Above: Sansar's Monstercat: Call of the Wild Experience, inset with peak player usage on Steam and viewership on Twitch
After two years of extremely low user numbers in Sansar, Linden Lab's recent partnership with electronic music label Monstercat seems to have paid off in some relatively significant usage:
Monstercat: Call of the Wild Experience is a VR space where the music label will host artist meet and greets, giveaways, and more. [Linden Lab CEO Ebbe] Altberg didn’t give me exact numbers but over a thousand people watched the show in VR via Sansar. “Tens of thousands of people watched the concert across Twitch, Mixer, and Huya, and over a thousand people around the world attended the event in Sansar - across 6 continents, 65 countries, and 675 cities. Fans feel more connected and immersed in the music they love, while artists, in turn, effectively reach more people and places in a single day than they'd reach on a real-life tour. “
That last line is a bit questionable, because while 1000+ people might have visited last Friday's VR-based concert rave, it doesn't look like 1000+ stayed for that long -- according to Steam, peak Sansar usage through Valve's platform reached 172 maximum for that day. Assuming as many came in via the direct client, that's more like 300 users at any one time. So what's likely is there were a lot of short-term visits throughout the duration of the show.
In any case, that's something of a moot point, because the show did attract a lot of viewers:
Watch VR DAY! Join me at the Monstercat Rave - !VRparty from CyborgAngel on www.twitch.tv
As Steam stats also show, nearly 5000 viewed the show on Twitch alone, on top of the other platforms streaming the video of the event. And why not, it's a visually cool experience -- watch above. With so much gaming/social VR activity happening outside the immersive event, on video streaming platforms, it's best to think of virtual worlds not primarily as a destination, but first and foremost as a spectator experience.
Thanks to Sansar creator Gindipple for background on this post!
Comments