Today we’re introducing an additional way for you to protect your account!

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is now available to all residents on their accounts. MFA is an additional step to prove your identity before gaining access to sensitive information or actions on your account. It provides an extra layer of security to supplement your username and password. Widely adopted by many products, MFA is an industry standard.

How does it work? You can learn more about MFA, find out what you’ll need to do, and activate it in the knowledge base article!

You will need to take action in order to activate MFA. It is entirely opt-in. Go to accounts.secondlife.com/mfa/status and get started!

Note: MFA adds protection only to your accounts.secondlife.com login. MFA does not affect how you log in to the SL Viewer. If you activate MFA, you should continue to change your password regularly and choose strong passwords.

In future releases we plan to extend MFA’s protections to additional pages on secondlife.com, the marketplace, and the viewer. We are also exploring an email-based implementation.

Greetings Second Lifers!

Today is a really big day for all of us together and we are excited to share that the Second Life portion of CasperTech is being acquired by Linden Research, Inc.

CasperTech has provided various business related services within Second Life for 13 years. Over that time, CaperTech has proudly provided continuous service for tens of thousands of Second Life businesses, and it has remained steadfast in its commitment to the merchants who have depended on those services.

This acquisition will ensure that all of the existing CasperTech services in Second Life will continue to operate without interruption into the foreseeable future, but it also opens up brand new opportunities to vastly improve the experience for our users as our next step in the CasperTech and Second Life journey.  

You can expect to see the same great services that you know and love continue on, with all of the same functionality you enjoy today, but with closer integration into the Second Life ecosystem – and as such, an even more reliable and convenient experience.

We wouldn’t have gone forward with this move if we weren’t absolutely confident that it will be a positive change for all Residents and CasperTech customers.

We hope that you are as excited about this change as we are, and we thank you for your continued support as we all step boldly into the future together!

We have started a forum discussion here for anyone interested in participating with questions.

You can also watch Casper and I on a special pre-recorded Lab Gab today at 10:30am SLT!

The Second Life Team
and Casper Warden, CasperTech LTD
 

Hello, and Happy Wednesday!

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve updated our Name Change service in a major way. We’ve told you that we were going to keep working on adding new features to the Premium and Premium Plus offerings, and we’re delivering on that once again today. From here on, Premium and Premium Plus subscribers will benefit from a reduced price for the Name Change service. 

But that’s not all! Not only are we discounting the service across the board, but we’ve decided to democratize the service to everyone.

That’s right, as of today, everyone can change their avatar name regardless of their subscription level. Not just the Premium subscribers that have always been able to do so, but all of our Basic accounts as well! This is something we’ve been trying to offer for a long time, and something that we get requests for on a consistent basis, so we couldn’t be more pleased to finally be able to announce it.

As an exciting new option for Basic accounts, here’s what it looks like today. Not only do you have the option to change your avatar’s first name to anything you can imagine, but we also offer a rotating list of last names to give your avatar (even if you don’t already have one) that are updated on a regular basis. We will continue to make updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, new names are chosen from there!

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

We are so excited to see the positive response our Premium Plus offering has had! We’ve had thousands of sign-ups so far in just the first month, and no signs of slowing down.

To celebrate the success of the first month of Premium Plus and give everyone the opportunity to take full advantage of this offer, we have decided to extend the first-month promotional price of $24.99 for an additional week (until 8/8)! 

Starting on August 8th the monthly cost for Premium Plus will return to its non-promotional price of $29.99/mo, so you’ll need to act fast to lock in the first month’s discount.

For just $24.99, you’ll get a whole month of L$650 per week, a L$3000 signup bonus, fully paid-for mainland tier of 2,048sqm, and the ability to join up to 140 groups! Throw in unlimited free uploads of sounds, textures and animations on top of all the standard Premium benefits you already know and love, and we think that’s a heck of a deal. 

And if you’d like to lock in the discount for an entire year, the Annual Premium Plus membership is a further 17% off, saving you a total of over 30% off the Monthly price!

If you haven’t had a chance to sign up for our most generous subscription level yet, why not give it a try today and see if Premium Plus is right for you? 

Since emerging onto the scene in 2016, Eli Brown has effortlessly cemented his status as an artist of distinction, and a mainstay in the House & Electronic music genre, gaining fans globally in territories such as the USA, Canada, Brazil, and party capital of the world, Ibiza. With his visceral club energy, and affinity to experimentation, as well discovering new and unique ways to make the world of electronic music more innovative – Eli’s collaboration with the Internet’s pioneering virtual world, Second Life, and Sam Wiehl are a perfect combination, and encapsulate the connection that music and technology have; ensuring fans no longer just feel as though they are consumers of music, but also get to participate and immerse themselves into it too.

With the launch of “Club Arcane” in Second Life the new interactive project literally puts listeners inside an all-new metaverse music video. The elaborate experience, which is set to an exclusive mashup mix of Brown’s “Killer,” “Trouble,” and “Send Help” singles takes participants through a musical “dark ride” adventure filled with ominous alleys, dancing bots, and a neon-lit nightclub bursting with hidden surprises at every turn.

Speaking on the immersive experience, Eli says: “I’m beyond excited to unveil Club Arcane with Second Life, one of the world's first, truly immersive online club experiences. We’ve been working hard on this concept for what feels like an eternity, carefully curating an online experience that feels representative of my overall brand but, more importantly, my live show personified in the digital space. Expect dark visuals, industrial club spaces and exclusive music & sets from myself and other artists I admire”.

The design and build were made in collaboration with artist Sam Wiehl, who directed the video and built the virtual club environment for Eli’s ‘Killer’ release. Key visual elements from the original music video are integrated into the interactive version, which allows participants to ride solo or with friends.

Teleport to Club Arcane in Second Life:

Club Arcane - Eli Brown Experience

Step inside for a dark and immersive journey through a world of Eli Brown's own making. Lose yourself in a visceral display of sinister melodies and foreboding visuals, forever building in tempo and energy. More info at second.life/elibrown

Visit in Second Life

Video production by Vrutega

Event Regions are a new feature in Second Life, a special type of region with extra capacity for both visitors and objects, depending on the package chosen, as well as other benefits noted below. To make this additional capacity possible, Event Regions run on a special hardware configuration.

We’re introducing a lower priced offering called Event Regions Pro, priced at $449/mo with no additional setup fee.

Each Event Region Pro includes:

• 175 avatar limit
• More than 20% improvement in script performance
• Extended chat range (upon request) -- allowing everyone on the region to see and participate in Nearby Chat if desired

Add-ons available for a fee:

• Rollback service (completed within 48 hours) for $25 per request
• Instancing Service -- Cloning of an Event Region for $50 per request. (Your region must have 100% original content)
• Increase to 30,000 Land Impact -- $30 monthly add-on

We have permanently lowered the price on the original version of Event Regions, which will be called Event Regions Elite, priced at $599 per month with no setup fee.

Each Event Region Elite includes all features of Pro:

• 175 avatar limit
• More than 20% improvement in script performance
• Extended chat range (upon request) -- allowing everyone on the region to see and participate in Nearby Chat if desired

Event Region Elite includes additional benefits over Pro:

• Land Impact limit raised from 20,000 to 30,000 at no charge
• No fee for Rollbacks Service
• No fee for Instancing Service
• White-glove Concierge service

We’re excited to be able to offer these two tiers -- Pro with a la carte pricing, and the all-inclusive Elite.

In addition to these new product offerings, we are pleased to announce region rollbacks as a service. This service is now available to all private region owners. If you make a mistake with region content, or want to restore a previous build, you can now request to roll the region back to a specific time. Please note that rollbacks will still be at Linden Lab’s discretion and are not guaranteed. Rollback services are available at $25 per request.

We continue to work on performance improvements for Event Regions as well as all of our land products. As well, you’ll see performance improvements in the latest release of the Performance Viewer.

Here’s how to order an Event Region Elite or Pro:

• Submit a request via our support ticket system: https://lindenlab.freshdesk.com/support/home
• Select Land & Region > Order Events Region
• Note that you may order multiple Event regions on the same support ticket

If you would like additional information about Event Regions, please contact Support and we’ll be happy to help.

We look forward to seeing the exciting new events that you, our residents, create using the new Event Region feature!
 

We are so excited to be officially launching our Second Life Premium Plus offerings today! The Premium Plus membership level is designed for the most dedicated Second Life Residents with more weekly stipends, more groups, more mainland, and even more of all the things you love!  There’s only one thing there’s less of - fees. Premium Plus subscribers get free uploads for sounds, textures, and animations, free recurring events, lower group fees, and did we mention - $15 Name Changes?!

The all-new Premium Plus is available for $29.99 per month and $249 per year with a special limited time promotional price of $24.99 per month. Not ready for Premium Plus? You can still continue to enjoy our existing Premium offering, which is available for $11.99 per month and $99 per year. 

Our Premium membership has been a fantastic value for many years, and we’ll continue to grow the benefits for both Premium and Premium Plus. Check the comparison chart below to see which membership level suits you best, sign up today, and get that signup bonus!

UPDATE: Please read the Premium Plus FAQ for more information.

To celebrate Second Life’s 19th birthday we are releasing new last names today!

The following names are in Steampunk theme and only available for a limited time.

Blakewell
Chattoway
Davonius
Hogwood
Lygon
Philbert
Steverus
Throgmorton
Whipple
Cogtail

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, the new names were chosen from there!

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

We are happy to announce that we have restored the ability to accept and decline offline friendship and group membership offers.

When a recipient isn't online, offers are stored for later retrieval. Their number and duration of storage is subject to certain limits.

When the recipient does log in, stored offers are retrieved and remain active for up to 24 hours or until the region restarts.  The offers present to the recipient as Notifications.  Friendship offers also appear as Direct Messages from the offerors.

Please note, offline offers can only be acted upon while in the region one logged into.  

The server-side generation of Calling Cards when a friendship offer is accepted has been removed. This feature moved to the Viewer several years ago and now accepting friendship offers creates, at most, two Calling Cards, one for each party.

Please enjoy the return of this feature!

To celebrate Mother’s Day and all the mothers in the Second Life community, we are releasing new limited edition last names today, only available until May 13th:
Mamacita
Mommy
Madre

Here is the full list of current last names available:

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, the new names were chosen from there!

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!
 

PLEASE READ OUR UPDATED EVENT REGIONS BLOG POST: https://second.life/eventregions

Greetings Second Life Community!

We are excited to bring you a shiny new land product: presenting “Event Regions”!

Have you ever dreamed of being able to hold large scale events in Second Life? Have you ever wished you could keep the lag monster at bay during large events? Perhaps you just want your scripts to all go vroom?  Well wonder, wait and wish no more! Sporting the latest upgrades in grid technologies that have been enabled by our migration to the cloud, these regions have been tested running large events in real-world scenarios such as those really big monthly shopping events, and live performances! Our tests saw nearly 200 avatars successfully able to shop and party in these regions.   

We are really excited to present this new region offering to you today.  Here are the details on the capabilities and what is included with the Event Regions type:

• A maximum avatar limit of 175 per Event region
• Up to 30,000 land impact
  *Region will support up to 30,000 Land Impact. During performance testing, Linden Lab has identified a few cases where exceeding 20,000 Land Impact will degrade performance with a large number of concurrent visitors.
• Extended chat ranges upon request, allowing chat to travel further across the region
• RaaS: Rollbacks as a Service - Request to restore your region to a previous state as needed. Some restrictions apply
• IaaS: Instancing as a Service - Request to have your region duplicated to another region
• White glove Concierge service
• Over 20% Improved script performance

Pricing Details:

For initial release, we are pleased to offer an introductory price of $599, with no additional setup fee through June 6, 2022. Following the introductory pricing, event regions will have a set-up fee of US$999 (includes first month), and a rate of $899/month after the first 30 days.

Here’s how to order:

• Submit a request via our support ticket system here: https://lindenlab.freshdesk.com/support/home
• Select Land & Region > Order Events Region
• Note that you may order multiple Event regions on your ticket

If you would like additional information, please contact support and we’ll be happy to help.

A Year of Transition

2021 was a year of transition for the Second Life team. While there were many accomplishments worth celebrating that helped to improve our collective Second Life experiences, we want to start by acknowledging the many contributions of and pay our respects to Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, who passed away earlier this year. 

Ebbe embraced all aspects of Second Life, learning about its many nuances to understand the impacts of decisions we make.  He put tremendous effort into understanding the community, and many of us who are deeply embedded in Second Life. Ebbe’s goals for Second Life included promoting Second Life as the world’s best virtual world, community and platform. Ebbe would be very proud of our accomplishments today. There is no doubt in our minds that he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

We miss Ebbe but his spirit lives on through many of the initiatives and features he championed during his many years leading Second Life.

More Changes
The year 2021 had several hellos and goodbyes among the Second Life leadership team. Former VP of engineering Oz Linden retired mid-year. Oz was an instrumental force in driving key decisions and implementations of Second Life’s development for over a decade. Oz left on a high note, having successfully completed the tremendous effort of migrating Second Life into the Cloud. We have felt his absence, celebrated his tenure, cast him in bronze, and used extensively his blanket permission to blame him for everything that goes wrong.

We have been thrilled to welcome Oz’s replacement Andrew Kertesz (better known as Mojo Linden) in August. Mojo has a wealth of experience building teams and launching PC, mobile, and console game products – and we are already seeing him work his magic on new initiatives for the coming year. Spoiler alert: Keep reading for a peek at our 2022 roadmap!

We also welcomed new ownership this year as Oberwolf Linden (a.k.a. Brad Oberwager) stepped in as Executive Chairman following the successful acquisition of Linden Lab by an investment group he leads with Randy Waterfield. Earlier this year, Oberwolf made his debut on “Lab Gab” – if you missed it, we recommend you check it out to hear directly from him about his vision and enthusiasm for Second Life.

Since that appearance, Oberwolf has not wasted any time in allocating new resources to Linden Lab, including the addition of several new engineers and developers, as well as other key leaders to help us further improve and grow faster. Among the newest hires are several established industry veterans including a new Chief Marketing Officer, Chief of Staff, Chief People Officer, and Chief Information Security Officer. 

So many changes…but that leads us to some exciting plans for 2022!

2022 Roadmap

We are already hard at work on several new features and improvements for the coming year. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s underway:

• Avatar “expressiveness” that brings camera-based gestures and movement to your avatar for a whole new level of interaction and connectedness
• Premium Plus - a new upgrade option with added features and extras
• A new mobile viewer to enhance and improve your Second Life experience
• Improved group chat reliability
• Viewer and script performance improvements 
• New user avatar customization and improvements
• Updated mesh optimizer
• Search engine improvements
• Improved materials and terrain
• Adding web marketplace variants
• …and much more!

We can’t wait to unveil more details on these and other improvements in 2022. We’ll be sharing more specifics on a future episode of our streaming video show “Lab Gab” and our blog soon.

2021 Highlights

As we prepare for the coming year, we also want to reflect on key accomplishments for 2021. 

Migration to the Cloud
The year started strong with our successful migration to the Cloud, which was completed in January after many years of careful preparation to minimize disruption to the Second Life community. We can’t emphasize enough how complex and delicate this transition was, but we were all happy to breathe a sigh of relief upon its successful completion. We have spent a good part of this year optimizing our infrastructure in the Cloud to better take advantage of the new possibilities. 
 
Performance Improvements
We’re proud of the many Second Life performance enhancements that launched in the past year including investments in our infrastructure to further improve speed and cadence of updates, overhauling the onboarding experience for the newest Residents, various UI and search cleanup improvements, and backend work to ensure compliance with multiple regulatory requirements. As an example, we’ve seen some of our lowest viewer crash rates ever – a 35% decrease in crashes from a couple of years ago! 

Over the last few months we have been busy optimizing our viewer and simulator, too. We have already made good gains that we are eager to share with the community as we deploy in the new year. An area of emphasis and success for us has been improved avatar rendering; initial test results show an increase from 25fps to 55fps with our new viewer with 20 avatars in the scene. 

We have also seen great script performance improvements with our last set of server upgrades and move to AMD hardware. There is yet another significant server upgrade in RC now and rolling out to the full grid in January. 

New Features
Are you in a lot of groups and getting too many offline messages in your email, but still want to see offline IMs? No problem. Receiving group notices to your email while you are offline is a new preference that you control separately from your offline instant message preferences. You are now able to choose between getting only IMs, only Group notices, both, or neither through email while offline.

Based on popular demand, we unveiled several new limited-edition “Last Name” options over the past year including some specialty-themed and holiday offerings. UwU or OwO, anyone? (We counted the paws. It’s UwU. Some of us knew that all along.)

Another popular request from our community has been support for multi-factor authentication, and other additional account security improvements to help protect our Residents. There’s also the new 360 Snapshot Tool that enables more immersive 360-degree snapshots to be taken within Second Life and shared externally. Many people in the community are already testing out the new feature – check out these images taken by our own Alexa Linden on Flickr.

Improving the New User Experience
We recognize the importance of first impressions to Second Life, so we’ve invested in enhancements to the new user experience including an all-new Welcome Island and related New User Guidebook. We continue to iterate on different approaches to onboarding. 

Improvements to Search have also started to roll out. We recently gave Search a visual refresh this year, and that’s being followed up next year with an investment to improve the quality of Second Life search results.

Let’s not forget the many improvements to the Marketplace! In 2021, we shipped over 140 Marketplace updates and fixes. Highlights include tying Marketplace into the overall single sign-on (SSO) system, adding a “Save For Later” feature in the shopping cart, adding bulk redelivery for merchants, as well as fixing several issues and improving speed and stability. There is still a lot more in the works for the Marketplace in the coming year. 

Linden Homes

2021 saw the release of of two different Linden Homes themes and the introduction of a third.  In March the Chalet type Linden Home was launched, and in August the Fantasy type Linden Homes were launched. 

The newest theme, Newbrooke will be joining the available new Linden Homes very soon. 

Marketing the “Metaverse”
So, perhaps you have heard of this new thing called the metaverse?  Unless you’ve been living under a rock (virtual or otherwise), you probably already know that Facebook recently changed its corporate name to Meta as they work on their own vision and version of a “metaverse.” While we appreciate that this development has super-charged interest in virtual worlds, we also know that there is genuine concern about Facebook’s plans in this space given its spotty reputation on many issues including consumer data privacy and protections.

At Second Life, we’re proud that we don’t monetize, sell, or share consumer data - and we’ve been heartened to see the mainstream media reevaluate our own virtual world amidst the heightened interest in all-things-metaverse including a renewed recognition and celebration of our pioneering contributions to the concepts of virtual economies, cultures, and communities.

As a result, we had one of our strongest years ever in mainstream and specialized media coverage - with over 15,000 articles and broadcast outlets referencing Second Life in 2021 according to PR tracking service Cision. Mainstream media highlights for the past year include prominent coverage across the globe including BBC News, TIME Magazine, The Telegraph, VentureBeat, Business Insider, Right This Minute TV, France TV, and many, many more.

2021 was also a “year of experiments” for Second Life marketing including a few “out of the box” ideas to draw attention to Second Life through new partnerships and content initiatives.

We recently tested a limited roll out of our first mainstream commercial “Children of Creation,” which won both top prize at the 2021 Telly Awards and a top 2021 Clio Award (the advertising industry’s equivalent of the Oscars). Elements of the commercial can be seen on our newly-revamped homepage, but you can also check it out on YouTube.

Over the past year, we’ve aligned with several community content creators and external partners to collaborate on new cross-promotion opportunities that aim to broaden the appeal and awareness of Second Life. Partnerships span a broad range of communities including fans of indie comic books (Zenescope), indie films (Film Threat), sports (NFL Alumni Association), and animation (Titmouse). 

So, what’s next? In the coming year, we’re allocating even more resources to help us better proactively capture new PR and media opportunities. We’re also gearing up for several exciting new community promotions and social media content initiatives. 

Happy Holidays from Second Life

We’re sincerely grateful for the support and loyalty of the entire Second Life community - and we will continue to work hard to improve your virtual lives in the coming year and beyond.

Have a great holiday,

The Second Life team

P.S. We just posted on our socials a new year-end video that spotlights several of our community members as they share what Second Life means to them this holiday season. Check it out!

After about 11 years at Linden Lab, Oz Linden recently took his much-deserved retirement and we miss him dearly. 

To celebrate Oz and his many contributions to the community, Linden Lab commissioned talented artist Bryn Oh to create a special bronze sculpture of his avatar as a retirement gift. Using an image of his avatar as a reference, Bryn created Oz in a very unique way -- the infamous Second Life “away” pose..

“I felt it was nice to make Oz in "away" because maybe retirement it's more of an adieu than a goodbye,” says Bryn in a recent Flickr post.

After keeping the project a secret for the past couple of months, Oz received the gift this week.

“I am overwhelmed. Bryn Oh! - I feel as though I have an original Rodin that I modeled for!,” he says.

We at Linden Lab also want to thank the lovely and talented Bryn Oh for creating this thoughtful piece for Oz. And to Oz, we miss you and hope you are enjoying your retirement! 
 

We’ve heard your requests and we’re introducing a new public Google calendar that will have all Linden Lab official events listed. This new calendar offers a convenient way to get an at-a-glance look at upcoming User Group meetings and other Linden Lab-sponsored events (such as the Second Life Book Club and upcoming Winter Wonderland snow fight).

To access the web version of this calendar, go to second.life/calendar, no login is required. 

You can additionally use this ICAL feed link to add it to your own personal calendar. You can also click the +GoogleCalendar icon on the bottom right of the web calendar to add it to your Google Calendar. Or, copy over individual events that you are interested in by clicking on the event and click "copy to my calendar."

We hope you find this calendar helpful. It will be frequently updated, but if you see any errors or discrepancies, reach out to Strawberry Linden at strawberry@lindenlab.com.

We are looking forward to seeing you at some upcoming events, especially the Linden & Resident Snowball Fight on December 18th. Look out for detailed blog posts about that and the Winter Shop & Hop, coming soon!

For Resident-run events, view our Events page. Seraphim also has a very handy Google calendar for Resident-run shopping events. 

Happy Holidays!
 

Connect with Second Life on Social Media:
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Flickr | Pinterest | Tumblr | Plurk | TikTok | Reddit | LinkedIn

Due to a changing regulatory climate, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to sunset a very popular sales mechanism for content in Second Life.  It’s widely known as "gacha", and is defined by a chance-based outcome as a result of a payment.  

We know that creators plan their content releases far in advance and will need to re-tool their products, so to mitigate the impact to those affected, we are giving a 30-day grace period, until midnight SLT on August 31.  After that time, selling content via gacha machines will no longer be permitted in Second Life.  Enforcement won’t start until September 1; after that date an Abuse Report for “Gaming Policy Violation” will be the preferred method of reporting this content to Linden Lab.  

We will continue to allow any sales where a payment is given for a known item, which means that items that had been purchased as “gacha” will be allowed to be re-sold as long as the buyer knows in advance the item and quantity they will receive. We will, of course, still allow fatpacks, and any other currently-allowed distribution mechanisms. 

We did not make this decision lightly and we understand that it will impact creators as well as event organizers and certainly the shoppers! We look forward to fun creative ways of engagement that will come instead.  

We realize that this announcement may leave the community with questions.  This forum thread is going to be monitored and we will answer any related questions in there. 

We have developed an FAQ to assist with answering some of the most common questions we are being asked.  This list is not exhaustive, and we will continue working to get answers and add them here.

Q:  Is it possible to extend the policy deadline?

A:  We are sorry that we are not able to further extend the policy deadline.  However, we have been able to extend the enforcement of the policy change an additional 30 days.  To be clear, starting on September 1 we expect gacha as a sales mechanism to cease. However we will start with warnings, and any enforcement of the policy as it would be applied on an account will not begin until after September 30.

Q:  How are breedables impacted by this policy change?

A:  This current policy change and deadline does not apply to breedables or other life simulation products.  At the present we are working with external counsel on the subject of breedables.  If any action is required we will make a separate announcement and have a separate timeline associated with it. 

Q:  Will popular games like 7seas be impacted by this policy change?

A:  No, because the purchase of bait to go “fishing” is a purchase being made of a known item, and also the fish you catch while playing the game are non-transferable.  To be clear, if they are not currently, they must be going forward.

Q: How are subscription boxes affected?

A: Subscription boxes are not affected as long as all subscribers are getting the same content box. Different items being sent to different subscribers on a chance basis is not allowed. 

Q:  How are Linden Homes affected?

A: Linden Homes are not impacted by this policy change.  Linden Lab owns the homes and they are not transferable.  

There are still several great questions which we are working to answer with our legal team.  We will update with additional information as soon as possible.
 

Additional FAQ’s for August 5, 2021:

Q:  Should any newly developed sales mechanism or newly created items be called “gacha” going forward?

A:  No, as we would like to eliminate any confusion with the usage of the term going forward.

Q:  Is a game that requires skill to win the prize you want permitted going forward?  For example, you throw a dart and you must hit a certain number to get the prize corresponding to that number.

A:  This would need to go through the Skilled Game review process and be presented in a Skilled Gaming region, if approved.

Q:  I am selling an item that is known, paid for and delivered to a purchaser, and for each purchaser they are entered into a prize drawing where randomly selected people who bought the item may receive a rare item as a result of the drawing, is this permitted?

A:  You must also provide a free, concise and easy way for anyone to enter into the random drawing with an equal chance to win.

Q:  Can I sell an item, and also then include an unknown random item attached as a bonus? For example, Like a buy one, get one free (BOGO), but the free item is the random/unknown item.

A:  No

Q:  Could a “conveyor belt” system work?  

Example:  The vendor board selects an item at random and displays it for purchase.  That item remains on display and available for purchase until a buyer touches the vendor which locks it to them for purchase.  This allowed the buyer to purchase the item and deliver it.  The vendor unlocks and then selects another item at random and displays it for purchase and the cycle repeats.

Example image here and credit to Nadi Vemo for the approved vendor design.

A:  Yes, as long as the item currently being purchased is known. Note however that you should discontinue the use of the “gacha” term for these sales. 

Q:  But what about breedables (again)?

A:  If you buy a brown cat, and a blue cat (as examples), as long as you knew you were getting a brown cat and a blue cat at the time of sale, this is acceptable at the present including the various unknown traits they may come with or develop.  Secondarily, when those cats make little kittens with unknown outcomes, this is also acceptable.  Lastly, the resale of any breedables will require at the time of purchase that the purchaser knows what they are purchasing at the root level (for example, it is a blue cat).  

Q:  What about my specific idea, you didn’t cover it here?

A:  We wish we could cover all the great ideas we’ve seen proposed to date. Sadly we can’t address them all and if there are any questions or proposed ideas that would suggest any other permutations on the policy, we recommend a simple and thoughtful approach to stay within the boundaries of the policy.  Failing that, please feel free to contact customer support.

If we see more areas that we need to cover, we will look at doing another FAQ update next week.
 

We have been very pleased to see the response to our limited edition last names. We hope to do a lot more of them in the future. 

Today some of the older last name options were removed and the following new ones were added:
Vanlager
Wainwright
Tater
Skydancer
Primless
Vermilion
Morningstar

Here is the full list of current last names available until mid-October:

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, some of the new names were chosen from there! 

Look out for Halloween-themed limited edition last names in mid-October!

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!
 

Hello, Community of Second Life

Second Life found new highs in 2020 between a worldwide pandemic taking grip, through the times of a tumultuous leadership change in the United States, and during movements of civil changes that will forever live in history books.  Second Life provides many with the comfort of a normal that continues to exist for all of us, where many use it to escape real life pressures, stressors and day to day challenges.  In Second Life we can be our ideal, our best, celebrate all that is good across the world together.  Sadly we have also seen some people go, and they will never be forgotten as they touched us, gave us their best from their hearts, minds and souls - this thing called real life sometimes knocks on our door and makes a call.   

This is one of those calls.

Ebbe Altberg started with Linden Lab as our CEO on February 5th, 2014.  He took the helm of the company and immediately went to work on reinvigorating our spirit and culture.  Ebbe brought a profound openness, and transparency in his operation which was key and that had many effects on all of us internally, and externally.  Lindens were encouraged to be part of the vibrant community in Second Life, to participate in and to cherish it as part of our daily duties.  Ebbe also worked internally on embracing all aspects of Second Life, learning about its many nuances to understand impacts of decisions we make; while being sensitive to those and utilizing all of our resources, which firstly included you, the community, and many of us who are deeply embedded in Second Life.  Ebbe’s goals for Second Life included promoting Second Life as the world’s best virtual world, community and platform.  He also sought new adventures in building next generation products.

As I am here before you today, it is with profound sadness that I share with you Ebbe passed away yesterday evening restfully and surrounded by the love of his family. 

I commit to all of you to carry forward with our mission of making Second Life the biggest, best, most vibrant virtual world that there ever can be.  Together, myself, Grumpity, and Brett, along with Oberwolf at the helm and the entire team, our mission is clear.  To grow Second Life and to ensure the Residents in Second Life continue to be respected and happy.

Rest in peace Ebbe, our fearless, kind, loving, gentle leader, and friend.

Patch Linden and The Linden Lab Team
 

To celebrate Mother’s Day and all the mothers in the Second Life community, we are releasing new limited edition last names today, only available until May 10th: 
Mama
Matriarch
Mum

These names are seasonal and may come back around this time next year, for a limited time.

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!
 

It’s been a busy and exciting 2021 for Second Life with several significant improvements, most notably our recent transition to Amazon’s cloud servers. Our team is excited to continue to bring better performance and ongoing enhancements to make Second Life even better.

Our goal is simple: enhance the enjoyment of current Residents by making things faster, smoother, and more interesting. We are seeing an increase in activity in-world, so we are hoping these investments are starting to pay off for you. At present we are:

• Investing in our infrastructure to further improve speed and cadence of updates 
• Overhauling the onboarding experience for the newest Residents
• UI cleanup 
• Developing new marketing initiatives and entertainment partnerships to fuel growth
• Preparing for SL18B 
• Less glamorous but no less crucial is our ongoing and growing work to ensure compliance with multiple regulatory requirements

We’ve spent time looking at ways to manage these costs in a way that minimizes the overall burden on our Residents. We decided to absorb many of the costs and to distribute some by making a change to Linden Dollar "buy fees." 

Effective April 22, the current flat buy fee rate of $1.49 will be replaced by a 7.5% buy fee (capped at $9.99) applied to the total amount of Linden Dollars purchased in each transaction. The $1.49 minimum still applies.

This impacts the least number of transactions and still allows us to offset some of the costs for upgrades to our world.  

Please see the FAQ below for more information and context about this change. For further questions, please join the conversation in our community forums.

BUY FEE FAQ

Q: How will this impact the cost of my Linden Dollar purchases?

A: It depends on the size of your Linden Dollar purchase in each transaction. We worked to ensure that most casual purchases will see no change at all.

For example, smaller Linden Dollar purchases (roughly equivalent to about $20 USD or less*) will see no change in cost as the new $1.49 minimum charge is equivalent to the cost of the existing flat fee. 

As another example, a $40 USD purchase of approximately L$10,000*  would be charged a $3 “buy fee” (equal to 7.5% of $40). 

For larger Linden Dollar purchases (approximately $139 or higher*), the 7.5% fee will cap out at $9.99 maximum in a single transaction.

Q: How will I know the exact transaction fee that I’m charged before I make the purchase?

A: The transaction fee will be clearly visible at the point of sale on the Buy L$ page on the Secondlife.com website. The image below shows you an example of where to see the transaction fee before the purchase transaction is completed:

You will see the 7.5% transaction fee auto-calculate as you increase or decrease the amount of Linden Dollars you wish to purchase.

Q: Will the fee show up clearly on my transaction log or invoice?

A: Yes! You will see a dedicated line on both your invoice and transaction log for your “LindeX Buy Fee.”

Here is how it will look on your transaction log:

Here is how it will look on your invoice:

Q: When does the new buy fee rate take effect?

A: The new buy fee rate is effective April 22.

Q: Does this fee apply to selling Linden Dollars, too?

A: No. This change only applies to Linden Dollar purchase transactions -- there are no changes or new charges added to other Second Life transactions (such as selling Linden Dollars).

* Disclaimer: The actual dollar value may vary depending on the LindeX exchange rate, which automatically matches your order with the market rate at the time of the transaction. These estimates are accurate at the time of this blog post but are subject to change.

All marginalized communities who face oppression, harassment and violence have the support and solidarity of Linden Lab.  We stand with the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community and against hate, and condemn the violent and deadly acts occurring in our country. 
 
While the AAPI community has historically faced unique challenges such as microaggressions rooted in harmful stereotypes and the experience of being othered, over the last year they have been targeted by an unprecedented surge of harassment, intimidation, and attacks. The irresponsible language about COVID-19 used by public figures, online conspiracies, and a deep-seated bigotry towards Asian Americans have all contributed to what has been referred to as “pandemic racism.” Nearly 4,000 reports of anti-Asian discrimination in 47 states have been reported by Stop AAPI Hate. 

We acknowledge the added fear and anxiety in our AAPI communities, and the trauma of our colleagues, friends, neighbors and fellow residents. All of us deserve a safe space; a safe community free from fear. Although the amount of Anti-Asian crimes has risen the most in major cities like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Seattle, we all can do our part to make our communities a place where every human being is treated with dignity and kindness.

Our mission at Second Life has always been to help build a better world, and in support of the AAPI community, we will be donating $10,000 to the Asian Women’s Shelter. 

How can you help?

Be An Ally: In the context of social justice and equality, being an ally involves using your privilege to advocate for someone who does not hold the same privilege. Allyship is an integral part of how we will dismantle systemic racism, sexism, and prejudice in general.

• If You See Something, Say Something - Here is a great CNBC article that gives five in-the-moment actions you can take when witnessing discrimination. Further, Stop AAPI Hate has published some helpful safety tips for those experiencing or witnessing hate. You can also attend free online “bystander intervention virtual training” sessions offered by Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC). Hollaback! is also offering bystander intervention training courses in partnership with the AAJC. 

• Educate Yourself - While many people may not intentionally say or do things that are deemed offensive, lack of intent is no excuse when dealing with racial insensitivity and/or microaggressions. Check out this list of common racial microaggressions and consider your own actions in how you interact with colleagues.The APA also has published an insightful academic article that further explores “Racial microaggressions and the Asian American experience.”
• Get Involved - Over the past weekend, many communities held National Day of Action and #StopAsianHate vigils and/or rallies to offer support and raise awareness for those impacted by recent events. Many future events are anticipated and you can stay involved by following news and event announcements from the AAJC website and Facebook page, as well as the #StopAsianHate microsite from the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA). Many people are also taking a public pledge to help end bullying and harassment and signing a petition to call on President Biden to provide emergency safety and relief for Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities.

We are, all of us, living through a turbulent time. We are a year into a worldwide pandemic. Hateful rhetoric in politics, online and in the media. Let’s join together to show a commitment to #StopAsianHate, honor the victims of anti-Asian violence, and push back against racism, sexism, and anti-Asian violence.
 

In appreciation of our Anthro/Furry community in Second Life, we are releasing two new limited edition last names today, only available until April 8th: 
UwU
OwO

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!
 

We have been very pleased to see the response to the return of last names back in April of 2020. Much as we did with the original legacy surnames, we plan to continually update and change the last names that are available for selection. Now that Uplift is complete, we anticipate that the rotation of available options will happen more often.

Today some of the older last name options were removed and the following new ones were added:
Orlando
Incognito
Nebula
Knickers
Aviator
Bunny
Blackwood
Darkheart
Amore
Suki
Venus
Evergarden
Caboose
Dakota
Absinthe

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ.
 

Just in time for the big game! The NFL Alumni Association has established an all-new presence in Second Life that includes a massive multi-region virtual stadium that will be used for several live events including concerts, player appearances and charitable initiatives.

“Sports fans from around the world can hang out, chat and attend events together in Second Life across thousands of immersive virtual world experiences including this all-new virtual stadium built exclusively for this event,” says Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg.  

To kick off the opening of the new virtual stadium, several members of the Second Life music community are performing at virtual halftime shows as part of a multi-day charity event  “Madden “The Yard” Celebrity Challenge.” The event airs daily at noon through Saturday on ESTV, a 24-7 live linear video channel dedicated to esports that is available across multiple streaming outlets including Roku Channel, Amazon Fire TV and social channels. The stream can also be viewed daily inworld on a huge circular video screen located at the center of the virtual stadium. Participating musicians playing inworld include Sassy Nitely, Marqs DeSade, Toxie, JLively, and Van Star.

Future expansions planned for the NFL Alumni Association project include a virtual museum exhibition later in 2021.
 

NFL Alumni Association Stadium

Football fans from around the world can hang out, chat and attend events together in this massive NFL Alumni Association stadium.

Visit in Second Life

Learn more on the official NFL Alumni Association website and be sure to also check out ESTV on YouTube.

2020 has been an eventful year that none of us will soon forget. The global pandemic has impacted all of us deeply and it has also caused many people and organizations to develop a new appreciation for how virtual worlds can bring people together for comfort, connections, entertainment, joy, inspiration, and even income. 

As the pandemic grew rapidly, so too did Second Life. At the initial onset of the lockdowns, Second Life saw about a 60% increase in new user registrations compared to the same time in the previous year and there has since been sustained growth in both concurrency and economic activity. 

We remain as committed as ever to making Second Life the best it can be - and 2020 saw several significant improvements and feature additions that we are particularly proud of.

MIGRATION TO THE CLOUD

It has been a monumental task to move Second Life to the cloud, but we are thrilled to report that this important milestone has been reached as the year ends. All of the interconnected services and databases that collectively provide you with Second Life have been migrated to Amazon’s cloud servers (it's possible that a couple of relatively minor features will require a bit more work, but if so, we're doing our best to have them operational by the New Year). 

The "uplift" to the cloud has already paid dividends in better simulator performance and much improved our ability to diagnose problems and scale our systems. We have only just begun to exploit other advantages of our new platform: the move sets the stage for further substantial improvements.

We truly appreciate your patience during the last few weeks as we worked furiously to finish the last portion of this migration.

ENVIRONMENT ENHANCEMENT PROJECT (EEP)

More advanced and dynamic environments debuted in 2020 with the release of the Environment Enhancement Project (EEP). The new features allow Residents to create, customize, and share environment objects that enable dynamically-changing environments that can be controlled at the parcel level including up to four different, independently controlled sky layers. It further advances the shared experience aspect of our world, and has been an amazing creative outlet already!

LAST NAMES & NAME CHANGES

After being gone for almost a decade, “last names” in Second Life were made available once again in 2020. This means that Residents can now opt to change their name and share the same last name to communicate family or community ties and/or friendships with others in Second Life. We’re pleased as pie with how well-received this has been: a lot of work had to happen on the back end to make name changes possible, so it’s rewarding to know that over twelve thousand Residents have chosen to take advantage of it!

MORE LINDEN HOMES

Our popular Linden Home offerings continued to roll out in 2020. As the year began, we had just launched an all-new Victorian theme and then subsequently introduced additional stilt and log home options. Expect even more in 2021 as our Moles are actively at work on multiple new offerings including Chalet Homes (which were previewed at the Christmas Expo earlier this month).

LIVE VIDEO STREAMING SUPPORT

In the past year, the company has made some incremental improvements to the Viewer to support streaming into SL via Chrome Embedded Framework (CEF) so that it is easy to bring “live” video streaming content into Second Life (such as live YouTube streams). We’ve already seen several high-profile events use live video for world premiere screenings and movie events.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS & FEATURE UPDATES

We also continued to improve Second Life with additional performance enhancements and features, including significant improvements to region crossings, Marketplace, Events, transaction emails, and the ongoing development of the Second Life Viewer. 

Our Marketing team has also been working hard to maintain the momentum with increased media coverage, improved advertising campaigns and more active social media engagement. You can see their own year-end report in a separate blog post.

2021...HERE’S TO HEALTH & HAPPINESS!

As we (thankfully) bid adieu to 2020, we wish everyone a safe and happy holiday and a safe and joyous new year. More than ever, it is important that we remember to treat each other with respect and kindness in both the physical and virtual worlds. 

It’s been a busy year for the marketing team at Linden Lab. The year 2020 began smoothly with several new ambitious campaigns and promotional initiatives for Second Life as detailed in our March 3 post “The Heart & Science of Second Life Marketing”. 

Among the highlights shared in that post and discussed the same week in “Lab Gab” were early-year marketing strategies and accomplishments in:

• Paid/Performance Marketing - There was a complete refresh of our paid display ad campaigns and dozens of new video ads debuted, as well as improved ad targeting technologies.  
• Organic, Social Media & Influencer Marketing - We debuted or expanded original social video programming initiatives (“Lab Gab,” etc.), overhauled our new user tutorial videos, and grew the Second Life Blogger Network to more than 550 participants.

The Pandemic Effect - New User & Enterprise/Education Growth

Then, the pandemic hit and it quickly became apparent that the outbreak would have a dramatic impact on the lives of just about everyone in the world (virtual or otherwise). While the marketing team continued to execute on most of its original 2020 marketing plans, it was also clear that there would be some significant changes including a shift in messaging and tone for some of our campaigns. Thus, several new “comfort campaigns” were launched to better emphasize the promise of peace, joy and socialization in Second Life. 

These “comfort campaigns” were a hit, bringing in thousands of new residents at a lower cost than we’ve seen in years. The success of this campaign spawned several other variations along with a community focused approach with similar messaging and tailored visual creatives.

The media took notice, too. A new wave of mainstream media coverage emerged in 2020 including prominent articles in The Telegraph, Wired, Mashable,  VICE, Business Insider, Elle, FRANCE 24, Le Figaro, CBC, Billboard, Le Monde, and many other global outlets.

Further, we saw growth from the enterprise and education sectors as several organizations began to re-conceptualize their annual business gatherings or conferences due to the pandemic. In the past few months, Second Life has hosted prominent conferences and events for Museweb (covering innovative uses of technology in museums), Gen Con (one of the largest tabletop gaming conferences), IndieCade (an independent gaming convention), Dutch Design Week (covering the convergence of art, fashion, and design), the International Pineapple Association (a trade show for the pineapple industry), CODAsummit (an art and technology conference), and the Oral History Association (an annual academic conference for oral historians).

Brand Partnerships

We’ve also seen several media and entertainment companies use Second Life as a replacement for public or private events impacted by the pandemic. Instead of a real-world screening event, Adult Swim held a world premiere event for its show “The Shivering Truth” in Second Life. During the event a themed virtual movie theater was created that matched the aesthetics of the show. Attendees could be among the first to watch two episodes before they debuted on the cable network while interacting with some of the creators and crew. There was also limited-edition virtual swag to further get fans excited.

Keepin' it classy at the Titmouse Smash Party in Second Life. @TitmouseInc @SecondLife #metalocalypse https://t.co/UOZKvyOX1p pic.twitter.com/LZxKhMRCis

— SecondLife (@SecondLife) September 13, 2020

Another example is our partnership with the independent animation studio Titmouse (“Star Trek: Lower Decks”, “Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures”) which moved its infamous annual Smash Party to the virtual world so that partygoers could interact and socialize safely from home this year since the physical party was impacted by the pandemic. As part of the event, the virtual party space included lots of interactive surprises and elements to entertain the attendees including a virtual “smash cage,” red carpet arrival area, free branded virtual giveaways and virtual food trucks that enabled guests to order real food for home delivery during the event. There were also random and hidden “Easter egg” events that would be triggered to keep things even more interesting.

Other well-known media and brand partnerships are in the works for 2021, too.

Second Life Book Club & Music Mondays

Among the other noteworthy new initiatives launched in 2020 were the Second Life Book Club and Music Mondays. 

Since its launch in April, the Second Life Book Club continues to feature leading and emerging authors each week and the publishing industry is starting to take note. Producer Draxtor Despres reports that the show is already pre-booked for most of 2021! In addition, publishers are also starting to coordinate signed book giveaways and other promotions associated with the show.

Music Mondays has also gained traction via weekly editorial coverage that highlights the many talented independent musicians of Second Life. Over 25 musicians have already been profiled with several more already in the queue for 2021.

Second Life Merchandise Store

We also launched the Official Second Life Merchandise Store, available through RedBubble. The store offers Second Life and Linden Lab branded clothing and accessories, with a very inclusive range of sizes. The past year even includes some limited-edition holiday items for Halloween and the winter season.

Brand Refresh & 2021 Commercial Campaign

In 2020, we also gave a slight refresh to the Second Life logo as we retired the soft green color in favor of bright blue to reflect the boundless energy of our residents who create amazing content and experiences.

You’ll start to see the new look and colors across many of our 2021 campaigns including our first broadcast-quality commercial. Speaking of which, how about a “first look” behind the scenes of the forthcoming spot?

2021...HERE WE COME!

While we are happy to put 2020 behind us, the marketing team at Linden Lab is looking forward to launching many exciting new campaigns and partnerships in 2021 that we believe will broaden the audience of Second Life even further.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Linden Lab!