New World Notes

VRChat's Solution to the Social Problem of Poorly Optimized Avatars

Recently saw a Reddit rant about a VRChat avatar with a hilariously ridiculous number of triangles (above), and had to laugh in recognition at the title: "Friends joining with these half a million polygon avies are literally ruining the experience (not only for me)! This is outrageously stupid and unnecessary!"

Maybe unnecessary, but also inevitable, on metaverse platforms: When you give novice grassroots creators UGC tools for enhancing their avatars, many will add so many enhancements, they often end up making avies with quite a lot of polygon junk in their trunk. 

This also has been a challenge in Second Life for many years. Many of the top-selling mesh bodies in SL are extremely resource heavy, and tend to degrade performance of everyone around them, including the users wearing these bodies. (They're so resource heavy, a former Linden Lab engineer once compared them to a local DDOS attack!) Some SL shopping events have even taken to setting up a "viewing sim" near the actual kiosks, so shoppers can view the wares at a safe, less laggy distance. 

As for VRChat, there's some guidance in place which makes this less of a social problem:

Give New SL Users Their Own Private Second Life Instance or Noob Continent (Comment of the Week)

Interesting comment thread on Second Life's nooby-booting problem. (I.E.,  that many of the best Second Life hangouts and locations have orbiters banning new users with accounts under 30 days old.) My suggestion is to add a VRChat-style trust system, which is just one (imperfect) way to help address this challenge; I also like this one from longtime reader Martin K:

What about putting new users in their own private instance of a world instead of banning them? In this way, new users could at least visit and explore a world on their own. Visiting private instances of a world has the added benefit of protecting new users from the toxicity of other users in many worlds.

Their own private Second Life! I imagine you'd want select veteran SLers to also be able to access the private instance, as greeters, tutors, and event staff. But something like this has promise. 

I've been thinking about a variation of this:

Second Life Has a Nooby Insta-Boot Problem. Would a VRChat-Style Trust System Fix It?

At right: A bestselling SL security system (on the Marketplace here) 

Last week's media event with Linden Lab was mainly about the Second Life mobile app officially launching, and the company's strategy to bring back lapsed SLers with it, and grow the overall user base. But before those details were announced, another challenge to growing the Second Life user base came up:

• To entice new users, they need to see great content and communities in Second Life.   
• But many of the best Second Life hangouts and locations have orbiters banning new users (to prevent trolling, non-members, etc), i.e. typically accounts under 30 days old.
• So not only can new users not access these areas, they're unceremoniously booted for even trying. 

"My experience is having to explain this to new residents that get sent back to the welcome hub, completely clueless as to why, what they did, or the punishment being so harsh," as longtime blogger/event manager Sasy Scarborough explains. "Some have even thought it will mean they are banned for life, that is also a really bad outcome... one guy I was helping at the hub the other day left and got ejected from three places in a row within minutes."  

Sasy brought this up during the media event, but it's really an ongoing paradox of metaverse platforms: User-generated content is what makes them so powerful and unique, but that doesn't necessarily mean specific users want to make their content available to anyone who shows up. 

"More people are joining Second Life now with money to spend, because they have come from YouTube etc, and know where they are guided to go, to only be ejected from those locations." Of course, location owners are well within their right to ban anyone for any reason, even if that ultimately hurts overall user growth. "If a person with no real connection in-world is repeatedly ejected from experiences, they will be frustrated, and could just log out permanently."  

On the Zoom call, Linden Lab CTO Philip Rosedale acknowledged the problem, but also pointed out how difficult it is to solve on the software/UX side. Saying: "If someone has a precise and complete change order to address the problem, we could address that."  In other words, it's a complex fix with no easy solution that'll satisfy everyone.

I do see one solution which turns the 30 day/nooby limit into an aspirational goal: Implement a system similar to that of VRChat's trust ranking system. I.E:

Virtual Worlds Are Relatively Safe Havens for LGBT People -- But Many Concerns Remain (Comment of the Week)

A reader who signs themself "LGBT+ anon" throws some important and necessary cold water on my tribute to virtual worlds as safe havens for LGBT people:

Virtual worlds are surely helpful to LGBT+ people, gender expression and more, and in general I agree, but since we are talking about safety and "safe havens" after this election, I think it's important a word of caution. Apart from some abusive people you could meet also in virtual worlds, I won't feel safe with USA-based Internet companies, as David Bell said, even less now and in the next years.

Second Life is an especially bad case: communication is still sent plain-text and it's logged, with anything you did and where you did go. They keep the info for long, also the employees access to those logs, your other data and your inventory. That's for tech support, but also to investigate abuse reports. For those purposes it is fine, right? Except it's well known... that US government agencies spied on virtual worlds, among which Second Life.

Now, think about all this under a hostile government. Yikes!

More from LGBT+ anon and my reply after the break:

Second Life Doesn't Have Official Discord Integration, So Peter Stindberg Created Bridging Apps. Up to 10% of Active SLers Already Use Them!

The Discord Experts from Peter Stindberg is one of the very most popular new-ish Second Life brands in my reader survey, and that's no surprise: As the name suggests, it connects Second Life to Discord, the most popular messaging app for gamers worldwide.  (Now with 150 million monthly active users, according to the company's own stats.) While Linden Lab hasn't yet launched an official SL-to-Discord API, Peter has been adding numerous bridging applications to his Marketplace, including the one above: An add-on which enables you to track visitors on your Second Life region from Discord.

Already quite popular (more info down the way), the Discord Experts brand began in 2019/2020 by happenstance, Peter tells me:

How Virtual Worlds' Creator Economies Can Exert a "Big Sort" Cultural Effect (Comment of the Week)

Responding to my post on VRChat's emerging new creator economy featuring the video above), longtime reader Martin K. has some provocative thoughts on the sociology of virtual worlds:

One interesting thought that jumped at me in the context of monetization was this: 

When your world is Quest-compatible, more kids get in; it's just a fact - an uncomfortable fact, because it's also people who don't have as much money - who can't afford a PC - who get a Quest.

All this is probably true, but one might jump to the conclusion that Quest-users spend less money on microtransactions (on average) because they are younger (on average), and that's probably not true for microtransactions targeting children: as Roblox and many other free-to-play games have shown, children might be quite willing to spend a few dollars regularly on (exploitive) microtransactions. (And that inclination is in addition to the larger number of Quest-users compared to PC-VR users.)

Of course, the offerings have to target children; your typical, over-sexualized Second Life skins probably won't sell well to children.

Which reminds me of the idea that The Big Sort is not only happening in real life but also in virtual worlds with creator economies: specific metaverse-apps with creator economies attract specific audiences.

Martin's referring to the highly influential sociology book arguing that people across the United States have been "sorting" themselves by culture and worldview, to the point where even differing neighborhoods in the same city can hold widely contrary values and opinions.

Martin argues that different kinds of commerce can have the same sorting effect on virtual worlds:

New on My Patreon: Inside Crack Den: The Untold Story Behind Second Life's Controversial, Long-Running Roleplay Community

Now available on my Patreon:

First launched in 2006 as a rickety RPG where stories and quests were conveyed by in-world notecards, the core player base has remained, evolved, and grown together. To this day (by Nadir’s estimate) some 5,000 SLers visit the mini-world of Crack Den every month, perhaps to participate in the mayhem, or to gawk like post-apocalyptic tourists at the desperately seedy goings-on.

Now running for 17 years, the factors that keep Crack Den thriving are many, and they may  not be what you might think. And if you think one reason for its longevity is the presence of extreme sexual content, including descriptions of virtual rape, there’s more to the story of Crack Den than you know.

Join my Patreon to read the rest, and please consider subscribing to support more longform, in-depth articles like this!

Second Life Merchants: What Do You Think of This Epic Anonymous Rant on the SL Creator Economy? Take the Survey at the End!

When I ran an anonymous survey of Second Life merchants to help prepare this Patreon report on the Second Life economy, I included an open form option that asked, "Is there anything you'd like to say that wasn't covered by this survey?"

One merchant delivered in thunder and fire. Read it all below, and if you're an SL merchant yourself, take the reaction survey at the end.

Preamble

The ones who have the decency, the respectability, the mutual understanding: they became a rare species; we do see them, we do appreciate them. 

The following is about the ones that fall out, are loud and demanding, and strikingly overshadowing the good-hearted souls. We are convinced that it is a societal issue being reflected in SL.

Entitled Customers: 

They expect life-long and free updates whenever a new product or feature is released on the market; e.g. mesh body or matching add-ons, PBR. There is no appreciation nor a will to pay the minimum for the required time and effort dedicated by creators to improve their skills. 

Customers refuse to comprehend that a so-called fatpack is the actual full product with all features included, and that single colors/packs are restricted versions of the full product but for lower budgets, thus, even those with less L$ could have a chance to enjoy the same product to an extent. But these single offers are passionately condemned even though its principle does not differ from how, for example, RL mobile phone contracts are handled, ie. "Lower $ rate - you can make phone calls like everyone else, yay! But, less data volume for Internet user". 

Even the most generous creators get attacked, insulted, badmouthed in public if the customers don't get what they want. This kind of customer wants it all, wants it now, and wants it at no or very low cost whatsoever. Their reasoning? "Our hard-earned money", denying our time, effort, investments.

In the past, we reacted to customer requests, like, If we would sell them a customized single version of a product which wasn't offered officially. If it was a simple and reasonable request, we didn't mind since it happened rarely, and people were asking politely without demanding. We were happy to make them happy. 

Those times are gone. Nowadays, customers regularly breathe fire and brimstone in our DMs. 

One of those recent out-of-the-blue anecdotes is this example: "Fuck you, fuck your product, fuck your store." When one of our team members wasn't able to respond right away, they approached the next team member shown online who couldn't react right away either. 

They came back with "Fuck all of your staff, you're all fucking thieves!" Mind you, the cause for this particular complaint was a genuine mistake that happened during original boxing. 

The whole interaction with this sophisticated customer happened within seconds. Both of the messaged staff members were in a call. In the middle of updating info in-world and on social media about the re-deliveries of the fixed version of the product in question being sent out. 

It was a dollarbie. 

Comical. Yet, this story exemplifies the new normal. We don't give second chances anymore. We don't hesitate to ban and block polemic customers forever. We're done.

Next: On Exploitative Event Owners and Lax Bloggers:

Many Second Life Merchants Say the Virtual World Economy Seems Oligopolistic; How Should Linden Lab Intercede?

We should explore a key finding from my recent Patreon report, that nearly half the Second Life merchants surveyed believe the virtual world economy is dominated by oligopolies (see above). A solid plurality of merchants believe some SL brands have oligopolistic power over the virtual economy, while 37% are open to that possibility. 

Anonymous comments by the surveyed merchants highlight their specific concerns:

There is a lot of gatekeeping in the SL creator's world, especially when starting from zero. They limit too much the access to certain body devkits like [top brand A] or [top brand B] or to certain events so it is hard to grow as a creator when you are just starting with the brand, even if you have the knowledge or potential, it relies too much on followers rather than quality or original content.

All you have to do is look at the clothes market and how many bodies have come and gone and how much stuff is unusable without the outdated bodies. Folks have to keep up with what the body makers are doing, as well as making things fit multiple bodies, often with intentionally obfuscated devkits, it's a mess.

Devkit gatekeeping is a huge hurdle to the health of the SL third party content creation ecosystem... you know what i'm talking about.

It's so dependent on event companies, other creators, and ultimately... whether the audience has money to spend at all let alone log on, not just our work.

I think some of the negative trends occurring in the SL creator economy fall on the shoulders of choices made by other brands. The body brands really seriously impact how our market works, and the amount of brands and bodies and mods on the market has negatively affected the market in as many ways as it has positively. It's turned customers at odds with creators more than ever.

Faced with growing oligopolies, real world governments tend to impose regulations or taxes on these powerful companies/coalitions, even breaking them up into smaller companies. As Second Life's effective government, Linden Lab can't exactly do anything like that.

I do see some potential in offering "carrots" that lessen the feeling of oligopoly power. Here's three suggestions:

 

In Sign of Growing Protest Over Heavily AI-Enhanced Images, Primfeed Adds Restrictions to AI Content

Here's a small but notable update from Primfeed, the new, quickly growing social network/Flickr alternative for the Second Life user community:

AI is allowed on Primfeed, however it needs to follow simple rules: If it's a vendor ads, you must use the AI tag. If it's not, it doesn't need the AI tag. - Your content can't be ALL AI generated content, even if it's trained on SL content. As per the Terms of Service, it needs to be 80-90% of SL content.

"[I]t's just a requirement to put the label render or AI on vendors ads," Primfeed owner/lead developer Lucas Rowley tells me. "My goal was to address customers' worries about the abuse of use of generative AI for vendors ads, and the tag AI was an answer to these worries." Rowley says it's been a frequent complaint of new Primfeed users.

I'm not surprised: