Linden Lab's First Grid-Wide Games Gets 5000 Players in First 30 Days, And Should Grow With Upcoming Pokémon Go-Esque Hosting Feature

Linden Lab just announced pretty good results from the late September launch of "Tyrah & the Curse of the Magical Glytches" , its first grid-wide game for Second Life:

The game is designed to encourage a grid-wide level of participation and exploration, and already it’s been played by nearly 5,000 Residents. Very soon, we will enable Resident-owned locations to host portions of the game, and we will announce those details when ready.

I was frankly hoping for user numbers in the five figures, but 5,000 in the first 30+ days is a good start. The most popular SL user-developed games have attracted tens of thousands of users -- for instance, a vampire MMO in SL called Bloodlines once boasted nearly 70,000 players in Second Life. However, letting SL users host Glytches content on their locations should encourage many more to get involved. (Somewhat similar to how Pokémon Go encourages real life store owners to host stations on their property to encourage foot traffic from players.)

Another way Linden Lab could get more players:

Change the fricking name of the goddamn game. You don't want people wondering who the hell Tyrah is (or why they should care), you want a game name with a verb that suggests what's most fun about playing it. I.E., how about just call it: Glytch Hunt.

Comments

[Marianne McCann]

"Somewhat similar to how Pokémon Go encourages real life store owners to host stations on their property to encourage foot traffic from players."

The majority of locations are chosen by Niantic, with limited input by players. The exceptions to this are corporations such as Sprint or Starbucks, which pay Niantic for tie-ins with their store locations.

[Chic Aeon]

With well over 200 hours into the game, I can attest to the fact that the attrition rate is HORRIBLE. While there were definitely more folks this last weekend (after the press release) than in the week or two prior, I see very few people on my runs. I typically go to 20 different places and see on average maybe three players. If there is someone in a locale I move on; it is challenging enough playing against the glytchs.

Much of the attrition (voiced by players on forums) is that the devs have made the game with a difficult entry level. Folks have a very hard time learning how to click on the glytchs (mouselook, pan an move etc) and then when they DO finally get the hang of it, the little things refuse to be caught even when the player's aim is true and perfect.

This is a planned function (misfire) and I think it is a bad practice. The glytchs also tell you that you missed and zap you when of course you didn't miss at all. NOT FUN! Most folks seem to quit after one experience. If it was EASIER to play I suspect more would. Obviously when you get your skillset down it is easy, but getting there takes perseverance. The folks setting the game parameters are convinced that there audience is hard core gamers. It is not. It is average folks just trying to have some fun -- and those folks aren't having fun. For a long while I thought the devs were just having issues getting the glytchs to work correctly, but that isn't it. The "issues" are actually choices as I was online last week when they appeared to be testing settings in the middle of the night and things worked PERFECTLY for an hour, then stopped abruptly at 2:30 and things were both bad and boring -- so we know it is possible LOL.

On the plus side the pinks are back and so one can enter the bonus areas and get better weapons without spending months playing. A big plus and thank you there.

Personally I am having great fun with the pesky little glytchs but the game is not a giant boost to concurrency in any way IMHO.