New World Notes

Epic's Court Victory Against Apple Likely to Be a Big Boon for All Metaverse Apps, Including Second Life; Oberwager Cautiously Optimistic

Seemingly everyone in tech is talking about a huge ruling in the long-running Epic Games v. Apple dispute:

[J]udge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers just ruled that, effective immediately, Apple is no longer allowed to collect fees on purchases made outside apps and blocks the company from restricting how developers can point users to where they can make purchases outside of apps. Apple says it will appeal the order.

As part of the ruling, the judge says that Apple cannot: Impose “any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside an app... interfere with consumers’ choice to leave an app with anything beyond “a neutral message apprising users that they are going to a third-party site”.

Epic head Tim Sweeney has called his dispute with Apple (and Google) a battle for the Metaverse, since most metaverse platform users access the virtual world through their smartphone -- but because Apple and Google charge a 30% cut on in-app purchases, and metaverse platform companies are hugely hobbled.

Now, the mobile version of Epic's Fortnite -- and Roblox, and VRChat, and Rec Room, and yes, Linden Lab's Second Life -- can enable in-app purchases without that huge 30% fee, or even encourage users to buy virtual currency from their website.

Reached earlier today, Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager is cautiously optimistic:

SL Mobile App Hits 300K Downloads, Partly for Hilarious Reasons

In case you missed it, there's been a mini-milestone for Second Life's mobile app or iOS and Android: It's been downloaded some 300,000 times. The Google Play counter recently hit the "100K Downloads" category (see screencap above), so I reached out to Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager, assuming the iOS download count would be around 1.5x that number.

It's closer to 300,000, Oberwager tells me:

"The app is getting better and word is getting out. Plus some of the desktop marketing is flowing over."

That's pretty decent growth, considering the download count was around 100,000 last December. As for "getting better", the aggregate ratings are consistent with that: Back then, the Google Play ratings were at a dismal 2.8, and now it's at 3.1.

As for "desktop marketing", that's a comical plot twist:

 

New on My Patreon: Second Life App Hits 300,000 Downloads, Partly for Hilarious Reasons

Just posted about a mini-milestone for the Second Life mobile app with a fairly hilarious twist -- join my Patreon for free to read that and much more!

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BREAKING: Some Second Life Mobile Users Getting "Streak" L$ Rewards for Regular Daily Logins. UPDATE: Linden Lab Confirms It's Part of an Early A/B Test with Limited Users

UPDATE, 4:25pm SLT: Linden Lab confirms Streaks is an A/B test phase that only some users are getting -- see update at the end of this post!

If you've installed the Second Life mobile app, you might want to check your Menu for a "Streaks" options. It's apparently Linden Lab's first attempt to gamify the app in the most classic way among free-to-play mobile games: Giving you in-game currency for regular log-ins. 

I just noticed the Streaks option on my own installation of the app today, but SL creator Submissa69 started accessing it over last weekend. On the first day of a Streak, you're offered L$ 15 , and then if you log-in the following day, the reward goes up to L$20, and then L$25, and so on. At this point, it's not clear how large the Streaks daily reward can grow to, but if you do claim your L$, the Linden Dollars are deposited directly to your account, and the Streaks rewards resets back down to L$15.

It's not a huge reward, to be sure, but then again, it's already enough to help buy high quality items at Fifty Linden Friday and other regular community-driven discount shopping events. And in exchange for these rewards, Linden Lab can help grow activity of the mobile app -- and in doing so, help make it more discoverable to App Store users in general.   

Ms. Submissa isn't super-impressed by Streaks herself:

BREAKING: SL App Now Installed on Over 100,000 iOS/Android Devices!

Here's a mini-milestone for this month: Second Life's mobile app has likely been downloaded on well over 100,000 devices.

We know that because the Google Play download counter recently passed the 50K+ Downloads mark, for the Android version of the app, and it's safe to assume the iOS Apple version has been downloaded at least that much, but likely much more. (I'd estimate the iOS/Android ratio among Second Life users to be 60/40 or even 70/30.) Also, leading analytics service SimilarWeb counts total Second Life app downloads as over 155,000 downloads as of the end of November.

So that's something! To put this in perspective, Second Life currently gets about 200,000 Daily Active Users and 500,000 Monthly Active Users. So it's a good estimate that 1 in 3 SLers have installed the app at this point.

 Of course "installs" are not the same as usage, and Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager recently explained the company is actually tracking other metrics more closely:

 

Second Life Mobile App Roadmap: Upcoming Features & Marketing Strategy Revealed

Originally published on my Patreon

Last Friday, Linden Lab's mobile development team led by CTO Philip Rosedale and company head Brad Oberwager shared upcoming features to Second Life's mobile app -- and the long-term strategy which drives it. Pluto Linden, lead UI/UX designer on the mobile project, unveiled the top line updates.

Coming this month (December 2024):

Create new accounts in the mobile app using the existing the web flow. "We're trying to break down barriers of people coming in-world," explains Pluto.

Push notifications for select groups. Linden Lab believes this will be "vital" for engaging SLers around in-world activity from their phones.

Persistent chat conversations and IMs on your device (see above). "If you come in [on mobile] today and come back tomorrow," Pluto explains, "that conversation will still be there... [This should] induce people to stay and remind them of the vibrancy of the experience."

Planned for first quarter of 2025:

• Address bar to enable sharing SLurls and creating landmarks.

• maps.secondlife.com will work on the mobile browser.

• Shipping a first version of a communications lobby (above). While the world loads, users will have the option of starting in a lobby where their various messages are waiting for them. ("We'll put the communication aspect front and center.") This is also intended to make the Second Life mobile app relevant for people who have mid-tier/lower-end smartphones who can't fully display the virtual world view.

Coming early Q2 2025 (see image below):

• Quicker and better access to chat.

• Item-level avatar editing.

• Tap-based object interaction. 

"We're a small dedicated team just plugging away on this," Pluto notes, saying that the app's foundation was laid out in 2024. "The real exciting stuff is coming 2025."

And yes, they know many rigged mesh-based avatars aren't fully displaying on mobile. Fixes, said product head Grumpity Linden, are "coming soon".

Linden Lab's Mobile Marketing Strategy

If you're wondering why you haven't seen ads for the mobile app, it's because Linden Lab isn't targeting general consumers yet.

"The mobile app was not designed for new users where I spend a million dollars to bring [them in]," as Oberwager put it. "We built the mobile app for current residents... we're not putting marketing dollars to bring in new people."

Under their strategy, they even expect mobile users may create an alt account for mobile, yet continue using the desktop client:

 

Roblox Joins Epic in Fight Against the App Stores. Will Other Metaverse Platforms Join Them?

In case you missed it over the Thanksgiving holiday rush last week, Roblox is now actively promoting sales of its virtual currency Robux via its website as opposed to making the same purchase on mobile or console.

This is highly significant, because up until recently, companies like Apple and Google would delist Roblox for doing something like this, since it deprives their app stores of the usual 30% in-app purchase cut. But with a court ruling against Google in favor of Epic last October, Roblox is joining Epic in what's effectively a game of chicken against the major platform publishers. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is ebullient at this, of course, praising Roblox for "finally fighting the Apple tax".

So now Epic's Fortnite and Roblox, the world's most popular metaverse platforms, are openly challenging the major app publishers. How will the largest, Apple, react?

"I think Apple has been browbeaten into this position by regulators," a veteran virtual world exec tells me. "There's a lot of attention on Apple at the moment looking at whether they're anticompetitive or not. A few years ago, this would be a fast track to having your app updates denied -- or worse, be removed from the store. Today, Apple is allowing it; but I would surmise they're not happy about it."

One way of making this move a fait accompli is if the other metaverse platforms in the app stores follow suit -- specifically, Rec Room, ZEPETTO, VRChat, IMVU... and, of course, Second Life. Should they join forces with Roblox and Fortnite?

Philip Rosedale, Linden Lab's Newly-Appointed CTO, on the Future of Second Life Mobile, AI Applications, and Much More

Along with announcing his return to Linden Lab leadership on Wednesday, Philip Rosedale and I also had a wide-ranging conversation on multiple topics around the future of Second Life, AI, and beyond.  The company is hosting an Ask Me Anything appearance with him in the virtual world tomorrow morning (details here), but I got a chance to chat with him about:

• Deploying AI applications in Second Life -- and why the virtual world is a better or a more promising test bed for AI than the real world.
• Spatial audio upgrades to SL.
• The future of FairShare, his digital currency project launched last year.
• Linden Lab's plans for the Second Life mobile app -- including gamification features.

Read all that and more below! But first, to help support my writing feature articles like this (and to get special benefits) please consider joining/subscribing to my Patreon.

Second Life Mobile Updates: Experimental Voice Chat Added, Access Expanded to All Subscriber Levels Including Plus

Linden Lab just announced some pretty big updates to its Second Life mobile app (watch above, featuring a celebrity cameo) chief among them being these:

• Voice chat is now available in mobile on an experimental basis in some regions
• Mobile access is now expanded to all subscribers levels, including Plus (i.e. $5.50/month)

The announcement goes into detail on how all areas of Second Life are accessible, regardless of content rating -- something I discussed a few weeks ago:

Second Life Mobile Update: Latest Version Fixes Android 13 Issue -- And Now Allows Access to All SL Sims of All Maturity Ratings (UPDATED)

Update, 9/12: Added some additional background around Maturity rating access and App Store rules at the bottom of this post!

Pretty big update to the Second Life mobile app project posted by Linden staffer Bridie recently. First off, support for the app on Android iOS 13 has been restored, a problem that popped up (reported by "0xc0ffea") last week. 

Even more notable, notes Bridie: "Premium Plus, Premium, and Plus members now have freedom to explore ALL of Second Life -- including regions across all maturity ratings!"

So that's something! Here's the direct downloads for Premium users:

• Second Life for iOS on the App Store.
• Second Life for Android on Google Play.

As for the recent problem with Android 13, my guess the previous build had some kind of compatibility issue that was updated?

Anyway, the all region access is quite notable: