Second Life Statistics: Mesh Bodies

[Nethya Emor]

Hopefully this is the right category to put this in!

With some help of friends we've gathered 12007 unique avatars in order to skip the surveys and provide the most accurate information we can, by seeing what are people actually wearing. Quick thoughts: Female avatars outnumber male avatars at 3:1 ratio. And here are the current top bodies on SL...

Female mesh body preview:

Maitreya	5189 (57.5%)
Legacy	1449 (16%)
Inithium	523 (5.8%)
Belleza	505 (5.6%)

 

Male mesh body preview:

Signature	1245 (41.8%)
Belleza	539 (18.1%)
Legacy	526 (17.7%)
Aesthetic	253 (8.5%)

If you'd like to see the in-depth dive and full breakdown of all bodies, you can find it at Female Body Statistics and Male Body Statistics.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Nethya Emor

[Arielle Popstar]

Surprised Slink especially the HG, is such a small percentage considering the amount of outfits made for it.

[Nethya Emor]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Surprised Slink especially the HG, is such a small percentage considering the amount of outfits made for it.

It was tied with Belleza Freya before the release of Legacy and Kupra, when they both had much higher percentage of the market. But with Legacy releasing in April 2019 and Kupra in October 2020, both Belleza Freya and Slink Hourglass are dropping in popularity due to the alternatives.

Slink Hourglass is with us since March 2016, so pretty much everything had supported it.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

8.5% of these... That's a lot of Arnolds out there on the grid. Where do they all hang out?

Edited February 11, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Yuumo Ichibara]

Inithium at no. 3, that was quick!

[Janet Voxel]

Can't really argue with hard data. It just shows there's a body out there for everyone.

Just out of curiosity, where did you pull your data from?

 

[Qie Niangao]

Do the Legacy "Classic" bodies count as Legacy, or as TMP?

[Nethya Emor]

49 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Can't really argue with hard data. It just shows there's a body out there for everyone.

Just out of curiosity, where did you pull your data from?

 

From a bunch of different SL sims, mostly just using Search and going around simhopping to gather all the data.

 

49 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Do the Legacy "Classic" bodies count as Legacy, or as TMP?

Legacy (f) (Classic Fit) is Legacy.

But their [BODY] Classic (f) which you can get for 1L$ or the Creative version for 2500L$ are labelled as TMP. I'll check and compare if they did any major changes to the body and update the article accordingly. Thanks for pointing that out!
Edit: So the BODY Classic is just a minor update of TMP body that's back compatible with most of TMP clothes, which makes it completely TMP. Also you cannot update your old TMP into it, which is a shame.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Nethya Emor

[Stephanie Misfit]

Thanks for this, interesting to see how quickly Kupra has gained popularity. I have it and wear it sometimes (but I have all the bodies on the list!)

I looked at your breakdown for Belleza and noticed that Freya was miles ahead. It's the only one that designers make clothes for now, I wonder if the difference in user numbers is partly a matter of people being forced into wearing it over the others. I know that I bought the bundle of 3 bodies ages ago and won't even consider wearing Isis or Venus because there just aren't any clothes for them, but I love Freya and am glad to see it supported.

I do hope designers keep supporting Hourglass despite the apparent decline in popularity. It is a gorgeous body. In my opinion it has the best features for BOM. The small chest add-on is really great too. I guess it is an advantage that the dev kit is easy for designers to work with and well supported by Slink, and you don't have to jump through too many hoops to get it in comparison to some other kits. Hopefully that will keep people designing for it.

 

 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Let's see.  one of my sox has the 2.0 body,   2 have slink,  1 has lara.   so far.  I kinda perfer the slink body over the others, it's not trying to be something "OMG I'M THIS" I'd rather be comfy with the look instead of trying to be over the top.

[Dragon Mommy]

This is interesting data for sure. It's hard to argue with the dominance of Maitreya for female bodies. I only own Maitreya for my female avatars but my male alt has gone from using Slink to Jake to Gianni, the last one not for preference (I prefer Jake for its body shape) but because the clothing I wanted to regularly use is fitted for Gianni and the creators I like make almost exclusively for it. 

Maybe I'll check out some of the other female bodies tonight and demo them.

[Drayke Newall]

4 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

8.5% of these... That's a lot of Arnolds out there on the grid. Where do they all hang out?

It is very popular with Furry Skin makers I know that, however not sure if the statistics in the OP includes furries as it would depend on which sims they went to.

Additionally, the Aesthetic body can be slimmed down quite substantially for the male shape and  if the female shape is used you can get it down to slightly more buff than signature 😉. The downside with Aesthetic is no BoM support and very little clothing support.

 

Looking at the male statistics (probably the same for female) the distribution correlates to clothing support perfectly with the higher body support having the same amount of clothing support. Whilst that may seem obvious it does certainly limit choice body wise as it funnels a person to a choice based on most support especially in the Male category due to an already lesser clothing choice than female.

As far as Jake goes, unless the creator actually provides updates to it for BoM it will continue to loose its position to others especially when/if Aesthetic release their new body.

[Rowan Amore]

25 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

It is very popular with Furry Skin makers I know that, however not sure if the statistics in the OP includes furries as it would depend on which sims they went to.

Additionally, the Aesthetic body can be slimmed down quite substantially for the male shape and  if the female shape is used you can get it down to slightly more buff than signature 😉. The downside with Aesthetic is no BoM support and very little clothing support.

 

Looking at the male statistics (probably the same for female) the distribution correlates to clothing support perfectly with the higher body support having the same amount of clothing support. Whilst that may seem obvious it does certainly limit choice body wise as it funnels a person to a choice based on most support especially in the Male category due to an already lesser clothing choice than female.

As far as Jake goes, unless the creator actually provides updates to it for BoM it will continue to loose its position to others especially when/if Aesthetic release their new body.

Also, I've noticed a lot of black male avatars still use Aesthetic for whatever reason.  

[Dragon Vortex]

My question, just for clarification of data and curiousity. Is there a breakdown of the age/experience of the player making the Avatar? Even if its like.. generalized, just to differentiate ... and is there a trend seen in experience equaling choice?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

This is somewhat predictable, and at the same time, disappointing.

I have, and use with fair regularity, three different bodies: Maitreya (with and without the Petite add-on), Slink Physique, and Legacy Perky.

The Perky is probably the nicest body, but hugely over-complex, waaaay over-priced, and missing some of the functionality of the other bodies (such as BoM add-on layers that smooth out cleavage and nipples, crotch, etc., as well as an asymmetrical harness or equivalent for the arms).

The Maitreya is, honestly, a pretty mediocre body in most respects, except for ease of use and clothing availability. (I know, of course, that there are those that will disagree, and that's fine -- I understand that part of this is about personal taste.)

My preference in most regards is for my Slink Physique, which I think is both a very nicely shaped body, and extremely economical in terms of its use of resources. But, of course, support from clothing makers for it has been dropping steadily for probably 2 years now.

It's a little disappointing, to be honest, that the two most popular bodies by far are either meh or hugely expensive and not completely (in my view) functional. And neither is as economical or, if you like, "environment-friendly" as Slink. I don't entirely understand how Maitreya gained its dominant position in the market, to be honest, and I'm a bit flabbergasted too by people's willingness to pay so much for the Legacy bodies which, while very nice, have some serious issues.

Oh well. Such are the vicissitudes of a free market, I guess.

[Drayke Newall]

33 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Also, I've noticed a lot of black male avatars still use Aesthetic for whatever reason.  

True and probably due to there being a specific black skin body by aesthetic. Smith being the black version, Enzo the white. Haven't seen any other body maker specifically show two different bodies for both races.

[Paul Hexem]

The problem with mesh bodies is you're stuck wearing a body based on the clothes you want vs the body you actually like.

Bodies that are more affordable and more superior on a technical level have much lower market shares because no one makes clothes for them, for some reason.

[MirandaBowers]

I remember when I first got my mesh body it was when Maitreya and Belleza were about tied in popularity, but I ultimately went with Maitreya due to there being more clothing options available. Slowly but surely it became more common to see Maitreya exclusive items which is what drove me for specific outfits.

What I am curious to know is how much of a pain in the arsenal is it to rig the same piece of clothing for 3+ bodies? Creators, can you shed some light on this?

[Dragon Mommy]

I'm genuinely surprised Maitreya got such widespread use with how difficult it is to obtain the dev kit for it. That's one thing the Furry community really has right is the general availability of dev kits.

But that's sort of a thing that feeds into itself. More clothing on Maitreya leads to more people using the body which leads to more clothing being made... Etc. If you were to rig up a dress you want that dress to have the largest customer base, so you go with the most used body. 

[ChinRey]

9 hours ago, Nethya Emor said:

Maitreya	5189 (57.5%)
Legacy	1449 (16%)
Inithium	523 (5.8%)
Belleza	505 (5.6%)

I bought the Maitreya body the day it was launched because I wanted something nobody else had. Oh well.

[Lucia Nightfire]

I guess I'm going to have to do a another compile of the data I've gathered, which has been slow lately due to focusing on other things.

Here's my last compile from last month:

 

It includes data for humans, anime, furries and ferals.

[Alwin Alcott]

11 hours ago, Nethya Emor said:

With some help of friends we've gathered 12007 unique avatars

with a online userbase of 30-40 k at any time a day, it needs a lot more explanation and filtering to make the statements you do.
What communities, what countries/worldparts, continents, themes inworld.... and so on.

[Sorciaa]

I am sure the popularity of the legacy, while I think they are over priced, have been 50% off 3 times since they were released and a half off legacy is well worth it. 😊

[Blaise Glendevon]

1 hour ago, Sorciaa said:

I am sure the popularity of the legacy, while I think they are over priced, have been 50% off 3 times since they were released and a half off legacy is well worth it. 😊

The partnership and promotional events they did with stores during their launch probably helped a great deal, as well. 

[Teagan Tobias]

 

I’m very surprised Tonic is not listed. I don’t have any problem finding clothing even being as picky as I am. I tried a demo of the top bodies but the Tonic Fine just rang my bell.I guess I would have other bodies if I had the money for it, but my Tonic body, and head from Tonic, have me completely satisfied.

The bottom line, its good to have choices.