New World Notes

What Went Wrong With Sansar: Victim of VR Hype & Failure to Learn from Second Life's Mistakes

Pictured: Sansar featured in 2016 at a Wall Street Journal event on virtual reality

Linden Lab has probably spent about $50-60 million to develop and launch Sansar. We know this is likely because back in 2016, the company had likely already spent an estimated $20 million on Sansar over 2.5 years in payroll alone. Add four more years of payroll, not to mention marketing and operating expenses, and that range is a reasonably educated guess (if it's not even larger). I've been thinking about this ever since Linden Lab announced last week that Sansar would no be a company-sponsored project.

How was so much spent for so little return? There's a number of factors, but I believe it ultimately came down to two interlocking mistakes:

• A flawed assumption, fueled by Goldman Sachs and other respected entities, that virtual reality was on the fast track to becoming massive.
• A corporate culture that was unable or unwilling to learn from Second Life's early mistakes.

I do not think it's fair to lay the blame square on the company's CEO, Ebbe Altberg. Linden Lab insiders, even those who have left the company, fairly consistently praise Ebbe as an inspiring leader. Meeting in person him last year, I was impressed by his passion for virtual worlds. But even the best leaders must work with the limited options that are handed to them. In this particular case, it's likely that Sansar was already in development under the leadership of the advisory board and Ebbe's predecessor, Rod Humble. (Who was in turn working with limited options laid down by the board and previous CEOs.)

That said, to go into more detail:

My concerns for Sansar started early, when it was positioned as a VR-centric project. As I told Wired in 2016:

How to Turn Your Apartment Into a 1:1 Mirror World for Oculus Quest

Wanted to try out @GregMadison 's recreating apartment in VR idea. This is a photogrammetry scan of my living room running and aligned on the Oculus Quest. #screenshotsaturday #madewithunity

I have to say, specially with hand tracking on, it is an amazing feeling. pic.twitter.com/blKcXVNPgm

— Shahriar Shahrabi (@IRCSS) February 22, 2020

Inspired by Greg Madison's recent demo, Shahriar Shahrabi, a developer at photogrammetry startup realities.io, created this seriously impressive mirror world of his apartment for Oculus Quest perfectly lined up his apartment in real life. Built in Unity, it's actually difficult at first glance to tell which is reality and which is virtual. On his twitter, Shahriar goes into much more step by step depth on how he created it:

Cajsa's Flickr Pick: Bivi7’s Beautiful Slice-of-Second Life Stories

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Bivi7’s photostream is the kind of slice-of-life storytelling collection of snaps that I enjoy. This portrait, “Look”, is stunning, even though it is very different from the majority of her work. I love how close it zooms in. There is this introspective quality that I love. She’s considering what to do next, what to think, what to do. Even though this is only a headshot, it is dynamic. Something is going to happen next.

Black Dragon, Second Life's Groundbreaking Viewer, In Danger of Dying Due to Creator's Family & Financial Crisis

Click here to consider supporting via Patreon future updates to Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer with a cult following for how it optimizes and enhances the virtual world's graphics and for its unique, groundbreaking features, such as a highly detailed in-viewer poser. Supported by a single developer, known in-world as NiranV, Black Dragon's future is now in question due to financial shortfall and family crisis. As Niran writes on his blog:

[W]ith some Patreons jumping off due to financial reasons and more and more real life "issues" arising, the money is simply not enough anymore. Not enough as in, I can pay the Internet bills and still have a tiny little bit for me to get some food if the need arises. However, with my parents getting older and them reaching an age at which the risk of them... "suddenly poofing" is getting dangerously high, they have been "gently pushing me" towards thinking of how I'm supposed to pay the bills when they can't anymore. Needless to say the obvious answer is "get a job" and that is exactly where the problems start. If I get a job I can basically guarantee you that Black Dragon is dead. 

Emphasis mine, because it bears emphasizing. Fortunately, Niran recently added some extra Patreon benefits, including a low-priced option to put your SL brand and link to your Marketplace right on the viewer's front page -- a great advertising option for hardcore SL content creators who use Black Dragon. (Right now, upwards of 7000 installed users, Niran tells me.)

Check out Niran's Black Dragon Discord for more details -- that's where I got these images above below, showing off his viewer in all its AAA-looking glory:

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Lyack Glenwalker Creates Bold Virtual World Images

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Lyack Glenwalker’s “Tomorrow” is an excellent example of how a high-contrast black and white with the brightest white and darkest shadows can create drama. The mood in this picture is lonely, a kind of thoughtful solitude that suggests someone facing a crossroads, but not one we can see, one that is over the edge. I love chiaroscuro anyway, but when it is so beautifully done it is magical.

Sansar's End as Linden Lab Project Angers Second Life Users Who Feel Short-Shrifted (Comments of the Week)

As this video tribute to Sansar by Daisy Winthorpe suggests -- published to YouTube a few days before Linden Lab announced the virtual world's end as a Linden Lab-sponsored project and since seen nearly 10,000 times -- it does have (had?) some passionate supporters. To judge by the overwhelming barrage of reader comments about the news, however, Sansar also has quite a few detractors from the Second Life user community who feel short-shrifted by Linden Lab. Just a small sampling of the more civil comments (relatively speaking):

Cajsa's Second Life Fashion Blogger Choice: Iruki Levee

Tumugiuta is Iruki Levee’s fashion blog. The home page is clean and uncluttered. The blog is teased on Flickr with the full picture and on the blog with a crop featuring an element of the picture. I was enchanted by the setting and set decoration for this most recent untitled post. The location is on Sanarae, 

• Treat Box : *FG* - Valentine Treat Box (Pink Rose)
• Bear cookie : GO RA KU - Bear cookie
• Heart Candy Box : Junk Food - Heart Candy (Red/Pink) 
• 05_{-Maru Kado-} Cat2_stretch
• NOMAD // Heart Balloon // Gold
• {anc} forget. Swallow

Here's another favorite:

Top 6 Posts Last Week, Including: Sansar for Sale, Parasite in The Sims, Minecraft Metaverse Searching for Testers

• Watch: How To Convert Second Life Content For Use & Sale In Sinespace
• Nylon Pinkney Is Online: What Twenty Years Playing The Sims Looks Like
• Linden Lab CEO Announces Sansar Now Up For Sale; Company To Instead Focus “Entirely On Second Life And Tilia”; Philip Rosedale Not Among Returning “Heavy Hitters”
• Real Life Architect Amazingly Recreates Parasite Mansion In Sims 4 -- Tour It In 360 Degree VR!
• Minecraft-Based Metaverse Project Looking For Closed Beta Testers
• Janus VR Pivots From Startup To Open Source Community-Run Metaverse Project

Watch: How to Convert Second Life Content for Use & Sale in Sinespace

Longtime SL content creator Kub created this handy video tutorial for converting your Second Life creations (a bed from his SL store, in this case) into Sinespace -- both in the world itself and the in-game shop. (His own Sinespace shop page is here.)

 

Kub's overall advice for other Second Life creators interested in experimenting with Sinespace:

 

"Try. I think that Second Life is a very specific kind of workflow that we have all gotten used to and it's made things feel more difficult than they are. I can't speak to clothing or rigging at all for bringing that into Sinespace, as I don't make those kinds of things, but for buildings and furniture and objects -- just a little bit of faith in yourself and you can learn Unity and start transferring over everything you've ever made with ease."

 

Kub is a veteran explorer of many virtual worlds, and sees potential in the Unity-based platform:

Nylon Pinkney is Online: What Twenty Years Playing The Sims Looks Like