Sansar May Launch With "Small Subscription" Fee, Kotaku Reports UPDATE, 6/23: Basic Access Free, Subscriptions Optional, Linden Lab Clarifies

Update, 6/23: Linden Lab clarifies that Sansar subscriptions will be optional.

Cecilia D'Anastasio has written a lot of great, provocative stories incorporating Second Life (such as this deeply dark one), so I'm impressed that she's impressed by her "Hands-On With Sansar, The New Second Life". Her demo, as managed by Linden Lab, didn't include much content that hasn't already been written about before, but she does drop this mini-bomb scooplet:

Right now, only 2,000 select virtual artists, builders and designers have access to Sansar, but later this summer, Sansar will open its doors to everybody with its open beta. Users may pay a small subscription for access.

Subscriptions! You mean like WoW? Wow. First time I've heard about that. Another point worth pointing out is when the Sansar demo literally makes her want to hurl:

At the demo, Gray and Sansar VP of Product Bjorn Laurin wrapped me in a HTC Vive headset, which can track movement, and dropped me in Sansar’s “Zen Garden” zone. There, I met Jason Gholston, another product director, who was in an adorable green dinosaur costume. The zone was gorgeous, with a deeply cinematic sky and finely-drawn grass textures. He told me how to walk in VR—which made me crazy dizzy, but I also can’t stomach reading in cars—and teleport around.

Cecilia is giving Sansar the benefit of the doubt by blaming her reaction on herself, but this again raises a massive point that's been reported on before: Confirming Danah Boyd's Early Concerns, Studies Suggest Women Much More Likely To Get Motion Sickness From Using VR. Indeed, I surveyed New World Notes readers on this question (the vast majority are the most likely to be interested in Sansar), and these are the results:

All participants who report feeling nausea from VR “often or intensely”: 35% Male participants who report feeling nausea from VR “often or intensely”: 21% Female participants who report feeling nausea from VR “often or intensely”: 52%

So we're likely to read more reports like Cecilia when it goes beta this Summer.

Comments

[Shockwave]

So you think im going to lose all my stuff, including building gear and existing products. You want a big cut of my sales. Youre going to tell me what i can and cant build. And then, you think im going to pay you for the experience...

Land sales. Monthly fees. Cut of the sales. Im not going to pay all of them. I already pay large to have land in SL. Im notpaying againfor a second world. Make everything a single grid or sell SL to someone willing to invest and improve it to a functional state. Over and over youve gambled that millions of customers are just out of reach. And you could have those customers if you threw existing users and their use of sl under a bus. Over and over, youve been wrong.

[YsabelleStewart]

Wonder what small subscription amounts to. Personally I wouldn't mind a small amount, but they could mean a small amount every month, which then adds up. Especially if you're still active in SL (not to mention any other grids). I just want to get in and have a look around, especially to see how good it is without a headset since I won't be using one for health and $ reasons. But I'm half expecting them to push the opening back again.

That Egyptian tomb looks fabulous.

[nelson]

haw haw

[Carlos Loff]

YES, sell the damm SL and go play SANSARSANARRARARARARARARAAAARRRR - Leave Us alone and very happy on an SL where the board cares for all

[Ai Austin]

Small amount will mean we cannot invite in casual and guest people to meeting spaces. Not good. Free usage for normal non-experience iwning users is essential. I would suggest a free single experience creator area will akso be necessary to attract users.

[Dusky]

I might as well code a golf game experience to play during beta for a complete deja vu let down. Blue Mars flashbacks abound. I will not pay for a Blue Mars 2.0. I want to see loads potential and a exciting roadmap upon arrival.

[foxie]

So when is going to be open?you say summer . it's already summer.and I know a few that are already in the game.feeling lost.

[metacam oh]

Sansar is dead on arrival. Calling it now.

[Joey1058]

Heh, I didn't see that coming. If Sansar does a subscription model, I want no part of it. I'm still questioning why I had bought a quarterly subscription in SL, when once I bought it, I realized I really had no use for it.

[Peter Gray]

You will be able to access Sansar for free.

There will also be subscription packages available, and the details of those offerings and pricing will be announced at the opening of creator beta this summer.

[Masami Kuramoto]

Funny how virtually none of the Sansar screenshots and videos published so far focused on avatar appearance and interaction. I keep seeing lots of High Fidelity avatars, some cartoonish, some 3D-scanned and close to reality, most of them animated all the way to facial expression level, gesticulating, playing virtual ping pong and doing other funny stuff. Meanwhile, all I see from Sansar is empty dioramas.

Cecilia reports: "I entered a small, prim garden with lawn games like Cornhole. We tossed bean bags—with realistic weight—into the holes before teleporting around to a movie theater, a play room stuffed with destructible toys, an Alice in Wonderland maze inside a child’s bedroom and, my favorite, an Egyptian tomb. In real-life, this tomb is only accessible with permission from Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities. The level of detail a Lidar-scanned image of it betrayed in Sansar was astounding."

Here's the problem: a photogrammetry scan of an Egyptian tomb will look astounding on any platform, including good old Second Life. To give us a sense of what makes Sansar special, we would have to see avatar interaction. We would have to see those lawn games in motion. But there's nothing, no video, not even a screenshot. What's worse, the very first screenshot featured is copied from a Sansar preview posted last year (!) on engadget.com (https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/21/sansar-linden-lab-vr-second-life/).

Sorry, Linden Lab, but these Sansar teasers written by embedded journalists are phony as hell. Meanwhile you keep postponing your launch date further and further. Can you say vapourware?

[Just Say'n]

@ Peter

I hope you would look outside the box regarding VR as Sansars Identity and driving force, as an Analyst of technology any true mass adaptation will be many years away when VR/AR is able to be delivered without the mask...True life changing VR/AR is 10 to 15 years away.

Patterns was a really great product but was marketed very poorly..a creative platform like that still could be lucrative if done right...I would love to see patterns return.

I commend you for your efforts while still supporting SL myself while hoping this Sansar be a success for the lab, but if all else then also consider other projects besides Sansar that might diversify the linden portfolio.

[sirhc deSantis]

From the article - 'Gray maintained that Sansar isn’t here to improve on or replace Second Life, which he said will be around for a while.'

Bless my ex and her marketing know how, ran this by her and response was 'Ah - lowering expectation script. Page 3, section hahaha'.

Still, its the only thing on the near horizon that may be even slightly interesting.

[Chic Aeon]

We won't know -- until we know. That is obvious so ideas and hints really don't amount to anything. It seems like many of us have lost our enthusiasm over the years -- YEARS? Yep.

At the same time I have to point out that Second Life was nothing at the beginning, so time may indeed make Sansar a worthwhile platform.

For anyone actually contemplating entering the world -- PLEASE really REALLY read the Terms Of Use. Some folks figure that they aren't legal anyway and maybe so, but "morally" you ARE agreeing to go by those rules and that definitely didn't work for me.

Perhaps when it opens to the public the TOS will be a tad bit friendlier :D. Here's hoping.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

@metacam: Beat me to it.

[Clara Seller]

LL has spent years defining themselves as an elitist company plagued by horrible SL customers. With Sansar, they are now just horrible elitists with no customers.

Subscription fees? There's something both pathetic and precious about this level of narcissism. It's kind of adorable. I think it's going to be bigger than Facebook, I really really do. I'm gonna get me one of those headsets and I want mine with extra big antennas and maybe a propeller too.

[Just Say'n]

"I'm gonna get me one of those headsets and I want mine with extra big antennas and maybe a propeller too."

LMFAO!!

Maybe with the subscriptions you get a free Lindimal to take home?