New World Notes

High Downloads, Low Usage: Comparing Steam's Top Social VR Downloads to Concurrency Rates

On Mondays I often check concurrency rates of top social VR games on Steam, but to switch things up, let's compare those rates with total downloads (all six are available for free): 

• VRChat: 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 total downloads (and 9300 peak concurrent users yesterday)
• Rec Room: 200,000 to 500,000 total downloads (and 461 peak concurrent users yesterday)
• Big Screen: 200,000 to 500,000 total downloads (and 96 concurrent users yesterday)
• Altspace VR: 100,000 to 200,000 total downloads (and 32 peak concurrent users yesterday)
• Sansar: 20,000-50,000 total downloads (and 14 peak concurrent users yesterday)
• High Fidelity: 20,000-50,000 total downloads (and 7 peak concurrent users yesterday)

VRChat is clearly far and away the market leader, but it's notable how much churn that game and the others are seeing -- i.e. lots of people downloading them on Steam over the last couple years, but most giving up after a few tries. VRChat probably has about 150,000-200,000 monthly active Steam-based users, and a Rec Room team member recently pointed me to stats suggesting that game has roughly 30,000-50,000 monthly active Steam users. So generally, under 10% of Steam users who try these games end up becoming active users. 

Still, that massive churn rate for a free-to-play virtual world experience shouldn't be surprising:

Linden Lab Expanding Sansar Social Reach With New Hire, More Comedians

Linden Lab is hiring a new community manager for Sansar to be based in the San Francisco HQ, and it looks like a dream VR job if you're intimately familiar with promoting content on Facebook, and Twitter, and Instagram... and Pinterest, and Twitch, and Reddit, and Plurk, and etc.:

Linden Lab is the creator of the world’s largest, most successful, completely user-generated virtual worlds platform. Have you heard what we’re doing next? If uncharted territory excites you and you are ready to take on growing a global audience for Sansar, the world’s leading social VR platform, we are looking for you to help us build the future.

The job was posted in Linkedin two days ago but less than 25 applications have been submitted which is curious -- and a good opportunity to apply now,

Speaking of social promotion, Linden Lab is continuing to promote live comedy in Sansar featuring real world top comedians/comedy actors, with the next event this coming Sunday featuring Blackish star Owen Smith and others:

Cajsa’s Friday Instagram Pick: Eve Kazan Photographs the Best of Sansar

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

Xiola Linden saw our post requesting Sansar pictures and turned me on to Eve Kazan's Instagram. I follow Eve's fabulous Flickr stream and had no idea that her instagram would be anything different, but it is. I love this "Sleeping Giant" and that Eve shot from a more unusual angle, with the foot right up front rather than from the side. It makes it more humorous. [Visit in Sansar here. - ed]

Here in "A city is more than a place in space" she uses the rule of thirds and leading lines to draw us down the street. Her picture invites us to explore.

Seeking Aesthetic Sansar Screenshots for Cajsa's Column on Virtual World Art

Now that Cajsa Lilliehook is expanding her NWN column devoted to great virtual world screenshot art and digital painting beyond Second Life to games like Assassin's Creed and GRIS, she's also looking for artistically composed screenshots from Sansar. So far, she tells me, there isn't much that stands out on Flickr. So if you know of any, please get in touch with her on Flickr or on Twitter.

"Fishing Monsters" by Carthalis Rossini (above) is among the few arresting Sansar images she's come across so far. Her appraisal:

Artist Gets Canadian Government Grant to Create VR & Machinima Experiences in Second Life & Sansar

RL grant for the artist known as Bryn Oh, next to bronze castings of her virtual world art

Great news from "Bryn Oh", avatar name of an acclaimed, anonymous Canadian artist who's been using Second Life and Sansar as her canvas for many years:

I was just informed a few days ago that I have been awarded another grant from the OAC, a Canadian government arts funding organization.  I am so pleased and would just like to thank the OAC for their continued support over the years... [The grant] is substantial and will allow me to further embrace working with the Oculus and other technologies to create immersive spaces.  

This is actually the fourth grant for virtual world art that she's received from OAC (she received one in 2011), and since then, she's expanded the reach of her work, even creating bronze statues based on her 3D sculptures from Second Life. However, as she tells me: "The grant is not for making bronzes but to film and build a story called 'Hand' in Second Life and Sansar, in Sansar as a VR experience."

More on her blog and on her Instagram.

RL photo courtesy Bryn.

Watch: David Cross (Arrested Development, Mr. Show) Do Stand-Up Comedy in Sansar (Sort Of)

In case you missed the show last week, here's cult comedian David Cross (Arrested Development, Mister Show) performing stand-up comedy in Sansar. Which is potentially a good idea, but Cross appears on stage saying he was under the impression that he'd be giving a TED-style talk about Gamergate, and didn't exactly prepare comic material. And then just before Cross starts wandering into the audience, announces: "I think we should just take a half second to all agree that this is a terrible idea that should never be done again." Then mostly hangs around with the audience and chats about his life with fellow comedian Arden Myrin.

Contra Cross, I do think live comedy can (and does) work in a virtual world -- but the first big step is probably getting rid of the real world bar/stage context, and do the comedy in a venue that really makes use of the platform. For instance, why not create well-known settings from Arrested Development, so Cross can riff off the show and his character? There's money in that banana stand.

Anyway, there's another show this weekend with another line-up: Go here to request a ticket. And read on for Linden Lab's announcement about these shows they're sponsoring:

Sansar's Steam Reviews Decidedly "Mixed" One Month After Publication

Since Sansar hit Steam almost exactly a month ago, we now have a better picture of how it's perceived by Steam's established userbase of core gamers. Based on most recent reviews, their reaction is distinctly Mixed. Here's a sample of reviews from people who are not evidently from Sansar's early beta, pre-Steam period, but discovering the platform for the first time:

It certainly has potential. The engine is absolutely gorgeous, and runs decently. Some of the worlds blew me away with how nice they looked. But I cannot enjoy them. Sansar has horrible controls in VR. It is very uncomfortable to use. The feeling of embodiment that I can get in other social VR platforms does not happen here...

Weird game with nothing to do. The executable itself acts suspicious and never shuts down.

Sansar could still use some work, but has a lot of potential. The game looks amazing, and the people I've met are friendly and helpful. I attended a live comedy event this past week and it was hilarious when one of the comics started wandering out into the crowd to interact with people.

I'll try it again once it's more optimized because it seems as if it has potential. I couldn't really read the descriptions of the "worlds" as the font is too small and burry in VR and they're a set distance away so you can't move forward to look closer which was a bad start. Also it annoyingly pushed me out of VR for passwords then T&C updates. I think the recommended spec of a 970 GTX doesn't cut it, it needs something way more powerful to run it properly.

Much more here. Overall, there's a stark difference between users who got into Sansar during its closed beta period (and by definition, are more dedicated to the ultimate vision for Sansar imparted by Linden Lab), and those coming across it now -- perhaps after trying other social VR experiences on Steam. By contrast, current social VR leader VRChat has very positive reviews on Steam, as does runner-up RecRoom.

Is there another social VR platform on Steam that is getting Mixed reviews more similar to Sansar? Yes:

Linden Lab Should Sell Off Second Life to Focus on Sansar, Return to Being More Like a Lab (Comment of the Week)

This is probably more of a thought experiment than something that can actually happen, but reader Irihapeti's intriguing prediction for 2019 is this -- Linden Lab sells off Second Life to laser focus on Sansar:

As Fortnite is showing, and Minecraft before it, something is eating Second Life for lunch. And it isn't Sansar. What's eating Second Life is that Linden Lab is getting eaten for lunch and dinner by other companies. Family-oriented, all-ages-targeting companies. Second Life for better or worse is now a product for adults. It can never be a family-oriented product. The family-oriented part was all over when the Teen Grid was abandoned. Linden Lab needs to split. Spin Second Life into a separate company. When they do this then Linden Lab can get back to being a lab -- like a research lab -- using Sansar to push the technological boundaries. Which is what the Lab has always been good at - innovating and pushing technology to its limits and beyond, and nevermind its users.

It's definitely the case that Linden was once an actual lab, even creating VR hardware way back in the day. The idea of selling Second Life is worth thinking about. With relatively reliable revenue of about $60-70 million a year (by my rough estimate), the company could probably find a buyer at, say, $250 million.

Irihapeti thinks this is a good idea because the current executives have lost sight of the Second Life userbase, and lost focus as a company:

Watch: Sansar As Experienced By a YouTube Gamer

Sansar's publication to Steam hasn't grown the userbase much so far, but it is starting to bring in some curious visitors outside the metaverse/core Second Life/VR market. Here's a "Let's Play" video from gaming YouTuber Yorkie, whose usual focus is more on games like Sims 4 and Red Dead Redemption, rather than open platform virtual worlds. But if Sansar does attract users, they'll likely come more from the consumer gamer side of the market that he and his followers are in. So it's notable that Yorkie seems most impressed by Sansar's dynamically adjustable clothing ("I've near seen this in a game before!"). His mid-sized fanbase of gamers also seem impressed:

Will Steam's Hardcore Gamers Try Playing Sansar Now That It's in the Store?

Steam is by far the largest game platform for hardcore gamers on PC, Mac, and VR -- which is why many competitors have launched would-be Steam Killers in recent months  -- and so it's notable that Linden Lab just published its social VR platform to Steam. The way the Lindens categorize Sansar ("Genre: Casual, Free to Play, Massively Multiplayer) and describe it to this gamer audience is interesting:

Welcome to Sansar - the best place to hang out with friends, play games, and stay connected with your favorite communities! Host and attend virtual events: concerts, watch parties, meet-and-greets, and more. Create and share virtual spaces with your friends, and explore the thousands of experiences our users have already created. Cheer for your favorite players and teams WHILE playing any number of fun virtual mini-games: cornhole, shuffleboard, pong, bowling, and more. Shop for new items and sell what you create on the Sansar Store.

No mention, for instance, of Sansar's branded experiences for education, NASA, Ready Player One, or even its hardcore gamer e-sports partnerships. Compare the description with its likeliest competitors on Steam. Here's how Rec Room describes itself: