New World Notes

Bryn Oh Has a New, Government-Sponsored Art Installation in Sansar - But Will Her Fans from Second Life Journey There to See It This Time?

"Hand" is a new installation in Sansar by longtime metaverse artist Bryn Oh, and as with previous projects like this one,  it was funded by a grant from the Canadian government (the Ontario Arts Council, in this case). It's a new chapter in works that have previously appeared in Second Life and Sansar, and the story is striking:

"'Hand' is a portion that reveals one of the characters named Milkdrop from a previous story is a technological singularity AI who was tasked with running the world for humankind," Bryn tells me. "Long story short, Milkdrop determined humans in their current state were the biggest problem and created a virtual space where they lived, loved and worked, so addictive that people would purchase 1, 5, or 10 year food canisters so they never had to log out.  Milkdrop then let humanity starve and perish, unaware, in their virtual world."

Here's an amazing thing: Bryn tells me that previous chapters in Second Life typically attract 30,000 to 40,000 visitors -- but she expects this Sansar installation will her installations in Sansar only bring in about 500 visitors. Why aren't her thousands of fans traveling from one Linden Lab virtual world to another, to see her latest work?

Roblox Version of Second Life Sim Translates Well (Comment of the Week)

Remember "1867", the Second Life roleplay community which moved to Sansar and then set up a presence in Roblox? Longtime reader and SLer Pulsar, who's familiar with both the original SL version and the Sansar variation, visited this new version in Roblox, and came away pretty impressed:

Very interesting. It even rains! 1867 was fascinating in SL, even if the traffic wasn't high. In Sansar it felt kind of bare to me.

With Roblox you can visit 1867 on your iPad too (or other mobile devices) and it works well. The Roblox version strongly reminds the previous iterations aesthetically. It's still a work in progress, but it looks like it's going to be fun and interactive.

Click here to visit yourself in Roblox. I know among virtual world fans, there's often an "it's just for kids" bias against Roblox (I can be guilty of it too). But as Pulsar adds, citing this analysis from HackerNoon, Roblox and to a certain extent Fortnite, are not just virtual worlds, but essential social spaces for a new generation as they come of age:

How to Connect Second Life to Sansar: It's Not the Engine, It's the Community (Comment of the Week)

Interesting conversation on the feasibility of upgrading Second Life to the modern age, potentially via Unity. Reader "Seph" proposes an alternative that Linden Lab should seriously consider: Instead of updating the Second Life engine, give the SL community some specific reasons to transition much of their activity into Sansar:  

There's a lot easier ways for Linden Lab to automatically integrate existing Second Life users into a newer, updated platform. They already have Sansar that they could repurpose.

Make it so that all Second Life landowners get as a part of their tier, land/experiences in Sansar as well.

Make it so that premium Second Life members earn perks in Sansar as well.

Have L$ and the Lindex be the one currency and exchange between Second Life and Sansar.

Have a single account, single login between both worlds. Build a 'Linden Lab' launcher that can install and launch the official SL viewer (and third party viewers) and Sansar.

Stop paying Levi's, NASA, Intel, Twitch streamers, Marvelous Designer, eSports organizations, EDM record labels, etc. and redirect that money into offsetting the risks Second Life creators and entertainers would have to take in moving an idea to Sansar. I'm sure they've spent millions on these fruitless things; give a million instead to Relay For Life. In exchange, [Relay for Life] risks less donations by hosting some of their events in Sansar instead.

Just do things to make it easy and obvious instead of intentionally alienating SL users from Sansar, and then SL won't need an updated graphics platform. One's already built, just integrate it.

This all makes sense to me, and I like the last idea in particular. I understand why Linden Lab wants to keep the SL and Sansar brands separate, and to emphasize that Sansar is safe for major real world brands. (No excessive trolling , weird porn, IP theft, etc!) But for some 15 years, the Second Life community has actively and directly supported one of the most well-known and respected real world brands out there:

Second Life Community Moves to Sansar... and Then, To Roblox. Here's How They Compare

1867 is an interesting game experience on Roblox with an intriguing backstory. It started out as a Second Life-based community called Pfaffenthal 1867, associated with a real life museum in Luxembourg City. But as I wrote last year, community leader Hauptmann "Cyberpiper" Weyder moved it to Sansar. Yesterday (completely separate from the news of Sansar's recent woes), Cyberpiper posted an update in Comments to that old post, reflecting on his experience -- and his surprising new move:

I miss what we had in SL. But the problem lies in the rather volatile nature of the SL community. You do something new, nice, interesting, and folks will come. In order to keep it up though you have to put in a bug work load, mainly organizing one event after another. But despite our best efforts, traffic waned. Gosh we offered free housing to our 1867 community!! Rare in SL! The contract with the [RL] museum came to an end, and frankly we could not afford to pay 7000.-€ tier to LL a year out of our own pocket!

Sansar has been a disappointment. We managed to do a whole street eventually, but had to start over because of too much lag, trying to figure out ways of more efficient texturing or building. Also Sansar had promised mobile development, which was then taken off the roadmap, a big disappointment for us.  And... we all know it... no traffic in Sansar... for now...

So we have put Sansar development on the backburner, and decided to develop our own MMORPG, starting off by developing a ‘childrens version’ on ROBLOX.... check it out.

Yes, Roblox -- where it's getting way more visits than what it got in Sansar or possibly even Second Life: Nearly 3,500, since its launch last April. (Not a complete surprise, as Roblox has 100 million monthly users.)

"One thing to say is that we are not completely giving up on Sansar," Cyberpiper tells me now by e-mail. "We still like the philosophy behind it, and might continue building there at a later stage, when it is more developed."

Until then, here's how Cyberpiper compares Roblox's building tools and features, to Second Life's and Sansar's own:

Linden Lab Lays Off Over 20 Members of Sansar Team, Confirm Insiders; Social VR Platform to Continue Operating With Skeleton Crew

Confirming a blog post from Ryan Schultz (along with some ominous rumblings I heard last Friday), some insiders tell me that Linden Lab has recently laid off over 20 staffers working on Sansar, the company's social VR platform. Even more tragically, the layoffs include some longtime Lindens who got their start working on Second Life, Linden Lab's core profitable product, but who were moved to the Sansar team.

Asked to comment on these layoff reports, a Linden Lab spokesperson just sent me this response, in its entirety:

"We have no comment at this time, but we're continuing to develop both Second Life and Sansar, and we're excited about the many new partnerships and features on tap for 2020!"

This move is not at all surprising, and follows a round of Linden Lab layoffs last year; more key, Sansar has steadfastly refused to grow its user numbers, with peak concurrency remaining in the low hundreds at most, despite marketing campaigns with major brands like Hello Kitty, Spielberg's Ready Player One, and top esports groups.

My understanding is Sansar will not be closed down, or sold, but will continue operating with a skeleton crew, and in all likelihood, eventually be run as a spinoff company and product separate from Linden Lab. 

In any case, this is a sad turn for a project that began under the leadership of former Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble, when Sansar was conceived as a spiritual successor to Second Life. But between Humble stepping down and Ebbe Altberg taking the reigns at CEO, some management decisions shifted Sansar's direction:

Watch: A Scary Walkthrough Sim in Sansar -- And a Comparison of Creating in Second Life vs. Sansar

Just in time for Halloween, virtual world YouTuber Ayla Pants (last seen here with a great Firestorm tutorial) tried her hand at creating a spooky ass scene in Sansar, and gives you a walkthrough above. Don't watch all the way through if you want some first-person surprises -- you can visit it here on the Atlas.

Since Ayla's a longtime SL content creator, I wanted her take on creating in Second Life, versus Sansar. Here it is:

Linden Lab Hiring Compliance Analyst to Monitor Sansar Virtual World Economy for Real World Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing

Linden Lab is hiring a Senior Compliance Analyst for Sansar, and the job description vividly illustrates just how deadly serious a job like that has become. Used to be that a role like this might focus mainly on everyday consumer issues like credit card fraud/misuse (i.e. kids secretly using their parents' cards to buy virtual gold). Nowadays, however, it reads like a job description for someone in the FBI:

The ideal candidate for this position will be responsible for supporting and maintaining various compliance activities and programs, including the Customer Identification program and associated vendor management processes. Responsible for monitoring and assessing compliance issues concerning the patterns and trends associated with money laundering and other potential compliance-related risks. Assist with mitigating money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud related risks, and gathering data and documents for state exams.

Yes -- actual terrorism in the virtual world:

Adult Content is "Under 5%" of Second Life's Revenue, Says Linden Lab Staffer -- And Don't Expect Adult Content in Sansar Anytime Soon

Linden Lab developers on the Sansar team, Lacie and Galileo Linden, just hosted an Ask Me Anything on Reddit which is bursting with pretty fascinating questions and answers. (Many of them, unsurprisingly, are actually about Second Life.) One notable thread started by "May_I_Be_Frank" delves into a topic the company is usually very reluctant to talk about -- virtual porn:

Is Sansar still taking the position that it won't allow adult content? My understanding of Second Life is that the vast majority of its stable income stream is from adult activity - either directly or indirectly. Is that wrong? If it's not wrong, what market is Sansar after here that other platforms don't already provide?

Lacie at first replies with an answer from the SL team at Linden Lab, "While adult activity is popular in Second Life, it only accounts for a fraction of the overall economic and social ecosystem"... but when pressed to be more specific, comes back with this from the Second Life staff:

So, there are many ways to look at this, so it’s hard to give a true split. In the narrowest definition, it’s under 5% of our revenues. Of course, there are lots of ways to consider adult content’s indirect impact, and that could probably be a larger share of revenues. 

So that "Under 5%" comes with a heavy caveat. For instance, 25% of the entire Second Life land mass is Adult-rated to allow extreme sex and violence,which is a whole other topic. Presumably "under 5%" refers to genitals for avatars, sex animations, and all the other necessary particulars for pixel sex -- i.e., all the items which inevitably led to the unfair branding of Second Life as a game for people who can't have sex in real life.

Speaking of which, Linden Lab's team was pretty adamant that adult content is not coming to Sansar anytime soon -- in part because Sansar has established relationships with major corporations:

Sansar's Stick Thin Default Avatar Provokes User to Immediately Create Kardashian-esque "Badonkadonk" Prosthetics

Before and after, via Ryan Schultz

Quick update to last week's post about Sansar's new, rail thin default avatar. Very soon after its launch, enterprising Sansar creator DaisyWinthorpe created and started selling, well, body prosthetics to give that avatar decidedly Kardashian-esque curves. Now witness the firepower of her armed and fully operational Super Badonkadonk 3000. (Animated demo viewable here.)

As Jeff Goldblum might say, badonkadonk will find a way. Or if you prefer, as Sansar blogger Ryan Schultz reports, these are market forces at work:

Linden Lab & Its Users Have Strayed Far From "Your World, Your Imagination" (Comment of the Week)

Passionate reader conversation in this post about the drastic changes to Sansar's default avatar -- which to John C, removes some fundamental creativity options for most people who might use Sansar:

The Avatar is all the average person has to express themselves in a virtual world. Like in reality, how you appear to others matters, if it is the way in which you express yourself.

When I meet another Avatar I see two things, either an Avatar that creates beyond the "look" and those who create with their look. There are of course those who do both, but they are rare. So the creator of a virtual world must give the “people”, as defined by the average user, the chance to be something very special in this world. This is all they have, and virtual worlds are supposed to be about, another life, something “more” than what they have in the real world.  

 Clara Seller expands on that point:

JohnC is talking to the heart of what is failing both Sansar and SL. The importance of an avatar can't be stressed enough. Linden Lab has strayed so far from their foundation of "Your World, Your Imagination" that they don't know who they are anymore. Unfortunately, I think they've also taken a good portion of their remaining customers with them.

But Clara says the blame isn't solely with the company: