Second Life's New Starting Avatars Not Very Second Life

These are Second Life's new starting avatars. Used to be, default starting SL avatars used to include cute robots, humanoid animals, and other fun, whimsical stuff -- since after all, that's what "Second Life" is supposed to be. (There's also new collection of "Vampire" options, but those are all just variations around that genre.) These avatars feel less like Second Life, and more like, well, The Sims Online. Which might be a good move, market-wise, but it does distinctly change new users' perception of what Second Life could (and frankly should) be.

I did ask Linden Lab why there's no non-human avatars, by the way, and will let you know what they say. (Assuming they do.)

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Comments

[Ugh]

What's wrong? All SL need is a good merketing decisions, and these conventional-looking avatars sure fit the description.
The last thing SL needs at right now is its regular weird bullshit such as "cute robots" or whatever was that thing in your post, that nobody knows how to sell.

[UCMO]

We use SL for educational simulations and as such prefer the human avatars vs. robots as our simulations are of real world situations.

[Tankgirl]

Who are you to say what Second Life is supposed to be?

[Fuzzball Ortega]

I seem to recall starting out as a default human avatar back in 2006, although a different option was a furry avatar. Then I pointed my ears, bought a werewolf avatar, started dressing in Victorian era clothing, not to mention buying new human skin over the course of my Second Life.

True, I did think "The Sims" when I saw the picture of the avatars, but nothing wrong with that. They start out with those avatars, then, once in world and after a bit of exploring, they create themselves. Buying different clothing, different skins, etc.

[Cyberserenity]

Boring.

[skygirl kline]

This is one of LL's good ideas! You cannot imagine how hard it was to explain to a Noob wearing one of the previous total mesh avatars about legacy avatars and clothing and how they could customize their look..was often too much for them to cope with and for others to explain!

[zz bottom]

I have to agree with the above, at least these avatars one can mod them and wear reg fit mesh clothes.

[patchouli woollahra]

New avatars are boring, but so is the default non-mesh avatar reset folder we had to keep dropping on newcomers who had serious issues with the no-mod starter mesh avatars. Dropping them gradually into mesh avatars only after starting them off with moddables like these was a right step forward. Hopefully we'll see less Ruth-Meshie Vitilgo inworld.

[Issa Heckroth]

seems to make good sense to me. Shoot for the broadest appeal. For every 1 person that loves wacky robot avis or suchlike, there are 100 who just want to be a person.

[A.J.]

What LL chooses to focus on... odd.

What are these new starting avatars leading to? LL is so late to the party with these that they are pretty meaningless.

The problems are now way beyond the experience of new residents. The problems are the dead ends for their core customers.

[Iggy]

So they put the black dude in the back of the circle of shiny happy avies? Does he come with a T-shirt reading "I am a token"?

I think that bothers me more than anthro-centrism.

I prefer the old cardboard-box robot avatar or my favored steampunk-creepy look. LL is trying to appeal to the dress-up crowd and that may make money. Let 'em. There are good options for freaks like me still, on Marketplace and deep in the library folder.

[Pussycat Catnap]

They appear in a random order, or... not in the order in the screenshot. I just loaded the page the avatar in front was a Chicana woman seen in the screenshot as on the far left. The African guy was in that left position.

I reloaded the page a few times and she stayed there. I took the URL to a different browser and she was still in the front.
- Luck of my results, or something. But the order is not the issue here.

The low level of diversity though is a valid issue. They look like the USA of the 1960s, before LBJ's reforms. Not the USA of today, and especially not the global audience that is sometimes a part of SL.

If on the other hand you consider SL's primary audience to be Europe - this would be about right for the demographics and so... not an issue.

And click on the links for Vampire and People... those are the full mech avatars, still around.
- That's another issue because we know the flaws of those. But

[Wagner James Au]

It's a big ambiguous, I'm counting two black avatars, two Asian avatars & two Latin avatars (male and female). So that's 6 non-white avatars to 10 white avatars. That seem accurate?

[Xanthe]

I know I might be being a bit picky here...but why are none of the starter avatars "plus-size", or of a more curvaceous caliber?
If I was going to be reaching out to a broader market, I'd also provide a broader selection of sizes and ethnicities too.