In Survey, Over 60% of Virtual World Fans Expect Project Sansar to Have Less Than 25,000 Users in 2016

With over 300 New World Notes readers responding, here's how large (or small!) Project Sansar's user base will be by the end of this year:

Strikingly, over 60% of you believe Project Sansar will have less than 25,000 active users in 2016. That's is an extremely bearish prediction, and a platform with such little traction (especially after so much press coverage) would be in serious trouble. Personally, I'd predict Project Sansar is much more likely to gain closer to 100,000 users this year, much of them looking for content to use with their shiny new Oculus Rift HMD. *For that matter, if just 10% of Second Life's 600,000 or so most active users give Sansar a try, that's 60,000 users right there.)

Also worth mentioning that some NWN readers believe Project Sansar won't actually come out of closed beta in 2016 at all:

"I don't personally believe Sansar will be open to the public by the end of 2016," as Adeon Writer put it, and opinion shared by JimH: "What I have found is that to find the actual release date, take the estimated development time and triple it to determine the Beta Test release date."

That's definitely a possibility, but even then, we should expect an enthusiastic swell of closed beta users. Especially in this climate of heightened interest in VR. And I believe popular MMO/sandbox-type worlds like Minecraft and Day Z attracted well over 25,000 users each in their very early Alpha/closed beta phase. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong there.)

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Comments

[Clara Seller]

Yes, a good amount of press coverage but very little meat.

I can't help but think that the mass market has a very short attention span and is going to want entertainment served up to them. We're just talking about getting a platform off the ground before it even starts being developed. And that's all based on the success of a cumbersome piece of technology that really isn't a sure bet.

I don't see the SL community united in enthusiasm for Sansar or Oculus and this is a pretty hardcore group of people who are proven to have the goods and passion to face obstacles, disappointment, and learning curves when it comes to this kind of thing.

I just look at most of the people I know in RL and try to imagine them putting on an Oculus and devoting the amount of time and energy it's going to take to get them to the point of spending money for all of this, not to mention the seclusion it's going to require of them. I just don't see it.

[Amanda Dallin]

We don't know enough to even begin a prediction. Opinions based on feelings are pretty much worthless and that's all this is.

[Iggy]

"Fewer than." Sorry, lad, but I won't give up on mass/count nouns, even as the culture goes down-brain. If you can count it easily, as a software company can most assuredly count users, say "fewer." Usage (harder to count) could be less than expected. I expect just that.

[cyberserenity]

A Oculus rift at 600$ no i do not think it will drag the masses to Sansar.

[sirhc deSantis]

For a (loosely) projected mid year actual access...and would that include those that fire it up once and go 'think will wait another year'...sounds about in the ahem Palmeresque ballpark.

[Shockwave Yareach]

If you build it they will come

It has been proven false over and over again. They build DVD audio. Nobody cared. They built DCC. Nobody bought it. If all you needed for success was to just make something then SL would be swimming in successful people.

There is no amount of gee whiz eye candy will make me abandon the thousands of real world dollars I've put into SL. If I could move my inventory to it then I'd consider it, even without land. But simply creating a second grid instead of making the existing grid do all these neat things doesnt make me a happy camper. They could have very easily made the improvements on SL and implemented the new code and pricing structures for sales. But they then would have to compete with everyone's existing inventories for sales.

This is a bald faced attempt to force people to buy everything they have all over again. And I won't do it. If I have to lose everything and start over, it won't be on another product of the same people that ruined the previous virtual world.

I'm a customer. I am not a walking wallet desperately needing milked.