Second Life's Overall Usage Unchanged by Sansar's Public Launch (So Far)

Second Life concurrency rates via Tyche Shepherd's Grid Survey

Second Life users may be piling on top of each other to see Sansar, Linden Lab's new virtual world, but appearances may be deceiving. According to Tyche Shepherd, SL name of a RL statistician who rigorously tracks virtual world usage on Grid Survey, Sansar's launch hasn't impacted Second Life concurrency -- least not yet.

"No," she told me within the first day of Sansar's launch on July 31, "there has been no decrease in SL concurrency over the past 24 hours or so." You can see that from the Grid Chart of concurrency rates above -- there's a brief downward blip on August 1st (some thousand users less than average), but that hasn't impacted overall concurrency. To judge by the graph, around 1000-2500 SL users may have tried out Sansar for an hour or two, then assumed their regular usage of Second Life.

However, it's too early to assume Sansar won't change Second Life usage rates:

"I'd say if there was any impact we probably start to see it at the high concurrency parts of the week (Saturday/Sunday)." Those are typically Second Life's usage highest concurrency rates, since that's when most SLers have the most leisure time to futz about in a virtual world. (Peaking at around 50,000 concurrent last weekend.) Since the same principle would apply to Sansar, it'll be interesting to see what impact if any we see in next weekend's concurrency -- stand by.

Comments

[Willow Dion]

I won't be contributing even a little bit to Sansar's usage any time soon. Since I'm retired and have free time during the week I checked it out Tuesday and Wednesday. My reaction to Sansar was a big so what ... followed by why did I waste the disk space installing it.

I'm still curious but I'll monitor Sansar through blogs like this one and others. Only a very significant change will tempt me back.

To me it seemed like a six month old alpha product that was forced into open beta because the investors were tired of delay after delay.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Sansar appeals to a different section of the pseudo-gaming community (i.e. people who participate in activites that may have some aspects associated gaming but are not primarily established as games) compared to SL. I suspect that best case scenario, LL may wind up being able to keep the people already in SL AND still gain new followers as a result of Sansar.

The mental process required to engage with Sansar is subtly different from what is required to handle being in SL. One medium is essentially a chat client with added visual elements, the other is a few steps short of actually being where 'there' is.

Realistically of course, there will be folks who hop over entirely to Sansar due to their priorities being a poor fit for a almost two-decade-old system. The fact that this system still remains basically one of the biggest horses in the house excepting MineCraft's online functionality, and that it has outlasted quite a few other more capable and newer VWs, will not matter - some folks value novelty over a mostly proper implementation of what a VW should be.

There will also be folks who use both systems - it would be unrealistic to expect nobody to find they can find uses for both worlds, and the thing about working with virtual spaces is that unlike the Chinese princess who wanted to "eat in the east, and sleep in the west", modern Internet users will have the chance to do so if Sansar makes at least a reasonable effort to provide a limited but still usable UI for non-HMD users.

And there are those of us who are moving on to other options, or keeping to what we already know and enjoy. Nothing wrong with that either.

...

It's a pretty diverse range of choices, and the only people for whom there is a right or a wrong answer are the providers of these services, and the people who have invested in each of these options.

[Naomi Cerna]

I'm not surprised SL logins aren't really affected if my exprience is anything to go by,I downloaded Sansar made an account 5 days ago and still waiting for comformation email.

[Lady J]

SL is at its best when you build friendships and relationships. I know far to many making a life on the grid for 9, 11, even 13 years. A few funerals. A few rl marriages. Medical emergencies along with a good might kiss, poker night, beach parties, and of courae the dance halls and ballrooms. - THEN add bicycling. Horseback riding cross-country racing. Churchh and worship for every denomination/religion/ practice. It all bridges Real Life. As it is said "if you think SL is a game you're not playing it right.

[Cherry Hotaling]

Honestly the problem is the focus so much on VR.
They will not get an income from VR. The problem is alienating the regular users that will fund them. No one is going to sit there hours on end in a headset playing in a VR community. Keep in mind the percentage of people that have VR headsets is about 1% of heavy gamers.

Secondly the PC users are left out entirely as you cannot interact with anything on PC. You can walk a brisk -1mph, no chance of running or jumping (sounds odd to complain about but if its not there you will lose people)

I have been in and out of sansar during a couple of the beta phases, now for the open beta, still not a soul around. They come in walk for a second then leave.
I think they forget you get to keep or lose a customer in the first 5 minutes. People lose interest if they cannot interact with anything, nor move faster to get to something they see in the distance (I dont meant he CTRL teleport)

I REALLY want this to work but if they leave the normal NON VR using users out it will become vaporware that will get sold off or vanish entirely.

[Pulsar]

This looks consistent with what I saw: visitors give a look, lose interest quickly, leave. I don't know how many of them will come back. Most feedbacks aren't enthusiastic. Meanwhile hardware and network requirements are filtering out the userbase. It would be interesting to know how many visitors are still in Sansar after the opening. It's too early to assume anything, but it these are the premises, good luck.

[Ciaran Laval]

I wouldn't expect any significant change of Second Life usage due to the Sansar launch, people who are enjoying Second Life aren't likely to just jump ship.

From a Second Life perspective I'd expect Sansar to pique the interest of people who used to be in Second Life but no longer are.

[Edgar Button]

as long as linden lab includes bots in their concurant figures these graphs are meanlingless. all it tells us is that thousands of bots will not be using sansar

[Pulsar]

Edgar, on the total number yeah. But bots are always on, while these graphs show also how residents log in and out, thus the variations. Zero effect from Sansar so far. In future it may change or not. They have to develop it more to hope for that. For now they may have lost their first chance to impress their audience positively enough.

[KL Wells]

Anonymously, I have been into computers since the Commodore 64, if any of you know that time period, and IRC (Keyword) you may understand what i am talking about when it comes to using your real life name (FaceBook), I'll never give out who I am or where i live, there's to much serial "S" going in this world and 3D/VR is a bad place to start, I've been in SL since 2007 never ever gave out my true identity, never will I am not from the FB generation, so i never felt the need to share my RL details, that being said I am a MMORPG, 3D/VR type, anything new or high-tech I'll try out, i tried Sansar and the only real problem is not the environment that's awesome it's the character creator, a little more effort no a lot of effort should have been put into it so that we can get that SL feel to it. stating with the Sansar generic AV was so dry and dead feeling, with the clump, clump walk sounds it was terrible. my 1st impressions were like are you serious, we waited a few years for this clumpy beta and ugly AV's, with the beautiful environment lol, they put a lot of effort into scenery but nothing into AV's. and forget about VR/headsets they are still buggy and probably will be until someone comes out with away to tract the eyeball fast enough to reduce the dizziness, so if I were the Dev's of Sansar i'd go into the AV portion of this and hold out on the VR/Headsets until a later date. this Sansar is a bird with wings that can't fly.

They really should try to mimic the successes of SL, and for the love of Pete read feedback and suggestions from every source and try out what your hardcore SL fans are saying, ignoring them will be at you own demise, you know how i know this, the SL in-game "Choose an Avatar" is filled with useless outdated AV's with old antiquated AO's & stiffs. when you log into SL you get this out-dated AV, but when you check the Marketplace, start page you'll get a high-tech super modern SL feel with great 3D the world that i live in, so if you're new to SL, your experience will be of low quality. I can't understand why SL will not give the very best to new Users that may only visit SL once and never come back, it would behoove them to make the best 1st impression on new users to keep them. the same thing will apply to Sarsar if give that same weak cheap impression there the same results will apply, I'am just saying lol :)

[Carlos Loff]

More interesting will be having an Sansar Stats graph