New World Notes

Will Linden Lab's New 15% Price Discount on SL Sim Tier & Increase on L$ Purchase Fees Hurt or Help the Company? NWN Does the Rough Math

For Second Life's 15th anniversary, some 15-themed news from Linden Lab:

Effective July 2, monthly maintenance fees on Private Estates are dropping by up to 15%! In addition, one-time land set-up fees are also reduced by as much as 41%. And remember, the setup fee includes your first month’s payment... Education/Nonprofit (EDU/NP) discounted full islands will be re-priced to maintain their 50% discount off the regularly priced full islands. The new price of $124.50 will go into effect at the start of that island's next invoiced billing term.

According to Tyche's latest SL economic data, there's now 15,969 private sims on the grid, So by making this discount, Linden Lab is taking an annual hit of a few million dollars a year about $8 million per year [Update: See Comments].

But wait, Linden Lab has a way of offsetting that discount -- raising the price of L$ purchases by 50 cents:

Second Life Land Developers Have (Mostly) Left, Hobbyists (Mostly) Remain -- Comment of the Week

Good point from "irihapeti", analyzing the news that the loss of private Second Life sims is (finally) slowing:

Most of the sim/parcel ownership downturn I think is that historically a significant number of people obtained land and built on it a space for others. When the others didn't/don't come then the land is abandoned.

Building spaces for others often comes with an owner hope/expectation (stated or unstated) that the others will contribute to the tiers in some way. Item purchases, parcel rentals, donations, tips, group fees, tier contributions, etc. When the hope/expectation is not met then abandon.

Linden Lab has never released any data on the status of the others but I am pretty sure that land occupants today are more proportionately residentials/hobbyists now than in any previous year. Residential and hobbyist occupants who have no expectation that others will contribute to the occupants' tiers/costs.

In other words, we're at the point where SL sims are either owned by "land barons" who have a stable income source -- or folks can afford to pay hundreds of dollars a month without depending on monetizing visitors:

Sansar Beset by "Constantly Shifting Priorities" Asserts Ex-Linden Staffer

Take with several grains of sodium, but there's a new Glassdoor review of Linden Lab by a senior software engineer who just exited the company:

I've been on many projects and have never seen one so badly run - yo-yo management, constantly shifting priorities, rarely a clear line of authority (instead, you get directives from multiple areas), constant employee turnover, and almost no oversight...

On the mostly plus side, our anonymous engineer also notes: "CEO [Ebbe Altberg] is great and actually kind of inspiring (the board of directors.... not so much)." His or her description of Sansar fits what I've also heard from insiders, and you can see the shifting of priorities in just how Sansar was just re-positioned from social VR to a cross-platform hangout space.

Sansar Shifting Emphasis Away from VR (To Judge by Updated Homepage)

Linden Lab launched an updated homepage for its new social VR platform Sansar over the last few weeks (see above), but maybe we shouldn't even call it "social VR" anymore. On the new version of the site, the term "VR" is only used twice on the homepage, and in both cases, alongside "PC" -- i.e., as above, "Bring fans together on PC and VR for Q&As and meet-and-greets." This is a very smart move on Linden Lab's part -- and a major change in positioning.

Seriously. Here's what Sansar's homepage looked like less than 3 weeks ago:

Sansar.com homepage

What happened in the interim? Little to no user growth despite a major movie tie-in, for one thing. But probably just as much, the mass growth of VRChat, driven not only by its PC optional client, but its popularity with top Twitch and YouTube streamers. Likely the reason Linden Lab just partnered with... a top Twitch and YouTube streamer. (Also note the new promotion of Sansar as a platform for social media influencers.) 

Can Linden Lab successfully follow VRChat to become a cross-platform with a VR side option? They have a lot of money to make that new branding stick (because, somewhat ironically, its PC-based Second Life is still quite profitable). But also somewhat ironically, the reason I even noticed Linden Lab changed its homepage is precisely because an MMO guru was just telling me it was too late to make that change: 

Linden Lab CEO to Make Rare Second Life Appearance on April 20

Put a big red check mark on April 20, SLers, because it's a Very Special SL Day:

As part of our year-long 15th anniversary celebration, we’re making numerous appearances inworld to talk about Second Life and the Second Life roadmap directly with our communities! These ongoing meetups and events will provide opportunities for you to interact with and ask questions to Linden Lab executives and staffers. To kick things off, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg will be holding two “Town Hall” chat sessions on April 20th at 9:30 a.m. (SLT/Pacific) and 1 p.m. (SLT/Pacific). Ebbe will be sharing his vision for Second Life in 2018 and beyond, as well as taking questions from the community. Got a question for Ebbe? Post it in the Community Forum thread “A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg” in advance of next week’s meeting. Questions will be selected from submissions for as many as can be answered in the time frame. To join either meetup, head over to one of these Town Hall Regions in Second Life on April 20.

Ebbe's avatar-based appearances in Second Life have been relatively rare in the last couple years, likely owing to the company's increasing focus on Sansar. (To a point where some SLers have openly wondered if Linden Lab considered Second Life "the red-headed step-child internally") 

Pictured: Altberg's SL avatar in 2015, when Second Life appearances were more frequent.

Want to Help Philip Rosedale Re-Make His Original Second Life Avatar?

Would someone be willing to re-make me my original SL avatar? I've been spending more time in SL lately (it's just so amazing and great) and I'd like my old look back. This vintage... pic.twitter.com/9kI2EyufXM

— Philip Rosedale (@philiprosedale) March 15, 2018

Second Life fashionistas, here's a chance to show off your skills with Bento, animesh, and all the other killer updates to SL avatars that have been introduced since Philip Rosedale left Linden Lab to found High Fidelity:

Second Life Land Revenue is a "Necessary Evil" But Linden Lab Should Use It to Fundamentally Improve Second Life (Comment of the Week)

It's a unique irony: Linden Lab's Sansar is currently getting lots of press for projects like its official Ready Player One tie-in, but while the social VR platform is mostly subsidized by Second Life land revenue, very few SLers themselves seem to be interested in using Sansar. A reader named Gaga Gracious graciously riffs off that fact, and makes an interesting point about the high land costs that Second Life users perennially complain about:

Perhaps I wouldn't mind the high cost of Second Life if a big investment was being made in the platform itself rather than Sansar which I suspect is doomed to fail anyway (Sansar centralized while everything seems to be moving towards decentralization and blockchain).

However, that said, I have reluctantly come to accept the land-focused business model of Second Life as a necessary evil (coughs!) that actually helps SL limit the amount of land available and thus keeps land barons in business, another necessary evil if users would rather not commit to a high setup fee and can drop the land anytime without loss. At the same time I can see why OpenSim never really took off either, and this is a lesson for Linden Lab too! Land costs have often been cited as good reason to move to OpenSim but what seems partly to have prevented SL residents from doing that in any great numbers is that they have too much invested in Second Life inventories and well established relationships.

Even the fact Second Life is expensive still hasn't caused an exodus to Sansar either and likely never will given the widely held view that SL users are being ripped off to finance other platforms while they can only hope Linden Lab will continue to support SL, let alone improve it.

I hear all the time that SL and OS can't be improved much more now or perhaps the developers just don't want to work on it any more (the article quoted would suggest that) but, together, SL and OS still has a big user base that are not showing signs of going anywhere.

The solution? Ms. Gracious argues that Second Life's paying user base deserves a dramatic change to the platform:

Is Linden Lab Treating Second Life as the "Red-Headed Step-Child Internally"?

Here's an epic, behind-the-scenes blog post from Andromeda Media Group's Will Burns, whose in-person visit to Linden Lab's San Francisco headquarters and meeting with CEO Ebbe Altberg I blogged about last week. Will's also Vice-Chair for IEEE's Virtual Worlds Standard Group, so there's lots of meaty analysis of Second Life and Sansar in relation to other MMOs, along with tantalizing hints of updates to both. Two takeaways stand out most for me:

Linden Lab's cultural shift away from a Second Life focus:

Why Linden Lab is so hellbent on pushing Sansar while effectively ignoring Second Life, or treating it like the wicked red-headed step-child internally, is anybody’s guess... while I was at Linden Lab, I definitely got the feeling that Sansar was the main focus with a near total avoidance of discussing Second Life or its future. It’s technology evangelism at it’s peak. As far as Ebbe is concerned, he’s all-in for Sansar while Second Life is… somewhere in the basement level with the engineers. On one side of the equation I can see why Ebbe would be all-in for Sansar. I’d assume Linden Lab spent a stupid amount of money developing it and couldn’t afford to pull the plug, and so he was likely told to produce an ROI come hell or high water.

Will cites a Glassdoor review from a recently departed Linden Lab employee who says more or less the same.

"Here's the vibe I get," Will tells me. "When I was there, Ebbe was of course wearing the Sansar hoodie, and keen to steer conversation back to Sansar whenever possible. Whenever I did bring up Second Life related things, I got the vibe that he was politely listening and waiting to go back to Sansar discussion and show it off." Which is quite understandable for the reasons Will mentions. And to be sure, Linden Lab is still actively updating Second Life, even moving it completely to the cloud. But the overall shift in corporate cultural focus, away from Second Life and toward Sansar, seems undeniable.

The other point worth highlighting here: According to Will, hints that Linden Lab may soon change the pricing of SL land caused a mild freakout among some Second Life "land barons" who make money by subletting their property:

Second Life Log-In Downtimes Due to DDoS Attack Reportedly Resolved -- But Recent SL Item Purchases May Have Been Impacted

After about two days of reported log-in problems due to a reported DDoS attack across the real world which impacted Linden Lab's servers, Second Life log-ins are reportedly restored, according to the company, which has this important addendum:

The issue has been resolved. Please contact Support if you have experienced any issues with purchases made during this incident.

In other words, if you bought a virtual item from the SL Marketplace on the web or in-world, check your inventory to make sure it's there. Which is all very vexing and maybe stressful to many, but at least it led to this excellent meme:

Second Life Plagued by Log-In Problems for Nearly 24 Hours (And Counting) - UPDATE: SL Hit With a DDoS Attack, Reports Linden Lab

As I write this, I am personally unable to log into Second Life from California, and to judge by reports and screencaps like the one above, many SLers around the world are also still having problems. The problems started yesterday and were acknowledged by Linden Lab at 1:30pm, and there's been about a dozen updates since then, an unscheduled maintenance here, a rolling restart there, and three hours ago, this message once again repeated, for the fifth time: "Investigating: We are aware that there may be intermittent issues with Second Life logins at this time." 

Normally I don't report SL outages as they're usually resolved rapidly, but this is starting to seem like a fairly major downtime. I'm checking with Linden Lab for an update, and meantime, follow the SL Grid Status feed for updates.

Update, 11:00am: April Linden, the company's operation lead, reports that it's a DDOS, and suggests it's part of a broader attack other companies are also experiencing in North America, Western Europe, and Asia: