Sansar's Name Suggests a Place But Its Description Suggests a Platform

Tuesday musing about Linden Lab's upcoming social VR world: "Sansar" is Sanskrit for "world" (as Strawberry Singh notes), which makes it a better name for a virtual world than, well, Second Life. (More on that below.) At the same time, everything that Linden Lab has said about Sansar strongly suggests it's not a world, in the sense of being a unified, seamless simulation with a sunrise and sunset, flora and fauna, and so on. Rather, the CEO compares Sansar to WordPress -- i.e. a content creation platform. The challenge Linden Lab will soon face is the need to present Sansar as a world to consumers, but a platform to content creators.

Compare this to why Second Life, which was once called Linden Lab, was named Second Life. In fact, it was almost called something like Sansar. From my book:

“A lot the game worlds were verbs which described what you’d be doing,” as [business developer Hunter Walk] recalls it now. “You know... ever-questing! Or place names—Ultima, but online!” Linden was working with a branding agency to create the world’s eye-in-hand logo, but remained stymied on what to actually call the place. Ever the Californian fabulist, Rosedale wanted a named that suggested a mystical dreamworld—Sensarra, for example.

Walk balked. “Using the world was already so unapproachable and was gonna be for so long, why put up another barrier, a strange name that people didn’t understand? And secondarily, because of everyone bringing their different idea to it, I wanted the name to be a vessel that people could fill themselves, that would be evocative of the promise of the world, and then put that responsibility upon the user to fill the promise. So I didn’t want to describe what they would find when they got there. I wanted to describe what it could be to them.”

From this reasoning, Hunter suggested "Life 2", and the rest of the Linden Lab team iterated on that to dub it the Second Life we know today. But in retrospect, maybe calling it Second Life was a mistake, over-encouraging users to mainly engage in roleplay, rather than limitless building and exploring. (Contrast with the largest virtual world. which suggests a verb that users readily embraced: Minecraft. They crafted! They mined!)

And now that we know Minecraft succeeded in ways Second Life has not, we can see the problem Sansar confronts -- to consumers, the name suggests a place, but an obscure one, within which they're not sure what to do. While to content creators, the name doesn't sound like a creation platform at all.

 

Comments

[sirhc deSantis]

errr.... think it has been 'bleedin' obvious' as Gran used to say that (in a sort of vaguely worded way) that it is a platform. Insofar as anything concrete is being said.
There was a bloke in the 'Sansar' group in world going on about how he had built this 4k on a side race track 'experience' and it was fantastic and was going to add offroad and houses for people to rent and and... Taking a look at his MP listings I thought - yeah right, a dozen mesh models of the usual stuff:) Sounded like BS (NDA and all that good stuff notwithstanding) but had to enjoy his enthusiasm. Went quiet when Unity and other platforms were brought up though.
And name wise? Well is as good as any. Unity, case in point, doesn't conjure much of anything. Neither does godot, the latest thing I've been playing with - and losing of course but never stop exploring and building.

[Penguin Palou]

In July 2014 Ebbe gave a talk about Sansar that made it obvious that Sansar was to be disconnected worlds owned by people other than LL. Everything since then has agreed with that. Where did people get the idea that Sansar would be a single world?

He also said that experience creators would advertise their own spaces and bring people into their experiences through their own websites. LL is providing the back end; it's not their job to bring in the people.

[wuhao]

Sansar and SL are much like two virtual countries because the "government" Linden Lab rules and issued currencies. So I will think any country like name is fine.

[wuhao]

Calling them just "platform" are not enough. They are special "state platform". Because SL is a place that supplies all kinds of social activities, and has a government(LL), unique history, culture, economy, currency and laws(rules). There is society "event" and human "action" concept in the "platform", so it can be thought perfectly as a "country".

[Clara Seller]

Penguin Palou has shined an important light:" Where did people get the idea that Sansar would be a single world? "

In the absence of concrete information about Sansar, I think SL users have used their imaginations to fill in the blanks. SL users really want to believe that there is some light at the end of their journey and some promised land. My assessment of the vague information that LL has provided on Sansar doesn't lead me to believe that SL users are going to be happy at all.

If I was going dump on my bread and butter customers, then I'd be vague and elusive while pretending to be inclusive with my plans until I was ready to grab new customers with a vengeance. Otherwise, I'd be engaging my base and preparing them for the new and exciting product that I'm developing for them and do everything I could to keep them from running to the competition that's developing also. Do SL users feel they are being prepared for an exciting new journey or not?

[Mac]

They could call it MySpace - I'm sure that other MySpace wouldn't mind.

[Carlos Loff]

Second Life is a great name and it covers much more onvwhat you can do there. Regarding building and creation that comes right after you try it and like it - If you ask any actual roleplau user if they would like to create their own world I bet 90% would, so the only factor that stoped more people from building inside SL was only the huge tier charges

[Carlos Loff]

I mean, even if you are not a builder is quite easy to buy very complete affordable elements and open any kind of world overnight - If LL had the intelligence to lower tiers even to a degree that was still the double of Opensim, I would jump back rightaway into SK and use my 3.000$ inventory to launch several wonderful worlds overnight

[Alex]

I have recently seen photos of Sansar, if in these pics we see an approximation of what is awaits us, I do not see anything spectacular and unique in Sansar. No matter what name or attribution they give to Sansar. Sansar will not be able to supply (at least in the next 5 or 6 years) all the needs of the users that in SL are already satisfied, God ... SL is huge, is bigger than Walmart, JC Penny, Target, Home Deepo And Etc together, how much money do they have now in their inventories? Are they going to lose all that? It would be stupid, it's like being seconds away from rescuing the Princess in Mario and starting over. I am always buying cars, motorcycles, airplanes, boats, new clothes, hair, accessories, etc. I change clothes and accessories of my avatar daily, my wife same, quarterly we change our house, internal and external decoration, and as we there are many users. Who wants to lose everything and start with nothing? Who will re-create my favorite SL places, Who is going to look in a new virtual world, stuff and places that in SL already exist? Who will make my favorite clothes, boys toys, the same mesh body, clothes, shoes, accesories, etc, etc, etc in Sansar? Just to see a new landscapes and some buildings I am going to lose all? I know these same questions also have thousands of users in SL. Absolutely illogical.

[irihapeti]

@Alex

i agree that we will have a better idea in 5 or 6 years how Sansar will turn out (well or not well) for we the consumers

you are right about content. Content is king for the consumer. To get the content, creators are necessary

at this time I think the timing comparative between SL and Sansar is SL 2003 vs Sansar 2017. In 2003-2005 LL concentrated their efforts almost exclusively on creators' needs. LL never really began to focus on building a consumer audience in SL until 2006

+
up until then (2006) most people in SL were creators (crafters as Hamlet suggests in drawing a comparison with Minecraft) to some degree or other. In the main, making stuff for themselves and their acquaintances pretty much. Without any real thought/intention to make RL money for themselves per se

it wasn't until 2006 (when the big immigration of consumers came) that creators, and LL itself, turned to focus more on the consumer immigrants and their needs. There being at that time (3 years or so on) enough inworld creators to cater for the now consumer demands and needs

i think in 5-6 years Sansar 2022/3 will be light years away from Sansar 2017. As SL 2017 is now light years away from SL 2003 in terms of contents

+

the key to the success or otherwise of Sansar will I think be how many creators will join, just to make stuff for the sake of making stuff and not make stuff only for the cash. Basically like in SL 2003-2005

for this to happen (people creating/crafting for its own sake)then LL must make the creator toolset really good. If so then ppl will come to craft. If the toolset and workflows are overly complex then they won't, and Sansar will pretty much end up as just another game engine

i think LL are very aware of this, so their continued stressing that for now Sansar (and LL's focus) is on the creatives more so than the consumers. Same as LL focussed on the creatives in SL 2003-2005

[Estelle Pienaar]

Interesting to read how everyone comments from the perspective of Second Life users transitioning while Hamlet wrote about the (non) marketing appeal of the name Sansar for people who habe no clue what it is. This whole discussion that is totally ignoring the arguments of the post is quite amusing. It shows how we tend to repeat our opinions over and over, even if they don't fit the context...

[irihapeti]

@Estelle

(:

the context is that the LL decisionmakers and those who work with them and others who have their ear, have their opinions also and do also browse the discussions and commentaries on the various blogs and forums

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as consumers our role is to influence those opinions with our own consumer opinions as best we can. The way to do this is to continually reiterate our opinions at every opportunity presented to us

when we do this then we take on the role of independent consumer advocates, advocating for the things that we as individual consumers would prefer to see happen and eventuate going forward

and also attempting to impart to those whose opinions translate into actions that affect us, that we have some understanding of what it is their current opinions are and what their rationales/thinkings for these are or might be

so that when their current opinions/rationales could maybe be viewed in an alternative light as we (as consumers) might suggest to them, then they (the decision-makers) may well be more inclined to take on board the alternative(s) suggested by us the consumers

[Livio]

Sorry i don't understand what mean "strongly suggests it's not a world, in the sense of being a unified, seamless simulation with a sunrise and sunset, flora and fauna, and so on". SL is a world with seamless simulation etc etc? The fragmentation is so granular that a parcel of 3mq can be completely different from the 128mq adiacent parcel... and the sim that host this parcels again completely different. ?

[Penguin Palou]

Various comments on the comments:

Don't think SL when thinking about Sansar. They're not the same and not meant to be the same. Sansar is basically an engine for virtual worlds that's designed to support the Vive & Rift goggles. What LL calls experiences are unconnected virtual worlds. Companies (or individuals) pay for an experience, then build their own content or use pre-built content from the marketplace to fill it. Visiting an experience is like visiting a museum or a theme park. You can do what the owner designed it to do. If you want to build something, get your own experience/world. Note: At this point, there's no online building; it's done offline then optimized and published.

If LL did things the way they originally planned, the owner may have their own registration system that you go through in order to get into the world. If LL did the job right, you could be restricted to whatever avatars are provided during sign-up with no options for modification. A company using Sansar to do a VR experience for their customers (such as kids buying meals at a fast food restaurant) could not afford to allow any uncontrolled content.

The name Sansar is unlikely to mean anything to people who use the worlds/experiences. Those experiences will have their own names. Game companies don't include the name of their game's engine in the game's name, after all.

With Sansar, LL's customers are the people they supply worlds to. The people who visit those worlds are customers of the owners of the worlds. Sansar gets LL out of having to support end users.

Sansar will (probably) get to public beta in the next few months. Then everyone can see what it is and isn't.

[wuhao]

We can think Sansar will start as a creative platform just like Second Life started as role play game, then grow to a more complex thing. LL describes it as a creative platform just for marketing to attract more creators to join in creating content when it still has limited content at the beginning. But naming a thing should follow a long term goal according to what Sansar finally become.

Calling SL as a creative platform is just like calling it as a RP game, is a one-sided perspective. It's a integrated social platform that can even match with a country. It's a game, social media, playground, communities, and social, financial, business, education, marketing, enterprise platform...So I said comparing WorldPress to SL is like comparing YouTube to Unite States. Yes, sure, SL and WorldPress are both Internet, but very different things at the end though SL is currently still a digital country’s origin. Sansar can be thought as VR version Second Life 2. But VR world doesn't need recorded animations which would be replaced by tracking body movements of the user because it's strange when your head entries into a digital environment with a avatar body felt to belong to others, and moves out of your control. Many VR worlds like High Fidelity and AltspaceVR have been all abandoning of custom animations and go ahead to a full body tracking. For this reason VR world needs to be re-designed and many virtual goods also need to be re-made for VR. That gives a reason to create Sansar. Sansar would be professionally for VR players while Second Life goes on professionally for monitor players. There are two different ways to play and handle in virtual world.

If Sansar has a high-end graphics, I guess building content may be downloaded in advance to client anti lag to reach a better user experience for mainstream, like World of Warcraft did. And Creators will upload contents to a alt cloud space, arrange there, and finally release to all the audiences when well completed. But I hope I could write scripts while hanging out in my favourite places in Sansar like I do in SL.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Simplifying what people are saying: "Sansar is like Blue Mars before the went mobile-dumb or Playstation Home for the PS3, or those Unity based Home-ish things on the PS4...but for the PC"