The second life that wasn't

[ItHadToComeToThis]

Look, another article on SL has surfaced https://egmnow.com/the-second-life-that-wasnt/

[Adam Spark]

26 minutes ago, ItHadToComeToThis said:

Look, another article on SL has surfaced https://egmnow.com/the-second-life-that-wasnt/

Great read. Thanks. I can't say I agree with much of it, but a great read nonetheless.

"It’s a perfect summation of the hype that was impossible for Second Life to live up to"

More like a perfect summation of the possibilities it failed to live up to.

[ItHadToComeToThis]

I think it’s more 50% of one, 50% of the other. When I look back now, after more than a decade of experience, at what the promises actually were compared to the limitations of SL and what was actually on offer..I do kinda see the point the writer is making. SL was hyped to literally be the future of Communication, social interaction, corporate communication and digital development.

[Raspberry Crystal]

It's nice to see someone researching before they write. Interesting read, thank you!

[Jackson Redstar]

back in the day, when all of the big corps were launching an online presence, granted everyone then was the 'classic avatar' I always though how funny that Susy from marketing, a RL 50's plump aging housewife, and Phil from engineering, a balding overweight chain smoking guy, would meet in a virtual company office as a hot 20 year year old blonde bombshell and a tall muscular studly he-man as avatars staring at the RL each other from across the office,.....

[Alyona Su]

I've been here since late 2005 - I remember 99% of all that is mentioned in that article. It's probably among the most accurate article about SL that I've read in all that time.

[Rolig Loon]

I truly enjoyed reading this article. There have been so many uniformed pieces written over the years by amateur writers who spend a weekend romping through SL that I greet each new one skeptically.  This article was refreshingly different, well-researched, thoughtful, and ... yes, honest.

[Pussycat Catnap]

On a skim through, this one actually looks accurate.

Will need to deep dive it later and think about that. But it's got fair points.

I would argue that SL is actually pretty high on the list of top 'western MMOs'.

If you remove the Chinese players from WoW, there are basically only 5 basement-living-50-year-olds left... Or rather, it cuts out between 70-80% of the users. It actually makes it smaller than MMOs like Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2. This is why WoW's company Blizzard now bans people who criticize the Red Chinese or speak in favor of Hong Kong...

Arguably the number 1 MMO to 'non-Chinese' is FFXIV - when you include it's Japanese (who are just under 50%), Korean, and European players (As the US MMO WoW is most popular in Asia, the Japanese MMO FFXIV is most popular in the US).

Concurrency wise, we only know WoW has never topped 300,000 - even in it's heyday. We know that because GUild Wars 2 did on it's launch day and it was a headline event...

In the current state of these games, they are look more active than WoW if you're outside the Chinese servers (and most of them have no presence in China).

600,000 active accounts with 45,000 average concurrency (I say average, the article says top - I think it's partly both... the average is actually oddly close to the peak)... is shockingly good even for current MMOs.

And NONE of those MMOs have monetized micro-transactions as well as SL does.

 

As a platform, SL is dead. Business and Education have left the building, even though Elvis' ghost remains...

As a game, it's possibly in the top 3 MMOs.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2019 by Pussycat Catnap

[Vanity Fair]

It's a good article, I agree. And an interesting approach to the subject: interviewing all the authors of the Wiley series of books on SL, written way back when.

[Adam Spark]

10 hours ago, ItHadToComeToThis said:

SL was hyped to literally be the future of Communication, social interaction, corporate communication and digital development.

Thing is, it literally could have been, should have been, and still could be.

[animats]

29 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

As a game, it's possibly in the top 3 MMOs.

Not quite. On Steamstats, it would rank around #10, about even with GTA V Online. That's based on average concurrent online users, the only honest stat we have.

[Pussycat Catnap]

3 minutes ago, animats said:

Not quite. On Steamstats, it would rank around #10, about even with GTA V Online. That's based on average concurrent online users, the only honest stat we have.

Useful, but steam only measures people that log in through steam - I didn't even know that was possible for SL. That probably excludes EVERYONE who plays 'XXX-SL' , so basically everyone...

But it's still impressive to see it there, when that's also all online games (judging by the inclusion of GTA), and not just MMO-like ones.

[animats]

Just now, Pussycat Catnap said:

Useful, but steam only measures people that log in through steam - I didn't even know that was possible for SL. That probably excludes EVERYONE who plays 'XXX-SL' , so basically everyone...

But it's still impressive to see it there, when that's also all online games (judging by the inclusion of GTA), and not just MMO-like ones.

SL isn't on Steam and I'm comparing Steam stats with SL stats.

SL, placed on Steamcharts. If SL were on Steam, it would be in 12th place right now. Which is pretty good.

These rankings change from hour to hour, but that's about where SL usually would be ranked.

[Pussycat Catnap]

2 minutes ago, animats said:

SL isn't on Steam and I'm comparing Steam stats with SL stats.

 

SL, placed on Steamcharts. If SL were on Steam, it would be in 12th place right now. Which is pretty good.

These rankings change from hour to hour, but that's about where SL usually would be ranked.

That actually puts it higher than any of the MMOs that ARE on Steam... which is interesting. But most of those MMOs are also available outside of Steam.

I really wish MMOs still reported their stats. I'd love to know how they compare as they're the closest thing there is to a direct competitor other than MineCraft.

[ChinRey]

What is this? An article making a serious attempt to give a balanced view of Second Life??? Now, that is something new.

There's one thing that worries me there. In 2015 or 2016 (I can't remember exactly) Ebbe Linden anounced that the number of "active users" had dropped below one million. This article quotes another article saying 600,000 in 2017. If that is true, it was a huge fall, far worse than even the most pessimistic stipulations I've ever seen. Still, that was two years ago and I don't think the decline has been nearly as fast since then, SL may even have gained a little bit of ground recently.

[Rolig Loon]

3 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

In 2015 or 2016 (I can't remember exactly) Ebbe Linden anounced that the number of "active users" had dropped below one million. This article quotes another article saying 600,000 in 2017.

I'm always a bit unsure about how "active users" are defined.  As long as everyone is using the same yardstick, that's a handy benchmark statistic to have.  When it's not clear how many bots and alt armies are included in the "active" population, though, it's difficult to make meaningful comparisons.

[Beth Macbain]

I hate articles like this so much. Focusing on people who were around in the beginning that are gone now - or worse, Hamlet - gives a false impression that SL is dead or dying, or in Hamlet's case, a haven of moral depravity that will be shut down by the HUGE LAWSUITS that he likes to harp on that are, in truth, just minor annoyances to the Lab's lawyers. Hamlet can't take a dump without it being biased and that pretty much discredits the whole "balanced" thing. 

A lot of the original creators are gone now. Big whoop. They couldn't keep up with the learning and technology, or had babies, or died, or found another interest someplace else. Guess what? That happens literally everywhere. People change hobbies and jobs. Some leave SL, some enter SL. Where is an article focusing on creators that have come on the scene in the last few years? Or the ones from the beginning that are still turning out amazing products for us? 

I could not give less of a crap about some dude who thinks he revolutionized DJing, and why he stopped. Big effing deal. What about the live musicians from all over the world that regularly have meet ups in the real world and stream live shows? 

Philip was a visionary, and that's great. The world needs visionaries, but the problem is that when the visionary becomes the voice, and the voice is an eccentric genius and he starts talking to the press about things that might happen in 3020 instead of 2020, the company behind the visionary ends up with egg on its face because the visionary couldn't keep his mouth shut while the practical people behind him were rolling their eyes and trying to pull him offstage. Elon Musk has forever tainted the average person's view of Tesla by being... well, Elon Musk. Apple will always be the butt of jokes because of Steve Jobs.  

What companies are still in business now? Well, Tesla and Apple. Oh, and Linden Lab. 

The result is that any "hype" about SL is about how, again, it's either dying or never lived up to what its full potential. Blah, blah, blah. Haven't we been reading those same articles for 16 years now? Things change. Show me a company that is 20 years old that has the same strategic plan it had on day one. Look at how technology has changed in the past 20 years. Of course SL evolved and morphed in something different than Philip's original wacky ideas. Thank god. I don't want my SL filled with big corporations - it's hard enough to stay out of their grasp in the real world. I don't want them in my SL. It was a crappy idea in the first place, but Philip saw great things and everyone drank the freaking Kool-aid. 

If a journalist wants to impress me with a story about SL, let's see one where they talk to people who are in SL now. Where they explore Bellisseria and talk to @Ebbe Linden and/or @Patch Linden about LL's long term strategies and goals. The past doesn't need to be endlessly rehashed. Give me articles that look towards the future. 

And, Patch & Ebbe, if you're reading this? Please get rid of your entire external marketing and PR teams. They are doing the Lab no favors by not getting out in front of things like this, or by not writing the true narrative of LL and getting it in front of tech reporters. The "about" section on the LL website is four freaking sentences?? You have 20 years of history... and it's four freaking sentences? ARGGGGHHHHHHH! Jesus, Mary, and Martha, you guys! You're better than this!

... takes a deep breath...

Love you guys. 

 

 

[Rolig Loon]

I think we may have read different articles, Beth.  I read a report that largely reviewed the historical evolution of SL -- expanding on the "four freaking sentences" that you correctly noticed are a meager bit of background on the Linden Lab web site -- and concludes that SL has kept on ticking and is rather successful. He is much more balanced than most other writers that have tried to describe SL, noting correctly that the early PR was overly flowery and overreaching but that we have now matured into a platform that has less hype and more substance. Anyone who decides to write about an enterprise as complex as SL has a tough act and is likely to say things that will upset a few folks along the way.  Compared to the usual flash-in-the-pan drivel that we usually see, this guy has it mostly right, in my opinion.

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

I'm always a bit unsure about how "active users" are defined.  As long as everyone is using the same yardstick, that's a handy benchmark statistic to have.  When it's not clear how many bots and alt armies are included in the "active" population, though, it's difficult to make meaningful comparisons.

I think it's meaningless to compare that figure between different platforms no matter how we look at it. Looking at how it changes over time for the same platform can be useful though.

(For those who missed earlier discussions about it in SL "active users" is the number of accounts that have been logged in at least once during the last 30 days. The number of human beigns who log on regularly once a month or more is much lower of course - probably somewhere between 10% and 20% of the "acrive users" number.)

Edited December 2, 2019 by ChinRey

[LittleMe Jewell]

I was pleasantly surprised by the article. Pretty much every article written about SL in the last decade has been negative and predicting the doom of SL being right around the corner.  This one at least shows that the writer did actual research and wrote a pretty balanced piece.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

19 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

A lot of the original creators are gone now. Big whoop. They couldn't keep up with the learning and technology, or had babies, or died, or found another interest someplace else. Guess what? That happens literally everywhere.

This is absolutely right but interestingly, I joined in 2004 and immediately started making and selling things along with a group of people who joined at the same time. I am the only one no longer making content in SL from that group. The rest of them are still successful content makers.

The content available in is SL is so amazing and beautiful right now. It's part of what keeps me coming back.

[ItHadToComeToThis]

20 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

 

You sure did a great job of totally misunderstanding the article, I wasn’t a negative criticism of Second Life. It was a pretty interesting, in depth, balanced, critical look at the history of SL with the conclusion that in the end, it turned out to be a fairly successful platform that came into its own. You really should go back and read it again, I haven’t read an article on SL as balanced and objective as this in years. As for the oldbie creators and DJ’s you mentioned, the article was referencing and talking to them to gain perspective from the residents themselves as to why they either left or no longer engage in the way that they do and what their opinions are on why SL never managed to live up to the hype and became something else entirely. There is no point in asking a newer resident these questions as they simply wouldn’t know the answer unlike those of us who were around and engaged with SL at that time.

[Bree Giffen]

It's a good article that describes what I've observed in SL since my first login. Excellent prose Mr Hill! 

[Alazarin Mondrian]

I'd certainly agree with Mark Hill's conclusion that SL is a digital environment. Now that we're way past the old hype phases, SL has now become part of the 'digital furniture' of the internet and looks set to stay around for the long haul. It has sufficient turnover and userbase to keep the lights on for a very long time. which would suggest that LL change its focus from 'overnight sensation' to 'community utility service'.

My most memorable day of the Hype era was the grey-out of 2007 [IIRC] that broke the illusion. There had been some massive news coverage about SL in the USA and the next day it was raining new resident avatars at Waterhead. So many people were attempting to log in that SL's servers couldn't keep up. Logins took ages and textures took forever to load. It was a breaking point in that most of the new logins that day never came back. No doubt the backend has been scaled up in the following years.

SL needs to shift the focus of its advertising. Why not target the Mincraft and Roblox communities and entice them with the opportunity to build their worlds with more sophisticated tools? RP groups like to use SL? Target RL roleplay communities with the opportunities that can be found using SL as an environment.

[BelindaN]

I never see an advert for SL, and it never comes up in conversation with friends.  Maybe they all have secret second lives 🤔