Here's the results of my survey last week, asking if you experienced any motion sickness when visiting SecondLife.com's new-ish homepage. I posted that question after receiving some reports of people having that sensation, so was curious how widespread that reaction is.
Turns out, a fair amount:
Reaction was nearly evenly split, with 46% saying they felt motion sickness "a little" or "a lot" when visiting the Second Life homepage. (I'm personally in the "little" category.) If you haven't visited the homepage lately, you can check your own reaction by using a browser that doesn't have your credentials pre-cookied (as that might take you right to your account dashboard) and go here.
The new homepage is a cool montage of fun, fullscreen video with quite a lot of panning and zooming:
I spent most of yesterday's Second Life update meeting from Linden Lab preparing to blog about the mobile launch, but I also took some rough notes on current progress/upcoming features announced by the dev team, including Signal Linden (Bennett Goble) a head Software Engineer at the company:
PBR graphics improvements: The Lindens acknowledged user complaints about the launch in recent weeks, and said that bug fixes and optimization work is actively going on: "So we have a lot of concerted effort on PBR now. "
As for upcoming features, they include several that gamers and game developers in particular will dig:
Yes, at long last, Second Life's mobile era is officially here.
"Mobile is now entering public beta phase which means it's actually coming to iOS and Android now," Linden product head Grumpity Linden just confirmed after a long build-up. "It is available on the app store. Ready, set, go -- don't go all at once."
Another important point Grumpity made during the launch:
Giving the SL app poor app ratings on Apple's App Store or Google Play is not the best way to send feedback to Linden Lab, but it will hurt the app's launch on mobile. "If you have give us horrible app ratings, it will make it very difficult to surface on the market." (That's due to the stores' discovery algorithms, which tend to bury badly-rated apps on listings.)
Another interesting point: While the iOS version blocks access to Adult regions due to Apple rules, the Android version does not:
In February I reported that Linden Lab was investigating allegations posted to social media regarding toxic internal company operations among some staffers, which the company publicly confirmed in March.
Now Brad Oberwager, Linden Lab's Executive Chairman, has an update to those investigations which include strengthening regulations against sexualized age play, and policies around favoritism and conflict of interest. Sample:
The investigation determined that all Lindens and contractors have stayed in compliance with our own community guidelines, as well as unwritten, ethical guidelines. I do not make this statement lightly, and I know there will be plenty of discussion. What I can say is that there is no incentive, monetary or otherwise, for me to mislead the community. At some point, the community has to trust that we, the Lindens, do well when the community thrives...
The findings did highlight opportunities for improvement. As a result, we are making updates to our internal policies to raise the standard for how Linden employees should respectfully engage with community members. This addresses multiple forms of engagement including how we present ourselves, how we interact with the community (even in moments of conflict), and how we minimize the perception of conflict of interest and favoritism in our interactions.
In this context, "opportunities for improvement" suggests there were external problems with their internal policies.
I asked an insider how those policies should improve, and they told me this:
To accelerate its growth in the United States and its presence in the fast-expanding online gaming market, Thunes, a global cross-border payments company, agreed to buy Tilia, an all-in-one payments platform. Tilia is licensed in 48 U.S. states and territories and offers payment solutions (acceptance and pay-outs) for online games, virtual worlds, creator economies, and in-app purchases.
As part of the transaction, Thunes and Linden Research, Inc. (“Linden Lab”), the current majority owner of Tilia, have agreed to an exclusive five-year partnership in which, post closing, Thunes will provide payment processing and pay-outs to Linden Lab, leveraging Thunes’ global network – allowing gamers to pay, and to receive money real-time, in a more cost-efficient way and with increased transparency.
Emphasis mine, because while this announcement hasn't been mentioned anywhere on Second Life's social media channels, it's inevitably lead some SLer to worry if this means they'll be paying more to process their Linden Dollars.
Update, 4/24: SL usage analyst Tyche just told me: "The last equivalent figure I have is from Jan 2021 where Premium mainland owners was 68,409." So I've updated the Premium estimate accordingly!
In case you missed it, Linden Lab unveiled the latest update to its Second Life on mobile project last week (watch above), which is coming along quite nicely. (Though avatars move around somewhat oddly and gravity-free, as if they're steadfastly moonwalking across the world.) But for my money, the big reveal comes toward the end:
We're still accepting private alpha applications from our Premium Plus subscribers... we're looking forward to opening up the early tester program to Premium subscribers really soon.
Emphasis mine, because that will be a pretty large expansion of mobile. While Linden Lab hasn't posted how many Premium Plus subscribers they have, I'd estimate somewhere in the four figure range. So assume Premium Plus users no won mobile in the three-four figure range.
The Premium user base, by contrast, is much larger:
Courtesy Convai,the AI company partnering with Linden Lab to bring helpful NPC guides for new Second Life uers, here's an in-world demo of Convai bots in action.
It's an early prototype demo, so I don't want to judge too harshly, but I think Convai's "intelligent bots" will need to be deployed much differently to have a substantial impact on new user retention. For starters:
Most new new users quit during download/installation, so these bots would actually need to be part of the website/set-up process (and maybe they will).
Second Life is already crawling with bots, most them not as intelligent as what Convai is showing off here -- but that's also trained active users to generally avoid all bots. (So I'm not seeing a scenario where a Convai bot acts like someone's wingman at a nightclub, like the video suggests.)
Second Life is inherently and at its most valuable as a social space with other live human people, so I strongly believe there needs to be a clear demarcation between Convai bots and human-driven avatars. That's not evident here, except perhaps for the android-looking bots. (But then again, many human SLers have android avatars.)
Just as key: Will Second Life's content creator community also get to play around with Convai's platform? No word there (unless I missed it). I've reached out to Linden Lab to check on that.
Anyway, those are just my initial thoughts to this very early demo. Looking forward to how this project evolves.
More feature details from the official announcement and a video demo by Linden Lab's Brad Oberwager:
Last month I reported that Linden Lab was investigating allegations posted to social media regarding toxic internal company operations among some staffers. Now Brad Oberwager, Linden Lab's Executive Chairman, is publicly confirming this, and reporting that the investigation is ongoing and expanding:
I promise we hear you. We know you're angry and you're confused. We are working to do our best to resolve your concerns and restore your trust in us. These are complicated issues and we want to do things right. We will make mistakes along the way. I wish I could say we will not, but we will.
As owner of Linden Lab, I have initiated a thorough investigation, both internally and with external partners, to review whether or not there have been any violations of our company and community policies by employees, contractors, or community members. While early preliminary internal investigations suggest that some of the accusations are unfounded, I want to make sure that we get additional investigative support externally to ensure that the process is fair and thorough.
The "anger" aspect is accurate -- many community members have bristled at the allegations, and the lack of any public acknowledgment of them by the company. But as I wrote recently, there are very good reasons for a large organization to maintain radio silence in situations like this.
One of the sources for my February post tells me this is what they'd expect from a thorough investigation:
"They need to look into allegations of nepotism by some in management, and allegations of a hostile work environment among moles [Linden Lab content creation contractors] and Linden staff working in the Linden Department of Public Works group related to potential nepotism."
As I understand it, Linden Lab is finally and reluctantly making this public statement at the behest of Second Life community leaders and content creators who've lobbied for it -- which is a reassuring testament to the power of Second Life's community.
As for the investigation itself, we should probably expect it to take several weeks or even months, with some or all of the findings not even made public. As I wrote (speaking from general experience):
Convai has joined forces with industry giants such as Frost Giant Studios, Linden Lab, and Carbonated to integrate AI NPCs into their games. These collaborations underscore the growing demand for AI-driven characters in gaming and virtual worlds, with Convai’s technology driving engagement and utility for end-users.
“We’re excited to partner with Convai to bring its conversational AI into Second Life to add new and exciting engagement experiences to our community,” says Brad Oberwager, chairman of Linden Lab, in a statement. “This partnership is just the latest example of our ongoing commitment to innovation in virtual worlds as Second Life has been a pioneer and leader in the establishment of digital economies, cultures, and communities. These AI characters can not only ease the learning curve for new users by providing necessary information, but also help entertain and engage them by giving them a tour of the virtual world, carrying out different actions based on conversation, and connecting them with other players and characters.
Emphasis mine. Given the particular wording, the likeliest use case for Second Life is addressing the first-time user experience, which remained the core friction point for growing the virtual world's user base. Roughly 99% of new users never return, overwhelmed by the complex user interface, and the intimidation of a virtual world that's not a traditional game with clear goals/rewards. An AI-powered Liaison Linden could definitely help address some of this challenge.
Then again, that doesn't mean AI is the panacea to Second Life's core problem!
For one thing, LLM-based NPCs will be notoriously unreliable and need quite a bit of training not to hallucinate. For another, I'm concerned that starting new users off with an NPC companion will distort their impression about Second Life culture, which is all about actual live users and live user communities. Finally (to judge by the demo above), the NPC interactions are still very much in the soulless, uncanny valley area.
Then again, I'm also open to the possibility that an AI companion will be less stressful than dealing with a live human assistant/volunteer, especially for new users who already feel overwhelmed, and want some time by themself to get acclimated.
Anyway, we'll see. MMO game designer Damion Schubert made some interesting points when this tech was first unveiled:
Storytelling in games is ALREADY much harder than other forms of media because we don't control the pace of delivery, or (frequently) the order players encounter story nuggets. Hell, we have to deal with players putting down their controllers for a week and reengaging.
As such, narrative design is an incredibly important and incredibly delicate design field. Because it's about the EXPERIENCE and not the NARRATIVE.
It's not going to be achievable simply by about firing all your writers and replacing them with robots.
Or to apply it to Linden Lab, growing the user base is (probably) not going to be achievable by adding robotic community managers!
In recent days the Second Life user community has been roiled by serious but unconfirmed allegations posted on various social media channels regarding Linden Lab operations.
I can now confirm through at least two highly credible sources that the company is indeed investigating these claims -- both the accusations themselves and whether they have defamatory intent.
That's really all that can be reported at the moment.
