Now on my Patreon (and only on my Patreon), I'm surveying 14 specific suggestions to improve the Second Life economy for merchants. These recommendations are taken from my anonymous poll of Second Life creators, so it reflects issues they're dealing with regularly.
Next week, I'll present the top three-five with the most votes to Linden Lab, to get their feedback on when/whether/how these proposals can be implemented. For instance (to take three at random):
- Integrate Marketplace with the mobile app.
- Allow users to share accounts between business partners.
- Marketplace and Caspervend (gifting, deliveries, single listing).
Go here to take it. To prevent ballot stuffing and as a benefit my Patreon community, I'm going to keep voting access limited to members. (Speaking of which, join my Patreon for free!)
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."
Gamefile has a fascinating story on the rise of Grow a Garden, a simple farm simulation game made in Roblox originally created by a teenager, which is quite literally one of the most popular online games in the world. Seriously:
This morning, the game’s official page on Roblox, the platform from which it is launched, stated that there were 2,044,359 people playing it. Right at that moment. That’s higher than the current top game on Valve’s PC platform Steam, Counter-Strike 2, which peaked today at just under 1.7 million. It’s also higher than any Roblox game before it.
But how much money is it making? I checked with a Roblox insider last night, and they gave me a figure that made my jaw drop:
At least $5 million a month, but quite likely a lot more. And yes, they mean $5M/mo net, after Roblox the company takes its cut.
Why is it so successful? Writing for Gamefile, Nicole Carpenter points to the game's social virality and the recurring appeal of farm sims in online platforms:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Uri Jefferson is “Pondering on Fate” in this well-named picture. I love how beautifully he captures the light sources and the naturalistic way light works in this picture. I guess we all should be getting used to beautiful lighting in Second Life, but sometimes when there are multiple sources like this I am still amazed.
Uri cosplays Ancient Rome in SL and I first discovered him when I was looking for Easter pictures and featured his singular picture that captured the story of Easter without a bunny in sight. Since January this year, all his pics have taken place in Ancient Rome and they are wonderful.
Originally published on my Patreon. Since then, Weaver tells me Aperture has been downloaded over 1500 times and has been added to Linden Lab's official Third Party Viewer Directory
What you're watching above is the birth of a new Second Life viewer -- but in a real sense, it's also the culmination of the creator's lifelong fascination with light in all its varieties. The video starts at a baseline, which is what every viewer (default, Firestorm, etc.) displays, then shows off 18 presets in this new way of seeing and screen-capturing Second Life.
It’s called Aperture Viewer (links below), and it's lead developed by William Weaver. Over a decade ago, Weaver became renowned within the Second Life art community for his exquisite images and astoundingly moving machinima like this one from 2012.
He largely left SL for many years, however, after a dearth of graphical updates -- "When the visuals feel static in a platform that’s really been about visuals for me," he explains now, "the fun just fades" -- but returned in 2024, curious to see how the release of physically based rendering last year had changed the world.After logging back on, he installed a PBR reflection probe.
"My jaw hit the floor," as he puts it now.
“Light was bouncing—something we’d never had in‑world. It felt like a whole new engine hiding in plain sight. I still think many people have no idea what this thing really does now.”
But after weeks of tests, he realized the existing SL viewers hadn’t fully adopted to this new PBR era:
“Phototools had been basically untouched for a decade and couldn’t expose half of PBR’s magic. We needed more tools, things that SL didn't have, to start complementing what it can now do."
Rather than explain what he’d learned in a tutorial, he went several steps beyond -- or rather, several thousand:
I feel like people in the game/metaverse industry haven't grasped how huge Sky: Children of the Light, the virtual world from Jenova Chen and his studio Thatgamecompany, has become. In 2023 it had over 50 million monthly active users and earned a record for most concurrent users for a live virtual concert; based on recent download/rating numbers, it's likely to have upwards of 100 million MAU now. (I'm checking that with Jenova.)
As a latest sign of its hugeness, the studio produced a feature film inspired by the world, and is debuting it inside the world itself. (Watch the trailer above.)
Speaking of which, I interviewed Jenova for Making a Metaverse That Matters, where he shared some design innovations which helped make Sky such a huge success. Here's an excerpt:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Amira or ·•° ᓚᘏᗢ °•· as she currently styles herself, creates darling sightseeing pics from her travels in Second Life. I am a sucker for a framed picture and these are delightful. I love the simplicity of this picture, just the house and the butterflies around it with some grass. She includes the original raw shot in a link so you can see her editing changes such as intensifying the colors, adding depth to the background, tossing in a bit of bokeh, and framing it. She also includes a SLurl, so you can teleport to visit the butterflies and see how they’re doing. I love how the simplicity of her pictures are so very beautiful.
