Ebbe Altberg First Public Move at Linden Lab CEO: Discontinuing All Non-3D Content Creation Products

During my interview with Linden Lab's new CEO Ebbe Altberg, the executive had this to say about Linden Lab's products beyond Second Life and Blocksworld: "“We’ll do some clean-up, there’s some things that are not as aligned." And indeed, only minutes after I was posting the interview (less than two weeks of Altberg being CEO), Linden Lab announced it was discontinuing dio, Versu, and Creatorverse -- all of which were 2D or text-based content creation platforms. This means Linden Lab's remaining products have a focus on 3D content creation and user interaction within a 3D space: Second Life and Creatorverse, of course, plus Patterns (Minecraft meets Doritos man) and Desura (digital distribution of user-made content, primarily 3D-based content, including game levels).

While dio, Versu, and Creatorverse have not gained much evident user traction, I believe that's also the case with Patterns. So this move doesn't seem to be strictly about killing unpopular products, but as Altberg suggested in my interview, focusing the company only on products more aligned around Second Life -- which I interpret to mean 3D interaction and building.

Comments

[FlipperPA Peregrine]

Interesting. First impressions: I like the guy. He seems pragmatic, but understands the wonder so many of us felt a decade ago when we were early adopters. The story about his son is very encouraging. Maybe I'll log in - that damn trivia game I made is still getting a ton of traffic, so it might be time to give it a try again!

[Ciaran Laval]

I'm not convinced it's a 2D thing v 3D thing, the products that they've ceased support and development of were products where, according to your interview, very little resources were being spent on them.

Dio looked very much like a neglected product lately.

Creatoverse hadn't had updates for months.

That just left Versu, which they should pass the IP on to someone like Emily Short, who would like to carry on developing it or make open source.

[Metacam Oh]

Im just an avg guy who used to be in SL all the time but I must say I can't go back to SL until land becomes reasonable. I'm not interested in a small plot of land the size of a shoe. If they allowed me to host my own sim on my own resources they'd have me back in a second but I can't pay 295 a month for my own space so I'm out.

[Jess]

2D games can make lots of money just look at flappy bird (@_@) ..Smiles

[Jess]

Patterns has so much potential the trouble is incorrect marking, Example..

Many residents in SL see opensim as an unwanted ghetto in their backyard.

Minecraft players see patterns as a cheap knock off to minecraft.

They need to stop marketing the game as "minecraft on acid" then pretend to new players its a new concept and not advertise its competition because it alienates crossover players who could help build its economy and they could help lure the private minecraft server owners over the ones who spend big bucks..smiles

Donate the discontinued games to OpenSimulator
on the promise in 3 years they will break from the linden viewer and go their own way.

That's another topic he needs to address as much as I love OS but they need to go their own direction.
He may need to be like Steve Jobs and 'kill off all the clones'.

[Joe]

Please don't compare this guy to Steve Jobs...ever.

[elizabeth (irihapeti)]

@Jess - well we all have our unloved. Aurora Sim is a bit unloved by "many" OS residents as well. All that breaking away and doing your own thing seems like (:

+

I got a standard OS private personal sim as well

But I actual quite like/prefer Aurora just for experimenting with. Is my own personal private world playground on my own computer. I made some little mods to it. I got a 16km x 16km sim. Is huge. Around the edge is 256 normal size sims

bc in Aurora an avatar can move off their edge homesim into the big middle sim then they can congregate on the middle sim while still being hosted by their homesim. Is pretty innovative how the Aurora devs did that

So far my record is 8,172 all in the middle at once moving round before crash everything. Am trying to get upto 25,600. 100 on each homesim. But no good so far. Havent learned enough about the Aurora codebase yet. But is still fun to play on it

[Jess 2.0]

Here is a blog post I like a very good point and it is related to the subject at hand... which is our dear commander in chief Ebbe

The weather & build tools inworld are good thoughts as well..Smiles

http://cityofnidus.blogspot.com/2014/02/ebbe-and-flow.html

[sparky]

@Joe. Got Steve pretty high up there on the pedestal, eh? If it were only reality.

[Adeon Writer]

Yeah I'd really hope they wouldn't can Desura after, you know, aquring it and all.

I've made a ton of purchases on that before LL owned it and now I'm always worried.

[Oink]

Sounds sensible... no 2D, just 3D...

1. A step further would be to compare 2D success factors, and how such lend to 3D.

Example: MOOCs - Massive Open Online Courses

This is a success story in 2D, but the requirement is MASSIVE

If you have lag and crashing beyond 25 avatars per 3D sim, that is certaining NOT MASSIVE.

2. At last year's Opensim Conference 2013, INTEL reported corporate use cases ranging between 500 - 1000 avatars per sim, and INTEL's distributed scene graph version of Opensim can handle it.

So what is Opensim's bottleneck?

Prof. Lopez and INTEL report that the Viewers cannot handle more than 60 avatars per sim without drifting into lag and crashing.

It's a viewer-side problem, not a server-side problem.

So what the heck is LL carpet-crawling around at less than 100 avatars per sim for years on end, when Opensim is default set at 100 avatars per sim?

[Pussycat Catnap]

@Metacam Oh: k'thnx bye. Can I have your gold and loot?

Why are you still here?

[Pussycat Catnap]

Rodvik fixed SL's functionality and vastly improved what content is available in it - but his side projects looked too much like "give my friends jobs" and not enough "make LLs grow". So a good chunk of them did need to go.

[Metacam Oh]

I didn't realize I had to keep using SL and paying 295 a month to voice my opinion here. Frankly Pussy, I've racked up more than enough debt on my credit card paying for my Second Life to earn me to have the right to read this blog and post my opinion. If you're having such a great time in Second Life what are YOU dong here?

[Jess 2.0]

So it begins ! In 160 days LL will have required almost anyone who has cashed out more then 500 dollars in a calendar year to report those taxs and report taxs on paying your land tier.

They are saying one policy in public but implementing a broader and harsher one in dealing with residents one on one in private

Sky fell long ago now the ground is falling will in this storm Ebbe be able to pull SL thru a perfect storm?

Most will go to other platforms or go offline

http://virtualattire.blogspot.dk/2014/02/if-your-going-to-another-grid-be-sure.html#comment-form

Does any other platform threating its residents like this?? ->>

"If you do not submit these documents before the 30-day deadline, or choose not to comply with our request, we will place your Second Life account(s) on hold, send you one final payout for all USD on your account(s), and terminate your future access to Second Life. If you do not want to send us the required documentation, please let us know and we can terminate your account(s) immediately and send you a final payment. We would rather have you continue as a customer, but if you refuse to comply with the new requirements, we have no choice but to terminate your accounts."

[Jess 2.0]

@ Jess 2.0

They say in the quote " accounts" because they will ban every account you ever longed in on as further punishment to the resident.

Now everyone will now how the euro residents feel about vats taxs

Let the good times roll...Smiles

[INF]

I agree Jess, that is well out of line. What they should threaten at most is to suspend all cash outs indefinitely as opposed to suspending the entire account. They run the risk of pushing out many region owners with that, who might for one reason or another not be able to get the paperwork in the time frame.

[Hamlet Au]

Jess, what's the source of that quote?

[Jess 2.0]

@ Hamlet (@_@)

http://virtualattire.blogspot.dk/2014/02/if-your-going-to-another-grid-be-sure.html#comment-form

[Hamlet Au]

I see now - that link was pointing below it to the comments section. The quote doesn't indicate where the e-mail came from specifically, and the analysis is extremely difficult to read and makes some hyperbolic claims which don't seem accurate on the face of it. The SLU link has a more measured analysis. Really.

[Jess 2.0]

@ Hamlet

My old business partner is having to fill this out just for cashing out to pay the tier.
now the money never left the game but to just pay for the 20 regions

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Commerce/New-Resource-Tax-amp-Account-Documentation-FAQs/ba-p/2486253

Customer service stated that anyone cashing out over $500 will have to register due to new tax laws and fraud and it must be done in the next few months..
the tenants have been notified of their regions closing because who wants to pay tax on money they never seen?

The reasons and why is going much further then the stated policy's LL has posted it would seem.

[Jess 2.0]

@ Hamlet

It does have many confused I must say to agree unless their are other reasons not being told to certain residents who cash out or red flagged?

[Mike Baldwin]

It's the real deal alright, hey I just got popped myself cashing out 750 bucks for my 3 months of sales,
they want my all my private details or face the banhammer, it was in my letter received as well,

[Radio]

Only cheaters worry about the IRS = Stop Cheating

[elizabeth (irihapeti)]

People getting caught up in this really do need to read the SLU thread that Hamlet mentioned. And why your ability to take money out of SL will be stopped if you do not provide RL proof of who you are

Is not just LL customers that are facing this. Every US company providing a online cashout facility has to be able to provide RL proof of who their customers are, who cash out above the threshhold. Is a breach of the US Patriot Act if they cannot. This has always been the case since 2003. The US authorities are now enforcing it in earnest all across the internet. On top of the US tax authorities also wanting their tax money

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google for US Patriot Act and Customer Identification Program

[Max March]

My favorite part of the announce was his assertion that Linden Lab was going to be "continuing to provide exceptional service." Don't you have to start before you can continue?

[J.Ishnoo]

At elizabeth (irihapeti)
What?....They Have a better understanding?......SLU?
They call people pedifiles without proof, stalks them unworldly,grief's peoples land,blocks access to peoples land,threatening to harm someone in real life,bypass bans with alts, crashing peoples land ,spamming,
threatening to pass out their real life info so they can be murdered in real life,
false AR party's, inworld stalking, harassment for belonging to groups,

ALL under speculation,hearsay & supposed common sense, VERIFY IT
2000 posts in thread to hide the Nazi style trolling of residents they have enjoyed doing so much,
You must offer a more reputable source as they make up facts as they go along.

Greetings
J. Ishnoo

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/91554-use-mainland-resources-question-81.html#post1909378

[elizabeth (irahapeti)]

@J Ishnoo

The SLU thread that discuss the issue raised here. The US legal requirements that LL now has to follow/observe

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/virtual-business/92369-because-i-said-id-let.html

+

As for your other issues then welcome to the internets. Free dialogue and exchange of opinions and all that. Can easy ignore/mute if don't agree

[Matlock]

@J Ishnoo

After reading that entire thread I find it very disturbing
If they called me a pedo with all that cyberbulling first thing I would do is head down to our local courthouse then pay $25 dollars in civil court then the judge would put out a bench warrant out against the owner of SLUniverse for civil charges of slander and force him to come to court then prove I was a pedo
Then I would turn over the rest of the bully's to states attorney general for cyberbulling and over the state lines threats of bodily harm and conspiracy to conspire to plan a murder (Advisement from an attorney had this been done to me)

[elizabeth (irihapeti)]

@Matlock - you've saved yourself $25 then. It not being you being talked about. Maybe you can donate to J Ishnoo. Oh! wait! He not being talked about either apparently

So why J Ishnoo (and now you Matlock are chiming in as well) would want to bring it up here on an article about US legal requirements for online transactions I have no idea

[Karen White]

@ elizabeth

Matlock is right read the whole thread plus some have went back then erased the facts as cowards at least stand by what you say.

Not off topic as hamlet claimed SLU had better info regarding new laws while someone proved that SLU is the least place to find unbiased information.

Ebbe is just another blueblood with a very good script to read from to wisper sweet nothings in our ears >Rinse & Repeat<

[elizabeth (irihapeti)]

@Karen

i think you mean't "they say". I am not in that convo. I don't care to involve myself in debates with people who insist on justifying to others their own life choices

you the 3rd person on here now doing this. Why do you bother? If you ok with what you do in your own life then what do you care about what others think of you. Turn them off. ignore/mute whichever