New World Notes

Second Life Shopping Ideas: Neon Sign, Swinging Earring & Meme Tattoo from New-ish, Small-ish Reader-Recommended Brands

We're getting some good reader recommendations for new-ish, small-ish SL brands that deserve more coverage. So let's start now with some shopping ideas for the weekend! Beginning with this steampunk-esque, customizable neon sign from SIGNA*. 

"Two of the main artists built roleplay and art sims for over 10 years without doing anything commercial," says reader "Raincoat". "I've seen what they can do and some of the stuff that's in the pipeline, this marketplace is just the tip of the iceberg and a space to be watched for sure."

Two more recommendations below!

SL Merchants Speak on the State of the Virtual World Economy in Its 22nd Year - New on My Patreon

Image courtesy Razor Cure -- view larger version here

Second Life Merchants Speak On the State of the Virtual World Economy in 2025 is my new, in-depth report, available now only to Patreon subscribers, covering a variety of topics, including:

• How many SL merchants are making $100,000/year through their virtual content?
• What L$ price point generates the most sales? How about Marketplace vs. Mainstore?
• How many merchants use Gen AI in their products -- or want it regulated/banned?
• Has Second Life's mobile app or Project Zero helped drive sales at all?
• What is merchants' overall confidence in the leadership of Brad Oberwager and Philip Rosedale?

All that and much more, including detailed advice from Brett Linden on submitting proposals to Linden Lab's new Creator Partnership Program, and branding/marketing advice from me. Get it all here and join the conversation.

Open Forum: What Smaller / New-ish / Lesser-Known Second Life Brands Deserve More Publicity?

One of the very top requests in my survey of Second Life merchants was this one:

Start promoting and supporting smaller/newer/lesser-known brands - not just "top" designers.

The suggestion was directed at Linden Lab, but that's also something that I'd love to do on this blog as well. But I need reader's help with recommendations!

Specifically:

What new-ish, smaller, lesser known SL merchants/brands deserve more attention and publicity?

To set some rough/flexible criteria: by "new-ish", I mean founded in 2020 or later, by "smaller" I mean less than 50 total ratings of items in their Marketplace, and by "lesser known", I mean "main social media channel has less than 500 followers". 

To nominate your favorites in that criterion, please go to Comments and post:

Deadpool & Wolverine Opening Dance Available in Second Life from Hollywood MoCap Studio & Ryan Reynolds' Stand-In Performer

The gloriously dorky Deadpool dance from the opening of Deadpool & Wolverine (SL version above, original from the movie below) is officially available in a Second Life store*. I say "official", because the SL animation is a motion capture of dancer Nick Pauley AKA Dancepool, who actually performed the opening scene of the movie. (No, that wasn't Ryan Reynolds doing those seriously sweet moves.)**

Click here to get it from the Mount Paragon sim, mainstore of Paragon, the Los Angeles-based mocap studio which has been creating and selling these RL mocap dances in Second Life for over five years. Which even if you're not a Deadpool fan, is an important takeaway: The Second Life economy is large enough to support sales of Hollywood-grade mocap animations.

Linden Lab Replies to Merchant Survey on Top Five Improvements to the Second Life Economy -- Company Already "Very Focused" on the Top Two!

Originally posted on my Patreon

Just heard back from Linden Lab on your top five most requested improvements to the Second Life economy! Company spokesperson Brett Linden sent this reply:

Thanks for sharing!! Love that you are going to the community and getting these suggestions. Brad is very focused on the top two items. 

We've also passed on your results to the development and product teams and we encourage the community to continue sharing their feedback, feature requests and suggestions in our Feedback Portal and/or they can directly speak to our product and development members by attending one of our many inworld community user group meetups. We also encourage creators who want to potentially partner with us to submit their proposals to the Creator Partnership Program.

There's much more to come and we appreciate hearing this feedback!

By "top two items", Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager means these:

Despite Mobile, Streaming, Etc., Second Life Peak Concurrency in 2025 Down Somewhat From 2024 Levels

Note: "Population" in this context refers to peak concurrent users online

Reddit /SecondLife host "0xc0ffea" recently posted some fairly surprising data, citing numbers scrupulously documented by longtime SL blogger Daniel Voyager: The number of peak concurrent users in SL every month this year are consistently down somewhat from 2024, a loss from 2,687 to 3,954 month over month. (See chart by "0xc0ffea" above.)

Yes, a few thousand less users online is not a significant loss -- except this loss has been consistent, and has been happening despite a wave of improvements and additions to the platform, as they note:

The peak monthly population this year has dropped by several thousand compared to this time last year, this is probably worse than it looks with increased botting (including LL's own AI experiment), the mobile mania promotion (which ran most of February during the steepest drop) in addition to paying users L$ rewards for using the mobile app and Project Zero.

Read it all here. l'll be following up with Linden Lab on these numbers, of course. It's quite possible the loss would have been even sharper, were not it for the addition of mobile, Project Zero, etc. Also, it's too early to say what impact the Creator Partnership Program will have on user growth.

Indeed, someone else on /SecondLife just posted about their own first-time user experience in SL, praising Mad Pea's game quest system from the program in particular:

Nine Things Second Life Merchants Want Their Own Customers to Know

My report on the state of the Second Life economy in 2025 is almost ready to read on my Patreon, but meantime, here's an equally important report from my anonymous survey of SL merchants. One of my open questions to them was:

If you could tell your SL customers one thing, what would it be?

A deluge of heart-felt answers followed! Most of them shared common themes. Here they are:

Buy in our Stores, And Not Just on Weekend Sales

"Please support your favorite vendors by making purchases that are also outside weekend sales, as all profits go towards creating more new and exciting things to enjoy.

"We can't exist on weekend sales only. It's not worth the effort.

"Buy in stores where they have the in-world stores and contact the creator in case of problems."

Demo, Demo, Demo Before You Buy -- and Please Read the User Manual/Marketplace Info Carefully!

"Demo, demo, demo… demo responsibly!

"Always try the demo. Please support ORIGINAL creators who work hard.

"Please learn to navigate in the platform you use and try DEMOS.

"Read the Marketplace description before buying. No, seriously, read it. Be more critical in your purchase decisions.

"Read at least the 'quick start' [notecard] before contacting me for support."

Seven more after the break!

Deadpool & Wolverine Opening Dance Officially Available in Second Life

As it turns out, the Deadpool dance from the opening of Deadpool & Wolverine is officially available in Second Life:

Nick Pauley aka "Dancepool" shares the moves he did in the opening scene of "Deadpool x Wolverine" movie. The dance is based off of the 2000 MTV video music-award winning choreography "Bye Bye Bye" by NSYNC's choreographer Darrin Henson. This dance went viral on social media, and now in Second Life, we are bringing you the actual Dancepool himself so your avatars can embody the real deal! 

Or to put it another way: Meta merc with a mouth meets the Metaverse. (Compare and contrast with the movie version below.)

As for how to get your own copy of the animations for your avatar, there's a promotional giveaway here from Paragon Dance Animations, the LA-based dance studio which has been creating/selling these RL mocap dances in Second Life for quite some time.

Linden Lab’s Creator Partnership Program Part of Company's Daring New Pivot to Grow Second Life With SL's User Community -- Here’s How

Originally published on my Patreon

Within a day of Second Life’s new Creator Partnership Program being announced, over 300 people signed up with proposals (as the description goes) “to co-create content and experiences that delight both new and existing residents”. It's the brainchild of Marketing VP Brett Linden and Steeltoe Linden, Manager of Product & UX Design, and Brett tells me the program “represents a major pivot in how the company collaborates with the SL community”.

“Honestly, it really came out of a conversation that we had with Brad,” he explains to me in a Zoom call last Friday, “and I think that we have just recognized it's long overdue… there's a desire, I think, from the community, to try to find ways to work with us.”  

Among the first fruits of that effort that SLers probably noticed is the Avatar Welcome Pack (pictured above), featuring high quality mesh heads, bodies, and clothing from some of the community’s top fashion brands.

My own immediate reaction there, I’ll admit, was skepticism: Not only do ultra-realistic human avatars come with a number of negatives (as I explain here), how will new users even be able to figure out how to put them on?

That challenge, it turns out, has been fixed. After the call, Steeltoe shared a screenshot of the simplified user interface he helped create. It's the one that new users signing up via Project Zero streaming will see, to easily choose their first look from this Welcome Pack:

Gacha Back: Second Life Re-Allows Gambling-ish Mechanic After Four Year Ban & Change in "Regulatory Climate" -- But Why Now?

Gachas, a vending machine game of chance to win valuable virtual goods, were banned by Linden Lab from Second Life in 2021 "due to a changing regulatory climate", but now, apparently, the winds of change have brought gachas back:

The decision to prohibit Gacha in 2021 was following regulatory guidelines emerging globally at the time.  We have continued to evaluate what steps we can take to support creative freedom while also ensuring compliance with evolving legal frameworks, which led to the recent changes announced in 2024.

Since then, the regulatory landscape surrounding Gacha systems has further shifted to the point where Gacha can be confidently reintroduced under current prevailing guidance.

No specifics on how that "landscape" has changed -- and Linden Lab won't comment on the record, when I asked -- but I'm looking for recent court rulings in pending litigation against other companies with similar online gambling / loot box cases that might have had something do with it.  For instance, maybe a recent ruling in Antar v. BetMGM had something to do with it: