Linden Lab CEO Acknowledges Project Sansar Will "Cannibalize" Second Life & Risk Both Worlds

Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg was refreshingly honest in the first episode of Lab Chat last week (which Canary Beck nicely summarizes here), and at about 30 minutes in, acknowledges that Project Sansar will probably cannibalize Second Life:

"The cannibalization effect is obviously real and all I can say to that is that it’s better us than someone else. Because it’s going to be someone, someday.”

I'm not even sure that last assumption is correct, because virtual worlds with a strong community can thrive for quite awhile -- Ultima Online is still online after nearly 20 years. Anyway, the real revelation comes immediately afterward, in which Altberg says there's a possibility that Sansar cannibalizes Second Life enough to cause the SL economy to "implode", while the launch of Project Sansar somehow goes wrong. And then, says Altberg:

"Now you have two things that don’t really work rather than one thing that sort of works. [But] I don’t see if we have a choice."

Like I said, it's admirable for Ebbe to state the risks up front and give it straight to the Second Life community like that. Because he's very right that the risk is high:

To be sustainable, Project Sansar will surely need hundreds of thousands of users, and as a VR-enabled platform, it's going up against incredible competition -- people who might be interested in Sansar, but instead, may choose to spend their time in Oculus' own VR space, or High Fidelity, or whatever Valve is building, etc. etc. Though again, I disagree that there's no alternative but to take this risk: There are ways Second Life could be greatly updated to the modern era of 3D graphics and connectivity and attract new users and launch with a new, sustainable revenue model for years to come. But that's a topic for another post.

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Comments

[Marianne McCann]

Quick! Someone let Turkey Lurkey and Goosey Loosey know what's going on!

[Ilsa Hesse]

so... he is going to destroy SL... which is working... for something that may not work...
got it...

[Ilsa Hesse]

and you forgot Everquest, it has been around for a bajillion years...

[Crispy]

that's it, i'm done spending $$ on SL. i'm just, i'm done.

[Ugh]

He didnt say that LL gonna close SL in favor of sansar. He just said that theres a possibility that sansar might suck vital amount of residents outta SL, so it stops being profitable. I doubt tho. It has to bear at least 80% resemblance to SL to be appealing to current residents. And from what i hear, its not what LL aims for.

[lord]

Bring on your idea of how to update SL, and save it, Hamlet...especially if it can be put together by combining parts of both SL and Sansara in the wee hours before they both collapse...lol

[TheaDee]

Hopefully people will follow the embedded links and read Canary Beck's post which is a fuller summary of the lab chat session, or better yet, listen to the podcast or videos as they become available. Focusing only on one point, as this post does, really only serves to feed into the "Sansar is coming and the SL sky is falling" mentality that many SL users seem to have at this time. The mindset that some people seem to hold that LL is lying to us about keeping SL open and operational is more frustrating to me than the idea of LL putting resources towards Project Sansar.

[lord]

Actually, I've been predicting this predicament for LL from the first instance that I learned that they weren't really working on an SL update, but instead, a parallel or replacement for it. At some point the two lines of existence will cross and they will have to ditch SL, sell SL, or combine the two products(and if they want to keep all the content assets that SL has, they won't be able to change the SL name due to unreachable, or un-agreeable, content providers to give permission to use it under another name.)

[Observer]

That is what has been pointed out and one of my reasons I have issues with CEO Altberg.

Ebbe is using and abusing the Second Life community to build the product that is intended to destroy Second Life.

Linden Lab hate their own product so much they exploit their community and customers to build a competitor to kill the current product, everybody is just standing there looking at it without saying anything.

Residents are currently paying tier to fund the destruction of what they enjoy, that is what sleazy Linden Lab is currently doing.

So the question is why Linden Lab is building this destructor instead of Second Life V2 and just updating the grid instead.

Because

1. Linden Lab hates it that Firestorm took their code and made a viewer that outperforms their own viewer. They hate it that Firestorm has so much power and they need to have meetings with Firestorm about every little thing they do.

2. Linden Lab hates it the estates control so much in Second Life and have so much influence. They hate they need to play nice to Anshe out of fear she would dump her sims. They hate all the influence of the estates.

3. Linden made a lot of mistakes in the past, instead of correcting them they rather destroy the platform and build another one, of course they will try to manipulate their userbase as much as possible.

This has been in the works for years, remember all the turmoil about the TOS updates where Linden did state:

"We own everything you own nothing"

"When you buy products on the Marketplace you only buy a licence to use this product in the Second Life environment. You do not really buy the actual product."

"When you buy land or a private island you do not really buy the land. You only pay a 1000 US$ setup fee"

Linden Lab has been trying to cover themself from any form of legal prosecution they might face because of what they are doing.

[Observer]

@TheaDee

You don't get it do you. Linden Lab doesn't care what happens to Second Life. If they can keep milking it for money for a while, fine, if everybody goes to Sansar, fine. They do not care which is why they did lower their setup fees and allow grandfathered region transfer so they can keep milking for tier as long as possible as much as possible.

The average resident doesn't have a clue yet but they will be the largest victims, all their accumulated inventory will get flushed, when people will ask about their stuff Linden will say, ow that was just a game, we have new game now, wanna try?

[Amanda Dallin]

Hamlet.
What do you suggest for a sustainable revenue model? SL has already lasted longer than most Tech companies so they did something right. A lot of so called successful tech companies do not have nearly the revenue of LL but have only profited off of inflated stock prices. That's not a sustainable revenue model.

Membership fees don't seem to work in todays environment. SL would have to grow logarithmically for fees on the marketplace to replace current tier fees. What do you suggest that would be viable and "sustainable"?

[Iggy]

Maybe the Lab just hates us. Seriously, folks: would you want us for your customers?

I'm not defending Ebbe, however. He took over a company that kicked us all in the teeth various times. There was a sense, in the Hype Era, that they moved among us. I even went to the final Town Hall meeting.

As our grand poobahs from the Lab had The Utopian, The Merchant, and The Gamer God. None of them could put Humpty-Dumpty together again after he fell off the peak of inflated expectations.

While I'm no engineer, I'm not sure that SL could not be updated for those of us not wanting to wear a scuba-mask for our VW experiences. There's a another book to be written about SL, and I'm sure Hamlet is up to the job.

[Avatars United]

Never give up hope for High Fidelity.
It's in Alpha and who knows it might be great in another year or two.

Philip Rosedale did not have to kill Second Life to create a new virtual world.

High Fidelity is fully open source & transparent.Free for everyone

Great Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDgQgfvf2uw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArM6iB_dafg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1dYoSggR-4

[Adeon Writer]

In order to make this statement, LL must believe either one of two things.

A.) That the current SL userbase MUST be able to split into Sansar like a comfortable pair of sneakers.

or

B.) The current SL userbase is irrelevant to the success or failure of Sansar.

Here's hoping for the former.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

That's fine. If SL risks financial feasibility as it shrinks, then by all means move forward on something more up to date.

Since the price reduction announcement for setup fees, we're down 12+ more private regions, so that's been a bust in generating land growth.

If they stick to building a solid framework of features, a decent modern programming/scripting language and fair pricing it could work.

It doesn't need contiguous LL owned mainland and certainly doesn't need the social/economic engineering done by LL, which always fails.

The thing that got us here was an open ended framework and little interference other than the tools.

LL just needs to understand that they should be a service and toolset/framework provider and to excel at that and to leave everything else to develop on its own by users.

And to stop trying to acquire anything done by users once it hits 7 figures. Because that just sucks the lifeblood out of the users and they go away as opportunity shrinks.

[Argo Nurmi]

After listening to the podcasts, what struck me was the way Ebb described the ideas on community. For the technical things in Sansar I heard detail and concrete approaches. I take that to mean Ebb and his team have done a lot of thinking and decision making here. But, responding to a question on how they envision a community working, the language turned high level and abstract. Its what you expect if not much time has been put into building a vision or thinking through the details. The labs can be forgiven for being immersed in designing an improved rendering engine. But its disappointing that Ebb, as leader of this Sansar vision, doesn't have much to say about what their future community will be like. This caused me to wonder about what they have in mind for their future community. Could it be saying that a SL style community isn't in the cards for Sansar. There will be some kind of "social experience," yes, of course, Sansar is a social network. But, very possibly, the SL experience we all know will not be a part of it.

[irihapeti]

@Argo

i think you are correct that Ebbe is fudging the social component at this time

i am also suspecting that it isnt bc LL dont already know what their role in that is. I think they do know

+

most of us (including me) wont know exactly what this might be for sure until we get to login

i think tho the key to knowing the extent of LL governance of Sansar, will be if there is a Linden created Experience (space) for us to enter on login, if we choose

unless LL do something like really amazing. Like actual tell us what it is they are intending for the first time since Never (:

+

there could be something Linden for us to login to tho amongst other places/spaces, similar to the Portal Park in SL, a showcase of what is possible in Sansar

i think the key tho will be if we can settle in the Linden Sansar Park(s). Settle meaning put down our own house on a parcel (rent/tiers) in the Park and living there. SL mainland style

if we cant settle the Sansar Linden Parks, therefore have to buy our own Experience space for a home (conceptually equivalent to a SL island with portal/teleport in and out) or rent a parcel off a private (Assisted Housing) Experience (equivalent to SL Estate), then LL social governance will be a lot less than in SL. A ToS that adheres to RL legal reqs and thats about it I think

+

if so then LL will be saying that they will social police their Portal Parks (SL equivalent WAs) necessarily. But we are on our own in policing our own Experiences spaces. With a lot less involvement (f any) on their part

for example there would/might not be a facility to Abuse Report anyone in/on our own Experience space. That we got a ban hammer, so use it

a consequence being that any community building in Sansar is not their concern. Other than maybe providing a way for us to promote our own Communities/Experiences to the wider audience. And buy/sell stuff to each other

+

basically I think it will go:

stuff building/graphics-wise: Like SL but better

social building/governance-wise: Like SL but lesser

[Reginald]

It is interesting how CEO Altberg speaks about users voting with their clicks. Some users might vote with their wallet instead.

@Iggy

To your question if you would want Second Life users as customers? I have Second Life users as customers every day and I do not have the slightest issue with them. Some are difficult but you also have this in RL. Second Life users are no different from RL people, they are not extraordinary difficult or have requests nobody can meet. It is not the userbase Iggy. When I see how World Of Warcraft players go on a rage towards Blizzard and do not even get banned for it I do not think Linden Lab has anything to complain about the residents.

[Skate Foss]

I never trusted Rod Humble as so many said the savior was here to save Second Life. Now I see, Rod Humble is a cuddly kitten compared to Ebbe Altberg.
What's really sad is that Linden Lab has no feeling for the many years many residents spent, investing their own hours and creativity and money to make Second Life what it is. To so blatantly and callously toss out, if we kill Second Life because Sansar fails, better it's us, Linden Lab doing it. -We never asked for Sansar, Ebbe.

[Galatea]

@Argo Nurmi

LL can give concrete details about the technical aspects because they determine those completely. They can't do the same for social aspects because that's not something under their control. Ebb "doesn't have much to say about what their future community will be like" because LL doesn't have much to say* about what the future community will be like. That's in our hands.

* "doesn't have much to say" as in does not have the ability to determine.

[Reginald]

To be honest I don't think this is going to fly very well with a lot of people. If you think the homestead debacle was horrible this will the homestead debacle by a magnitude of 40.

Ebbe should keep the honor to himself and leave before Linden Lab needs to file for bankruptcy.

[hereisaname]

Reasons for a new world?

Legacy stuff slows down the whole thing, and Second Life is a tarnished name. Some associate it with many things that they wish to avoid.

Governance. Sans AR is a funny spin on the name, maybe not having any land and giving lots and lots of control over the larger new land spaces will equal no need for any governance. Just more of a host, NO place made by them. They ask for people to build places to do things and not just stores, so maybe starting with a very heavy cultural influence (beta testers indoctrinated into this sort of focus) would lead to lots of products and competition to build products that help people build place to have fun at.

So. YES, upgrading SL is a mess. Legacy content with all those lines of code making checks for the CPU and RAM to waste their time on only to realize SL population will NOT grow because people hate sexual displays/gor/S&M/ and remember it only as a dead and useless place REGARDLESS of lag? Seriously, it may be a risk but doing nothing isn't a risk. It is assured loss of revenue at a certain point. Just as you project a "break even point" you may also project a point of no ROI and you pull the advertisment.

The virtual world 'There' is still going, so it is arguable that SL will never die. IMVU is alive and have many users, neither equal SL in graphics. So the push for MORE graphic details is an internal SL market thing that may also attract some others (archi viz folks who make walk-throughs, like there isn't a bazillion solutions for that already) so it is really hard to say SL will die or that sansara will make no money. Less money overall as some customers just leave both and lose faith in Linden Labs to ever create a lag free virtual world? Sure, that might happen BUT so many still use SL regardless of lag so why would SL die just from Sansara?

[Betty Tureaud]

If you read the small print what Alberg says. Linden Lab is building a gaming platform for business or simple people who want to build a game. LL will be a 3D cloud hotel for the customers wher you lease the infrastructure of Linden Lab. Thats what Sansar is.

You make the graphics and programer in C + and importere mesh current objects made in MAYA or other software. They provide an easy import of your fodder. (you pay a high fee to upload)

There will be a demo country as new user can see how to set up their game.

You will get the opportunity to direct advertise your game online and invite gameres to your land.

The cloud will support a easy avatar system so your visitores dont have to go through a complicated registra et Linden Lab ( LL will tax you what you earn on your game )

PS.: Notis i youse the word game all the time, but it can be what ever you want if you nead a 3D cloud base system and support and dont have the manpower your self. Sansar is just a cloud base 3D platform who also support Oculus Rift frame rate.

[sirhc deSantis]

So the first bright spark that creates the 'SL Experience' wins the current (wet tuesday morning UTC) 29k odd logged in? Stranger things could happen I suppose. The Lab has all the bits after all.
In the meantine, theres a new Diva hypergrid distribution available so get building your lifeboat =^^= if the alternatives are not your cup of tea.

And to those saying watch the thing? Nope, worse than tv talkies and stopped bothering with them a decade ago. Transcripts I read. Talking heads? Stopped making sense.

[A.J.]

"Seriously, folks: would you want us for your customers?"

Seriously, yes.

When I see how much residents spend at events and how much they are willing to spend on teir, I'd be happy to take their money. I'd be happy to go to work every day and think of ways to improve their experience and invite their friends and family to come in and spend their money too.

I'd make it more about running a tight business where the customers are the superstars and I work for them.

LL needs to grow up. Customers don't fail the business, the business fails the customers.

It's a little bit of Stockholm syndrome to believe that thousands of people who each put hundreds of dollars a month into your sales are somehow problematic or undesirable.

Seriously, what the eff does it take to be a good customer?

[Hanna]

@ Avatars United

" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDgQgfvf2uw "

'OMFG'..Philip Rosedale..LOOKS.. 20yrs younger!

[zz bottom]

Quote:
Seriously, folks: would you want us for your customers?"

Seriously, yes.

When I see how much residents spend at events and how much they are willing to spend on teir, I'd be happy to take their money. I'd be happy to go to work every day and think of ways to improve their experience and invite their friends and family to come in and spend their money too.

I'd make it more about running a tight business where the customers are the superstars and I work for them.

LL needs to grow up. Customers don't fail the business, the business fails the customers.

It's a little bit of Stockholm syndrome to believe that thousands of people who each put hundreds of dollars a month into your sales are somehow problematic or undesirable.

Seriously, what the eff does it take to be a good customer?
Unquote.

Adding to that the relay for life, the one billion rising, all the non profit events and ppl that give their time to them.
Yes LL, you should be grateful for the users you have in Sl and not alienate them, much less scare them as you are doing just now.

[metacam oh]

So people are outraged that Ebbe spoke the truth instead of trying to bullshit everyone? SL is a dead end, that's clear. Hopefully Sansar wont be

[Han Held]

So it's "fuck SL and it's users" eh? Glad there's opensim (and hifi?) to fall back on. Damned shame about the money spent in SL on inventory and tier tho, isn't it?

[Ajax Manatiso]

All I have to say is that the people at InWorldz must be overjoyed. If SL closes up, all the SL creators will bring their stuff there and offer free replacements to SL residents that had their stuff destroyed. InWorldz will have a sudden windfall of money to buy new equipment and create more land -- and the big losers will be Ebbe and LL.

[Humperton DiAngelo]

People seem shocked and surprised now that their beloved CEO is showing his true colors and intentions.

People did come scream on this very blog for well over a year that CEO Altberg is a nasty individual that should be removed from his role. Some kept coming in here to accuse the complainers being nutcases and crybabies for bringing this up.

Now you are confronted with the hard reality and soon everybody in Second Life will start to figure out the scam Linden Lab is pulling on them.

People did already smarten up not to buy expensive sims from Linden Lab anymore, not even at 1000 US$ or even 600 US$ by next week they will be 200 US$.

All the builds in world are in danger, all your inventories, the gifts you received, your 200 different hairstyles, your shoes and dresses. Yes Ebbe is going to fuck it all up for you so you have nothing left for all your money you paid over the years to Linden Lab.

You understand now WHY people come in here and talk about Scamsar and Scamyall?

Why do you think Ebbe explicitly tells you nobody will be forced to migrate to Sansar? Because he cares?
Well no, if Ebbe and Linden Lab would be forcing you to go to Sansar they would be held liable in legal terms for your inventory, your land investments and your business.

When Linden Lab would tell you, we close Second Life you need to go to Sansar, you can login to Sansar and your Linden Dollars and your account is there for you. What would you say next? Where is my stuff, where is my inventory? Where is my store? Where are my sims?

So Linden Lab would be held liable in court to provide you with either a replacement of your inventory or your investments or Linden Lab would have to reimburse you for the stuff you lost.

By telling you explicitly that you are not forced to go to Sansar and by keeping Second Life running on low maintenance you cannot claim a thing because you still have your stuff and your still have your land and you still pay Linden tier for it.

This is the dirty little plan of Linden Lab to let Second Life slowly burn down in a controlled manner so they face no legal action. Linden hopes of course most will go to their new pyramid sheme named Project Sansar and start over.

Linden Lab did already invite their friends such as Barnesworth Anubis to Sansar to build displays for them so you would be more reluctant to go there. They will also set up your account for you with your name and your Linden Dollars so you can spend and your friends list so you have your social groups in place. Then they will milk you again but this time not with tier as they know how much you hate paying tier. Instead they will milk you with tax. Tax on everything your buy and everything you pay.

This is customer deception and fraud on a large scale. I invite you all to do a little searching on CEO Ebbe Altberg and check the crap he pulled at Ingenio Keen and Niteflirt, then you will have a more clear view about this character.

[Debby Downer]

@ Ajax Manatiso

Without SL almost all new features of OS will die , Lindens gave sculpts , mesh , materials and many more features to OS through 3rd party viewers . if SL dies then you all better make plans for according to giving the same kickbacks (donations ) the lab does (pool your money) the gravy train will stop.

Sorry Inworldz is not a real option but a mini linden lab with the same traps (they don't even have materiels yet? lol servers are too expensive? OS had it 3 days after SL GOING ON 3 YEARS AGO ).
Real OS is an option plus they have the Kitely marketplace or take it to High Fidelity

Thanks to Avination Code donation & OS Diva & Developers it is now as stable as SL and can run the same scripts/Same if not improved physics.
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2015/11/new-release-of-opensim-diva-distro-is-out/

(If you say Inworldz more then 3 times Jim or a founder show up as t̶r̶o̶l̶l̶s̶ teachers to 'correct & enlighten' your point of view /or experience for you & everyone else) .

[Perrie J.]

No one at linden lab has forced anyone of you to use the services . Matter of fact, it would likely be in the best interest for many of you suffering from negative attitudes this includes you as well hamlet,remove the viewer from your PC if it hurts so badly.

Don't like the game? Don't play!

[Missy Elliot]

@Ruth

Enough particles for you young lady.

What Ebbe has done and will do is costing everybody a lot of money with his stupidity.

Maybe certain people forget that 400000 real US$ is being transacted every day 365 days per year in Second Life. These are not Linden Dollars Ruth but real actual dollars, like 400K US$ enough to buy a real house.

Linden Lab who likes to blow up their 500 million GDP in the press is now attemting to kill that GDP they brag so much about.

So back to the 400000 real US$ people transact each day which is 146 million real Dollars per year an economy that CEO Ebbe Altberg doesn't give a damn about if it survives or gets destroyed.

CEO Altberg did also terminate the third party exchanges without a blink of an eye. Some of these exchanges did function for 10 years, CEO Altberg just destroys these RL businesses. Meh who cares is his attitude.

Once this news spreads I am sure many will get very angry. I kinda feel sorry for Linden Lab.

Ruth CEO Altberg did not create Second Life. CEO Altberg has been put in charge in the role as company leader after the previous one ran away the moment his contract was up during Christmas time, at the end of 2013. Since then CEO Altberg did nothing to improve Second Life and uses the tier money to build a competing software product with the intention to destroy Second Life or at the very least not giving a crap if it gets destroyed. Listen to the Podcast Ruth.

[Dwagon]

Debbie,your spot on..yup,yup,back to my corner.

http://inworldz.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21760

[DaCrazy]

If not this do make it fail,then the experience with LL will. Neither way might work.

[Pussycat Catnap]

All I see in this is that LL's thinks Sansar will be popular enough that people will leave SL to go to it.

He then acknowledges that there is risk that enough people will leave SL to render it unprofitable, but not enough will join Sansar to make it profitable.

I am baffled as to why anyone is surprised, panicked, or seeing conspiracies in this. Other than being delusionally paranoid - there should be nothing one can see as amiss in that rather basic analysis of the way time moves forward for all things.

I will again reiterate what I have said before: View your SL as an experience for the now. I evaluate everything in terms of how many latte's it costs because that's a very basic common 'impulse buy' that I make. SL is not an investment, it is an experience. Enjoy it for the now, and consider how you spend your money there in terms of what it is giving you when you do so - not as a plan for the future.

Like the latte or cappuccino you might buy instead - its not going to last, but you can still enjoy it while you have it.

As for Sansar - Whether or not I move on largely depends on how well I am "allowed" to be there. If the tools to make an avatar of my choosing are there, and a shard world is there, and the tools to live that avatar in a way I can be comfortable are there, I will likely be there.

For that in some ways I need more restrictions than SL has. Such as seeing the rampant misogyny go (Gor needs to go. I don't mind worlds full of nude fantasy women... "John Carter's Mars", "Den", and even Conan all exist. But Gor is just hate-fiction. Likewise, all the allowances for the terrorist Confederate flag, etc...).

But some need to be still there or maybe even expanded. The ability to have 'adult lives' needs to be there, and that means a better division than the current G,M,A mess - brought about only because the original mainland mixed G and M together, so they had to make 'A' to replace the purpose that 'M' is really for...
- Things like this, like region zoning issues, need to be better planned out to prevent rather than cause future problems.

In tech design, you should always plan for your project to be able to expand out to the unexpected - which means you do not build in things that cannot be expanded upon or changed flexibly... and the old rating system mash up is SL's great example of this, but not the only one (the linking of avatar names to UUIDs using the bound 'name' variable that is always attached to all UUIDs is the most extreme example of this... it is why we now have the single user name mess in SL... the name that is attached to a UUID... should NEVER have been exposed to the user. It should have stayed a hidden variable, and we should have started with only the display name concept and the ability for scripts to pass and recieve UUIDs).

I see some commentary about the choice to lock current Sansar down to high end 3D developers (Maya content creators). This has frustrated me too, but I actually see the logic to it. SL is full of badly made bloated content. All Sculpties are lag beasts that should be removed. Much of mesh is badly optimized and we even have people who advertise that their skills are subpar by advertising that a model is high polygon... high polygon is ONLY a selling point in fine art. In live 3D gaming, its a very BAD thing...

- So locking the original world development down to people who are likely to have professional skills means they can control at least in what will be the initial library, the issue of proper optimization... and keep lag under control while also doing things like setting up a common scale and common object design model.
- If this is done right, it will pay off big in the long term.

But the panic I see in the comments here, coupled with sheer irrationality... is just baffling.

[DaCrazy]

I just wonder who make the decision about the high end 3d developers and why only maya? There are more 3d programs vailible with outstanding qualified people. But maybe the LL 3d Maya content creators do not know them?

[Vivienne Schell]

That´s not panic, it´s pure realism.

No one doubts that a staff of capable coders can hack some working 3D VR platform.

But given the well known Linden Lab record of bad management, false perseptions, terrible mistakes and more or less disasterous tactical and strategical business decisions off the pure tech ground, everyone can doubt that this company is able to create something appealing set up onto this tech platform.

Altberg was hired by the board to terminate, not to support Second Life. He´s a killer, not a salvator. Killers are not exactly born to create or foster or even support life. And without life this new glorious shiny with all the glorious professional shinie but lifeless 3D content will just be dead on arrival. As dead as pixels can be.

[DaCrazy]

Good point.........the scripting. What it will be ?

[Vivienne Schell]

Oh, look at what "functionality" and kind of "VR" Linden Lab ever favored: "The Wilderness" and other teeth- and lifeless, boring stuff which does not even disturb the bodily waves of an unborn baby. Their outstanding strategists certainly target the "millions of future customers" which are not born yet. After messing up completely with the ones alive. "Next Generation", you know....

[Vivienne Schell]

Gordon, no one talks of "evil", but mostly "incompetence". Even Linden Boys like you cannot denie that this company messed up whatever chance it had to establish Second Life in mainstream when they actually HAD this chance (during and after the big hype). And they messed up any other chance later on. So why do you think this happened? Because of the media, the customers "who hate Second Life" or whomsoever? Second Life initially received BIG support and BIG attention by the media, by users and customers and even business and education. Do you really blame the disasterous failure in keeping these customers and supporters on the customers and supporters? And do you really expect the same company which permanently demonstrated extraordinary talent in messing up their own mainstream success (over more than 10 years) to come up with another VR environment and business model which will be better managed? Dream on.

Project Sansar is dooomed to fail initially, just because there is a terribe, elementary conceptional error: Asset incompatibility with Second Life. Whoever had the idiotic idea of excluding Second life Content from this brave new world should be fired immediately. Even Microsoft isn´t stupid or reckless enough to cut any kind of asset migration paths. It´s an unbelievable stupidity and it WILL get punished. And believe me, a software company making such a grievious mistake....oh my. What do you expect for the rest of this project?

[irihapeti]

@Vivienne

setting aside the technical aspects of transistioning some assets (scripts and sculpts for example) theres the issue of RL intellectual property rights of the creators of this stuff

the ToS (to conform with RL law) says that I the asset creator has to agree to allow LL to distribute my intellectual property to others

if I do not agree then LL cannot do this

the LL ToS has been rewritten to be specific about this, that it allows LL to distribute assets on platforms other than SL. However if a asset creator has not agreed then LL cant do this. They cant automagic transfer the assets to another platform. They be in breach of the RL law if they do

+

as the creator of the assets I have all the resources of my stuff already. My textures, sounds, meshes, scuplt maps, animations, etc. My prim models as well which I can convert to other forms as I choose

i can upload these to any platform any time

+

for stuff I bought from others in SL then unless the asset creator has agreed to allow their stuff to be distributed on other platforms (agreed to the rewritten ToS) then I cant take the stuff I bought with me to another platform

in the same way I cant export my SL stuff I bought to OpenSim for example, unless the asset creators have agreed for me to do this

[Estelle Pienaar]

There is a posibility that SL will end. There is a certainty that your first life will end. Don't panic! A lot of good things and arguments have been said here, but unfortunately so many more totally stupid things. Panic has never lead to highest brain performances, has it? It's obvious when reading some of the comments...

[Martina Huptokova]

This blog is now getting dedicated Youtube videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b25d9z-n1Os

Hamlet his article is getting attention.

Good!

[Lavender Larry]

In Sansar the thing is linden lab will give them all some special advantages because half are friends/family of lindens in real life.

all the past Favorites & family getting that free ride all over again.

[Desmond Shang]

One of the things anyone in business has to do, is predict the future. And not only be right about that future, but sufficiently right about it such that they financially thrive.

As such, I'm really not terribly concerned about Linden's new platform.

First point: Linden has to do *something* unless they want to be just four guys working out of a strip mall in Milpitas. Which is great for the four guys, but probably the board would take issue with this.

Admittedly, there are still over two million America Online dialup subscribers as I write this, and it's still possible to send a telegram in much of the world. It's still possible to buy typewriter ribbons and phones with actual dials. Rest assured, the communities that use such things are dedicated. But they are what I'd call 'post~endangered' tech; stuff so esoteric that no matter what the future holds, it won't really matter to those communities. The biggest threat to such technologies that the customers die off. Millenial era online worlds are becoming 'post~endangered' technologies. Seriously, Everquest and Ultima Online should have been gone a long time ago. They aren't. The existence of Fallout Four isn't going to even make a dent in them.

Second point. While whatever they make will have clear, obvious differences from say a game engine like Unity, basically any world creating sort of thing will be a kind of "Unity Lite" for laymen. And whatever market they make to service those games will smell a great deal like the Unity asset store. Unlike Unity though, it's going to be a bit more 'walled garden' if there's any kind of enforced online tech compatibility. And any business with common sense won't allow third party hosts unless you pay some kind of licence or other significant fees. Just like you would do with a proper game engine. So hey, great, whatever.

Third point, it won't be Linden that cannibalises its userbase. It will be the entrepreneurial residents that do it. Say for instance some entrepreneurial resident makes 'medieval world' or something and captures a large portion of that community, or maybe even a large portion of the grid.

If anything, and I'm going to make a verrrry big prediction here, odds are extremely good that a game engine styled platform *will* fall prey to a few 'apex predator' entrepreneurs. Far more so than SL itself. Consider that there's only so much active userbase around, unless you've got the marketing budget of Blizzard. Land doesn't matter. Objects don't matter. But society and vivacity critically matters, as well as creative control and customer care.

These worlds won't be anywhere near professional quality, either. To put it in perspective, a world with the quality of Crysis 3 required something like 100 people, two years and 60+ million, even while using Cryengine. A regular user might come up with 100 active nonprofessionals and two years, but not 60+ million.

So hey, great, there's a sort of sandboxy place for people to mess around with, why not. I've heard the comparison "Garry's Mod that costs money" but I'm pretty sure they will do better than that.

If the sky is falling on SL, well, it's slowly falling anyway, as it is on all tech. Nothing new there. As far as I'm concerned, we are in a kind of fin de siecle of 20th century virtual tech, soon to be radically surpassed with Hololens and Magic Leap and... other things quietly in the works. Leaving online games, SL and Occulus sorts of things as tiny subsets of what is possible. Even game engines already sort of had their heyday; almost anyone with slight tech ability can buy one and churn out apps with lush worlds, and inworld content sales nowadays. You can already buy hundreds of goofy worlds like say a 'stray cat simulator' on Google Play for pennies. But I doubt such worlds will make a lot of SL customers stray like feral cats, themselves.

Final thought: what a game engine 'world' *does* offer, is a sort of unique opportunity to the owners of it. Inherently, it's a bit of a technology incubator. Say someone does manage to make a good business on a few of these, Linden by definition will be a sort of partner, possibly even an angel investor, and possibly having significant share of intellectual property and income. Something to consider, both the pro's and cons.

As for myself, I'm sitting this one out. There could be something viable with their new platform, but right now I'm making far too much doing other things, to justify the risk. Which I might reconsider if perhaps this fellow California corporation would accept direct business to business phone calls about routine matters as my California corporation (and just about every other corporation in the state) does. I do business with Fortune 1000 companies all day long that will take calls, and even face time as needed at business appropriate levels. It's no big deal; I rarely have to call anyone and personally hate most corporate meetings. But this little California corporation makes customers deal with a 'Scout' who can't even transfer anyone's call to accounting to discuss something so trivial as a W9 form. And is totally unable to handle the issue themselves. At that point, I have to limit business investment as a matter of common sense.

As usual I would love to be totally wrong, but we'll see.

[Towanda]

The thing that stood out most and that seemed to fly by everyone was when Ebbe said that Sansar would utilize OSX's Metal api and Windows' DirectX to be more performant. That alone is a huge deal as far as hardware requirements and actual client performance go. Let's just all wait and see what happens and where it goes. Keep calm and carry on.

[Sansar Experience Creator]

I am so tired of this minority of so-called creators complaining . Ahh Project Sansar will benefit the real creators for once 'sim owners ' that for years have offered 'experiences ' while getting the short end of the stick.

Nothing to hurt more than paying $900 a month to create a community environment while doing everything possible to grow it then have some self-centered resident come in and tell me what we can or cannot do , then threatens to report us to linden lab when they don't get their way.

Good for Linden Lab for thinking about sim owners in the new world , the ones that put big money in , not the minority creators who withdraw the wealth out of the economy,.

To all the big mouth creators STFU !

you would not even be here if it had not been for sim owners offering experiences all these years,
places to socialize that give second life a good name 'Experience owners ' aka 'Sim owners 'will be top dog in this new world

so try not to hear the hype Ebbe is telling this is the same company who thought no one would want mesh for clothing when it first came out.

Ebbe is Mistaken it will not be the so-called big brand but Experience owners who Rule Sansar and for good reason the rest of you have been given a free ride way to long . Experience Creator's No.1 Content Creators & the lecher fan base they have No.2.

Just log-in and look at random profiles with picks for closed down sims 'experiences' that are no longer around because people did not donate or support them but selflessly enjoyed times there. now you will pay to enjoy them or stay in SL with the rest of the moochers & leeches who never spend a dime or the ones who only worry about withdrawing money.
Every profile says the same thing how they 'loved that place' & 'miss that place'

Done here with the soapbox,logging back into Sansar!

........................................

@ Desmond Shang . Thank you for the wonderful community you have given SL & for being a good scholar of humanities & virtual charity with a keen focus of goodwill towards all virtual spirits.