Linden Lab Launches New Second Life Ad Campaign Heavy on Fashion, Romance, Exploration... But Little of What Makes SL Unique

Linden Lab recently launched a new video ad campaign for Second Life, a series of 15 second spots they're promoting on YouTube (and presumably across the web), all which you can also watch on their official YouTube channel.  There's roughly a dozen of these :15 spots, highlighting virtual world exploration, community (virtual equestrians and LGBT groups are featured), with the most viewed categories by far being avatar customization and, of course, romance. (As above.)

They're well-made as far as they go, but to be honest, they leave me wondering how familiar the Linden Lab marketing team is with the Second Life feature set -- or maybe more key, all the platforms it's competing against:

Because unless I missed it, not a single one of the ads highlights Second Life's only market differentiator:

Dynamic, collaborative, user-generated 3D content in a realistic environment.

Everything else (the exploring, the fashion, etc.) exists on countless other games and platforms, usually in a far more consumer-friendly environment and UI, with up-to-date graphics. Not to mention there's a massive market of kids who grew up Minecraft and Roblox, and are looking for the next best thing. (But maybe prim-based creation is going to be featured in another ad series?) 

Anyway, watch the other big ones below. I'm always happy to be proven wrong, because if these ads do lead to substantial new user growth, that's really all that ultimately matters. But unless the first-time user experience and UI can also be made as user-friendly as, say, the Sims franchise, I kinda doubt it.

Update, 4:47PM: Linden Lab also just announced a 'Made in SL" web series and... wow:

Do you guys even remember that there's sandbox regions in there? https://t.co/GkFYlULW86

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) August 7, 2019

Comments

[Samantha Atkins]

Hmm. So you yourself didn't mention opensim which has "Dynamic, collaborative, user-generated 3D content in a realistic environment". The one SL differentiater that is positive is the real estate size and size of its marketplace. Kitely is in many ways more convenient. True OpenSim doesn't have quite as nice a physics engine - yet.

[Adeon Writer]

I have to give them credit though. It's the most accurate SL promo I've ever seen.

It doesn't interest me at all, but it's 100% accurate for the kind of content you get.

[Kym Coxx]

Fashion, Romance, Exploration That IS what make SL unique

[Blaise Glendevon]

If I weren't already playing Barbies on Second Life, this ad would totally grab me.

[Divided We Stand]

Made in SL™ is smart brand strengthening & positioning, and if people can't spend a few hours learning the viewer interface who cares! they likely were not going to stick around anyways. Tired of the cries to dumb things down for dumb people.

Prim building has been dead going on 10yr's why would they promote it if they never plan on upgrading it.

(Hopefully your not going to delete this comment too!)

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Hamlet, Fashion Romance and Exploration are some of the things SL does WELL! I know you're not a fashionista but the Barbie DreamLife XTREEM demographic is HUGE in SL, Much bigger than the "sandbox community" demographic, and SL does fashion better than any other virtual world. The shoooes. Really, I haven't seen shoes on ANY other platform that look as good as SL shooooes.

[Wagner James Au]

> Barbie DreamLife XTREEM demographic is HUGE in SL

Huge in Second Life is not at all the same as huge in the real world. In the last 5 years, Sims 4 has earned over a billion dollars and grew by nearly 5 MILLION unique users last year:

https://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/68479/the-sims-4-has-become-a-billion-dollar-success-for-ea/

By contrast, Second Life has grossed about $300 million in that same time frame and hasn't appreciably grown from its 500,000 or so active users.

[Ryu Garre]

The real issue is a lack of avatar diversity. All the ones in these shots lack a certain ethnic sensitivity, especially bin the simulated Japan ad.

[Majskakan]

Its far too complicated to get dressed, change clothes or use mesh avies for newbies. Call them stupid if u wish but I think its stupid not to realise that...

[Pulsar]

The "Made in SL" sneak peek video seems good, touching the various aspects of SL (and the love part is fun). But almost all that content is...
... made outside SL (and the video itself shows that, except positioning an object at 0:14). It's since sculpties that they took that route, instead of improving the prim system. No wonder that very little is made inworld now, and only a small minority still creates for SL (not counting templates, downloaded content from the Internet, ripped content from games).
SL could have been a Minecraft with steroids. Now it's more a selfie and doll dressing simulator instead (among other things). Fine, playing with clothes can be kind of creative too, except the current situation with bodies and clothing, honestly, is an awkward pile of workarounds hammered into something that was not designed for that. It works, once you are used to it, but I doubt that new users would be in awe with it.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Hamlet, by comparing SL to the Sims 4 you are comparing apples to oranges again. One is a virtual world, the other is a game, with goals. I also believe that this marketing they're doing is trying to reach out to the Sims demographic. For years, LL ignored the Barbie DreamLife XTREEM demographic because it wasn't the demographic they wanted. You had "tech-Lindens" focusing personal attention on the sandbox crowd and M trying to court businesses while not paying attention to the people who were among SL's most loyal users who spent MONEY.

Also Sims 4 will run acceptably on systems SL will not and it is also on consoles. But you might want to compare Sims 4 sims to SL avatars in appearance. The skins on Sims 4 sims remind me of circa 2008 SL skins. And Sims 4 skins certainly don't have the makeup options that SL does. I have SL makeup that looks like RL makeup. The shoes remind me of SL shoes of that period too. But current SL shoes remind me of RL shoes, they're the best looking game/virtual world shoes I have EVER seen. And the HAIR. SL hair looks more like RL hair than Sims hair does.

Sure, Sims 4 has a lot of users, but SL is BETTER at Barbie play...and now LL is marketing it as such....Finally.

[Jenni]

I was touched to see a tiny represented. We are a largely overlooked, or misunderstood, segment of the SL population, focused on friendship rather than fashion.

[Amanda Dallin]

LL has always catered to the sandbox crowd. It's about time they focused their efforts on their core customers.

[Wagner James Au]

" by comparing SL to the Sims 4 you are comparing apples to oranges again. One is a virtual world, the other is a game, with goals. "

The games in the Sims series are largely sandbox games, in that they lack any defined goals (except for some later expansion packs and console versions which introduced this gameplay style).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims

[Divided We Stand]

@ CronoCloud Creeggan

Your mistaken™ you should of said for now. with LL having no current plans for Ingame creation tools in Sansar they have turned all developers efforts to the Avatar Creator Tools.

After SL implodes in a few years with too much avatar confusion(Yes it will get worse) the new shiny Avatar Barbie Dream Machine in Sansar will be ready to take in all the refugees for a new doll dressing simulator experience. (if america still exists then)

SL Now™
Sansar Later™

[Blaise Glendevon]

Dressing an avatar is really not that confusing if you can read a few notecards. I have a rotation of body parts, a cabinet of heads to make Princess Mombi jealous, and wardrobe pieces in multiple shapes and sizes. And it only took me a little bit once I upgraded from system to get the hang of it.

The people who refuse to learn to manage mesh parts do so because they don't want to, not because they can't.

[Morphman]

Their main competition lies in other sandbox open worlds though, like VR Chat, which also provides those features, but easier to use and for free.
It is smart by them not to highlight their decade and a half old marketing model and instead go for the things people are likely to be sucked in by. Then, after people are already inside, they mention "oh, by the way, for a nominal fee and if you have the skill, you can make these things yourself".
Then the potential new users won't start with looking in places where they might be drawn to the newer virtual worlds.

[Linda Doune]

Raglan Shire Artwalk 2019 was shown! Tinies are very creative and glad to see them represented!

[Rubik's Cube Barbie]

"The people who refuse to learn to manage mesh parts do so because they don't want to, not because they can't."

This kind of underlying nastiness is why SL is what it is today... a sinking ship full of self-congratulatory passengers that nobody feels like rescuing.

I'm sue even Heidi Klum would lose some interest in being a fashion model, if she had to do it as a quadriplegic. There's not something "wrong" with people who don't want to manage each intrinsic step of getting dressed every time they have to do it. It's not relatable for the majority of people. They just want to enjoy their clothes and don't need a badge of achievement for putting them on.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

"The games in the Sims series are largely sandbox games, in that they lack any defined goals "

Did you just try to technorati-pundit-splain the Sims to someone who has owned various versions of the game, including the current version? And did you just ignore the fact that I've been involved with Second Life for 13 years, and who spends more time logged in to the modern SL than you do, and who knows the ins and outs of SL and what SL is really like?

You're still making an apples to oranges comparison The Sims games most certainly DO have defined goals as well as the sandbox parts. If you want your sims to have a big mansion you're going to need to have your sim spend time on improving their career path to earn simoleons. If you want a sim to partner a specific sim you're going to have to spend time on improving their relationship with them. The Sims has had goal based gameplay since the Sims 2 at least. Sure you can ignore it and futz around with trapping all your sims in a swimming pool with no ladder, but the game has had RPG style progression systems for years.

It's still apples and oranges, because you control your sims from a mostly "god-view" isometric perspective, but in SL users identify WITH their avatar. Not only that, but Sims do their own thing if you don't give them direct orders. For example, I have a household with 2 sims, if I'm directly monitoring the activities of one and giving them a command now and then, the other is doing whatever their AI tells them to do. Even the one I'm directly monitoring will follow their routines if I haven't a command queued up. That is NOTHING like SL. The Sims games have sandbox elements but those elements aren't like SL sandbox culture at all.

[JohnC]

It's not a competition. The sims “game” has nothing at all to do with SL. And VR chat is just that, another chat room. I fail on all levels to see why promoters of virtual worlds cannot see that this sad old thing called Second Life, with all is faults, and its totally inept team of overseers, is the only space that resembles in any way what those in the outside world call a virtual world. Because they all want to say that they were the ones that did it, and cannot bare to imagine that it already exists.
I hate games, that is why I am in SL. I am sick of SL as well, but there is nothing, let me repeat, nothing. Like it.

[Bill Barnhill]

I didn't see High Fidelity mentioned anywhere, https://www.highfidelity.com/. This is a completely Open Source VR platform by Philip Rosedale, the original founder of Linden Lab.