New World Notes

Second Life Sees Significant User Concurrency Growth of Old & Returning Players, Post-Pandemic Declaration

Data courtesy Tyche Shepherd

While newer virtual world usage so far seems to be flat in the wake of recent coronavirus news, legacy world Second Life has indeed seen some growth in usage. As renowned Second Life grid analyst Tyche Shepherd puts it to me today:

"This weekend there seems to have been more activity above expectations -- Median Daily Concurrency was up by 10% on Saturday 14th (45,000) and Sunday 15th (44,000) over expectations. There was also uplifts in Maximum and Average Daily Concurrency."

Notably, the World Health Organization designated the Coronavirus a global pandemic on March 11, while the White House declared a national emergency on March 13th. 

"However," as Tyche cautions, "this effect has only been in the last 4 days of data (13th onwards). We'll see what happens over the weeks to come."

In terms of actual users, ten percent growth in concurrency translates to about 5,000 people; not a lot, but not nothing. And to be sure, correlation does not prove not causality. (Except in the sense that writing about a correlation causes Internet commenters to angrily write, "Correlation does not prove causation!") But common sense suggests at least some of this growth is the result of more people staying indoors longer, looking for new (and classic) social outlets to play in.

Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg did just confirm this growth, and also associated it to the coronavirus:

Somnium's Embedded Reporter Explores Single-Shard Social VR World With Blockchain-Based Economy

Now this video gives me some deep, 2003-era nostalgia. It's a brief tour of a build in Somnium Space, the new-ish social VR world for PC and VR headsets, but with its simple graphics and sunny, seamless, single-shard world -- With places! On a map! That you travel to! -- it vividly reminded me of Second Life from back in olden times. That's also because the video itself is by Carlos Aborde, Somnium Space's official embedded reporter.

Besides being primarily for VR, the key 2020-era update is blockchain. (Well, most people in Silicon Valley would tell you blockchain-based platforms lost their luster ages ago, by which I mean 2018.) Anyway here's the key feature set from the homepage:

No Virtual World is Ready to Be an Educational Platform -- But Maybe We Just Need SCORM (Comments of the Week #2)

In the era of the Coronavirus, the time for a virtual world that works well for professional/enterprise use seems to be now -- but Gwenette Writer, who works in the space, argues that none as yet exist that meet all seven of the criteria I outlined last week (i.e. "serious" non-human avatars, multi/cross-platform, light client, spacial audio, cloud service integration, frictionless firewall support, regularly used for work by the company that makes it). As she puts it:

There is no product that offers what businesses needs as outlined above. As a virtual world (VW) developer, I run into these barriers all the time with university and business clients that want a multi-purpose learning space with a sense of place or a structured immersive training scenario, but also need doc support, mobile capabilities, often firewall tunneling, and encrypted communications. The fact is, the viewers for most immersive 3D VW are memory/CPU hogs, require high-graphic cards and are not web-based. I am always testing new software/platforms, but none come close to offering solutions that overcome all seven hurdles listed above. Wagner, if I am wrong and you have a hidden card up your sleeve, PLEASE let me know ASAP!

Wish I did! I do know of a few that meet some of those criteria, and could probably meet the rest of them -- in a year or two of serious development time (maybe sooner with more resources). 

Reader "Fionalein", however, argues fairly persuasively that a virtual world is not what's needed for real work -- and suggests another alternative:

What Virtual Worlds Need to Become Real World Offices, Post-Coronavirus

With more and more people working from home amid the continued coronavirus pandemic, many virtual world/tech analysts speculate we'll see a rise in virtual worlds used as real world office spaces. Wired just pondered that very topic from a slightly different direction:

[H]ere in the San Francisco Bay Area, office lights are winking out one by one as businesses send their employees home to work, and everyone’s talking about Zoom and Microsoft Teams and Hangouts. We all know these tools don’t work that well. We can all predict the frustration and miscommunications they will cause over the next few weeks or months (or more?) of remote employment. As this future sails ever closer, I can’t help but think: Weren’t we supposed to have virtual reality in the workplace by now?

No, we don't actually want VR to become the remote workspace, at least not any time soon: VR headsets are still too expensive, too heavy and sweat-inducing to wear for over an hour, let alone eight, while virtual reality still causes nausea in a large percentage of people. (There may even be a gender component to the nausea, with women much more likely to experience it in VR, which would make mandatory VR for work a total non-starter.)

Virtual worlds (i.e. immersive 3D spaces), however, do have much more potential as a remote workplace. But at least seven hurdles remain:

Non-human avatar options: The avatars pictured above, from a VR workspace startup, are what I have in mind, clearly conveying their purpose as a professional tool. Many virtual world companies for work offer human avatars by default, which immediately creates an impression that they're for a game -- a deal-breaker for many executives. 

Extremely cross-platform: Some workers may want to use VR for work, but for everyone else, they need every conceivable option: Mac, PC, and iOS/Android, at minimum. 

Extremely thin client: Most people have multiple programs running simultaneously at work. A workplace world must therefore run alongside them, and not require heavy resources to run.

Four -- yes four -- more, after the break:

Decentraland Founder on Moving Open Standards-Billed Virtual World to Unity 3D

Decentraland, the virtual world which raised USD $25 million in Ethereum sales of virtual land to fund its development and is showing some promising closed beta growth. was originally billed as aiming to run completely on open standards technology and protocols. Over the Summer, however, the startup quietly moved to Unity 3D, the world's largest 3D development platform which is decidedly closed and proprietary. Which to me seems like a major change in development philosophy.

 

Decentraland founder Ari Meilich argues otherwise:

 

"More important than the underlying stack is what it enables," as he puts it to me. "The open source JS engines we previously tried were not performant enough, so having a web-based client was at risk. The web is crucial for Decentraland because it overrides any platform limitations, like those you encounter in the app stores against crypto.

 

"So by adopting Unity (which allowed for a great performance boost by compiling to WASM we are able to give users a web-based client, with the web being the last bastion of freedom on the Internet."

 

It's an irony of the times: The best way to get on the most open Internet platform is through a closed platform.

 

Ari tells me this doesn't move Decentraland away from the open standards as a principle:

Tim Sweeney Has an Epic Vision for an Open Metaverse -- But Unanswered Questions "Who Needs It?" & "Who Wants It?" Remain

Master VR podcaster Kent Bye has a valuable Twitter thread on a SIGGRAPH 2019 talk by Epic's Tim Sweeney, who just laid out his vision for an open metaverse. (No surprise Epic has plans to build one, as that was evident when the company rolled out user-creation tools for Fortnite last year.) In opposition to say, Facebook, Sweeney's metaverse is admirably open and not a walled garden: 

.@TimSweeneyEpic
What is the Metaverse?
Real-time social medium to share experiences & ceators need to be able to create their own stuff.
Needs to have an open economy that participants can participate & survive w free market economics without corporate dystopian control.

— Kent Bye VoicesOfVR (@kentbye) July 30, 2019

As with any other metaverse framework, however, two basic questions (far as I can tell) remain unaddressed:

Decentraland Launches New Site With Metaverse Messaging, Creator Contest

Big updates to Decentraland, the ambitious, open standards-based social VR world project which raised $25 million in 2017 via Ethereum sales to fund development. The website is new, gorgeous, and decidedly metaversian in its messaging:

Welcome to Decentraland: A virtual world owned by its users. Build, explore, and earn money from your creations. Join a public platform controlled by its community and take a stake in the virtual world. Drive your vision with the tools, tutorials, and support that our community provides. Decentraland’s world is built around MANA, a blockchain-based token used for trading goods and services provided by users.

More on the blog here. On top of that, there's a major update to the Builder, the world's scene builder, and a Creator Contest that's being co-judged by James Dargie, a seasoned 3D artist with an impressive AAA game/Hollywood movie track record. (Metroid Prime, Medal of Honor, the Matrix movies, etc. ) For a glimpse at how the Builder works and what's possible with it, here's a recent-ish tutorial where a simple tower defense game is built in Decentraland:

Fortnite Officially Becomes Full-Fledged Virtual World With Private Islands & Content Creation Tools

Fortnite! It's the most popular multi-user game in the world, and while it has always had some virtual world-esque aspects, the new Fortnite Creative mode makes it very much a persistent virtual world:

It’s a brand new way to experience the world of Fortnite, available on December 6. Design games, race around the island, battle your friends in new ways and build your dream Fortnite. It’s all happening on your own private island where everything you make is saved.

Also notable that the video above emphasizes Fortnite's potential as a machinima platform. And while a private island in Second Life costs you some $250 a month, the cost of your own private island in Fortnite is... (drum roll please):

Humans Want Struggle, Not Perfection: What The Matrix's Agent Smith Teaches Us About Creating Successful Virtual Worlds

If you want to know why some virtual worlds like Minecraft are huge, while others like Second Life remain a relative niche, watch this scene from The Matrix, which is actually about creating the virtual world of the Matrix itself. Agent Smith reveals that the AIs first tried to create a perfect virtual world for its human users, but the humans rejected it. For Will Burns, Vice-Chair for IEEE's Virtual Worlds Standard Group, this is the key challenge virtual world developers face:

"When you build a perfect world without needs or wants, it inevitably is rejected," as he puts it. "Because that's not how humanity works. Humanity thrives in the pursuit of progress and something to work toward.

"So when you introduce those needs, those imperfections and whatnot, suddenly humanity thrives, rises to the occasion. When you stop giving them everything and their entire existence is no longer on a whim of wants, but no needs... something fundamentally changes in how that society works. They strive and overcome. You give them challenges, limits to face and overcome. That way, you no longer end up with 'Bored God Syndrome'. People logging in and saying 'What's the purpose here?'.

"If everything is a matter of want but not need, then it's boring. If nothing really serves a need, people get bored. Introduce those limits to overcome, those challenges, and they come together not just for want, but for necessity. And that's how civilizations arise in their complexity. And by no means should you give them that pre-defined complexity prebuilt. You just hand them the system that lets them do it themselves and ultimately requires it."

 The challenges define and shape how the virtual community evolves:

"In this manner, airports means something when built. It's not a joyride (though you could have tours). But it serves a real purpose of faster travel. Highways, sea ports, etc. They serve a bigger purpose. And they are created with the intention of solving a problem. That's the big take away. What does such a thing solve in a virtual society? Does it have a purpose other than superficial? In that moment, you realize the secret to a successful Metaverse. Is it superficial only? Then you have Bored God Syndrome and it gets rejected. Just like the first Matrix."

That changes if the developer imposes struggles and challenges: 

When Does a Successful Virtual World "End"? (Comments of the Week)

With well-known Second Life-focused media outlets expanding their focus to other virtual worlds, some readers have become bearish on SL's prospects. For instance, Clara Seller:

A few years ago, I always thought that Second Life's end would look like a mass exodus to a new world. Now it feels more like mass extinction.

I'm skeptical that there's enough commonality to hold these diversification models together. It seems like they are just extending a big net and hoping there's something out there to catch.

When you start to see successful people jumping out of tenth floor windows toward nothing, it's not entirely crazy to think there's fire up there.

When SL goes down the drain, it's going to take a huge amount of imaginary money and hope down the drain with it. Whatever worlds exist in that aftermath, are going to have to deal with the "Remember what happened to Second Life" reality.

Small businesses go quickly and quietly. Now you see it, now you don't. I'm starting to think that this will be the real foundation challenge that the next generation of virtual worlds will have to contend with. Maybe all of this technology floundering is the easy part.

Penny Patton, a RL graphics artist with a longtime commitment to improving SL visuals, has perhaps a more nuanced view: