Sansar Won't Succeed With Gamers Looking for Derpy Sandbox Fun (Comment of the Week)

From Hancroft's Flickr

 Jaimy Hancroft, a gamer who also makes great SL content, posted some worthwhile thoughts on Sansar's coming competition with VRChat:  

I don't know what they are trying to do , when it comes to VR. VRChat is the place to be currently for gamers that own a VR set, it's also on Steam where all the gamers are, I spend alot of time gaming as an SL resident (I'm in game communities etc, i spend a lot of time with gamers ) and mostly they care about just derping around in some avatar in a room (think Garry's Mod), acting like complete idiots. Just like PUBG's lobby, they don't really care about looks and creation when it comes to 'games' like this.

The gamers that do care about artistic/looks/creations, and they want to have an 'experience', will go play games like Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch, Life is Strange etc. The gamers that enjoy building within a game will go play builder games. They will never move into something like SL or Sansar. This "looking at art someone made' - platform is very niche and not a lot of gamer 'youth' is remotely interested. Which is most of the player base on this planet.

To be more exact, most gamers in the world are casual mobile gamers, while Minecraft and Roblox have huge userbases in the tens of millions each, even though those have a "looking at art someone made" aspect. But if she's referring to hardcore Steam gamers, her point is stronger. And she argues Sansar is facing a huge demographic challenge:

I started in SL when I was in my 20s (when it was derpy fun too), I'm 30+ now and a lot of my friends in there were older, which means they are now 40+, 50+, maybe there are some younger people, but I'm sure it's not a whole lot, a lot of residents now have been 8yr+in SL as well and won't even move completely to Sansar 'cause of comfort and 90% not owning a VR headset.

This is my opinion and everyone can disagree but: Sansar will never completely be a success since it's catered to only a very small demographic plus it's highly incorporated with VR, something not everyone owns. As long as they cater to that audience it's not going to go anywhere super huge. Sure it will be a 'visit this art museum'-simulator or whatever it is, right now for a few people that appreciate these things, but it's not going to be enough. It won't ever hit the Steam charts and have 30,000 concurrent players .

As for SL, I fear it's going to hit a bump in the future with it becoming more and more expensive for creators. Right now the economy is 'ok' but i can't say with full confidence SL has another very successful 10 years in them. Unless they suddenly found a marketer that knows how to perform miracles.

Anyways, SORRY FOR THE DOWNER. Positives: I still love creating for SL, it's like one big dysfunctional fun family. And I'm very curious to see what Sansar will pull out of their magic hat.

She's probably right that Sansar will never be a success with the Steam crowd, though fortunately, that's just a sliver of the overall market for people who enjoy immersive 3D experiences.

Comments

[Susan]

Right now, those with VR headsets are going wherever others with VR headsets are. That isn't a lot of places when it comes for virtual worlds. VRChat is popular now but people will tire of Ugandan trolling soon enough. Sansar is still in beta and has a lot more coming. I think it was smart of them to build their own game engine rather than rely on Unity as Sinewave Space and VRChat have done. It may take longer to get all the goodies that the others have from the start, but it will pay off later on. Sansar won't have broken content if Unity changes. Sansar certainly has more user-friendly creation than the Unity SDK. They made a very smart alliance with Marvelous Designer and I suspect we'll see more of that kind of thing coming up. I don't give much credit to anyone who says Sansar will never be a success at this point in the game.

[huck]

That Ski school graduate running SL sure knows what he's doing.

[Medhue]

Take note, that he makes content. See, goofing around is all cool and stuff when you're a kid, and have no incentive to be productive. As you actually grow up, being productive is kind of a requirement. You can sweat it out in a factory, or sit at a desk doing meanless work. Or, you can learn a little about 3D, and build a business in some of the most free market environments with little to no creative limit, working alone, with friends, or on a team. I mean, making a place to DERp around in is fricken easy. Just about any platform can do that. Creating a complex platform that allows for the range of human fun and interaction that rivals, or surpasses the real world, that is difficult. Derping doesn't pay the bills, and eventually, these kids will need jobs. What better job could there be, than creating things out of nothing, like a GOD?

[Vivivenne]

Sansar will ever stay a major flop, generally, as slong as it takes more than 20 aeconds to log into an experience, anyway.

About "gamers": Gamers want action, and there simply isn´t "action" at Sansar. Unfortunately the recent major "action" is boiled down to a few minutes of login attempts, while the available "action" after this action is not worth the spent time at all. And if there is a tiny little bit of "action", it´s buggy, boring after five minutes and/or pretty clueless.

Gamers also want other gamers to share a task or activity or whatsoever with. And because there are no gamers in a game hostile environment....forget it.

So far Sansar is a 3D sighteeing tour with sandbox character, and even this sightseeing tour does not justify the amount of time and attention it demands.

Maybe in 10 years or so.

[Clara Seller]

I have to agree with Susan, because she's never been wrong. The genius of Sansar creators has been their ability to ostracize nearly everyone who contributed the vast resources in it's creation. Phase One, the Promise Phase, was the wealth transfer and secret construction. The current Phase Two is depletion and stagnation, much like creating a desert from a fertile river valley. Phase Three is the Patience Phase. When every other idea on Earth has failed, the vast wasteland of Sansar will be ready to embrace it's people much like the Great Mohave embraced the Natives. It's all very logical if you don't think about it.

[Jaimy hancroft]

Thanks for the comment of the week
lil side note ima female gamer xD
and i allso create in SL.
Anyways doesnt matter

i stand by my statement , and I completely disagree with Susan.
The places to be for this type of entertainment is youtube, twitch, etc .. And streamers don't stream these type of 'look at this museum worlds' as much as games and others.
Sansar has a loooooooooooooongg way to go ,by the time all these 'phases' are over ... let's say 8 years before its -AMAZING-, by then maybe 50 more places like VRchat/hifi/sinespace/sansar have popped up and sansar will get swallowed into it, theyre to slow for the fast moving technology /games etc.
but then again that's just me.

allso some of these 'kids' derping around on twitch with 200.000+ followers and subscribers .. make a decent amount of money , alot of them doing this full time.

I agree with Vivivenne , It's just never going to be huge, i'm not saying it will never have any succes whatsoever ,but it won't reach what theyre aiming for.

Now, back to PUBG and fortnite :p

[jaimy hancroft]

And here we are today , with LL selling sansar :)