New World Notes

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:

Ryan Schultz: New Sansar Default Avatar More Barbie-Like, Less VR Friendly

Left, right: Sansar default avatar 1.0, Sansar default avatar 2.0 photos by Ryan Schultz

In case you missed it, Linden Lab updated its default avatar recently, and the change was so drastic, Canadian virtual world blogger Ryan Schultz just went into a very non-Canadian rant:

What the hell was wrong with the much more realistic proportions of the default female Avatar 1.0? Why did Linden Lab fuck this up so badly?? What were they thinking?!?? Let’s do a direct comparison, wearing the same outfit, between Avatar 1.0 and Avatar 2.0. [See above] Avatar 2.0: Way too tall, hips too narrow, too thin, hands too small, looks like a Barbie doll.

If you can’t see that there is something seriously wrong with the default female Avatar 2.0 just by comparing them side by side, then I give up. There were clearly drastic design decisions made that were NOT communicated by Linden Lab effectively to the users. This is NOT what we asked for. This is NOT what we wanted.

The Barbie archetype switch is surprising to me, but perhaps most surprising is this: If Ryan is right, where Linden Lab once promoted Sansar as a VR-facing product, this avatar doesn't play well with VR at all:

Sansar Getting Experience Points & Quests -- Smart Break from Linden Lab's Past "Second Life Is Not a Game" Mistake

Good news in the latest update to Sansar coming soon:

The Nexus: Dive deep into Sansar lore. We've developed a Sansar backstory that serves as a framework for initial quests and our multifaceted virtual world. This story will be unveiled over time through a series of quests beginning with Agent Primus in the Nexus...

XP System: We’ll be introducing an experience points system that will track your progress throughout Sansar. To start, you can earn XP from completing quests first offered in the Nexus, up to a level cap of 8. In the future we’ll be adding in other ways to earn XP, including opening up the system for creators to offer it as a reward for their own quests.

Smart additions to Linden Lab's new social VR world, which is starting to see some traction, at least during special live music events from artists on the Monstercat label. Adding an XP system should do much to encourage returning users and more deeply engaged users.

From a corporate perspective, this also represents a major reversal for Linden Lab:

Sansar Rave Attracts 1K+ Visits in VR, But Way More Watched, Than Logged In

Above: Sansar's Monstercat: Call of the Wild Experience, inset with peak player usage on Steam and viewership on Twitch

After two years of extremely low user numbers in Sansar, Linden Lab's recent partnership with electronic music label Monstercat seems to have paid off in some relatively significant usage:

Monstercat: Call of the Wild Experience is a VR space where the music label will host artist meet and greets, giveaways, and more. [Linden Lab CEO Ebbe] Altberg didn’t give me exact numbers but over a thousand people watched the show in VR via Sansar. “Tens of thousands of people watched the concert across Twitch, Mixer, and Huya, and over a thousand people around the world attended the event in Sansar - across 6 continents, 65 countries, and 675 cities. Fans feel more connected and immersed in the music they love, while artists, in turn, effectively reach more people and places in a single day than they'd reach on a real-life tour. “

That last line is a bit questionable, because while 1000+ people might have visited last Friday's VR-based concert rave, it doesn't look like 1000+ stayed for that long -- according to Steam, peak Sansar usage through Valve's platform reached 172 maximum for that day. Assuming as many came in via the direct client, that's more like 300 users at any one time. So what's likely is there were a lot of short-term visits throughout the duration of the show.

In any case, that's something of a moot point, because the show did attract a lot of viewers:

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.