New World Notes

Linden Lab "Very Profitable Company" With Sansar Gone, CEO Tells Engadget, Says Cloud Deployment & Other Improvements to Second Life Still in Works

Good long Engadget interview with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg just posted, who addresses much (if not all) the speculation around the recent acquisition of Sansar by an unknown company called Wookey, and how it will affect the future of Second Life. I've heard much Internet chatter that Linden Lab or even SL itself is now facing dire times, but in contradiction to that, Ebbe is ebullient:

With Sansar off its books, Linden Lab is now "a very profitable company," according to Altberg. "Second Life is an older, very established cash machine that works really well, and right now, we're seeing some tremendous growth happening as we speak. Whereas Sansar is a VC, more long term, need-more-investment-type-of-thing. Mixing those two within one small studio like Linden Lab was kind of tricky, so it was easier to have them go separate."

...  Linden Lab, meanwhile, is going to double down on Second Life. The company is currently in the middle of moving its cloud-based infrastructure to a third-party platform. "Instead of having to nurture and build and maintain our own infrastructure for a lot of things, we're going to be able to rely on someone else doing it for us," Altberg explained. Linden Lab is also working on a number of user-facing improvements, such as the ability to customise worlds and "trade environments in ways they haven't been able to do before."

Good to know the cloud deployment of SL is still happening, though kind of odd that it's moving to an unspecified "third-party platform", when the project was originally specified as going to Amazon Web Services.

As for Wookey, the mystery of what it is and how it will turn Sansar into "a new generation of online AR/VR experiences" (Linden Lab's words) remains, though I suppose Ebbe drops a few hints there:

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:

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.  

As Second Life Ages, Linden Lab Had to Try Something Like Sansar (Comment of the Week)

While there's still much anger among the Second Life community about the end of Sansar as a Linden Lab-sponsored project, some readers also make a more positive point: Since Second Life is still based on an ancient graphics engine and server architecture from nearly two decades (!) ago, the company really did (and does) need to invest in developing new platforms while keeping the original one operational. As "Pulsar" puts it:

Linden Lab dumped no working product (Second Life). What's to be "dumped" here -- actually being sold -- is the branch that gave no fruits... Earlier you realize it, the better. Selling it is the right thing to do, in order to not lose further money and getting something back. It's even possible (but I won't bet it) that Sansar, under a different company with a clear plan and finally reworked, other than rebranded, could find a niche.

I actually wouldn't be at all surprised if Sansar does find a suitor -- for instance, a Chinese company that wants a VR-optimized virtual world to deploy behind the Great Firewall. In any case, as Pulsar goes on, Linden Lab was never trying to "abandon" the Second Life customer base, but attempting to grow a new, somewhat overlapping audience with a new product:

What Went Wrong With Sansar: Victim of VR Hype & Failure to Learn from Second Life's Mistakes

Pictured: Sansar featured in 2016 at a Wall Street Journal event on virtual reality

Linden Lab has probably spent about $50-60 million to develop and launch Sansar. We know this is likely because back in 2016, the company had likely already spent an estimated $20 million on Sansar over 2.5 years in payroll alone. Add four more years of payroll, not to mention marketing and operating expenses, and that range is a reasonably educated guess (if it's not even larger). I've been thinking about this ever since Linden Lab announced last week that Sansar would no be a company-sponsored project.

How was so much spent for so little return? There's a number of factors, but I believe it ultimately came down to two interlocking mistakes:

• A flawed assumption, fueled by Goldman Sachs and other respected entities, that virtual reality was on the fast track to becoming massive.
• A corporate culture that was unable or unwilling to learn from Second Life's early mistakes.

I do not think it's fair to lay the blame square on the company's CEO, Ebbe Altberg. Linden Lab insiders, even those who have left the company, fairly consistently praise Ebbe as an inspiring leader. Meeting in person him last year, I was impressed by his passion for virtual worlds. But even the best leaders must work with the limited options that are handed to them. In this particular case, it's likely that Sansar was already in development under the leadership of the advisory board and Ebbe's predecessor, Rod Humble. (Who was in turn working with limited options laid down by the board and previous CEOs.)

That said, to go into more detail:

My concerns for Sansar started early, when it was positioned as a VR-centric project. As I told Wired in 2016:

Sansar's End as Linden Lab Project Angers Second Life Users Who Feel Short-Shrifted (Comments of the Week)

As this video tribute to Sansar by Daisy Winthorpe suggests -- published to YouTube a few days before Linden Lab announced the virtual world's end as a Linden Lab-sponsored project and since seen nearly 10,000 times -- it does have (had?) some passionate supporters. To judge by the overwhelming barrage of reader comments about the news, however, Sansar also has quite a few detractors from the Second Life user community who feel short-shrifted by Linden Lab. Just a small sampling of the more civil comments (relatively speaking):

Linden Lab CEO Confirms New Round of Layoffs; Cuts Include Kona Linden, Company's Last Link to Second Life's Glory Days - UPDATE, Linden Lab Publicly Addresses Layoffs, Claims They Won't Negatively Impact Second Life

Pictured:  With Kona Gurion & his dog Moxie at Linden Lab in 2008; inset, Discord announcement from Linden's current CEO from yesterday 

Update, 2/13: On its official blog, Linden Lab finally acknowledged the layoffs, claims they won't negatively impact SL, and suggests there was some recent notable hires of past Linden staff to help:

[W]e had to say goodbye to a few employees, but at the same time we also strengthened our team by bringing back some heavy hitters who will help make Second Life better than ever. 

So, Second Life is still here and still strong. We’re continuing to invest in its future and you’ll see the results of our commitment this year as we roll out a new mobile companion app, new Linden Home themes, performance and usability improvements, and a number of other new features and enhancements. The ability to change names will be available in the next few weeks, too. 

Original post below:

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: