Second Life Product / Business Ideas for Generation Alpha

[Zalificent Corvinus]

9 minutes ago, Orwar said:

People who play first-person shooters and real-time strategy games on console shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Occasionally, I'll watch "First time play-through" videos on Youtube.

Some twitch-b*tch streamer will play a game I know well, blind, with no forewarning as to what it's like or how it looks or plays.

The ones trying to play things like Skyrim on a console with a gamepad are painful to watch.

"OMG OMG OMMG how do i draw a weapon, why cant i use a healing spell and a 2 handed sword at the same time, why cant i hit the bad guys with my bow, wait, theres no auto targeting in this game, and no target lock, i actually have to AIM my self with the thumb sticks? OMG OMG OMG"

 

Console Peasants are just SAD.

[Istelathis]

17 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   The only games mobile phones are good for are Sudoku, Snake, and that bouncy ball game my first phone had. The only games consoles are good for are platformers and driving games. People who want the ability to place accurate clicks and type coherently use a computer with a mouse and keyboard. People who play first-person shooters and real-time strategy games on console shouldn't be allowed to vote.

They are also good to use for hockey.

I'm not so sure about baseball, perhaps they would do well as a Frisbee though

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, MissSweetViolet said:

I've seen some amazing haunted houses, Christmas displays, escape rooms, tours, etc.

I LOVE Haunted Houses in Second Life! (Sometimes, "cheesier is better"!)

I need to try an "Escape Room" in Second life..!

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Istelathis said:

They are also good to use for hockey.

I'm not so sure about baseball, perhaps they would do well as a Frisbee though

To paraphrase Don Rickles, sometimes you're the Hockey Player, sometimes you're the "Hockey Puck"!

[MissSweetViolet]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

There are 27867 distinct regions in SL.  Some public, some private, some a mixture of both.  People who have public regions are the ones responsible for making their region searchable and using language that describes their region for people searching.  LL can't be responsible for populating a list of any of this.  They've given us the tools so we need to use them.  I can't even think of a way LL could make it better.  Regions/groups/people come and go in the blink of an eye so any list would have to be updated daily.  LL can barely deal with what they already have on their plate.  Hand holding people to help them "find what interests them" is never going to work.  The new community thingamajig is their current attempt.

 

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Maybe "more details for 'place' search listings", and "better 'place' search"?

For example:  Let's say I want to list a place that is "friendly to furries", and "voice friendly", "has scheduled activities", "is new-user friendly", and "does not require PIOF".  Not all those things are "searchable", right?  (I left out "ratings" because that is a "basic" search criteria.)  At the least, it would be nice to know if someplace does not require "PIOF".

You both make good points I didn't think of. I guess what I'm really trying to think of is some better way to categorize things maybe? I'm not sure. I haven't really figured out a great way to implement such a search as I had described above given all the places in SL, I just know it isn't always easy to find the type of community in SL your looking for. Probably for a variety of reasons [still have not found a really nice rustic like, English or cottage style public garden to hang out in, yet I feel this must exist somewhere].

[So Whimsy]

11 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I need to try an "Escape Room" in Second life..!

 

Highly reommend madpea for that. Had an awesome time with a friend trying to get out.

[Orwar]

6 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I ditched consoles after PS2 and refuse to play games on tiny screens.

   I had a PS1 and then a PS2, the games I enjoyed on them (and those I did enjoy a whole Hell of a lot) were Crash Bandicoot 1-3, Hercules (yes, the Disney film-made-video game!) Tekken 3 (oh yeah, I forgot that category - arcade fighting games work well on consoles too, and admittedly better than on PC), and Driver 1+2 (Driver 3 turned into some weird GTA-wannabe FPS and I was so disappointed with it). We did then get a PS3, and I did try to play GTA on it and it was just .. Stupid. 

5 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

They are also good to use for hockey.

   Oh, right, I'd forgotten about that. When I was sick and dad brought me to his workplace I sat all day playing some NHL game on a PS1 until my thumbs bled (never liked hockey, but it was fun to get into fisticuffs and button-mashing people down!). And Jazz Jackrabbit on a spare PC. Also some weird Ghostbusters game that I never really understood. And watched strange cartoons on VHS tapes (like Count Duckula) .. Man, I loved being sick when I was little. Unless I was with my mum, sitting in a hospital basement playing 3D pinball got boring fast. And there was no free hot cocoa machine there either. And I couldn't just waltz into the OR when I wanted a hug or felt as if I was about to throw up. And the hospital cafeteria food felt subpar even at that age!

[Krystina Ferraris]

2 hours ago, Orwar said:

  Unless I was with my mum, sitting in a hospital basement playing 3D pinball got boring fast. And there was no free hot cocoa machine there either. And I couldn't just waltz into the OR when I wanted a hug or felt as if I was about to throw up. And the hospital cafeteria food felt subpar even at that age!

I don’t know if your mom told you but hospital basements is where they usually stick the morgue and autopsy rooms… 🧟‍♂️

[Extrude Ragu]

So, I sat down and made an account on Roblox, to actually see what Gen A are growing up with, trying to understand their 'creature comforts' etc. I've never played Roblox before until today so all of this is new to me.

Disclaimer: I'm not claiming Second Life should behave like any of this. This post is purely observation. Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger, mmkay?

The homescreen

 

The first thing I notice about Roblox is that you don't just log in and appear in a world like Second Life. You have to choose a world.

I notice that every world appears to be more like an 'activity' or an 'experience'. There are first person shooter worlds, minigame worlds, roleplay worlds etc.

I found it very easy to click something and immediately find myself engaging in an activity of some kind.

I joined a world called 'Realistic Car Driving'

It was not long before I found myself racing around, doing jumps and doing donuts in a parking lot.

From the experience I found that Roblox is a pretty strong game engine. The driving was snappy, like an actual driving simulator, it was clear the simulation was happening client side because there wasn't that classic SL input delay.

Another world takes me into a very realistic and highly detailed first person shooter experience

I notice that Roblox has no hangups about completely changing my avatar depending on the world I'm in, and the worlds have different UI. Essentially like playing totally different games. Two different driving worlds had two different UI's.

 

 

 

[Extrude Ragu]

 

A Train Simulator

When I was young the equivalent of this would have been Microsoft Train Simulator.

A train drives past me. It's being driven by another player. I drove around in this world. It's also vast.

 

The key takeaway here for me as a creator is that Roblox players aren't just used to building little hangouts together. They build entire games together and hang out and play in them.

 

 

[Katherine Heartsong]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Me to Gen-A'ers:  "When I was a cub, we had PONG. And, we LIKED it!"

Me to Gen-A'ers:  "When I was a kitten, people were landing on the moon, the green bakelite phone was attached to the kitchen wall, and we played kick-the-can outdoors! And we liked it!!"

[Love Zhaoying]

Speaking of "other things" that those young'uns use, I have a friend who runs a bunch of MineCraft servers.  Someday I'll ask him what attraction it holds for people.  

[animats]

 

23 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Another idea: all avatars should come with a smartphone by default. Not having one is unrealistic.

There's an AO which brings out a smartphone when you're typing. But you can't tell the difference between local chat and IMing inside an AO, so it doesn't distinguish between local chatting (which is talking) and IMs (which are phoning). That would be a cute feature. When you encountered groups of people standing around doing nothing visible, you could tell whether they were communicating or just AFK.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

7 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

The key takeaway here for me as a creator is that Roblox players aren't just used to building little hangouts together. They build entire games together and hang out and play in them.

This is very true. Minecraft is similar. The youngins have been making and entertaining themselves with this kind of stuff for a very long time, which is why I'm not sure how they'd take to something like SL (maybe they'd like the content creation side if they have 3D skills). Even older teens/20s/30s+ - remember when Squid Game was big? Yeah, that craze took over Roblox and so many were playing some version of it in there.

If you're in the mood, you should also take a look around Fortnite Creative (not the Battle Royale mode). It's also quite similar, and every map is a self-contained experience designed by players. The last Fortnite stream I peeked into, the streamer found a little top-down RPG experience someone had created which pretty much looked just like a Nintendo Switch type of game. Trevor Noah also produced a comedy club in there (called JokeNite), as well, with performances by real comedians.

If you hunt around on the web, you should be able to find some cool Creator Codes to visit some game maps, or I believe you can just browse the popular ones at the Welcome Hub.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

I'm always amused when Positivity Cultists suggest destroying SL by shamelessly imitating CrapBlox.

"But it's got zillions of pre-pubescent free-to-play riffraff!" So what.

CrapBlox

is a

FAILURE

 

SL has a turnover of over $500,000,000 a YEAR.

CrapBlox LOSES almost $100,000,000 a MONTH.

 

There is NO aspect of CrapBlox's retention strategy that SL should EVER imitate.

 

[Istelathis]

10 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

SL has a turnover of over $500,000,000 a YEAR.

🤯 I'm not disputing you, but I always thought it was much less than this.  If I might inquire, where did you get this figure from?

[Arielle Popstar]

11 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

 

 

There is NO aspect of CrapBlox's retention strategy that SL should EVER imitate.

 

It is not about all one way or another but merging in facets of it that may make the platform more interesting to a wider range of players. 

[Extrude Ragu]

15 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I'm always amused when Positivity Cultists suggest destroying SL by shamelessly imitating CrapBlox.

 

*sigh*

[Porky Gorky]

43 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

CrapBlox

is a

FAILURE

It can't be a faliure because they introduced PBR a few years ago. Thats the key to success dont you know. Any day now things are gonna turn around for Roblox, you mark my words 🙂

[Orwar]

1 hour ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

This is very true. Minecraft is similar. The youngins have been making and entertaining themselves with this kind of stuff for a very long time, which is why I'm not sure how they'd take to something like SL (maybe they'd like the content creation side if they have 3D skills).

   The differences between Minecraft and SL are vast though, in terms of creation. Minecraft has a variety of blocks, most of which are 1x1x1 metres (or some made up unit, I'm unsure - cubes, regardless), so if you want to actually model anything you'll need to make it huge. In SL meanwhile, we've got prims which can be stretched and manipulated in a wide variety of ways and be tiny or huge, and then we've got sculpties which is a whole step up from prims in terms of complexity, and then we've got 'mesh', which needs to be made off-grid in dedicated 3D modelling programs - so it's a very different project to build yourself a home or base in Minecraft to building a home in SL.

   'Creativity' isn't some universal measurement of a person's ability to create stuff, comparing Minecraft to SL is like comparing knitting and clockmaking. Someone who has figured out how to arrange pink wool blocks to make a pixel-phallus in Minecraft would probably have no clue how to mesh, animate, and script an SL one.

[Rowan Amore]

49 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

🤯 I'm not disputing you, but I always thought it was much less than this.  If I might inquire, where did you get this figure from?

https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2015/11/second-life-gdp-totals-500-million/

[Ayashe Ninetails]

8 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   The differences between Minecraft and SL are vast though, in terms of creation. Minecraft has a variety of blocks, most of which are 1x1x1 metres (or some made up unit, I'm unsure - cubes, regardless), so if you want to actually model anything you'll need to make it huge. In SL meanwhile, we've got prims which can be stretched and manipulated in a wide variety of ways and be tiny or huge, and then we've got sculpties which is a whole step up from prims in terms of complexity, and then we've got 'mesh', which needs to be made off-grid in dedicated 3D modelling programs - so it's a very different project to build yourself a home or base in Minecraft to building a home in SL.

   'Creativity' isn't some universal measurement of a person's ability to create stuff, comparing Minecraft to SL is like comparing knitting and clockmaking. Someone who has figured out how to arrange pink wool blocks to make a pixel-phallus in Minecraft would probably have no clue how to mesh, animate, and script an SL one.

Oh, I was in no way comparing Minecraft to SL. I've "played" both for many years (as well as the older pre-Minecraft game Notch developed ages ago - Wurm Online/Unlimited, and a whole host of other building games) and I know Minecraft is vastly different. My point was if someone already is interested in 3D development and has actual 3D skills as a result of general interest, career, college, or building their own mods or indie games for other games for funsies, they might be interested in SL's content creation side. 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Istelathis said:

🤯 I'm not disputing you, but I always thought it was much less than this.  If I might inquire, where did you get this figure from?

I can't remember which Execu-Linden it was, possibly Ebbe, who said SL had a turnover of a little over $640 million, of which  a little over $80 million was cashed out by SL businesses.

 

Point is, CrapBlox loses over twice SL's total turnover, every year.

Positivity Cultists blather on about how the Useless engine based MobileLife Fail Viewer will bring in a "vast untapped new market" that will somehow spend huge amounts of money and SAVE SL.

When these dribbling Cultists are asked who this "vast untapped new market" is supposed to consist of, they almost invariably point to...

CrapBlox and it's vast horde of pre-pubescent free-to-play riff-raff.

 

CrapBlox's $100 million a month losses suggest strongly that this "vast untapped new market" WON'T spend huge amounts of cash, in SL, and WON'T save SL, especially as developing ANY kind of viewer based off one of the two flavours of Useless Engine 1st  person shooter kit, will cost SL over $ 50,000 a month in licencing fees to draw in teens who lie about their age, and commit credit card fraud to pay $10 for $8.50 worth of shopping tokens at the end of the Welcome Hubs training course.

 

Not forgetting that when mommy and daddy complain that they didn't spend the money, the credit card company will demand that LL give the $10 back.

LL will refund the $10, then black list the CrapBlox Migrant's account for being in default.

 

NO "vast untapped new market" worth having.

 

 

 

Edited March 4 by Zalificent Corvinus

[PheebyKatz]

My only advice for Generation Alpha is:

GET A JOB.

[Love Zhaoying]

34 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2015/11/second-life-gdp-totals-500-million/

So..back in 2015 that was the case. Still true?

Or is someone quoting really old figures above? LOL!!