The Mystery of Second Life's 40,000 People Plateau, Continued -- How Many New "Users" Ever Actually Go In-World?

Here's another clue in the 40,000 people plateau mystery of Second Life, offered by reader lkosov: 

I sat there with the world map open and watched the green dots on Learning Island 1 for an hour yesterday, from 1235-1335 SL time. From what I can tell the player dots update once a minute, so it's an imperfect way of monitoring things, but was easier than creating a new account and camping on the island. Anyway, best as I can tell, twelve accounts joined in that one hour. Saturday afternoon in the Americas, Saturday evening in Europe. If that's normal (and that's a big assumption to make from one observation of one hour's possibly flawed data) that's something like 9,000 new users in a month. Even if I'm somehow an order of magnitude off, that's still a *far* cry from "300,000+ [per month]".

I just checked Learning Island on the map myself (screen capture above), and only counted up to 6 new users (i.e. the green dots on the dynamic map); no surprise, since it's in the middle of a weekday. But I also double-checked the most recent new registration figures I've reported from Tyche Shepherd of Grid Survey, from last October -- through 2020, between 6,000-18,000 Second Life accounts were created every day.

So what explains this discrepancy?

One key factor: A registered user is only someone who's created an account on the Second Life website-- whether or not they actually download the client, run it, and log onto Second Life itself.

About a decade ago, as it happens, a Linden insider told me that less than 10% of new "users" actually make it that far. Many people are brought over via web ads and expect a browser-based game or a downloadable mobile app, and become confused, frustrated, or bored along the way. Very few people own a PC or Mac that's powerful enough to run Second Life adequately, and so those new "users" drop off too before actually making it into the virtual world itself.  In the Squid Game of Second Life, only a handful survive the red light/green light elimination round that is the new user experience.

All that said, the underlying mystery remains: If only 1% of those 300,000 new monthly accounts jumped through all the fiery hoops to become regular users, that would still be 3,000 new users a month and 36,000 new users a year.  Yet somehow, average concurrency never really changes.

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

My friends list, which is about 3 years stale now; agrees with this as a sample size. It’s just the same people online as it was 3 years ago, clients running on their Pc’s around the clock, and have been for years. They never log out.

I have added no new friends

[George Djorgovski]

I also created a new account, logged in, and parked it on the Learning Island for an hour, watching the newly hatched users arrive, while doing other stuff. There were 14 total, and indeed the average occupancy was about 6. I then went next to the Firestorm newbie arrival island, and it too had an average occupancy of 6 newbies. Assuming that there are no other newbie gateways, that would imply ~25-30 new avatars per hour, or ~600-750 per day, or ~20000/month. If indeed only ~10% of the new users ever set a virtual foot in SL, that would match the low end of Tyche's estimated range, but still short of the 300k number. The real question is how many of those ever log in for the second time, and how many of them persist even longer. My guess is that there are really only ~1000-2000 new users per month, who last for more than a few days. That 300k number is really misleading.

[Mint]

When I first signed up to SL, I remember being quite apprehensive about downloading a viewer. I also expected it to be browser-based. Did I really want to download a viewer when I didn't know if I would like SL? And was my computer going to be good enough?

I agree that the 300k number seems much too high. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of 'drop-offs' before viewer download are lower than 10% nowadays given the hardware requirements of SL and general trends and expectations in gaming nowadays.

[Wagner James Au]

"'drop-offs' before viewer download are lower than 10% nowadays"

Yes this was even an issue with casual games on the web. Remember the big Facebook games from Zynga during the web era? A lead developer there once told me a huge percentage of people would quit waiting for Farmville/Cityville/etc. to first load. On a web page. Which usually took less than 60 seconds!

[Janie Teague-Urbach]

I question the methodology of sticking to the U.S. Most of the new folks I meet are from other countries. It's a big world out there..not that i accept the 300,000...but i do know there are large numbers from Europe, the Near East, South America, the MidEast, Japan, etc. Get yourself a good translator with L$400 and try again.

[seph]

"Right now after performance our biggest issue is not getting new signups or even people to experience SL for a bit, it's turning them into long term users. Any thoughts on what you would do? We have some ideas but before pulling the trigger I would be curious what folks thoughts are here. The more varied the better."

This is a quote from Rod from a blog post of yours I remembered from his time: https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/07/rod-humble-asking-hardcore-sl-users.html

It tracks in my opinion. It has nothing to do with a browser-based version of Second Life or a mobile app. It's just that people quit once in the viewer for the plethora of reasons there are to immediately quit.

[Rachel Wales]

I'll throw my two cents in on new users. There isn't much a new user can do when they first join Second Life other than the newcomer sites (they are helpful).

Many Sims have an "age" barrier and after trying to tp into sims that look interesting it gets discouraging.

That was my new user experience but I am stubborn so I soldiered on. I was embarrassed the day that I decided to show a newcomer around and I couldn't take them to many of the sims I thought they would like, where they could meet people.

There are a lot of restrictions. If you like to play with gadgets, well you can't in many sims. You have to be a land owner or you go to a sandbox. I think many people just can't afford land or it doesn't seem worthwhile. Personally, I see myself as a tourist. I love dancing so now I am more engaged but it wasn't that way for me initially.

Second Life is a powerful program. Maybe a browser set to the basic minimum might help with loading and over time a new user can tinker with things. If I don't put my graphics settings to bare minimum on busy sims then it takes forever to load with my computer. That can be discouraging. If the user has a powerful computer then this point is moot of course.