Recent SL concurrency stats via Tyche Shepherd's Grid Survey
It's been over a month since YouTube gaming celebrity Carmen King started streaming hilariously raunchy Second Life videos on her channel -- September 3, to be exact -- but has that led to growth in Second Life use by her nearly 1 million subscribers? Based on data shared to me by Tyche Shepherd of Grid Survey, it sure seems that way.
"There has been a rise since September (though there are signs this is falling in October) but not anything as dramatic as we saw in March/April," as Tyche tells me. March and April is when Second Life saw a spike in usage due to, well, the COVID-19 pandemic and a global quarantine. "See [chart] attached which shows the underlying trend in median daily concurrency after controlling for weekly seasonality."
See above, click to embiggenate. Before Carmen's videos, median daily concurrency for SL was declining to around 38,000. That's since grown to roughly 41,000 at peak. To be sure, her videos aren't the only factor at work (Tyche tells me the upward trend started in mid-August), but seeing as her SL videos have amassed over half a million views so far, they're almost certainly a major factor.
They've definitely been a major factor on Carmen King's inbox:
"All of my direct messages are filled with people asking me to help," she tells me laughing.
Despite this sudden surge, she tells me Linden Lab has hardly connected with her -- but as a longtime social game doyenne, she does have advice for the company:
"They have not," she says, when I asked if the company has reached out. Then amends: "They invited me to an event actually! Just remembered. It was about a month ago."
As for how Linden Lab might do a better job connecting with new users like her fans:
"I’d say showing off more of the fun and social elements of SL and maybe an updated welcome guide."
Then there's the problem with the Second Life user experience:
"Honestly the whole getting started process was the hardest thing for me and most new players," as Carmen puts it to me. "I tried multiple times but never understood until someone showed me everything for a few hours. That could be a huge improvement if the UI and inventory was explained a bit more simply!"
She also recommends adding an "character needs" type of interface, similar to The Sims.
Hopefully Linden Lab is listening now, because while Carmen King is encouraging thousands of people to try out SL, or return after an absence, there's a darker side to the data. But more on that tomorrow (hopefully).
To say that Carmen King being on SL is an improvement is a complete understatement. I say that despite her being well known, she's literally a flash in the pan if I'm reading that graph right. People in SL will get tired of her, and start spreading rumors about her if they feel she's encroaching on them. She really doesn't know the SL community... and I mean she really doesn't know.
Second Life, like every game out there that requires people to log into, will always have upticks and downticks. Second Life's downticks are more noticeable as the game can become increasingly boring much more quickly than most MMOs, FPS games, etc. Why? What's there to do in SL besides chat, club, roleplay, log on a few alt/bot accounts to falsely inflate the actual population numbers that the game really has, make photo porn, etc.? Hmmm? Hell, people that play MMOs can already do all of that for the most part, with the lone exception of mesh creation and making real money from what they make. Lord of the Rings Online has groups that perform in game concerts from time to time on random servers, roleplay, chat and more; and World of Warcraft, an MMO everyone knows, has Blizzcon and has two in game bands performing monthly at the Darkmoon Faire (Elite Tauren Chieftan/ETC, which was made up of RL employees of Blizzard, and Blight Boar), game-inspired bands such as Critical Hit or Songhammer, and literally the same stuff LotRO has, and in excess.
Linden Lab, on the other hand, and historically, has been known to not give a rats ass what people say. Everyone knows this, and no gaming diva whether the person is male/female/trans is going to sway them in any form otherwise.
Posted by: Alicia | Wednesday, October 21, 2020 at 06:28 PM
@Alicia. Stop moaning. You never do anything else. You just complain, complain, complain. Don't like SL? Leave.
Posted by: Ric | Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 03:02 AM
Ooooh more doom and gloom to follow :) Must be a Y in the day.
And Ric - we will always have the Alicias of this world =^^=
Posted by: sirhc desantis | Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 03:28 AM
"Don't like SL? Leave."
This sorta seems like a virtual world version of "America! Love it or leave it!" Linden Lab is a highly profitable company, its regular customers pay a LOT of money to keep Second Life profitable. Shouldn't they be expected to make SL better and more sustainable?
Posted by: Wagner James Au | Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 10:55 AM
Should, yes. But many of us are jaded. We know the reality is, LL won’t. It’s pessimistic, sure, but to most SLers, LL doesn’t care about moving SL forward. People feel like LL just intends to coast SL on as-is for as long as they can with no plans to make it become something more.
And when someone comes along saying you should expect more from LL, the gut reaction is: “Why? Do you even know LL?”
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 12:17 PM
In today's day and age, having your game (or virtual world) showed off by personalities on Youtube or Twitch can drive major interest in the product. The success of Among Us is testament to that.
If one YouTuber is able to drive this kind of interest, what kind of growth could LL see if they tried to reach out to more people like Carmen? SL content on Youtube is quite scant, and the videos that are out there tend to not be as concise or slickly edited for interest as Carmen's are (and certainly without her reach).
Not that I expect LL to try and move forward on this platform, of course. They do not seem to be particularly interested in using social media platforms to try and draw interest in SL, even though there's certainly potential to be had there.
At the very least, checking our her comments section could be interesting to see how people perceive SL, newbie perceptions, and why people have dropped off over the years.
Posted by: Mint | Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 12:36 PM
To @Ric, it must be very difficult for you to read and even accept any kind of criticism. Am I right? Did I touch a nerve? If the answer is yes, then it only shows the type of keyboard coward you are merely on the fact that you don't have the tenacity to handle criticism of any kind.
All I see from your post is "WAH WAH WAH... Alicia bad for being critical of SL!!! LEAVE!!! WAH WAH WAH!!!" If you can't take someone's honest fucking opinion, then perhaps you should step away from the keyboard and for that matter, leave all virtual worlds. The difference between us is that I have much thicker skin than you ever will. Perhaps it's the fact that I actually see SL for what it really is after finally leaving the game. Or, perhaps you simply can't take the fact that someone has the balls to speak their fucking mind.
At least I have the courage to speak up and speak my mind.
To @Wagner, LL is expected to make SL better and more sustainable after selling Sansar off. However, SL isn't the virtual world version of "America! Love it or leave it!". In fact, it's more akin to the "Believe or Die!" doctrine from a Marvel Comics creation called the Universal Church of Truth.
Posted by: Alicia | Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 03:47 PM
I just like how everybody glossed over if LL reached out to her like they didn’t. Then later on she said “Oh yeah...they invited me to some event.” Real crack journalism there. She obviously didn’t go to the event or record anything.
LL seems to understand the importance of you tubers and streamers, finally about 3 years too late. Now finding someone who isn’t a flake to sponsor (which is what you need to do to get their attention) is going to be a problem, since they don’t seem to quite understand what younger users want in a platform.
Posted by: Jenelva | Sunday, October 25, 2020 at 02:51 PM