New World Notes

VRChat Reports Highest Concurrency of the Year; Up 1000s on Steam Since Last Month's Corona-Bump

Data via SteamDB

"We just broke our concurrent users online record at VRChat for this year," tweeted the social VR world's community manager last Friday, "We're at ~17,600 users online! That's more than we had on during New Year's Eve celebrations this year!"

You can confirm that by checking out VRChat's stats on Steam (above), from which the vast majority of their userbase logs in, with a peak last Sunday of 14,606. That's up over 2,000 from February 23's weekly peak of 11,596.  (This also suggests that only a few thousand VRChat users log in via Oculus Quest.)

So this seems like a small but not insignificant Corona-bump for the new-ish virtual world, as more people sheltering in place look for entertainment and social interaction online.  Notably, VRChat's bump is less that that of Second Life, which saw a concurrency jump of about 10%, i.e. some 5,000 users, last weekend. It's likely that Second Life's advanced age over VRChat is a benefit: Now 17 years old, there's just that many more people who are dormant or sporadic SL users, now with more time indoors to return to the virtual world to see what's changed, and reconnect with old avatar friends.

Cajsa's Choices: Powerful Coronavirus-Themed Second Life Images -- That I Found After My Doctor Said I Myself Likely Have Coronavirus

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Mich Michabo’s “One Can Try” captures the anxiety and uncertainty many of us are feeling in this new world of sheltering in place, staying at home, social distancing, and self-isolation. She created a series about COVID-19. 

It really hit home for me when I discovered I myself have been exposed. It suddenly put this cold that I have been dealing with in a new light. My doctor thinks I am likely to have it, but I won’t get a test as I am not sick enough. Seeing her series made me stop in my tracks. That is what art is about. 

Take a look at Mich’s other photos about experiencing the pandemic:

Alyx Estimate: 8-12% of Compatible Install Base Playing Half-Life VR Game

Half-Life: Alyx has been a huge hit VR game since its launch yesterday, attracting a peak user concurrency of nearly 43,000 on Steam -- by far the highest concurrency for any VR-only game on the platform. (Beat Saber, the previous VR-only blockbuster, reached only as high as 4,472 concurrent players on Steam.) Over its first 24 hours of launch, it's probably attracted 150,000-250,000 total players.

Next question: How many owners of compatible VR headsets have bought and played Half-Life: Alyx so far? That takes some rough guesswork, but 8-12% of the potential install base is a safe estimate. Here's the datapoint:

Sansar Platform Acquired by Wookey Project Corp, Linden Lab Confirms

Confirming hints based on recent website/log-in changes, Linden Lab just confirmed Sansar's acquisition by a company called Wookey Project Corp.:

We are very excited to witness the unfolding of Sansar getting a fresh opportunity to thrive under the ownership of Wookey Project Corp., a San Francisco-based technology company that has assumed all operations without any interruption to operations or the Sansar community... Wookey Project Corp. continues to create a new generation of online AR/VR experiences that allow users the power of collaborative interaction through knowledge immersion.

Operations at Second Life are not impacted at all. The Second Life community will continue to be able to login and enjoy SL without any interruption. As for Linden Lab, many members of the Sansar team formerly employed by Linden Lab are staying with Sansar as employees under its new ownership.

Sansar's blog promises a sunny future for the social VR world, with "[m]ore cosplay karaoke, more zero-gravity game nights, more of the massive interstellar shows that Sansar’s known for - thousands joining from anywhere in the world for one-of-a-kind live performances."

As for Sansar's future as a Wookey world, you can get a hint at that by checking out Wookey's About page:

Linden Lab Sponsors Live Concert Return of Seth Regan (AKA Mankind Tracer) to Second Life Next Sunday

Update, March 26: Seth just let me know the event has now been changed to be a fundraising drive to help combat COVID-19: "This Return Concert will be a benefit with 100% of your donations going to help the World Health Organization's effort to battle Coronavirus," he tells me. "Please consider making a donation. [I] will not have any tip jars at the event, but there will be clickable banners to the WHO donation page at the event. You can also click here to donate directly to WHO." 

Here's the kind of live event we haven't seen for quite awhile in Second Life: This coming Sunday (March 29) at 2pm Pacific, musician Seth Regan (known as Mankind Tracer in SL) is returning after a long absence from the virtual world to perform live in a four sim-wide concert.  The temporary sims come courtesy of Linden Lab, which is also promoting the show on its official social media channels and in the SL viewer itself.

The sims are not live on the Second Life grid yet, so follow Regan/Tracer's Facebook page for the SLurl when it's available, join his in-world group "Friends of Mankind", or click this Destination page.

Mr. Tracer amassed a relatively large fanbase within Second Life in his heyday there, but hasn't performed in SL since 2016 -- and that was for a fundraiser to benefit the children of his good friend and manager, after she tragically lost her life to cancer. Late last year, however, he approached Linden Lab with the idea for this month's free show [now a fundraising event to help the fight Coronavirus -- see update above] with any event donations going half to the American Heart Association and half to his mother, who suffers from heart disease.

Tracer tells me Linden Lab was happy to help sponsor the show with the free sims and promotion:

Copyright to Linden Lab's Sansar Now Claimed by Company Called "Wookey" Which Promises a New VR World

Pictured: Sansar.com's homepage (inset) and the homepage to Wookey.com

Sharp-eyed Second Life user Chic Aeon noticed that the official homepage to Linden Lab's Sansar now displays (at the very bottom of the website page) a copyright and "All Rights Reserved" notice for an entity called "Wookey".

Going to Wookey.com takes you to a page with little details beyond promising "The web animated for VR -- A NEW WORLD COMING SOON!"

Well, what's Wookey? Crunchbase lists the company as WOOKEY Search Technologies, founded by Garnet Chaney and Mark Gustavson, neither of which have any background in online games or VR (at least going by their LinkedIn profiles).  However, on his Crunchbase profile, Gustavson lists his core business experience as "turn-around transactions", i.e., what happens to a company that's hit hard times and is put into recovery mode.

This news comes about a month after Linden Lab, having spent an estimated $50-60 million to launch and develop Sansar, announced that the company was looking to give the world a new owner.

What's this all mean besides the fact that Wookey claims the copyright to Sansar? I've reached out to both Wookey and Linden Lab for a comment and will update this post when/if I receive any reply.  

Top 4 Posts Last Week, Including: Second Life Sees Post-Coronavirus Growth But So Far Not VRChat

• Social Distancing: Second Life Edition
• Survey Results: 12% Want A Discounted SL Sim For Educators & Non-Profits
• Second Life Sees Significant User Concurrency Growth Of Old & Returning Players, Post-Pandemic Declaration
• Zoom Website Traffic Jumps 15% Since Coronavirus Outbreak, Social VR Usage So Far Seems Flat

Social Distancing: Second Life Edition

Cajsa's Friday Fashion Pick: Second Life Blogger Kairi Zamani

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Things She Loves is a blog by Kairi Zamani that features fun styles and a wicked sense of humor. This picture is from her post “In my broke a** car” made me laugh. It makes me think of those cars that get retired into the woods along country pastures and fields. The branches and leaves are close enough to scrape the roof and sides. It’s obviously a broke a** car, but are their squirrels sleeping in the upholstery? If you want a broke a** car, you can find one at B-Made Tiffy Car. It was released at last month’s Cosmopolitan event but you can find it now on Marketplace.

Click through to see her reaction to missing a BTS concert:

Survey Results: 12% Want a Discounted SL Sim for Educators & Non-Profits

This is a much smaller data sample than I usually get (25 respondents, as opposed to hundreds), so take this with an additional grain of salt, but here's the results of my survey for educators and non-profit workers, asking them: Will your school or organization take advantage of Linden Lab's post-Coronavirus discount offer for sims? 

Of the 25 who took this survey, 12% said Yes, while 4% answered "Likely will". From one point of view, this is a poor response for Linden Lab. From another perspective, if those answers scale to the thousands of educators and non-profits which use virtual worlds, that could translate into hundreds of new customers.

But yes, most respondents were overwhelmingly negative about the offer -- for instance, "Iggy", who used to be one of SL's biggest boosters among educators. But now he comments: