New World Notes

Chouchou Update from Owners: Beloved Second Life Sim Still Set to Close End of June -- Largely Due to Unchecked User Harassment

Chouchou photo by Shiva

Since news broke that Chouchou, the beloved Second Life owned and created by Chouchou, a Japanese music duo of the same name, would soon close, the dream-like place has been inundated by SLers taking farewell photos. I finally heard back from the duo's manager with the help of Sanny Yoshikawa, who translated their responses into English.

First off, as Sanny confirms from them: "The closing date of the sim is end of June (not in a few days )." So it's not closing as soon as originally reported.

After I first reached out to them a couple weeks ago, they've been inundated by messages from Second Life users: "[W]e received tons of messages through email, IM and Twitter. Most of them were very emotional. We became too busy to answer his questions."

And unlike most other beloved Second Life sims which have closed due to the high cost of monthly sim tier maintenance fees, Chouchou's owners say their main motivation for shutting down is unchecked trolling on their property:

Linden Lab Trying to Save Chouchou - If Its Owners Can Be Reached In Time!

Chouchou photo by Loverdag

Potential good news for Chouchou, the beloved, dream-like Second Life sim that is scheduled to be closed down within the next few days. After an impassioned protest by many SL community members, Linden Lab staffer "Patch Linden" posted an appeal in the community:

Your calls have been heard! I need the region owner to contact me directly (via email or through support) to start the process of entering the region into the Second Life Region Preservation Society. I have not seen contact from them so far.

I have also not received word from Chouchou's owners juliet Herbele and arabesque Choche, the Japanese music duo who created and own the sim, since they or their manager told me last week that they planned to take Chouchou down. I've reached out to them again, and I'm also in touch with Patch, so I can connect them directly. However, we may need more help from the community:

Chouchou, Masterpiece Second Life Sim by Japanese Indie Musicians, Scheduled To Close Any Day Now

Click here to directly teleport to Chouchou, for now (Photo by Amunet)

Since its creation in 2008, the Second Life sim called Chouchou has been among the greatest works of metaverse art online -- a dreamy, surreal, immersive space created by Chouchou, a Japanese music duo of the same name, designed to complement and promote their ambient, equally dreamlike songs. But it's scheduled to close very soon:

"Yes, we’re going to officially announce about the closing in a week or so," the band confirmed to me on Twitter last Friday, but haven't offered more details since then.

In their heyday (as above), Chouchou would perform live in Second Life in different parts of the world -- the singer "juliet Herbele" in New York, and on keyboards, "arabesque Choche" from Tokyo. They did this without having met each other in real life, but that eventually changed -- they are now married in real life, and last year, had a child.

The duo has been moving away from SL performances in recent years, focusing on their outreach across the Internet in general. For instance, here's the trailer for their latest album on YouTube, where they have 20,000 subscribers:

Fittingly enough, it's called "Lost Utopia". Chouchou's Second Life fans have been clamoring for Linden Lab or some other benefactor to take over Chouchou, so it doesn't disappear from the virtual world, but no word if that's happened as yet. For now, here's some images and video from Chouchou taken by fans and the band in a sim that still exists in the virtual world, but not for long:

SL Sim Deathwatch: The Hive & Raccoon City, Jaw-Droppingly Vivid Resident Evil-Inspired Sims, for Sale or Closing Soon

Highlighting the slowing but continued attrition of great Second Life sims, this sad announcement and classified ad from Andy Harper (andy2.spore in SL):

Perfect starter home for the family, sociopaths or the handyman. Property includes large vaulted ceilings, countless corridors and hallways, laser death trap and original hardwood floors! Bonus: Entire greater downtown area of Raccoon City and dilapidated shopping mall with killer arcade!

Open House: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pollux/232/12/901

"After a surprisingly many years of being financial independent off the sales from my store and the unbelievably kind support from the community that has rallied behind the sim, I can no longer afford to keep it all going," he explains. "At the current rate things are going, we have a solid 4 weeks left, but rather than close the sim outright, I'll be looking into options to transfer ownership of the sim in it's entirety to someone who can financially afford it."

As you might guess by the one image above and the many below, these two sims were inspired by a famed survival horror franchise:

Allegory Malaprop: "The Hive is a Resident Evil inspired sim, divided into 2 pieces: The Hive and Raccoon City. It's all meticulously built, roleplay optional, great for exploring and photography. Advanced lighting strongly recommended- the lighting and materials add quite a bit to the environment."

Hopefully another SL groups can step in -- maybe one of the many roleplay game communities? -- but unless and until then, here's some more images of what's about to leave the grid:

Private SL Life Sim Loss in 2018 Greatly Slows Compared to 2017 & 2016

Chart via Grid Survey

New Second Life economics data from Tyche Shepherd, a senior statistician for a renowned multinational corporation who tracks Second Life economic activity for fun on her website here:

"Year-to-date private estate net losses stands at 139 regions (it was 390 this time last year and 359 the year before )," she reports. So while Linden Lab is steadily losing its core revenue source, the loss is significantly slowing from previous years. 

By point of comparison, Second Life lost about 1000 private sims in 2017, which translated into roughly $4 million dollars in yearly revenue gone. So at the current loss rate, the revenue hit for 2018 will possibly be a half or even a third less of that $4M drop.

Private Second Life Sims Fall Below 16K For First Time in a Decade -- But Overall Sim Loss Greatly Slows

Very interesting new report from Tyche Shepherd, a senior statistician for a renowned multinational corporation who tracks Second Life economic activity for fun here.

"Private [SL] estates now number 15,980 -- first fall below 16,000 in 10 years," she reports. Seeing as private estate sims make up the vast majority of Linden Lab's revenue from Second Life, this is definitely big news. This drop is due, she adds, to 40 sims disappearing from Second Life in the second week of May -- the largest drop this year:

Among those 40 gone are RL education-themed sims like LMU Engineering Island and Loyola University Maryland. Tyche adds: "Some of the loss is down to the 15 or so Fantasy Faire regions leaving as well as a couple of Relay for Life ones so these were expected. Other losses included 5 1920's New York regions and a couple of Gor themed estates." (We know about Gor roleplay in Second Life-- but apparently there was Prohibition-era gangster roleplay too?)

"A loss of 40 is actually one of the smaller 'big' losses over history," Tyche tells me. "It's enough for a couple of smaller multi-region owners to shut up shop to cause this. It isn't a jump in losses - just a one-off high weekly loss in line with ones we've seen in past years, just part of the current natural decline . If its sustained over several week's then it will be a jump."

There's an upside to all this, however, and it's just as interesting: While total sims keep dropping off the grid, they're falling away at a greatly reduced rate:

Private SL Sim Loss Significantly Slows to Rates Lower Than Last Two Years

Countless classic Second Life private sims like the Petrovsky Flux have disappeared due to tier payments, but there's a flicker of good news in the latest report from expert grid analyst Tyche Shepherd:

Adult rated regions increased in number by 4 to 5601 (23.9% of the grid) while General rated were also up by 4 to 2875(12.3%). Year to date net private estate losses stand at 608 regions (3.6%)

At the current moment, that means roughly 4% of private SL sims will have disappeared during 2017. That is a lot, but here's the notable thing: Back in May of this year, private sim loss was on track to be 6%. So between May and now, the erosion has slowed significantly.

As it turns out, Tyche tells me, the current trend is even better when you pull the camera back a bit: "It's a smaller loss to date than the last 2 years."

What's staunched the loss of SL sims since earlier this year? Probably many elements, including:

Bucking Downward Trend, Second Life Private Sim Loss Stopped Last Week

Well this is interesting -- last week the SL grid actually gained a single private sim according to metaverse analyst Tyche Shepherd. That's a rare event, because if you look at her weekly reports on Twitter, the trend has been near-consistently downward - 4 private sims gone one week, 19 gone another, minus 34 another, and so on.

This may be false causality, but another rare Second Life event happened last week: Linden Lab announced plans for a major update to Second Life, including cloud deployment and hints at different pricing options. Common sense suggests private sim owners on the verge of quitting would reconsider when plans for a huge infrastructure investment/feature expansion came out. 

That said, one week of positive sim growth may not suggest anything substantial just yet:

Flux No More: Unable to Make Land Tier Payments, Another Second Life Masterpiece Disappears

Petrovsky Flux creators blotto Epsilon and Cutea Benelli before the Flux itself

The Petrovsky Flux, the acclaimed self-creating, self-destroying steampunk sky city which existed in Second Life for nearly a decade in some form, is gone. (As is an earlier variation, the Bogon Flux.) Astute readers pointed that out in a post about the Flux last week, and co-creator Cutea Bennelli later confirmed this in a Facebook post.

The problem, as it usually is, was tier payments. For some five years, The Petrovsky Flux was hosted on a Second Life sim owned by the real life Spencer Art Museum at the University of Kansas. But the organization was no longer cover the virtual land bills:

Insilico Saved -- Second Life's Landmark Cyberpunk City Announces Last-Moment Funding, New Roleplay-Only Focus

Set to close last month due to mounting financial losses, the official site to Insilico, Second Life's cyberpunk masterpiece, reportedly received some 11th hour funding to remain open:

SURPRISE and Merry Giftmas! INSILICO is here to stay (again)! It just took a while to get all these ducks lined up. Suffice to say though, it’s pretty much official. We live on.

No word on where those ducks came from, or who's paying for them, but good news all the same. Also interesting that the funding is enough that Insilico reportedly no longer needs typical revenue streams for paying monthly sim tier, and instead, can focus on its cyberpunk roleplaying community: