The Challenge of Joining New Virtual Worlds is Leaving Your Friends in Old Ones Behind (Comment of the Week)

As OpenSim users contemplate the future of their virtual world with a revived Second Life, reader Pulsar brought up a larger point on the challenge all virtual worlds face:

When [OpenSim user Han Held] writes "I am in SL for the friends, virtual families and communities" (and Han isn't the only one) it's because SL is also a social thing. That's a major obstacle that alternative products have to face, not only with SL.

You can create the best social network ever: people will keep on using Facebook. You can create the most secure, easy to use, feature rich messenger ever: people will keep on using WhatsApp, as they did even when it was the worst of the lot. You can build the most awesome town square ever conceived, people will continue to meet in the usual place. Why? Because their friends are there, because people are there. Pretty circular. How do you break out of it? MSN alternatives had only little slices of the pie, but Skype had different uses. Eventually they got merged. No way again, but meanwhile IT was moving from mostly desktops to more smartphones, the new market was growing quite large and WhatsApp thrived in the new land. Different uses and whole new paradigms.

If you create an alternative social VR world, and essentially that, you are doomed from the start:

If people appealed by that are already in Second Life, you can have the cheapest prices and largest regions, but people won't jump boat, and rather continue to rent expensive regions even if they always ask for lower prices. You won't win with that. Only a niche would move there. SL is a niche too, so now you have a niche of the niche, instead of a mass market. OpenSim is ok with that: it isn't like a big company investing capitals in the project and needing large profits. As OpenSim, Sansar offers cheaper and larger spaces, and I'd have an hard time in saying they were able to think so much of the box. If you aren't a creator, so far Sansar is a dumbed down SL with better graphic. And a different account, different avatar, different virtual currency. Your friends are elsewhere, your inventory and money too. Maybe the VR equivalent of the first iPhone still have to appear (who knows?), but meanwhile VR looks overhyped again, and not the next thing as smartphones were. Unless you get something game changing, I won't expect too much.

This is all true, but new virtual worlds can and have thrived as old ones fade away. Often it depends on who is ready bring their friends wit them.

Comments

[Alicia Chenaux]

What I've noticed, especially concerning Sansar since it's a Linden Lab product, is that people don't want to go without their inventory. You can tell them it's not SL 2.0. You can say over and over again that this is a new thing, and it doesn't matter. They want their SL inventory with them wherever they go. They want to look like themselves - whatever "self" that they've chosen to represent them in the virtual world. It isn't always just friends and family that keep them in SL. It's stuff. It's their favorite pair of virtual jeans, their favorite hair, the prim couch someone gave them in 2009 that they can't stand parting with because that person has passed away.

I've said many times that when I go to Sansar or Sinespace, it's like going on vacation to me. I get to go somewhere, see new things, and then "go home" to Second Life. Some people refuse to even go visit because they can't pack a suitcase.

[Amanda]

This is exactly right. To attract SL users, Sansar needs a connection to SL. Tying the accounts together would help. The ability to communicate with SL accounts would be good.

For a lot of SLers I think Sansar is too dumbed down. We have a lot of control in how we look and our environment in SL. At the moment we don't have that in Sansar. Maybe with time.

[cyberserenity]

Sitting with my headset i feel very alone in Sansar and it is not me. In SL and Opensim i have the same avatar. There are a few people around and thats the difference.

I drive a truck in Euro truck simulator 2. When playing the game offline there are a lot of nice AI traffic but still i go to the rather messy online game. People drive in to me. Say bad things. Scream in voice. But it is still more fun.

Any virtual place are it's people. I think thats why i hang around.

[V]

No interest in starting over in a virtual world when I have everything I want in second life. But hey all you sansar and Open sim enthusiasts go ahead and leave we dont need ya.

[Chic Aeon]

In the beginning --- long long ago when someone "let slip" about the new SL 2.0 there was plenty of semi-official talk (Ebbe on the forums) about SL folks taking inventory with them. It seemed at one point that the devs were going to try and port things for us :D. That would have been good. But always there were the differences in the platforms. Animations and scripts were two biggies. So you "might" be able to import a table or painting over (and likely you still can if you made it yourself), but that isn't enough. Money was going to be interchangable. Names would go with us as well as friends lists.

None of that happened -- and it is understandable. Plans change along the way. But by going for the new folks over the ones already in the LL fold (perhaps kicking and screaming, but there) a big section of possible users disappeared. I haven't heard anyone talking much about Sansar these last months, not even after the opening.

I have been the vanguard on plenty of virtual platforms. Most didn't make it, but I still tried to be supportive and help the cause along --- just in case it had a chance. Cloud Party had great tech but no way for creators to get money out and no adult stuff. Put them together and it was obvious that even the great tech wouldn't get them into the show.

Usually I am at a new spot because of the tech -- and I do like to be supportive. AND, for a long while I was looking forward to working in Sansar. But not so much any more. I had issues with the Creator Terms of Use or whatever the official name was. The first one I saw was breathtakingly horrible. I noted on my second look many months later that those OMG clauses had been removed. A plus for sure.

Then there is the VR gear. Even if folks can make things without VR gear, I am not seeing how they can test their work for those WITH VR gear WITHOUT HAVING VR gear. LOL. A conundrum for sure. Put those things together and I am thinking I will be staying where I am. Things are going well there for me. I know the rules. I know the viewer. I have folks I chat with now and then.

Good article. Smart thoughts.