Second Life must try new things

[Nellbekim Twine]

It should be released on Steam and Epic Games, etc.

The game nature is quite attractive

All of my younger friends these days use both Epic Games and Steam Discord

Expand the platform and make a guide that is friendly to new people

I am a fanboy who loves this game

Give everyone a chance This game is forgotten

[animats]

Many of us agree. But Linden Lab management is not trying to grow.

Edited September 25, 2020 by animats

[Alwin Alcott]

2 hours ago, Nellbekim Twine said:

It should be released on Steam and Epic Games, etc.

The game nature is quite attractive

All of my younger friends these days use both Epic Games and Steam Discord

Expand the platform and make a guide that is friendly to new people

I am a fanboy who loves this game

Give everyone a chance This game is forgotten

most devices aren't SL friendly, you need a quite serious machine to run it properly and on high settings.
SL never been a "game" for the "younger" people
SL isn't friendly for new people, a guide would take weeks to read, and have next to you in the first time, it's seriously complicated compared to what you call "games"
Please don't call it a game    it's not one as most of the "younger" see a game, and that's why it;s so disapointing for them.

[animats]

11 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

most devices aren't SL friendly, you need a quite serious machine to run it properly and on high settings.

SL's requirements are way below the typical Steam user. The typical Steam user has an NVidia 1060. That's plenty of GPU for Second Life.

[Rowan Amore]

3 hours ago, Nellbekim Twine said:

It should be released on Steam and Epic Games, etc.

The game nature is quite attractive

All of my younger friends these days use both Epic Games and Steam Discord

Expand the platform and make a guide that is friendly to new people

I am a fanboy who loves this game

Give everyone a chance This game is forgotten

Unlike MMORPGs, residents in Second Life aren't in a game, though there are games inside Second Life's virtual environment. They inhabit a virtual world free of pre-determined goals or tasks, just like the real world.

[Syo Emerald]

3 hours ago, Nellbekim Twine said:

It should be released on Steam and Epic Games, etc.

The game nature is quite attractive

All of my younger friends these days use both Epic Games and Steam Discord

Expand the platform and make a guide that is friendly to new people

I am a fanboy who loves this game

Give everyone a chance This game is forgotten

People who look for a game won't be happy with SL. They would log in and instantly ask what to do and complain, that avatar customization isn't easy and that nothing is optimized.

[Resi Pfeffer]

1 hour ago, animats said:

Many of us agree. But Linden Lab management is not trying to grow.

Its not like they didnt try.
They developed a virtual walking simulator, what was slowly turned into a virtual standup comedy simulator. After some years, that dead money grave finally was sold to another company who thought, the Sansar concept will be succesful. 🤦‍♀️

[Maitimo]

There is almost no overlap between Steam users and SL users. If they tried this, most Steam users would hate SL because they'll discover it's not a game, it's very difficult to learn, it doesn't have the quality they're expecting compared to other games and it would get so many one-star ratings that Steam would probably kick it off the platform anyway. 

The target market for SL is not gamers and it's not young people. I'm 50 and the majority of people I know in SL are older than me. The rest of them are at least pushing 40. 

[Syo Emerald]

30 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

There is almost no overlap between Steam users and SL users. If they tried this, most Steam users would hate SL because they'll discover it's not a game, it's very difficult to learn, it doesn't have the quality they're expecting compared to other games and it would get so many one-star ratings that Steam would probably kick it off the platform anyway. 

The target market for SL is not gamers and it's not young people. I'm 50 and the majority of people I know in SL are older than me. The rest of them are at least pushing 40. 

<waves the "exception from the norm" flag>

I'm 29. But overall I agree. When I browse steam, I expect games, not something like Second Life.

[Richardus Raymaker]

Steam and secondlife. Hmmmm.

- Why is the framerate so low ?

- why is there so much lag ?

- what is the goal ?

No, secondlife and steam, not sounds a good combination. Also what are the rules with inworld currency and steam ? Steam and secondlife, i think you will get lot's of bad reviews because people expected something else.

 

[Nick0678]

5 hours ago, Nellbekim Twine said:

It should be released on Steam and Epic Games, etc...

Second Life on Steam? That would be like putting a 1991 Honda Civic in a showroom next to a Tesla Roadster. We are a few months before 2021 and it simply is not worth the effort.

Also Second Life would fail in many categories, Valve would eventually have to purge it.

Linden Lab would have to ban an enormous amount of it's long-term users/content creators and change too many things in regards to other stuff happening in SL.

 

[Ardy Lay]

Was already tried about 8 years ago.

https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/664-second-life-is-expanding-to-steam/

Edited September 25, 2020 by Ardy Lay

[SueWorthly]

There are several virtual worlds on Steam. The most popular one is VRChat and the reviews are very positive. So they can work on Steam.

Second Life was on Steam briefly and you can still see that on the database:

https://steamdb.info/app/209930/

However, the plans then "hit some complications and so were put on hold"

Second Life can run on potato computers with a 10 years old Intel Graphic card that would die with any modern game, but SL doesn't take so much advantage of modern hardware and most user-made content in SL isn't very optimized, so even with modern hardware you can get low framerates sometimes.

Edited September 25, 2020 by SueWorthly

[Gage Wirefly]

36 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Was already tried about 8 years ago.

https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/664-second-life-is-expanding-to-steam/

And why it eventually didn't make it:

https://danielvoyager.wordpress.com/2018/12/08/why-second-life-didnt-work-out-on-steam/

Edited September 25, 2020 by Gage Wirefly

[Drake1 Nightfire]

6 hours ago, animats said:

SL's requirements are way below the typical Steam user. The typical Steam user has an NVidia 1060. That's plenty of GPU for Second Life.

oooh a poll with percentage data results with no numbers as to how many people  completed the survey. Very scientific. If only 1000 people took that survey... 

[Ardy Lay]

1 hour ago, Gage Wirefly said:

And why it eventually didn't make it:

https://danielvoyager.wordpress.com/2018/12/08/why-second-life-didnt-work-out-on-steam/

Not very informative, unfortunately.  “Hit some complications” isn’t any more than LL told us directly.  And how does one find and use Desura?  LL sold Desura off then it appears to have died.  Developing another platform in the spirit of Second Life that will be more suitable for Steam distribution?  Well, that was Sansar, it had potential but the banned-from-Second-Life cultural leaders there ruined that experience for many sending them scurrying back to Second Life.

Back to now, is making another try for Steam distribution worth discussing?  After reading some of Steam’s rules I would suspect not.  Second Life is too much of a blend of everything for me to feel it would be a workable arrangement to publish on Steam.

Other virtual worlds do it.  Investigate their content and compare with Second Life.  

[sirhc DeSantis]

Have no objection to the Lab attempting to attract new users in whatever way they can - the more the merrier.

But Steam? Apart from the reasons already stated, I have installed it four times over the years when some indy dev thing has caught my eye only to uninstall it with the self reminder to never try this (expletive deleted) intrusive bloatware ever again. Now, 'Available on Steam' to me means 'don't even bother'.

[Chaser Zaks]

I'd personally highly object to anything Epic Games, due to their toxic mindset of trying to push developers into exclusivity deals causing them to break promises.

Steam on the other hand, was a option and tried at one point, but likely didn't work out due to content polices on Steam at the time(I.E. No adult content). Steam has recently revised the acceptable content guidelines, and may allow Second Life on Steam, but there are also possibly other complications, such as required integration of the Steam API and open source conflicts.

Second Life does not necessarily need to be on either of these platforms though. Personally, while I do like the convenience of having a seamless unattended automatic update, I am just as capable of updating it myself. A majority of time, people use platforms like Steam for stuff such as match making, or communication, in a game which does not already have good communication tools. So aside from having Second Life on Steam other than exposure and automatic updates, it is sort of pointless.

Second Life does have ads running, as well as the community getting involved in making Second Life known. I think that is working out quite well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just looking at this from why LL may have decided to not go with Steam. I personally think going on Steam would be a great idea to get new people.

Edited September 25, 2020 by Chaser Zaks

[animats]

4 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

Not very informative, unfortunately.  “Hit some complications” isn’t any more than LL told us directly.  And how does one find and use Desura?  LL sold Desura off then it appears to have died.  

Right. Anyone have more info about what happened with Second Life on Steam? What went wrong? I tried looking through back lists on Steamcharts from late 2012 - early 2013, and Second Life didn't show up in the rankings, at least not in the top 500. Did SL ever really go live on Steam?

Wikipedia on Desura: "Originally, the platform was developed by DesuraNET; it was later sold to Linden Lab, and then to Bad Juju Games, which filed for bankruptcy in June 2015. In October 2016, Desura was acquired by Danish company OnePlay a subscription-based online rental service intending to relaunch Desura. Desura's website is currently down,^[1] as is OnePlay.com." That ended badly.

 

 

 

[animats]

6 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

oooh a poll with percentage data results with no numbers as to how many people  completed the survey. Very scientific. If only 1000 people took that survey... 

That data comes from the Steam client, I think. Users can opt out, but the data is collected automatically.

Second Life collects similar data, even from the third party viewers. SL doesn't release that data, but various Lindens admit that the typical Second Life client machine is rather weak in the GPU department. This came up at Creator User Group, when converting the viewer to Vulkan was discussed. LL hired some new graphics programmers, and they'd like to move forward. But the people with 8 year old GPUs would be Left Behind.

[animats]

11 hours ago, Maitimo said:

There is almost no overlap between Steam users and SL users.

The Steam community has a group for people who also play Second Life.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

7 hours ago, animats said:

That data comes from the Steam client, I think. Users can opt out, but the data is collected automatically.

Second Life collects similar data, even from the third party viewers. SL doesn't release that data, but various Lindens admit that the typical Second Life client machine is rather weak in the GPU department. This came up at Creator User Group, when converting the viewer to Vulkan was discussed. LL hired some new graphics programmers, and they'd like to move forward. But the people with 8 year old GPUs would be Left Behind.

Doesnt sound like that.. 
"Steam conducts a monthly survey to collect data about what kinds of computer hardware and software our customers are using. Participation in the survey is optional, and anonymous."

[animats]

It's a bit more intrusive and automatic than that. From a site that uses the data to track VR headsets:

"The Steam Hardware Survey is offered randomly to a portion of Steam users each month. If they agree, it uploads their system specs. These specs are publicly collated each month, giving PC developers insight into the hardware capabilities of their market."

[Alwin Alcott]

10 hours ago, animats said:

The Steam community has a group for people who also play Second Life.

yes as there is a group of people in SL that are gamers, but not all. You often think with your gamer side, many SLérs don't

[animats]

Gamers expect the reliability level of an AAA title. SL should have reached that by now, but hasn't. On Steam, SL would be stuck at "early access" level forever.

SL is pretty good about not crashing much. That, at least, is in good shape. Server-side, the immersion-breaking problems are region crossings and group chat. That's what people are screaming about at Server User Group each week. The list of major server problems isn't that long.

Viewer side, I like to say that the goal should be to make SL look as good as Strawberry Linden's blog pictures. That's quite possible. We need Viewer 3. What Viewer 3 needs has been well-discussed elsewhere.

As the original poster points out, the onboarding experience still needs work. From a bit of time in new user areas, the big questions seem to be "what do I do now?", and "how do I get this !$&%(& outfit to work?". The big complaint seems to be "it's so slow".

With EEP and animesh, and cloud uplift in user testing, it's time for SL to look ahead for 2021.