2021 starts with an ending of some kind, as briefly mentioned at the tail end of a New Year announcement on from Second Life management:
Another noteworthy development for the new year is that Linden Lab has new owners! As announced in mid-2020, an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager signed an agreement to acquire the company subject to regulatory approval by financial regulators in the U.S. related to Tilia Inc.’s status as a licensed money transmitter as well as other customary closing conditions. We are pleased to share that the regulatory review has been completed and Linden Lab is now under new ownership.
Specifically Linden Lab is now officially owned by the Waterfield Group, which buys companies that make a decent profit and helps keep them profitable. Second Life is even listed on Waterfield's homepage as a network property (screengrabbed above), alongside a host of obscure/semi-obscure firms. (And, surprisingly, Goldman Sachs.)
And as the author of The Making of Second Life, I have to admit that this is not at all a future I saw for the virtual world. Twelve years ago, insiders (including myself) fully expected Second Life to enjoy a successful IPO, or perhaps as likely, to get acquired by a major company like Microsoft or Electronic Arts. Around that time, we saw Second Life becoming an integral part of the Internet's next generation, transforming multiple industries and mainstream culture itself, with Linden Dollars even becoming the world's most used electronic currency. Now, instead, it's listed as a portfolio holding beneath software companies specializing in contact center technologies and strategic solutions (Digital Data Voice Corporation) and cloud-based oil and gas software (NeoFirma).
It's an ironic end, but I don't mean to be completely downbeat: While Second Life didn't turn out to be the next generation of the Internet, it did pioneer the path for the many next generation virtual worlds that do stand a chance of becoming just that, and will continue being an inspiration for that goal.
Anyway, what's all this mean for the average Second Life user?
In the short term, likely nothing -- for good and bad. As the announcement insists:
What It Would Take to Truly Upgrade Second Life (Comment of the Week)
Fascinating conversation in response to Luther Weymann's somber analysis of Second Life's prospects under new ownership, featuring many comments by readers who seem to be longtime veterans of the game/tech industry, or at least write with that level of expertise.
Among them is Russell Skyther, who wrote this really sharp breakdown of what it would take to upgrade Second Life. It's partly a response to an earlier comment arguing that "Updating SL isn't really all that hard cause they have done it is how we got mesh and rigged mesh and now animesh. They can continue to keep layering new content and it'll work just fine."
Skyther argues otherwise:
Continue reading "What It Would Take to Truly Upgrade Second Life (Comment of the Week)" »
Posted on Monday, July 27, 2020 at 02:52 PM in Comment of the Week, Linden Lab News & Analysis | Permalink | Comments (4)
|
|