Why It's So Hard to Create a Successful Successor to Second Life (Comment of the Week)

Good conversation on OpenSim's struggle to become a viable consumer product capped by this comment from reader "Pulsar":

For years Opensim attracted some because of the lower prices, larger regions and other features like that. But after a while, you see those who tried that, go back to Second Life (only few stay or stay in both).

Why? Usually the answers are: «My friends are in SL» and «...all the inventory I have too» and they have to restart from zero [in OpenSim]. The inventory maybe isn't the bigger deal (not to mention those who resort to copybotting, although that won't get the scripts), but given how many people use SL for social things, you have the old issue: People stay where people are. For the same reason it has always been hard to make a popular alternative to Facebook or Whatsapp (or MSN messenger before), until either something game-changing comes (e.g. the advent of smartphones and tablets) and/or you offer something new that works well enough (e.g. Instagram). Therefore a SL clone would have an hard time, no matter the good features.

There's been several attempts to create a Second Life successor -- Cloud Party was showing promise, until Yahoo! gobbled it up a few years ago, where it remains, presumably undigested somewhere its corpulent innards -- but none have really gained traction as yet. Pulsar has a theory why:

Either you make a true successor - offering similar experiences and to migrate all your contacts and enough content - or you aim at something different enough, taking advantage of new market opportunities or not yet filled niches. Now your Facebook -> Instagram equivalent, rather than VR headgear, would be more likely a mobile-based virtual world. Which isn't an SL adjusted to run on those devices, but something truly new and conceived for mobile devices from the beginning.

On the other hand, a small screen may be not the ideal for something as immersive as a virtual world. Maybe someone would find the right mix eventually and everyone else would facepalm wondering why they didn't thought of it before. I doubt that would be a SL clone though.

That definitely sounds right. The fact that Lumiya, a third party viewer for Android, is extremely successful, suggests a high demand for virtual world experiences for mobile. And there's quite a number of virtual world-ish apps that are successful, such as mobile versions of Roblox and Minecraft. But Pulsar is right that a totally different approach is probably needed. And in the end, it won't be successful if it's only popular with SL users, but finds several other audiences who embrace it too.

Comments

[Amanda]

The only people capable of building a SL replacement would be LL since they have control of our friends list, inventory, etc. A new SL that fixes a lot of the endemic issues but ties back to SL by making accounts work in both would not be a world shattering app but would be profitable for years to come.

The tech world seldom looks for a profitable niche. They want that earth shattering app or technology that makes them rich instantly. Sansar is not going to be that app. It could be a different niche than SL. They would have had a better return on investment with SL 2.

I really don't see anything in VR currently that promises to be something everyone will need. I see several niche products that could develop such as VR live events.

[SECRET SPAGHETTI MONSTER BY ANY OTHER NAME]

You already have a SL 2. with the title High Fidelity..All hail lord Philip.

[Iggy 1.0]

What is the "need" for a virtual world? The local lingerie store has a saying "Honey, it's not about NEED."

The desires for salacious content aside, something SL does well, a new VW should not begin with what consumers currently need or want. Apple has been singularly able, in the 2nd Steve Jobs era at least, to create products that enough people suddenly "needed."

So what unmet and unrealized needs are there that our current technologies do not address? Philip Rosedale gets compared to Jobs at times, but really? What is there in High Fidelity, Sansar, or other VWs post-SL that suddenly make folks sit up and say "Wow! That's so cool! Where do I sign up?"

We educators kept asking the wrong questions in the Hype Era of SL. Now we are done with VWs, largely. Not all of that is Linden Lab's doing, either, though they didn't help at key moments.

Here's a few suggestions, once we get AI strong enough:

--A platform-agnostic VW with hundreds of NPC avatars that can interact with me and other players/residents/weirdoes in ways that pass the Turing Test: I want them to move as well, talk as well, and if we are in a combat game, fight as well as my avatar. Shag with my avatar, too, if I want it, in ways that would make adult content one draw to the VW if properly managed. RL verification for age would be necessary to "protect our children."

--Rich and interactive UGC: I want to be able to make compelling and interactive content with 30 minutes of practice, content that does not lag the VW. Scripting should be as easy as pulling down a few menus with commands such as "follow me" or "act like furniture" or "dance the Hoochie-Coochie" or "attack anyone in 10 meters" with follow-on options.

--A vast world without lag: I want to be able to race a car between simulators, or fly a space fighter, or sail a pirate ship, with no stutter-stop or sudden nudity as my vehicle and attachments mysteriously get left in the last region.

--A big community: That will take time, but with easy-to-create UGC, really good NPCs, and a big playpen it can happen.

In 20 years. Our hardware is not there, yet.