Adult Content is "Under 5%" of Second Life's Revenue, Says Linden Lab Staffer -- And Don't Expect Adult Content in Sansar Anytime Soon

Linden Lab developers on the Sansar team, Lacie and Galileo Linden, just hosted an Ask Me Anything on Reddit which is bursting with pretty fascinating questions and answers. (Many of them, unsurprisingly, are actually about Second Life.) One notable thread started by "May_I_Be_Frank" delves into a topic the company is usually very reluctant to talk about -- virtual porn:

Is Sansar still taking the position that it won't allow adult content? My understanding of Second Life is that the vast majority of its stable income stream is from adult activity - either directly or indirectly. Is that wrong? If it's not wrong, what market is Sansar after here that other platforms don't already provide?

Lacie at first replies with an answer from the SL team at Linden Lab, "While adult activity is popular in Second Life, it only accounts for a fraction of the overall economic and social ecosystem"... but when pressed to be more specific, comes back with this from the Second Life staff:

So, there are many ways to look at this, so it’s hard to give a true split. In the narrowest definition, it’s under 5% of our revenues. Of course, there are lots of ways to consider adult content’s indirect impact, and that could probably be a larger share of revenues. 

So that "Under 5%" comes with a heavy caveat. For instance, 25% of the entire Second Life land mass is Adult-rated to allow extreme sex and violence,which is a whole other topic. Presumably "under 5%" refers to genitals for avatars, sex animations, and all the other necessary particulars for pixel sex -- i.e., all the items which inevitably led to the unfair branding of Second Life as a game for people who can't have sex in real life.

Speaking of which, Linden Lab's team was pretty adamant that adult content is not coming to Sansar anytime soon -- in part because Sansar has established relationships with major corporations:

At this moment in time, Sansar is still planning to keep our current guidelines to maintain the 'PG-13' rating we have, as we welcome users ages 13 and beyond. I myself personally like to think of it from this angle: If I was a parent and I caught a glimpse of my (hypothetical) 13 year old kid's computer screen, what would make me go "omg noo".

[A]nother way the PG-13 rating plays in is also with what our partners/sponsors want. We want to continue partnering with folks like Warner Brothers, Sanrio, Levis, etc.. and this is obviously something that we (and anyone else) have to be cognizant of.

With Second Life, Linden Lab tried to have it both ways -- porn on some sims, corporate brands on other sims -- but the flying penises kept plowing through. Now presented with the option of virtual porn or corporate partnerships, Linden Lab is going with Batman and Hello Kitty. 

Anyway, much more in this thread.

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

Depends on the definition of adult content. According to other games, most skins would be considered adult content, but Linden doesn't consider this adult content even though it's NSFW.

[seph]

Hilarious, but paints a perfect picture of how they deluded themselves into believing adult content isn't important. With their logic, Second Life's fashion industry would be just as robust if the only body that existed was PG Ruth, that the adult nature of mesh bodies and Ruth skins before them have nothing to do with the health of the economy.

Yes, attract Levi's instead of Blueberry and let's see how much Sansar grows. Partner with Marvelous Designer instead of Avastar and SL's large Blender community, Twitch streamers instead of Seraphim and the blogger community, and so on. Keep actually ignoring what's made Second Life a success in pursuit of big brand names. Everyone knows Second Life survives today because big brands like IBM, Adidas and Dell stuck around in SL.

[Susan Wilson]

It seems LL is ashamed of its customer base in SL. Any long-term estate owner knows that when people get tired of masturbation SL is over. Of course, there are those who aren't interested in virtual sex, I'm one of them, but no way I will ever believe that sex represents only 5% or 25% of SL. I'm sure you could skew things to make the numbers come out that way for revenue, but if you look at reasons why people use SL I'd say hooking up is well over 50%.

[Paca]

Saying adult content makes up 5% of inworld revenue is like saying the counter at a bar earn no revenue. While technically it's true that noone is paying to use your countertop you kind of need the counter to be there to hold up the rest of the revenue drivers.

[sirhc desantis]

Reddit? Home of channers/pedos/altwrong? And you on about 'adult' again? Dearie dearie me.
As for pron in sansar well, second thing I uploaded was an old fashioned John Thomas. Mind you, the avs there are so futt bugly I never got the urge.
And even for 29k over at the 'opposition' not until you put me to bed with a shovel =^^= At least in sansar I could make it wiggle...

[Clara Seller]

By this kind of thinking, all of us porn stars in our own lives every time we take a shower, change clothes, or go to bed.

I just like feeling complete in SL, even though I'm not working the streets.

It seems like there's all of this insistence on dehumanizing, homogenizing, sanitizing, and censoring social experiences to appease our brand new $God.Inc. There's not even a pretense that any of this is about what we want, anymore, or that their catastrophic failure is a reason to discontinue. Nope. We're clearly going to have to kneel.

[irihapeti]

5% would probably be about right overall content-wise

i have 18,884 items in my Inventory

of which 12 are NFSW devices. Clothes, hair, shoes, bodies, jewellery and appliers accounts for about 4,300 of which maybe 10 outfits could be considered NSFW in the real world

the rest is just stuff. I have 12 different AOs. Over 200 dance animations in my various Dance HUDs, About another 300 ordinary animations: sits, stands, poses, etc. And the rest is just stuff. Buildings, trees, rocks, flowers, vegetables, grass, water, building kits, paths, steps, stairs, walls, arches, doors, windows, etc etc etc. Scripts for all sorts of things. Animals: dogs, cats, deer, rabbits, horses, ducks, geese, chickens, butterflies. Vehicles and other rideables. About 600 decoratives: pictures and ornaments, cushions and curtains and kitchen appliances, cutlery, fruit, bowls, plates, etc etc. And about 350 textures that I bought

i have no idea really what all the 1000s of stuff that I have is. Folders in folders of boxed stuff that I picked up from gosh knows where which I haven't even opened. All which I have helpfully named: Stuff, More Stuff, Newer Stuff, Other newer stuff, Maybe keep stuff, Not sure stuff, and so on. Sometimes I just delete whole folders named Stuff, on the basis that if I haven't opened the folder in a while then whats in it is unimportant, so delete

i think this is pretty much true of most everyone when it comes to content. Most of their stuff like mine is just ordinary everyday stuff. There might be a few people who have more NSFW stuff than not. But I am pretty sure that would be a small number of people, even of those who are into A-rated activities on a regular basis

[Okamoto]

"Adult Content Is "Under 5%" Of Second Life's Revenue". LOLOLOL What a plain lie (or false interpretation of data). Some of the most expensive and sold items are DEFINITELY adult-oriented, not counting adult activities involving money in-world. Are LL ashamed of making money with sex? I wouldn't bother.

If they stay that adamant about Sansar as a PG-13 (that I have serious doubt are the major of Sansar users now or anytime in future), I can imagine a big fiasco.