recent changes lead to is a focus again on making the platform work for those of us who create the toys and games people play with in SL. Sim crossing fixed, physics bugs fixed, extended capabilities for scripting vehicles and games and whatever else we can think of -- help us make Second Life as fun as it can be!

[FlipperPA Peregrine]

I'm trying to remember, was Pam Jim's girlfriend at the time that episode of The Office aired? It was called "Local Ad", and if I remember correctly, Pam and Jim were not yet together (though definitely flirty friendly). Either way, great write up.

[Anon Ex-Linden]

In my time at Linden Lab, I consistently tried to use the word "play" to describe what people did in SL, much to the chagrin of those who preferred to think of SL as "not a game". I also liked "live" but that had some strange "you're not living in RL" connotations.

Of course no one at LL ever had a better word for what people did there either.

This is a great analysis Hamlet. Here's to reclaiming SL's roots.

Play on.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

You write of SL for education that "it's generally speaking not the ideal means to reach a wide online audience who would benefit from the services offered."

Define "services offered." Where else are such immersive simulations possible? The best work in SL for education was never recreating a replica of a lecture hall or RL campus.

These spaces are, in fact, just the place to bring some fun back into the classroom. Student complaints focus on the clunky interface, bad graphics for the types of machines they typically use, and the lack of community. An effective teacher can work around these issues.

Still, an educator needs to tread carefully. Some educators are SLevangelists. I'm not.

Once I got over preaching "this is the next big thing" to Millennials, and instead focused on what SL does in terms of making immersive simulations in 3D of things not easily done (if at all) IRL, the students got it. In my last two courses, where I took that approach, students reported enjoying the SL sites they used for assignments.

But they don't come back to SL when the class ends. Since I'm not trying to make them SLers, but am using a tool that can craft some amazing simulations, that's fine with me.

[Metacam Oh]

I don't understand why SL even needs to be characterized, why can't it be for business and for play? What do you do in Second Life? Everything, anything, whatever you want really. You ask any one person what they do and why they are there Im sure there are similar answers but also mostly wide range of things.

[Mitch Wagner]

Great analysis, Hamlet!

>>But they don't come back to SL when the class ends.<<

I found the same thing with Copper Robot guests. They're happy to come in-world to be interviewed, they enjoy the whole Second Life experience, but the vast majority never come back in-world except to do interviews (either repeat interviews on Copper Robot, or interviews on other people's interview programs). They don't immigrate, become SL natives.

Another major problem with SL, I think: I've never gotten a sense that the Lindens actually used Second Life, except to the extent they needed to do so to to demonstrate the product's validity at work. Employees of other tech companies are also passionate consumers of their own products, but I never got that impression from the overwhelming majority of the Lindens I encountered.

I do have to quibble with your characterization of Jim's comments about SL. I think when he said "oh, there are losers," he was genuinely belittling Second Life, and in denial the extent to which he himself had become part of the community.

It's kind of like the Alphaville Herald's fascination with griefers -- the Herald doesn't see griefers as trying to disrupt the game, they see the griefers as playing a *different* game on the same game-board, so to speak.

Similarly, Jim, didn't see himself as a Second Life player, but he *was*, only the game he was playing in-world was "Harass Dwight."

Oh, dear, I'm overthinking television shows again, aren't I?

[Valentina Kendal]

Good point Latif, and I agree. In my experience most casual or new users would characterize SL as 'a game', and many/longer term users or artists or store owners would characterize it as not 'a game, but a world'. But that doesn't mean it isn't fun, just we take it and our role in it a little more seriously perhaps. Myself, I never understood what RL corporations or even universities were doing in here. *shrugs

[Mycroft]

"Looking back at the website of 2004" link courtesy of Internet Archive (aka The Wayback Machine [etymology Peabody]).

I like the Wayback Machine. I remember first hearing about the Internet Archive during the dot boom. Years after the dot crash I assumed it was an over-ambitious project that could never be maintained, so the goal to backup the internet went bust. And yet it continued …crazy, crazy fabulous.

I have wondered if in the future there will ever be a Wayback Machine for SL. That is, a Metaverse Archive where every daily sim prim shape / location was recorded. I suppose a Metaverse Archive would require a few more cataloging spreadsheet columns added to the Internet Archive database.

[Chance Abattoir]

Interesting analysis of what went wrong and kudos for taking some responsibility for the Dwight Train. Now that the "why" is covered, here are some suggestions (and links to more) regarding how to improve the mess: http://salomesays.com/blog/2010/06/the-short-fix/

[Paisley Beebe]

Creatives is a funny word, it can apply to paper and paint artists, computer artists, photographers. artists of all kinds and to scientists, engineers and programers. If you have to make something out of an idea or out of nothing, you can be called creative. People see creativity in different ways. And maybe thats the secret or not so secret of the pull of SL that really no matter what type of person you are you can be creative in some way on this "platform", where as "games" only allow a much smaller limited way to do that.

If you like gaming for the adrenaline rush it gives you or the feeling of power, then yep probably SL is a huge yawn for you...you really have to hunt within SL to find anything like that that will satisfy you.

Whilst exited to have become a seasoned interviewer and TV producer in Second Life, I also just love spending time in a beautifully created sim weather its cyber Punk or a garden or an amazing cave. And having fun at a concert.

Yep SL can be just a total visual feast and a lot of silly fun if you want it. Playgroup for grownups! personally the kids can have their games ect...good luck to them I don't want them here really, Im happy to mix it with "creatives" and there's a lot of them already here, in many many forms. SL can be time out for many people who have really seemingly uncreative hard slog jobs in R.L. Isn't that great! "playing" in S.L we watch less TV where its primarily non interactive and instead spend that time creating and using a different part of our brain maybe.

paisley

[Someone in the know]

While there is definitely some truth to Linden Lab and Second Life getting running off the rails in the last few years, I think that it's highly simplistic and inaccurate to claim that the enterprise, education and platform were the biggest drivers.

Firstly, the efforts spent on enterprise, education, and platform of Second Life were actually a small fraction of the buildup of the company over the last two years - and while some aspects of those directions weren't directly related to improvements to the core product, the reality is that at least THOSE efforts looked at how actual customers used the product and tried to improve it.

The bigger problem was that the leadership of the company that came on board a couple of years ago never truly understood what Second Life was, where its value was as a product, and who the actual customers that found value in it were. Huge amounts of energy were wasted on efforts that were peripheral to the core product in an attempt to lure in customers that were never going to see any value in it.

I agree that much of the platform direction was overly ambitions - but believe me, if the folks that were focused on Second Life as a platform were in charge of the show, at least you would have seen a focus on long-term investments towards improving Second Life as a product and improvement of its stability and usability for immersive use instead of lots of work on flashy new websites and trying to turn it into a "social web experience".

[spyvspyaeon]

Yes, actually is a very reflective. After all we are who define our concept of Second Life. At this moment I remember a particular situation that a new resident (who happens to be my RL Father ) asked me - what is the second life? of course my answer to the claim (ie a game) it was ready "this, Father, it is not a game, this is a virtual platform where Second Life is what you want it to be for you."

Perhaps this is the paradigm of the definition of SL. Each one is applying it in your view, who had already a pre already defined (guidelines?). And amidst this whirlwind of the core concepts and definitions can be lost or blurred in the twilight of reason for each. Perhaps the SL is much simpler than we can make it complicated, a reflection of who we are or even want to be in RL and this is reflected in the hope that this platform, game, 3D social media, etc..

I am just thinking this last weeks, in what RL world crisis can influence in our SL duty, fun and behaviour, might be interesting address the definition within each resident influences and what really bring us here (just reflective).

[xlent1]

I don't see how Linden Lab can make SL "fun" without support of content creators. I also don't see how any serious content creators can make decent money within a shrinking SL userbase.

We closed out last sim this week -- and not even a single email from Linden Lab to say goodbye etc (not that we expected one). But we were a paying customer and Greenies was listed as 1 of 3 Phil's picks. We had more than 4.0mm visits to that sim since it opened in 2008.

I absolutely cannot recommend that anyone pay Linden Lab money. Their services are overpriced, their support is non-existent and they will be moving to compete with content creators and land barons as their only last ditch attempt to stop the decline of cashflow.

I don't see much "fun" in the SL future.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

@xlent1, you folks had some of the best sims in SL. Greenies was more fun per square foot than most of the other content in-world.

It's a shame its gone, and it should have preserved it as they did Svarga. Other than bringing back Svarga as a sort of national park, and holding Burning Life, I don't see that LL is supporting its creatives or honoring milestone works in SL's history. Philip could change that.

I don't just teach in-world. I like to see good content, and one of my favorite activities is to drive the Linden roads. But that's not always fun because LL has not spent enough time making the physics of sim-crossing work well unless you walk. A road rally would be great if it would work, but I'm not the sort of consumer the Lab is chasing. I buy a new vehicle perhaps once per year; I don't want a Tony Stark garage in either life. Can't keep our current vehicles washed :)

LL's ideal consumer appears to be a Dwight who dreams of being Tony Stark. Yet these consumers need something to do/see beyond a Linden home as a starter on the way to a fake mansion, yacht, lover, and supercar they cannot have in RL.

Perhaps because the global economy is such a mess, LL is just trying to bring in cash-paying customers. I created an ALT to see the new orientation area, which I really liked, but I noted that as soon as you go "shopping" at the end its to a high-priced skin store. Good merchandise, true, but you need to slap down the credit card to look so perfect.

That's LL's survival strategy, and it may be the best we can hope for.

[William Gide]

Finally!

While I have kept NWN in my RSS feed for years, I have often been puzzled by the obsession with this idea that SL and virtual worlds are the "Internet of the Future! of the Future (echo)" and that billions of people need to get on board for it to be successful.

It is actually possible to have a successful, long-lasting and profitable business without becoming Google or Facebook. Obviously you want new customers, too, but for god's sake, stop trying to take over the universe, and make your core clients happy. If you don't know who your core clients are, find out.

[spyvspyaeon]

@Ignatius Onomatopoeia - That's LL's strategy consequence!! <- no LL CEO COO will cry after that.

@xlent1 - can't agree more with you, but I'd say they should send at least not a good bye email but rather a THANK YOU notice for the amazing and unique art work rezzable brought to SL, and people (more than LL) feel that (believe me). I admire your work as many of us and we are sure that rezzable moves are the best approach for we think of a real virtual entertainment plus cultural and enriched with outstanding content. I guess there is no bigger loss on Secondlife than the most evaluable builders on it (my opinion).

My opinion still the same, second life it is not a matter of making money with a "brillant" idea that "kills" the others but something between, like please the greeks and the romans (very hard to please both at same time, but not impossible), and that task for LL must be difficult as we can think of, and repeating myself again, LL will find those criterias when they open their minds and mostly their EARS to the grid reaction and real problems of the platform.

[Dnalili]

I think people got greedy. We were part of the "bubble psychosis" that everyone was experiencing in RL too.

The current customers were ignored because LL already had their money.

They were after the big score that existed out there somewhere...that magic source of money that provids Mercedes for all the "cooler than you are" computer whizzes.

IMHO SL needs: longer and smoother anims, LL support so vehicles of all sorts run really well, better avatar mesh and friendly customer support for the folks who pay their salary.

[Rygel]

Very insightful post. I've always thought that LL has really missed the boat in how they describe their game/platform as well. Especially when the most popular game of all time has the same type of situation where there is a huge debate of whether or not it is actually a game at all.

The Sims franchise (and to some extent, the Sim City franchise from which it spawned from) has always been steeped in debate as to exactly what it is. There is no goal, no final objective, no score (other than money - which of course, is also here in SL, too). What isn't in dispute is that the Sims franchise is the top selling game/whatever in the history of computer games.

It's always baffled me that you have such a successful and similar model to look at and evaluate, yet no one has bothered to look and see what Maxis (and later, EA) did to make it happen. It's not exactly the same, but a simple "SL is to Online Networking/MMO Games/Chat Environments/and Immersive VR environments what The Sims is to Strategy Games" paints a pretty vivid picture and gives a logical starting point that virtually everyone who has a computer can relate to and understand.

[Roya Reedy]

Well stated, James. To your list I would add:
1) Hiring aggressively, far, far ahead of revenue, for two years
2) Spending far, far ahead of revenue (millions of dollars on a website? Come on!)
3) Hoping your user base will become something it isn't, that Residents will somehow morph into something they're not. Unabashed customer contempt never helps your product.

[cube3]

oh god. more GAMERZ mantra from a self admitted incorrect blogger..

more fodder for your faux fame of the moment...

No. the losers were everyone, for waisting years again with a media- 3d immersive media, which will become the next mainstream media.

just because "games" used rt3d media first to make money in a mass consumer way, dosent mean it always will. And why Linden has alsways been a mess for any "non stock holder" was because they KNOW that, and refuse to not have their cake and eat it too.

they know its SHINY GAMEZ for most, and a new medium for the few that "see it"... but they refuse to pick a customer and do the right things by them,. thinking they can con both...

and apparently, they did.

cha ching for them, loser for the rest

technology dosent wait for anyone...especially the fools who make/sell it/ and tell others they "understood" the medium of it:)

[cube3]

http://rezzable.com/blog/rightasrain-rimbaud/greenies-declare-independence-second-life

just more of the same nonsence... "yeah" Linden when you rip off others, "boo hiss" Linden when you rip off me.

Whats wrong with Linden, why did they go wrong? THEY DIDNT- they are the SAME as they always DID.

its YOU dear blogger/ and readers who did wrong.

but, hey, your werent the first to piss on VR media, for your own "shinys".

maybe in a decade youll write a mea cupla like Lanier;)

[soror nishi]

Great post, Hamlet. Astute.

[Nika Talaj]

Kudos for an insightful and admirably responsible post, Hamlet! I, too, have been a supporter of RL business in SL. In fact, I continue to see SL as a great niche platform for certain B2B collaborations -- but I agree that LL should not divert resources to foster them.

When LL was thinking of going public, going after the enterprise market was a necessity. Now that an IPO is beyond reach, it's a relief to see LL returning to their entertainment userbase, ALWAYS SL's sweet spot. I think Botgirl is spot on: nourish existing and emerging communities, and SL will grow robustly. Communities are SL's best differentiators. They are hard to build, and even tight ones are impossible to move between platforms without major attrition. They are the best vehicle for user retention. I hope to see LL meeting with successful community leaders to find ways to funnel new users toward them.

Every time that LL tries to aid specific communities, there are outcries of favoritism. I really hope that LL constructs community promotion channels that are reasonably free from favoritism/gaming, and finds the backbone to stick with them despite outcries.

For example, Linden Homes would have been - indeed, still are - great opportunities to promote user-run communities. LH users could be given promotional tours of existing cohesive resident-led communities, some residential, some not.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

A bit belatedly, I've a gamer's response to Hamlet's post here:

http://iggyo.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-second-life-cannot-be-game-fast.html

I'm mostly a paper-and-dice gamer, but SL fails two of Pinnacle Games' watchwords for a successful game that's easy to pick up: Fast! Furious! Fun!

[Little Lost Linden]

This reminds me of when CSI came to Second Life. I miss those days of SL hype. Those were fun times. I hope we have more of them.

Although, the second CSI:SL episode wasn't as good as the first one.

[bodzette Coignet]

I was about to protest and say "but you can build stuff in it" and then I noticed you said "it's like playing with lego".

It *is* possible to use SL for some business-*like* applications but people mainly don't use it for that.

If you want to call it a business it's somewhat like a themepark or a bar or maybe an adult education facility with drop in classes but no grades.

It is a virtual world version which definitely has some kind of representation in the real world economy but it is mainly B2C rather than B2B and only in limited sectors.

My 2c.

[Hamlet Au]

I agree, Bodzette. In fact, I was thinking about actual Lego the other day -- engineers, architects, animators, educators, etc. sometimes use Lego to prototype designs or express ideas. But that doesn't make Lego primarily valuable as a real world work tool, and it would be really weird if the Lego corporation started promoting these marginal applications on par with people who use Lego, you know, to play games.

[Ryan Schultz]

what ever happened to SL, being the foundation of the 3d web.

It's more like SL is the AOL and Prodigy of the 3d web.

[rikomatic]

This is a very important essay from someone who has been watching this space for a very long time.

I agree that fun is the future. I don't think this necessarily means that nonprofits and education need to exit this platform though.

In fact, it's just what we need as educators and nonprofit organizers to bring our messages to a wider audience.

More at http://www.betterverse.org/2010/07/fun-not-work-is-the-future-of-virtual-worlds.html

[Anamoly-A]

If you want to design Second Life items you should use Hexagon 2.5, here it is for free

http://electronicreign.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/64/

[solak Ohtobide]

Yes, FlipperPA Peregrine, Pam and Jim were flirty friends in that episode, not Girlfriend/Boyfriend. Pam was still engaged to Roy.

I also agree with Mitch Wagner. The tone of Jim's line, "Oh there are losers" seemed to imply that not only was Dwight a loser for playing Second Life the way he did, but that there was some denigration toward SL in general. His attitude when Pam reacts to Jim's SL avatar is one of embarrassment and trying to explain away how much time that he suddenly realizes he has spent in SL.

If you are over-thinking TV, then at least you are not alone. And if I'm a loser for playing SL, at least I am not alone.

[Hiro Pendragon]

Did you not understand the irony in the episode? Dwight claims he's not role-playing, but it's precisely what he's doing. You've read things backwards.

[corporate it solutions]

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