Today Chance Richie shared some exciting news via the Sansar Discord channel about how Wookey will be transitioning the Sansar platform to Metaverse Investments Ltd to get Sansar back on track again after recent months. Metaverse Investments Ltd is looking forward to the challenge ahead and resolving problems that have happened. The goal is for the engineering team to come in to get things “fixed and stabilize the platform” asap. This is good news for Sansar in the short term and long term I think.
The Sansar team in recent months have been limited but have done a good job to keep the Sansar platform alive and in search of new leadership/capital. Over the next month there will be transitions happening.
A new vision for Sansar…
My strategic vision is focused on providing the Creator community the tools they need to build the most engaging worlds, quests, and experiences in the Metaverse. I strongly believe that if we fulfill that vision, visitors and residents will come in droves.
This could be a great opportunity for Sansar to get back in the game again and have a new beginning. Oriym has the best intentions for the users and creators of Sansar. Oriym is in it for the long run apparently and he wants to make Sansar a success.
Hello Sansarians! My name is Chance Richie, and I will be working with Wookey to transition the Sansar platform to Metaverse Investments Ltd. Wookey Technologies has been diligently looking for the right candidate to take over the responsibility of progressing Sansar to the next level, and Metaverse Investments Ltd is looking forward to the challenge.
I am working with the Wookey Team to get Sansar back on track. In my opinion, the Wookey Team has done a lot of good work on the platform and has had to work through many challenges inherited from the Linden Labs acquisition. I believe the Wookey Team has been fully committed to the platform and expanding it to a broader audience by focusing on the true immersive VR Metaverse experience. I understand that there has been some history with the former direction and team, however what is most important is focusing on the future and making Sansar the most Creator-friendly Metaverse on the planet. My strategic vision is focused on providing the Creator community the tools they need to build the most engaging worlds, quests, and experiences in the Metaverse. I strongly believe that if we fulfill that vision, visitors and residents will come in droves. We understand Sansar has problems that need to take care of as soon as possible and it has been a challenge to address these issues with a limited team. My first priority is bringing in the engineering talent necessary to get things fixed and stabilize the platform. So do not despair, help is coming soon!
In the meantime, I want you to know how amazing I think the Sansar platform is, and that I see great potential. That potential will only be realized if we are successful engaging the Sansar Community, so to that end I’d like to restart the meetings Ebbe Altberg used to do in Sansar. More to come on that!
The second part says this
Rest assured, we did our homework and know Sansar has a great community that is welcoming to new users. The Sansar Discord has also been a great way to pass knowledge on to new people and I have gotten more familiar with the platform as a result of following the channel. No question seems to be too difficult or tiring for you. Sansar is clearly “for the people, by the people”, and we want to amplify that culture.
And last but not least, I’d like to thank the Sansar ambassadors and helpers who have stuck with Sansar through thick and thin, including all you die-hards who kept events going. You never stopped believing and I am here to reward that belief in Sansar by providing you the tools you’ve all been looking for.
I am transparent almost to a fault so feel free to reach out and ask me anything. Even though Sansar is about 8 years old from its initial conception, it is still a startup, and I am going to try and instill the “nothing is impossible” startup mentality. Admittedly, I am far from Phillip Rosedale or Ebbe Altberg, but I have built and sold software companies and guarantee you I will put my heart and soul into making Sansar a success. I am looking forward to meeting you on Discord and in the first “Community Meeting”. I am the Sansarian known as “Oriym” and if you see someone in the Nexus with a black cowboy hat on it is probably me. Please stop me and say hi if you see me wandering around!
Work will be underway very soon…
I think you’ll like what you see a year from now. Heck I think you’ll like what you see a couple of months from now. The Wookey guys are being very helpful in jumpstarting my involvement in Sansar and we are going to dive in soon and start bug fixing, etc.
Feel free to spread the good news about Sansar. Big changes will be happening in the weeks and months ahead. It’s time to keep track of Sansar developments once again.
I blog more on Sansar when new developments happen. Stay tuned for that.
Sansar has been making the rounds in the past week or so after Sansar went down last week. The reason for the downtime is unknown but it could be because of a recent AWS outage. The good news is that Sansar has come back online since then and the Sansar website. The Wookey management team are now actively looking to resolve the issues on the platform and they hope things will start running smoothly soon.
One of the issues has been trying to resolve the furlough of Sansar employees that has gone on since September 2021. There are probably more reasons behind the scenes that the public can not know about. I think there needs to be more updated and regular communications going on during platform outages etc.
hi there. this is steve from the wookey management – sansar team. i thought i’d pop in to let you know we are actively looking to resolve the issues on the platform. we value our community big time, and hoping we can get things running smoothly soon. … we appreciate your patience and understanding… happy holidays from the wookey team!!!
More updates will be posted on my blog very soon. Hopefully the Wookey management team will resolve the issues as soon as possible.
Ebbe Altberg was announced as the new CEO of Linden Lab back on 5th February 2014 where he mentioned that he was absolutely committed to supporting Second Life customers and helping them become even more successful. He mentioned back then that there were significant opportunities ahead and he looked forward to leading the community into the next phase of growth. Ebbe started tweeting about Second Life and answering questions via his Twitter account shortly afterwards.
There was a small invitation only for a selection of Second Life press and I was lucky to attend this meet & greet meeting. It was hosted at PR island in a nice meeting spot just north of the region with Pete Linden and Ebbe Altberg.
Meet and Greet 2014
Ebbe was featured on show 5 of The Drax Files hosted by Draxtor Despres. This was a nice welcoming show with many guests on the show talking about Second Life. Listen here. On 10th February 2014 Ebbe Linden created his Second Life account.
Ebbe attended his first VWBPE event in April 2014 where he talked about the educational uses of Second Life, improving communications and plans for the future of Second Life. Over 200 avatars attended with over 150+ viewers watching via Livestream. Ebbe talked about Second Life terms of service, the metaverse, future technologies, branding and much more.
Ebbe Altberg, Philip Rosedale and Draxtor Despres attended the Silicon Valley VR expo (creating the VR Metaverse) in May 2014. They talked about many topics from avatar portability, intellectual property, identity and privacy along with much more.
Ebbe attended one of the third party viewer meetings back on 20th June 2014 where he announced that Linden Lab was working on a next generation virtual world. The aim was to create an incredible experience and enable high quality creativity.
In mid March 2015 Ebbe talked more about the next generation platform at VWBPE 2015 mentioning that it is progressing well and there was 30+ engineers working on it. At this point the lab had only worked on this new platform for about 8-9 months. Ebbe wanted to make land cheaper, he was a fan of strong communities and he wanted to support mobile from the beginning.
VWBPE 2014
On Friday 26th June 2015 Ebbe Linden was interviewed by Jo Yardley and Saffia Widdershins at the SL12B Auditorium. This part of the last Meet The Lindens talks at the birthday celebrations. Ebbe talked about Project Sansar, third party viewers and more.
In early August 2015 Ebbe Altberg and Nick Ochoa met up and discussed Project Sansar. This was a very interesting interview where Ebbe mentioned closed alpha and the alpha phase. Ebbe mentioned that Second Life was south of 1 million active monthly users. People cashed out 60 million dollars in 2014.
In early December 2015 Ebbe Altberg talked about the future of virtual reality on Bloomberg West with Altspacevr founder and CEO Eric Romo. Ebbe mentioned that there is a mass market for VR, it’s going to take a while (next few years) for people to get VR hardware in their hands and Second Life cashed out 60 million dollars from creating virtual experiences in 2014.
2016
Ebbe revealed some new screenshots of Project Sansar back in early February 2016 showing examples of what environments (Mars & the Moon) can look like inside the new platform. The community had very mixed feedback on these screenshots. Ebbe mentioned that it takes a few hours to create a multi user VR experience with Project Sansar.
In early March 2016 Ebbe Linden talked about Second Life at VWBPE 2016. Ebbe mentioned that Second Life performance was continuing improving, quality and stability was improving. The lab was working on new avatars and new web on prim. The lab was focused on creators for the rest of 2016 and that general amiability would come at the end of 2016 for Project Sansar.
In late October 2016 Ebbe showed off the first demo of Sansar on stage during Wall Street Journal’s Live conference in Laguna Beach, California. This was the first video demo of Sansar (1min/51secs) showing new footage of the next generation platform which was due to open to the public in January 2017.
In the first video demo of Sansar Ebbe Linden is showing the audience how easy it is to grab things and move virtual furniture using with the Oculus Touch controller. Ebbe Linden talked about how users will be able to create, buy and sell virtual goods within Sansar. Ebbe said that food is a tricky thing in VR and that there will be a currency/marketplace. Ebbe Linden finishes by saying that Sansar is was in the creator preview phrase and that hundreds of creators have been invited so far and the roll out will continue right into Q1 2017.
In late March 2017 Ebbe Altberg had a hour long conversation with Kevin Feenan at the 10th annual VWBPE conference about education in Second Life and the education possibilities that could happen in Sansar. Ebbe mentioned during this conversation that Second Life is the most successful virtual world ever made to this day and that Second Life is a successful product/profitable product. In terms of Sansar he mentioned that Sansar will be another platform to explore and that Sansar would enable you to do things you cant do in Second Life.
2018
Ebbe Altberg at VWBPE 2018 in mid March 2018. He talked about VR, Second Life, Sansar, education, land prices and much more. There was no major announcements this year to mention but rather small updates. The attendance was pretty good for both inworld and online numbers. A few Lindens made a special appearance at the Main Auditorium.
In mid June 2018 Ebbe Altberg and Philip Rosedale was featured on the Second Life 15th birthday video. Ebbe in this video was speaking from Amsterdam and he mentioned that 68 million US dollars was paid to creators in 2017. 5 million virtual goods listed in the marketplace and that Linden Lab are moving massive amounts of infrastructure into the cloud. There was a special surprise appearance from the founder of Second Life Philip Rosedale where he mentioned that Second Life 15 years later is still going strong and that Second Life is the most successful virtual world out there today.
Ebbe Altberg town hall meeting on Thursday 13th September 2018 talking about Second Life.
2019
Wagner James Au interviewed Ebbe Altberg for 45 minutes at Linden Lab HQ in San Francisco in March 2019. They chatted about efforts to grow new user growth, land discounts, the upcoming mobile companion app, cloud deployment, improving performance and much more relating to Second Life. With Sansar they chatted about the low usage numbers since the beta launch, Sansar’s long download times and efforts to optimize Sansar.
Ebbe unveiled his brand new special Ebbe Linden bear during the 2019 SL Christmas Expo in early December 2019. This was a one off L$250 donation which went to the American Cancer Society.
2020
Ebbe and Grumpity went through the 2020 roadmap for Second Life on Lab Gab back in late February 2020. Ebbe announced that Linden Lab was no longer supporting Sansar and that the focus will go on Second Life along with Tilia.
In mid March 2020 Ebbe Altberg posted a message on the Second Life official blog about the situation with Coronavirus and Second Life operations. Ebbe mentioned that Linden Lab saw an increase in new registrations and returning residents. The blog post mentioned that Second Life will continue to be available without interruption as we get though this tough time together.
At the end of March 2020 Ebbe then appeared on Lab Gab episode 19 with Brett Linden to talk about the health crisis and more.
Ebbe attended SL17B in June 2020 and had a great live conversation with Saffia Widdershins. Ebbe mentioned about the cloud uplift to transition all of the Second Life services from the co-location data centre used by Linden Lab to Amazon AWS cloud services. Ebbe mentioned education, the second life economy, the roadmap, the sale of Sansar and more.
In early July 2020 Linden Research, Inc announced it signed an agreement to be acquired by an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager. This will become a new chapter, an new opportunity and another expansion for Second Life along with Tilia. See the official press release here.
“We’re excited for this new chapter to begin. We see this as an opportunity to continue growth and expansion for Second Life and our money services business Tilia,” says Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg. “We’re grateful for the ongoing support from our community, business partners and investors. Now more than ever, there is increased recognition of the value and utility of virtual worlds to bring people together for safe, shared, and social online experiences.”
By mid July 2020 Ebbe Altberg and Brett Linden responded to the company’s acquisition. There was a huge amount of mixed responses on the news on Twitter and on the Second Life forums. Most Second Life residents were worried and concerned about the future of Second Life.
2021
Ebbe Altberg last made an appearance inworld I believe at Oz Linden retirement event earlier in 2021 around February. Ebbe appearance has been very low during the first five months of 2021.
Ebbe Altberg Twitter account was rather quiet then usual after November 2020. There was some activity in mid April 2021 though. Ebbe did not do a speech at VWBPE 2021 back in March 2021 which I thought was rather strange.
Linden Lab chose to streamline its focus to continue the development and operations of the leading virtual world Second Life and licensed money services provider Tilia
Who is Wookey Project Corp.?
Wookey Project Corp. continues to create a new generation of online AR/VR experiences that allow users the power of collaborative interaction through knowledge immersion.
Here is the full press release…
WOOKEY PROJECT CORP. ACQUIRES SANSAR
2020-03-24 00:00:00 UTC
Linden Lab has had some inquiries from the public and media about the current happenings of Sansar. We are very excited to witness the unfolding of Sansar getting a fresh opportunity to thrive under the ownership of Wookey Project Corp., a San Francisco-based technology compan that has assumed all operations without any interruption to operations or the Sansar community.
We are proud to have given birth to this amazing platform for creativity and live events, and encourage our community to continue the process of supporting Sansar as it shifts to new ownership. We’ve assembled a quick FAQ to address key inquiries about this transition.
Why did Linden Lab sell Sansar?
Linden Lab chose to streamline its focus to continue the development and operations of the leading virtual world Second Life and licensed money services provider Tilia.
Is Second Life also being sold to Wookey Project Corp.?
No. Second Life and Tilia both remain under the independent ownership of Linden Lab.
Who is Wookey Project Corp.?
Wookey Project Corp. continues to create a new generation of online AR/VR experiences that allow users the power of collaborative interaction through knowledge immersion.
Will my Sansar account and personal information be safe?
Yes! Your Sansar account information remains secure and safe during this transition. Please refer to the revised Privacy and Terms and Conditions on Sansar.com to learn more. If you have comments or questions about the privacy policy, feel free to email legal@wookey.com.
Will Linden Lab retain any ownership or management with Sansar after the transition?
No. Effective immediately, Wookey Project Corp. assumes all operations and management of Sansar. Wookey Project Corp. has contracted with Tilia Inc. as a third party service provider to perform certain back office functions for Sansar, including the issuance and redemption of Sansar’s in-game virtual tokens.
What will be the focus of Sansar under the new ownership?
Sansar will continue to evolve as the premier platform for live events and entertainment including (but not limited to) support for VR, while Second Life is positioned as the Internet’s leading user-created virtual world platform. Both Linden Lab and Wookey Project Corp. will continue to develop our respective platforms independently.
What does this mean for Second Life and Linden Lab?
Operations at Second Life are not impacted at all. The Second Life community will continue to be able to login and enjoy SL without any interruption. As for Linden Lab, many members of the Sansar team formerly employed by Linden Lab are staying with Sansar as employees under its new ownership.
For more information about the future of Sansar, please see the announcement on the Sansar blog.
Ebbe Altberg confirmed on Friday 21st February on Lab Gab episode 14 that Linden Lab is no longer continuing to sponsor Sansar financially. The lab are now looking for a plan B for Sansar going forward.
No deal has been done yet.
Ebbe said the following below…
So as you might have heard, sadly we have decided that we, as Linden Lab, couldn’t continue to sponsor the project financially, so we’re looking for a plan B for Sansar to continue. I can’t say much, but we’re having very interesting conversations with several parties to help that project move forward, which I’m really excited about. But no deal is done yet, so people will just have to be patient and see what happens with it, but yes it is true that Linden Lab going forward will focus entirely on Second Life and Tilia. I’m still busy making sure that Sansar finds a great home and that the great work that that team has started can continue.
Linden Lab will now focus entirely on Second Life and Tilia going forward which is good news indeed. They remain in a strong financial position at this time. More investments are coming now for Second Life.
Other Important Updates
Linden Lab is still developing a companion app for Second Life. There is still no ETA. Testing could start soon like in the next few months for IOS first followed with a Androud version.
No confirmed date for deployment for Name Changes but Name Changes will be around US $20 cheaper for Premium Plus members
No ETA for launch date for Premium Plus
8 names confirmed for the first list of last names > Conundrum, Dismantled, Huntsman, Littlepaws, Nova, Ravenhurst, Wumpkins & Yeatley + Winners will be informed via e-mail
The cloud uplift project due to be completed before the end of 2020
Transfer costs for buy-down / grandfathered regions is to be reduced from US $600 to US $300
There are roughly 5,000 new accounts logging-in to Second Life every day
On 13th February Linden Lab a blog post about an update to Second Life which is rather interesting to read through. Apparently Linden Lab have made some personnel and operational changes recently. A few employees have officially left the lab but the good news is that the team has strengthened more.
Linden Lab is continuing to invest heavily in Second Life going forward with many exciting developments happening pretty soon including new Linden Home themes, a new mobile companion app, the launch of last names which will be available in the next few weeks. There will be more new features, improved performance and usability updates soon.
The full blog post reads this…
There’ve been quite a few rumors about changes at the Lab and their possible effects on Second Life and Tilia. The truth is that we have made a few operational and personnel changes to ensure that we continue to stay strong for the next decade and beyond. This means that we had to say goodbye to a few employees, but at the same time we also strengthened our team by bringing back some heavy hitters who will help make Second Life better than ever.
So, Second Life is still here and still strong. We’re continuing to invest in its future and you’ll see the results of our commitment this year as we roll out a new mobile companion app, new Linden Home themes, performance and usability improvements, and a number of other new features and enhancements. The ability to change names will be available in the next few weeks, too.
These changes reflect our commitment to making SL strong for many years to come. To infinity and beyond!
Sansar Update – (13th Feb)
Ebbe Altberg posted a update on the official Sansar Discord channel saying that there have been layoffs. Ebbe confirmed that Sansar is up and running. The future is unclear at the moment.
The lab are still in discussion about the next steps for Sansar. The problem is there will be many that will be speculating about these latest changes. Just have to wait and see now what will happen in the days and weeks ahead.
So, I’m only going to say this tonight as it’s late. We can pick up the conversation in the following days. Yes, there were layoffs today. A truly wonderful group of people. But as you can see Sansar is up and running. We are still in discussion about next steps. Including with the wonderful group of people. More to come. Don’t give up yet. Go create and have fun. Not much point in speculating until we can tell you more.
According to the Steam Charts webpage that tracks ongoing analysis of Steam’s concurrent players it looks Sansar reached another high peak last month.
On Monday 23rd September 2019 Sansar reached 221 players on the platform which is the highest peak so far I think. The second highest peak was 167 players on Monday 1st July 2019.
Linden Lab don’t publish statistics for Sansar and these player numbers could be much higher or lower. I do think Steam Charts gives a good picture at the moment. I strongly think Linden Lab should publish player statistics for Sansar at least once or twice every year. It would be very useful to know and keep track of it.
Sansar – Steam Charts Data
Here is the breakdown of average players and peak players by month. It looks like Sansar gained more players during the summer from July 2019 onwards I think. September 2019 was a good month for the average amount of players (20.0 average). The stats were higher a little bit during the launch of Sansar on Steam back in early December 2018 with the average being (22.1).
At the bottom of the Sansar charts page it does say all data is powered by Steam.
Sansar – Steam Charts Data
There have been many noticeable gains in players during 2019 for Sansar from live events/shows and from newer releases. I agree the concurrent player numbers are low at the moment and more needs to be done by the lab to increase the active userbase for Sansar. In some ways its peaking more than most OpenSim grids get.
We have a strong community helping every day to make Sansar awesome.
Your point, though, is a valid one: Sansar has not had explosive growth yet. That’s ok, we’re in this for the long haul. Building the metaverse was never going to be easy.
Our plan is the same: continue to make Sansar ever better and easier to use, make Sansar more accessible, make Sansar ever more fun. Sansar is a place where people can go wherever they want to go, do whatever they want to do, and be whoever they want to be.
That is the most powerful place in the world. People will come for that.
The interesting part from this response was this part “Sansar has not had explosive growth yet. That’s ok, we’re in this for the long haul“. The lab are expecting explosive growth to happen (probably early-mid 2020s) and they confirm Sansar is here to stay for many more years to come.
The Sansar team wants to keep on top of competition and be in a good position to grow Sansar over the long term.
To work on a new platform gave us a huge opportunity to build a new world, and Sansar is built rather different than the way SL works pretty fundamentally. Keep in mind how long SL has been around (SL Celebrated it’s 16th Birthday Recently— it could get it’s drivers license in the US!) and how overall technology advancements have been made in nearly every field.
Had we designed a new product that was targeted to be able to bring over content from SL, it would have overly constrained our options and it would be more efficient to continue to iterate on SL to make it better. (Which we’re also doing in parallel with working on Sansar!)
But fundamentally Sansar is structured in a different way that there isn’t going to be an easy way to import content from SL and have it work effectively. If creators have their meshes, textures, etc from when they uploaded them to SL then it should be relatively easy to pull in their 3d content to Sansar!
But scripts and other pieces of dynamic content would have to be re-made. That being said if you’re familiar with the way we make APIs in LSL, it should be a relatively short learning curve to being able to do a lot of similar things in our C# scripting engine for Sansar!
As for how we’re planning on retaining our competitive advantage: we’re leveraging all the lessons we’ve learned from building and evolving SL over the years in our design and production of Sansar. We have a lot of hard-won knowledge around how to design our products for communities that scale, support our users who want to create and sell their creations, manage communities and provide a thriving marketplace. That will help us keep on top of the competition and be in a good position to grow Sansar over the long term!
I will post another Sansar stats update in December 2019 then another around April/May 2020.
Within the past few hours or so the lab have posted a big blog post announcing What’s Next for Linden Lab ? which goes into detail on what the lab have been working on recently and what’s upcoming on the roadmap. This is a must read if you love Second Life!
The lab will release updates very soon “on when to expect the return of Last Names, availability of a new mobile app beta, changes to Premium options, improvements to Events, Search, the Destination Guide, and much more”.
Sounds very interesting. I can’t wait.
Here are the latest updates for Second Life and Sansar…
Second Life
New Features & Enhancements
Over the past year, we’ve shared our plans to add multiple new features and enhancements to Second Life. Our engineering and product operations teams are continuing to do the heavy work on making these and other improvements available as fast as possible.
Animesh
We’ve already delivered Animesh, which allows independent objects to use rigged mesh and animations. We’ve been having so much fun watching residents’ creations come to life! So far, the creator community has developed over 1,300 animated objects on the Marketplace.
Bakes on Mesh
Just last month, we released the official Bakes on Mesh-enabled Viewer, the last piece of the Bakes on Mesh project. To learn more about this cool new capability, watch the video below!
EEP
We’re also getting the Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) Viewer into shape to promote to our default official Viewer. EEP is a series of new customizations in the environment rendering system that will allow for the creation and sharing of advanced environment settings, including up to four different sky layers which can be set independently.
EEP We’re also getting the Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) Viewer into shape to promote to our default official Viewer. EEP is a series of new customizations in the environment rendering system that will allow for the creation and sharing of advanced environment settings, including up to four different sky layers which can be set independently.
Migration to the Cloud
We have been hard at work moving the services that bring you Second Life from our existing data center to cloud hosting. Our goal is to make almost all of it seem invisible to you; in general we won’t announce that a service has been moved until it’s been working in the cloud for a while. Some things already qualify, though: Your inventory data has been in the cloud for quite some time, and the maps website moved a little while ago. We have several more things that your viewer uses that are being tested internally now, so expect more updates in the next couple of months. We are very excited about the new product possibilities that cloud hosting will enable.
More to come!
There’s more in the works, too! Stay tuned for updates on when to expect the return of Last Names, availability of a new mobile app beta, changes to Premium options, improvements to Events, Search, the Destination Guide, and much more.
Linden Homes
We continue to innovate and expand upon our Linden Homes offerings. Recently we debuted (and quickly sold out of) new Traditional and Houseboat styles…we’ve been making more to accommodate the incredible interest these generated, and now we’ve introduced the newest theme: CAMPERS!
Clustered in central Bellisseria, the new Camper regions offer a secluded, rural environment, with more nature and parcel privacy than the previous themed locations. We’ve already seen amazing creativity in decorating and customizing these campers from our Residents.
Like all Linden Homes, these are first-come, first-served, so keep checking for availability and act fast to claim yours if you see any available!
New Growth Initiatives
Second Life Blogger Network
Are you a Second Life blogger looking to expand your reach to a wider audience? You’ll want to consider joining the new Second Life Blogger Network (SLBN). This new initiative will promote high-quality independent blog content to the Second Life community. More details coming soon!
Halloween & Community Events
One of the most popular holidays in the Second Life community is Halloween – and this year we’ve got a bunch of tricks and treats that are sure to delight (or is it fright?) Second Lifers. Residents can expect a mix of new events, freebies and other spooky surprises throughout October – including a special haunted edition of the Swaginator!
New Video Programming & Ad Campaigns
Eagle-eyed Residents may have noticed a flurry of activity on our official YouTube channel and othersocialnetworks, which are now filled with dozens of new community-focused videos aimed at better showcasing the diversity and creativity of the Second Life community. More than 30 episodes of our weekly “Second Life Destinations” series have already debuted this year with many more to come!
Extra & Behind the Scenes
There’s also our ongoing “Made in Second Life” series, which goes deeper to discover the people behind the avatars including explorations on themes as varied as romance, gaming and education. Many episodes of “Made in Second Life” and “Second Life Destinations” are also trimmed down into 15- or 30-second ads.
In addition, we’ve started the first of several new initiatives that involve live streaming programming about Second Life. First up is the recently announced bi-weekly talk show “Lab Gab.” (Don’t miss the next episode on Wed. at 3 p.m. SLT/Pacific).
Finally, we’ve already started production on a new round of video tutorials aimed at new, intermediate and advanced Second Life Residents. Our own Strawberry Linden serves as your guide to topics such as “Getting Started,”“Shopping & Buying Linden Dollars,” and “Customizing your Avatar Shape.” Each video is also translated into multiple languages, too. Check out this playful clip to see if you can identify each language:
Today Sansar introduces new features including improved avatar editing, experience points and titles, and new core worlds. We also have first-of-their-kind partnerships with several established music and entertainment companies. Now with a rich backstory and new quests, Sansar has come a long way since it debuted in beta in 2017 and is worth a second look!
Today the Sansar Team have posted a blog post named A Word About Fees which is worth reading if you are using Sansar nowadays. Last year there was a decision to change how processing credit works within Sansar. This was done to help scale and grow Sansar even futher than ever before. The good news is that Sansar will remain free for all to play and everyday operations will continue as normal.
The Sansar Team mentions in the blog post that they will be now focusing the revenue model on the Sansar marketplace instead going forward. The legacy exchange rate will be extended for early adopters for another year. For creators before 1st January 2019 then they can get to keep the lower exchange rate until 31st December 2020. There will be a fees discussion meetup held soon.
The full blog announcement…
From our earliest days, we at Sansar have worked hard to build a virtual world that feels free and accessible to all – one where our amazing creators don’t have to worry about the constraints other platforms impose: a paid subscription just to cash out, for example, or fees for individual in-world transactions. We want to put you and your incredible work first, which is why we limit the kinds of fees we gather from our community.
When we made the decision last year to change how we process credit, we understood it would be an adjustment. But we know that it is a necessary change to make in the long run: one that would help scale and grow our incredible virtual universe, and ensure our community remained strong, vibrant, and self-sufficient.
Through this change to our fee structure, we can continue to keep Sansar free for all to play, while still covering the costs of day-to-day operations: server maintenance, R&D, all that good stuff. We’re able to maximize the total content available to you without resorting to the fees similar games enforce – in some cases, as much as an 80-20 revenue split.
We know that this may be unexpected for some, especially those that came to us through Second Life, where fees to process credit are lower. We also recognize that SL relies on a variety of fees to cover costs, including land ownership, upload fees, etc. By focusing our revenue model on our marketplace instead, we can limit the other fees we’d require in order to make Sansar a success.
We’re incredibly grateful for all the work you’ve contributed to Sansar so far, and we know the future is bright. In recognition of that, we’ll be extending the legacy exchange rate for early adopters for another year. If you became a creator before January 1, 2019, you’ll get to keep your lower exchange rate until December 31, 2020.
We’ll be speaking more to this change at our Fees Discussion meetup. Meet us there and let’s chat.
Daniel Voyager 