Project Sansar is causing a significant minority of Second Life users to decrease their spending in SL, according to my survey of over 225 NWN readers. Over 1 in 4 say they're spending less in SL since Sansar was announced, many perhaps sharing this opinion left in the survey comment thread:
I use about 40% of my current inventory because I'm an interior decorator and landscaper on sl. Will I move to Sansar? No. After having invested literally thousands of dollars US on the current platform, I will not be making the same mistake twice. AND I will say one more thing, I personally am sick and tired of LL's income on SL being spent on projects that won't benifit SL in any way.
All is not bad news for Linden Lab, however, because my survey also asked if people had changed their usage of Second Life because of Sansar, and a much smaller percent said they were now using SL less:
17% using SL less, offset by the nearly 7% who say they're using Second Life more because of Project Sansar. Adeon Writer's thoughts in the survey thread seem reflective of that point of view:
The occasional Sansar news on the net has momentarily renewed my interest in virtual worlds, so I've been spending more time in-world than I was in the past few months, and also due to that, I've started spending money in it again, though at the same rate as I always have when actively logging in.
Adeon Writer
With Sansar still in closed Alpha, this is very early days, so these results will likely drastically change in coming months. I'm watching this closely, because the question of whether SL users are collectively interested in Sansar remains a very open one to me.
Please share this post:
I seriously doubt your poll.
If I mention Project Sansar to someone in Second Life I next have to explain what it is. Only one other person has ever known what it is. One person confused Sansar with the games LL released under Rod Humble that sank like stones.
I cannot see how something the vast majority of users do not know exists can be effecting their spending patterns. I do think the slow reduction of regions and attractions in SL is more likely to explain declining spends.
For some reason LL has always communicated with all the facility verve and skill of the average house brick, a practice they really need to change.
Posted by: Dirran Skytower | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 03:24 PM
SL will still enjoy an overwhelming monopoly on VWs by a long time, because people has just invested to much in friends and inventory to just adventure seriously out of it, unless they are land thirsty world creators
Posted by: Carlos Loff | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 03:32 PM
"AND I will say one more thing, I personally am sick and tired of LL's income on SL being spent on projects that won't benifit SL in any way."
Yeah, and boy was I pissed when American Airlines used so much revenue from their 707 fleet to upgrade to 747s. Who cares if the 707 is old tech, doesn't meet modern demand, and hell, can barely even fly?
Posted by: Zaphod Kotobide | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 03:36 PM
Ya, I see no point spending less in SL. What if Sansar will be shit? Then you'll be sitting like a fool, cursing yourself for keeping youself from enjoying SL for past months.
Posted by: Ugh | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 04:36 PM
@ Dirran
You must not have been to the big SL Birthday right after Ebbe Spilled the beans it was mass panic and close to two months no one wanted to spend money thinking SL Was closing.
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Even Firestorm and others had to help calm everyone down with a Q&A
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Shorted my response because i wish more positive things could be said about the lab & ebbe, 'only time will tell what happens but less money being spent might be tied to a bunch of other factors as well.
Posted by: Littlewing | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 04:44 PM
Evil Altberg
Posted by: Lisa | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 05:28 PM
@Zaphod Kotobide I'm can't even remotely equate Sansar to an SL upgrade. It's completely different. End users will not be able to create/upload their own content. It sounds a lot like IMVU with the ability to walk. Not much of an upgrade. I'd rather have a well maintained 707, thanks.
Posted by: Lemon Panda | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 05:44 PM
@Lemon, "End users will not be able to create/upload their own content."
Where on Earth did you hear that? It's simply not true. At the outset, at initial Alpha and possibly beta phases, it will be very limited, but the plan is to develop tools to support both in-world content creation as well as the standard external tools.
Posted by: Zaphod Kotobide | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 05:48 PM
Personally ill stick with Sl and or if i had to move ill be moving to what i know already, open sim.
And im in fact spending more now.
But Rl is not helping so my clear option will be Free open sim, hypergrid enabled grids where ill host my won regions, now that vehicles scripts are emerging there as well as the amazing npc's scripts are being even more developed, tks to ex sl users that moved on to there.
Posted by: zz bottom | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 01:28 AM
And Sansar? well i don't use facebook nor Imvu nor 3d, so i cant care less about it but the fact that Ll is drying out Sl users i order to support another Ceo dream.
Posted by: zz bottom | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 01:29 AM
It's really interesting to see the exchange between Lemon Panda and Zaphod Kotobideh.
I really wish the survey had asked "Do you trust LL?"
Because trust is all that anybody really has regarding the future and Sansar. Everything else is speculation and very limited amount slippery facts.
Sansar is a greased pig that nobody has a grip on.
Posted by: A.J. | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 05:42 AM
"of SLers"
Of NWN readers you mean.
Posted by: Ezra | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 07:01 AM
@ zz bottom
Wrong! The was in development 3 yrs before Ebbe & is the brainchild of past CEO Rod.
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While Ebbe has made Sansar a priority its not a pet project but a group dream.
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They spent years working on the foundation to scale to be anything they needed it to be while the program had been on & off due to commitments by different developers.
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You think in a little over a year they could have made the progress so far as to host private showings while taken in select alpha testers?
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The plan has been on the drawing board in some form or another since 08 but only under the current & last CEO did it gain traction.
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I myself can be highly critical of linden lab but give credit were its due.
+ promoting open sim makes you look like another wackadoo or kook in case no one told you.
Posted by: Littlebird | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 07:58 AM
"Project Sansar Causing Significant Minority of SLers to Spend Less Money in Second Life"
Should be
"Project Sansar Causing Significant Minority of the sample of 228 people to Spend Less Money in Second Life"
Posted by: Cube Republic | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 09:05 AM
Fact is that almost 30% of Linden Lab customers is spending less in Second Life and are in waiting mode. Now 30% is a significant portion and when you are a business and 30% of your customers reduce their spending this doesn't bode well for you.
This metric combined with the future of getting actual competition in a new market you wish to get foothold in combined with the very lousy reputation your company has does not work in your best interest.
Posted by: Cameron | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 09:35 AM
Remember that not very many regular SL residents read this blog, or any blogs. Out of the people that do read blogs, even fewer would take this poll.
As a discussion point this is okay, but I would not think that the results here are at all indicative of the SL grid as a whole.
Posted by: Jessica Pixel | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 10:27 AM
@ Jessica
If true then maybe hamlet might ask Firestorm to offer a survey on the log-in screen?
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Just say'n -_- anythings possible I've always wanted to know how many others have wanted to play with Jessica Lyons ears..'maybe they can toss that in too bag as well
Posted by: Littlebird | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 10:44 AM
Personally I doubt that at this time, many people at all are reducing their spending in SL solely due to the coming Sansar platform.
SL is not going to have the plug pulled any time soon. The two products will be operated for the foreseeable future as separate entities.
This means that content creators who sell their goods in SL will have an opportunity to port them out to Sansar and sell them in that space as well.
Consumers will live and consume in both spaces. Some will migrate entirely, some will keep a foot in each. There would be no reason for end consumers to significantly reduce their spending in SL today, unless they planned to abandon it and move to Sansar.
But that's at least a year off.
Content creators who currently have considerable expenses in SL might be taking a step back to evaluate things, and that would be prudent.
Posted by: Zaphod Kotobide | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 01:03 PM
68% said they were not any different in spending. That is over two out of three people.
You cannot get two out of three people to agree on free ice cream flavor
Posted by: Shockwave Yareach | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 02:31 PM
@Cube
yes. All 64 of them
and when apply the ratio of 2:3 to this then 2/3rds will have reduced their spend in SL anyways, Sansar or not
So 22 people out of the 225. Approx. 10% are reducing their direct involvement. Being cautious and reserving their position
which is about right I think. 10% is consistent when a sea change is occurring in pretty much any situation online and offline
Posted by: irihapeti | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 06:08 PM
Everyone in SL I tell about Sansar is very interested and start asking all kinds of questions about it, but that interest tappers off rapidly when they get hit with the fact that their inventory will not be carrying over.
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 07:00 PM
The lindex numbers do not follow with this story.
So who is distorting the facts?
Posted by: RoblemVR | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 08:17 PM
"So who is distorting the facts?"
Really, nobody is. The sample used for this post is almost certainly not sufficiently representative of the whole SL population. It was just an effort to strike up a casual conversation.
Or so I guess.
Posted by: Zaphod Kotobide | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 08:50 PM
At some point, LL's investment in Sansar will be too much to ditch, meanwhile SL's declining income will cross that point on the line of the graph, and LL will ditch SL. I don't trust Ebbe's placation that they will continue both for a long time.
Posted by: lord | Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 10:58 PM
Why not a poll: If you had to loose all your inventory, where do you would move to?
Sansar.
Open sim.
High fidelity.
Other.
Posted by: zz bottom | Thursday, October 01, 2015 at 01:54 AM
Frankly, I have no idea where all this gloom and doom is coming from and going to. As far as I'm concerned, SL is still a going concern and will remain one for the foreseeable future. I'm busy putting together new toys again like I once used to, and I'm going to start selling next month, and nothing, not even a supposed new incompatible VW named after a guy turning into a giant roach, is going to change my tune.
Posted by: Patchouli Woollahra | Thursday, October 01, 2015 at 02:11 AM
A lot of big companies in the gaming industry take a hands off approach to VR because they have serious doubts about it. While these companies have budgets and knowledge and are active in the industry for a long time they are not willing to take risk towards VR.
This should tell you that Linden Lab took on a huge risk with Sansar and will suffer hard as a company from its concequences. It could be a positive for Linden but it can be a huge negative for Linden which does directly impact Second Life users and their businesses.
As a Second Life resident you are a client of a very unstable company that looks for short term profits and doesn't care the slightest about you as a client.
In a year the major part of Second Life residents might be in a facebook or google virtual world connected to their profile where they can have their friends over, have better tools to create and doesn't cost them a penny. Creators might be selling their content on facemarket or the google3D store.
The future is very uncertain. The only thing Linden Lab was supposed to do was upgrading Second Life with the new tech instead of wrecking it and milking it out for the last drop like they are currently doing.
Also with Sansar what will you do? Start again from nothing knowing the moment you do or create anything that is interesting Linden Lab will look at ways to copy what you are doing or a couple of staff members from Linden Lab starting direct competition with you because they see how much revenue you make.
Sansar might be another platform but it is still Linden managed. Second Life could be fine just like World Of Warcraft is fine after more than a decade, the only difference is the way the platforms have been managed.
Posted by: Cupcake | Thursday, October 01, 2015 at 05:34 AM
I've been talking to SL content creators for three years now about the game and apps asset market that is thriving and lucrative. Game developers are STARVING for content. But not one SL content creator I've introduced Unity3D to, has bothered to look into the FBX and OBJ format and prospects there.
I've been developing in Unity3D doing all kinds of things in different MMO communities. I call this practice 'Training wheels" for Project Sansar and WebGL. I want to be skilled and ready to build communities or open shop when all the new tech rolls out.
In general, much of SL content creators "Can't think outside the prim" and therefore they will be late to the party. Its too bad because there is so much abundant goods and talent can be already in the conversion process for Project Sansar and beyond.
Posted by: Cindy Bolero | Thursday, October 01, 2015 at 11:09 AM
LL will suffer hard for building Sansar???
Only because they made the bone headed decision to not let folks bring their inventories, groups, land, houses, etc. I can name on one hand the programs which abandoned backwards compatibility. Each and every one of them lost 90% of the customers. If Sansar replaced the existing grid and all our stuff moved over, but everything new had to be a mesh and written in Java, that would work. But since ll is run by brain damaged monkeys, they won't grasp this fact until it is too late to save the company.
Posted by: Shockwave Yareach | Thursday, October 01, 2015 at 12:35 PM
@Shockwave
If you let the crowd bring their stuff to your new place you won't be making profit on that. When your business model is 5% profit on sales and transfer of goods you will make a lot less if you let everybody bring their stuff with them.
It is better to pretend you cannot port the objects which is what Ebbe did bring forward as the main reason. However Firestorm and Singularity both have a FBX export function straight out of the box. With a press of the button people could export their objects just fine but for profit sake let's pretend it cannot be done because of technological issues.
Anyway Linden will have a hard sell with their new platform. It is all a game of bluff. Maybe Linden will kick out Ebbe by march 2016 to put a new CEO in place by the summer who will then port over the tech of Sansar to the Second Life platform. It wouldn't suprise me one bit if this scenario would unfold.
Posted by: Cupcake | Thursday, October 01, 2015 at 07:08 PM
Why do folk go on about their inventory so much? There's events in-world every week punting new stuff. What I'm getting at is the acquisition of new property seems to be a big part of the SL ecosystem. People enjoy getting new items and I'd love to know what % of inventory from 1 year ago is still used.
Also sansar will support mesh, so existing content creators should be able to port their trinkets into the new world.
I personally look forward to sansar. I've enjoyed SL for many years, however it's showing its age. Sims are too small. Mesh bodies are full of work rounds to accommodate usage on a system they were never designed for.I buy a T shirt for my avi - I get delivered 10 items, need to read an instructions manual etc, it's a complete joke. I've a fetish for aircraft in Sl, but it's really difficult to enjoy because you can cross a sim in 2 seconds. It's to the point now with some aircraft, that the quality of production and scripting outweighs what the server can deliver in terms of performance.
Anyways, most users will go to sansar eventually and the sky won't fall, that's my prediction.
Posted by: Cube Republic | Friday, October 02, 2015 at 05:15 AM
@Cube
Well Sansar since made public has been stated as not a replacement for SL & since your a man of facts why the sudden dreamer state of mind cube.
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I will wait around for SL2 and that's more likely to happen the way Cupcake describes.
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If it turns out the whole time it's a Replacement for SL instead of SL2 being developed sometime after Sansar and they lied to everyone for a few years what the true intentions were ..then they deserve to be sued from here to eternity.
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Posted by: Littlewing | Friday, October 02, 2015 at 08:31 AM
Has anyone noticed how empty SL is in most places these days? Sansar is not going to change that. I really do not see it happening. Sansar is something they should have done at least 5 years ago, playing catch up now is silly.
I owned 3 sims which I used for rentals, the business just isn't there anymore-because the people aren't either. SL is a shell of its former self and I honestly believe a new and shiny place like Sansar will make little difference. Put a fork in it, it's done.
Posted by: grappling with reality | Friday, October 02, 2015 at 09:52 AM
You can see High Fidelity is now starting to create a new world from scratch. There is hardly interest, creating 3D content and scenes is just a very time and labour consuming.
When you see a tree and a swing in Second Life it did take about 4 hours to create the swing, if you already had the script for the swing. It did take more than a day to create the tree. Two days work to build one tree with a swing. Somebody spends two full days to build one single object and you know how many objects there are in Second Life to make it somewhat interesting.
Now you will see the community go into segments, some will stay in Second Life and some will swarm out to multiple other places. This gives you even less public, less consumers but you still need to spend two days again if you want a tree with a swing to make it interesting.
Good thing that Ebbe will make sure there will be millions in Sansar, thank god for Ebbe.
Posted by: Cupcake | Friday, October 02, 2015 at 10:54 AM
Cube - because some stuff I own doesn't have replacements at all. The builder is Dead. And some stuff simply took ages to build on my own. And some stuff is just way too expensive to walk away from the cash spent on it, like island sims or 25000l sex beds, costume made skins or avatars, etc.
Besides, when you get right down to it, why should I be required to pay again for something I already own?
Posted by: Shockwave Yareach | Friday, October 02, 2015 at 11:10 AM
The stuff Linden Lab is doing is borderline illegal. It is sleazy business, Linden Lab can go ahead with their sheme now but I doubt people will pay again. I won't be paying again because I know Linden Lab will look to scam me again. If they do not do it after 6 months they will do it after a couple of years.
Second Life and Sansar are just products, that is what Linden Lab puts in their TOS so you have no rights to anything. Buy it today and be a sucker tomorrow.
Posted by: Cupcake | Friday, October 02, 2015 at 11:19 AM
@Shockwave
I don't get it when you say: why should I be required to pay again for something I already own
you not required to go to Sansar. You not required to do anything. Can stay in SL with all your SL stuff and just carry on like you always have
Posted by: irihapeti | Saturday, October 03, 2015 at 07:11 AM