Many Former InWorldz Users Departing to Other OpenSim Worlds -- But Few, So Far, to Second Life

The owner of the now-defunct InWorldz, a commercial spinoff of OpenSim (which is, in turn, an open source spinoff of Second Life) , is working with many users to crowdfund a new OpenSim world. Meanwhile, other InWorldz members are reportedly moving on to other grids. According to Metaverse Traveller, other OpenSim-based worlds, including Discovery Grid, Kitely, and DigiWorldz are seeing an uptick in InWorldz exiles:

I sent an email to Terry (Butch Arnold) of DigiWorldz asking and he replied, "We have received many new InWorldz users over the past few days. We've added approx. 150 new users to our system since 7/24/2018 and we've also added approx. 42 new regions in that same period."

 

 ... I also asked Ilan Tochner at Kitely grid, which is well known for it's unique cloud-based worlds on demand, to see if they were experiencing a similar influx. Ilan Tochner replied, "We've seen a significant number of people migrate into Kitely as a result of Inworldz's pending shutdown."

More here. However, one world doesn't seem to be seeing much growth (so far) from any movement of exiles -- Second Life itself.

 

Since late July, when word of InWorldz's troubles emerged, Second Life has not seen any sharp growth in user concurrency:

 

"No, there was no significant change in Second Life concurrency trends around or after that date," Tyche Shepherd of Grid Survey tells me. We have seen recent growth in Second Life sims, but that's likely attributable to the recent discount from Linden Lab:

 

"Growth still positive since [the] Lab changed tier, no additional boost seen which can be attributed to any InWorldZ issues," as Tyche tells me.

 

This doesn't necessarily mean there hasn't been any movement from InWorldz back to Second Life. I'd estimate highly active users from that grid number in the four figures. However, Second Life's daily peak concurrency is in the mid-five figures. So if a few hundred InWorldz migrants showed up, their arrival wouldn't necessarily be noticed. What does seem to be true (and notable) is that a significant number of InWorldz users are remaining faithful to OpenSim in all its varieties.

 

Comments

[sirhc deSantis]

Not really a surprise. For many, IW was a place to go for some who really had enough of SL for various reasons. Others that had feet in both are not going to shift the numbers much anyway.
On a positive note, indications from the 'diaspora' channel seem to show that people are moving and exploring some rather good places - TAG, Digi, Metro, Kitely etc where they can discover the hypergrid from a stable base. Its all good for the overall meta although it might make a replacement IW a bit more of a hard sell as a closed environment.

[Camilia Fidelis nee Patchouli Woollahra]

Many InWorld Residents were exiles (voluntary or otherwise) from Seconnd Life. There are issues with SL's general culture as a megacommunity that drove them away, and there probably hasn't been enough time since InWorldz came online for that culture to change what frightened them away, whether it was our crass commercialism, obsessions with collection and visual beauty, or unfortunate need for unnecessary drama.

it is what it is.

[Chic Aeon]

I was very active in IWZ for several years. I can't see many folks going "back" to SL. That's just the nature of the grid. And I can say that I am selling a fair amount of things at Kitely Market that are going to Digiworldz.

That's my input :D

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I truly do feel for the InWorldz users who lost their "home grid."

But....there aren't enough InWorldz users to noticeably increase SL concurrency or affect SL visibly. Besides that fact that some OpenSim users still use SL, it's just not their primary grid. Now if those users jumped to another of the little grids, whose user numbers are also small, that would be noticed. Which of course, it has.

the "little grids" have always been a niche market, but it's a niche market of a niche market. And as we've seen, a few mistakes with finances can take a little grid down fast. ONE mistake can kill them.

Personally I think the little grids should charge more for land, to build up more money to weather issues, but that's probably not feasible considering the demographics of the Opensim userbase.

The funny thing is, if someone asked me which little grid's I'd recommend, one of them would have been InWorldz. The other is Kitely, and if I ever seriously made a "third life" in one of the smaller opensim based grids, it would probably be Kitely. (I don't really have the time to do so.)