Second Life on Steam as Expressed in a Single Screenshot

We talked a lot about Second Life coming to Steam yesterday, but in retrospect, most of that conversation of several thousand words could probably be conveyed in this single screenshot:

Screen capture from a fun viral video from back in the day, by which I mean 2009. Watch the whole thing below:

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Comments

[shockwave yareach]

Cry some more!

:)

[David Cartier]

I can't help but see this move as a good idea. I beta test a lot of new games, like World of Warplanes and Civilization V, and I'm constantly amazed at the number of serious gamers who have either never heard of SL, or believe it went out of business years ago. Steam is a great target audience with lots of time on their hands and computers that are more than capable of besting SL. Linden Lab should, likely will, have a Steam Island intro area just for those who log in from Steam. There will probably be a lot of them.

[Rufus]

Linden Lab certainly want a (demographic and qualitative) change in their user base and a change of their business model. Relying on land sales which I understand make about 80 per cent of the revenue isn’t exactly healthy. How many residents of the often quoted 1,000,000 regulars beside the 230,000 or something premium members bring this kind of money in, anyway?

Linden Lab allowing Firestorm to come up with an OpenSim fork makes much more sense now. My rough guess: It’s not only about not sublicencing the new Havok. They won’t let TPVs use other nifty things to come, too. Bye-bye, open source…

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Sigh. More of the same. Was Chris Pirillo a consultant on this machinima?

[Dave Bell]

Linden Labs are going to get a lot of new customers.

Is it really going to make a difference? Not many new customers hang around.

I can see there being two new customer streams, and they might hang on to one better than the other. I was lucky. I had a few people I know whom told me things in advance, I had long experience of virtual world, and I've an ancient habit of learning by messing around, when it comes to computer software. So don't ask me to tell you how to hang on to customers.

Steam, and catching the eye of Steam users, looks a good idea. But how many will hang around? The current problems with the system need to be fixed. I reckon the Labs will never learn how to communicate, and that could kill them. There's so much that never seems to get finished, and so much new shiny as a distraction.

A year ago we had Mesh. Experience Tools were previewed in Linden Realms. Pathfinding in that tropical Jungle. How much could you call finished?

I'm going to check my account of FurryMuck. I think one of my characters is old enough to vote...

[Archangel Mortenwold]

Despite the predictions offered, I doubt very much that this Steam deal will make any significant difference for Second Life. SL is not a gaming platform and trying to market it as one can only lead to a relative handful of people signing up, realizing SL is not a game, and then leaving. Maybe a few will stay for the social experiences they have, but really, I don't think there will be a significant increase or decrease in the number of users.

What really needs to happen for Linden Lab to grow SL user numbers is lower prices. That's the only way it's going to attract and keep people. No amount of dishonest marketing is going to make something that is priced out of reach for most people attractive enough to spend money on that could go elsewhere, like paying for food and rent and medicine.

[shockwave yareach]

The steam deal will get lots of new visitors.

Said new visitors will instantly hit the bug where the viewer, at initialization, enters a mode where it crashes. Thus 0.2x of X new visitors will either be able to run the viewer or will be able to tweak it into running.

The remainder will enter SL and be dropped into a greeting area with voice automatically on. They will be assaulted with naughty bits and half of the Aspergers sufferers on the internet. Only 0.04x will remain to wander the grid and look for something (anything) to do.

Here is where it gets a little better. Those who wander have a 50/50 chance of finding the search and finding something to do. Now we are 0.02x folks remaining.

1 out of 50 people remaining is not a good retention number. And it can be improved by fixing the viewer so it doesn't crash at startup (noobs don't know how to tweak) and by having kiosks at new citizen areas telling HOW to find things to do and possibly offer some teleports to those things.

But if ancient and current history is any indication, LL won't fix anything, preferring to whine and complain that nobody cares about SL and they may as well eat worms.

[foneco zuzu]

http://yordiesands.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/closing-down-hosoi/#comments
And another amazing region goes down on the greed and short vision of LL Board!
And if any wishes to know why:
http://iliveisl.com/sl-japan-kanto-closing-its-4-beautiful-sims-what-a-loss/
Sad is that all this beauty could be saved if done on a open sim grid!
Luckly some builders are recreating some old lost sims of SL but still!

[Pussycat Catnap]

Average age of gamers is 37:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/study-the-average-gamer-may-be-older-than-you-think/

By contrast average age of SL players is mid 30s from what people keep claiming.

Are we the same, or 2 years younger then them? :)

In other words, will they care about the 'porntopia' around SL... if they're already really past the 'hormone age' and possibly already here?

Put my thoughts together for something just now:
http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/will-steam-kill-zindra-and-what-age-are-gamers-anyway/