So… I’m sitting here, hiding from family as January 1st drones on to a wealth of movie repeats on the one-eyed monster in the lounge, when this drops into my e-mail.
Now, firstly, in four years of continuous activity in SL, I have to say I didn’t even know we had a newsletter – I’ve never, ever received a copy in the past. Secondly, I have to ask why what is clearly intended to be largely a marketing tool being sent – a-la coal to Newcastle – to existing users who are certainly savvy enough to know the majority (if not all) of the contents? Thirdly, I also have to ask why no adult roleplay?
Obviously, the third question is easy to answer: the newsletter is going out to *all* of SL’s residents, including 16 and 17 year olds, so we can’t mention the “a” word in front of them. So while it may (for all its multitudinous faults) be a valid form of role-play, Gor cannot be mentioned. Nor can we even have a perfectly vanilla overview of the “adult” rp sims out there. By vanilla, I simply mean a broad, PG-outline, no pictures of nudity and just a series of Surls – given that minors technically cannot access said sims, this really shouldn’t cause upset anywhere – especially if such a section is headlined with a reminder that Second Life is used by adults who are – and will most likely remain – its largest user-base, many of whom do come here for adult-related activities.
However, this issue of “Sandbox” isn’t really intended for the adult users of SL. It is aimed squarely at the teen market, and has been timed to coincide with the transfer of teen accounts to the main grid. As such, it is the second of two causes for concern this issue of “Sandbox” presents – and I’ll explain why in just a moment.
The first item of concern is that it again demonstrates how LL fail to grasp their own platform. For nigh-on two years they’ve pushed and pushed and pushed the idea that SL is primarily a “social networking platform” – right up to shunting users towards Facebook on a number of occasions. During this time, the idea that SL was also an immersive, creative, playful environment seems totally foreign to The Powers That Be. Now everything is canted entirely the other way: SL is just a “game” (hence the appointment of a recognised “gamer” as CEO) – and “social” and “network” now seem to be banned from being linked in the Linden vocabulary. Rather than recognising – as their users largely do – that SL is in fact both a gaming environment and a social networking platform, LL seem only able to pendulum between the extremes of both viewpoints.
The second item of concern is that in focusing on teens to almost the exclusion of everyone else, LL are once again falling into a familiar pattern of “if we build it, they will come” – almost as if the lessons of the past two years haven’t been taken to heart at all. Let’s face it, we’ve seen it all before; witness the New User Experience and Viewer 2 – both of which were supposed to see adults arriving in SL by the truckload. Witness the SLE product and the promotion of SL as a “serious” business tool that was supposed to see corporations the world over flocking to SL to run their collaborative apps, hold virtual meetings and generally put their business to rights.
In each of these cases, LL have repeatedly turned their collective backs on their established user-base, resolutely convinced they’re on to something “big” for SL – and LL as a whole – only to see it all go somewhat pear-shaped within a few months. I seriously doubt that trying to woo-in the teens will go any differently; we’ll see a mild upward swing in the short-term, but overall very little will change numbers-wise. The initial interest will fade and those at the lab will start scrambling around looking for the Next Big Thing that will “turn SL around” – and we’ll be right back (to use a quote from television this time) feeling that “all this has happened before; all this will happen again”.
So, if there is one thing – OK, TWO things, given I’ve already written to him on one of them – Rod Humble can do when he arrives full-time as the new CEO, it is to get the company to start regarding its existing user-base as an asset, rather than a hindrance.
We – as much as anyone else – have made SL what it is today (and given the staff turnover at LL, possibly moreso than anyone there); we have made the investments in terms of time, effort. It really would be nice to see the new CEO recognise this and take steps to make sure the company actually engages with its users once more, rather than repeatedly patronising us.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Happy New Year Miss Pey
Re your surprise at receiving “Sandbox”, I echo your feelings and have already seen inworld the fawning attitude to Teen SL immigrants shown by some formerly Mature sims.
Arriving under the floor at one shop was a …surprise, until I realised that the entry point had been messed with (I wonder why?).
Ah well, we all are being told that SL “Is just a game FFS, Get a Life!”. Strange, I thought I had one, my SL. I guess it no longer fits with LL’s image, again.
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It is a game. It is nothing but a platform.
The trick of VRs is that they exploit blindspots in the brain whether it is by exploitation of the design or merely as a side effect. The brain treats what is accomplished in these worlds as real. It is not.
What they offer, bottom line, is entertainment. It is true that David Mamet wrote of theme park/Las Vegas attractions (games in themselves like VR worlds), that they only offer the “promise” of entertainment not anything else.
Most people in VRs are caught up in the fading glamour of an old technology. That it would set us free. It won’t, it never will so save your sanity and look upon it as a game.
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I’m not sure it is a “trick”; I would also dispute that what can be established here it terms of social interaction is any less real than any “flat” medium such as Facebook. Yes, SL *is* entertainment; but it offers the potential to make connections and build interactions that can move beyond the shield of avatar anonymity if we so wish; it also provides a means of networking among like-minded individuals that goes beyond “mere” gaming.
In my SL times, I’m as much involved in discussing real-world events: politics, education, social activities, reviewing my real life activities and hearing about the activities of trusted friends as much as I’m here for any “entertainment” through the myriad of opportunities presented by SL as an “entertainment platform”.
My point is that SL – albeit within a framework – can be both; it can even be more. But LL now seem incapable of grasping that fact: they appear to seen SL in what might be described as one dimensionally; it is an entertainment platform OR it is a social networking platform OR it is a platform for virtual commerce – and then they drive headlong at each of these targets, forgetting that their own product can be an entertainment platform AND a platform for virtual commerce AND a social networking platform….
Simply put: SL is richly diverse, so is the user base. Those running Linden Lab no longer seem to be able to grasp that reality except in its most abstract form – and that’s the pity.
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@melponeme_k:
You completely miss my point. No, nothing in SL is real, except the emotions in my brain and those of the avatars I interact with. My sanity is perfectly intact, so do not concern yourself unduly.
However; I bring some Real Life values into my SL and expect others to behave accordingly and not to remove themselves from the need to behave morally.
SL is culturally diverse because of its users, and if SL is a system based on “fading glamour”, then it is a castigation of those who use it.
SL is not Real, but the mores morals and feelings are. If that makes me deluded in your view, I suggest it is your world-view that needs adjustment, not mine. SL, to me at least, is NOT a game.
Miss Pey’s words above make the point similarly.
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Do you really think Facebook is real? A forum where people can fool themselves into thinking they are “friends” with people they haven’t seen for years or never talk to face to face? It isn’t real. Its another game, a variation on “Telephone”. SL is the same. And I’m glad the people in LL are starting to look at it in that fashion rather than believe they are changing the human race.
Unfortunately SL won’t be more than what it is now. I hope the new CEO brings a common sense attitude that will help it survive. Even in maintenance mode.
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I think Heloise has refuted this argument far more succinctly than any number of paragraphs I could write.
Whether or not SL is “real” is moot: it offers almost infinite opportunities for self-expression, growth, learning, fun, and so on. It is what we choose to make of it – be it a game or otherwise (and I suspect those that attend SLCC year-on-year will regard SL as much a social platform as a game).
It is simply that LL seem to have lost sight of the sheer scope of possibilities that SL has, and can still, represent – seeing it instead as something that must be packaged up neatly to fit some misbegotten idea that products can only be promoted in terms of a market – be it business, teens or whatever. This is to be regretted, because as long as they continue to do so, they’ll continue to fail to grasp – to grok what they actually have with the platform and its user base – and they’ll continue to marginalise both.
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It does not matter whether SL itself is ‘real’ (a somewhat tricky to define term in the first place, by the way, and don’t even get me started on ‘common sense’), but its effects on its residents or players, or whatever else you want to call them, undoubtedly are. People have life-changing experiences encountering ‘unreal’ things like novels and poetry all of the time, and in fact it is precisely that ‘unreality’ that allows for things to come out in the open in a way ‘reality’ often won’t allow, and this certainly holds true for Second Life as well. And in the light of that, I think any debate on whether it’s game or not is a rather moot one. Much more than your First Life, your Second one is what you make of it, and I tend to think that this has some intrinsic value in itself.
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@melponeme_K and anyone else who can be bothered to read:
I’m not at my most lucid after 1am, and that is clearly demonstrated by last night’s comment.
Sure people can and do “game” (oh, it’s a verb now) on SL. I choose not to, and that choice is everyone’s perogative.
I cannot understand how a telephone is a game though. You appear to say that any form of communication or interaction that does not involve physical face-to-face contact is unreal. That I do not comprehend. I think that we simply don’t use the words in the same way.
I don’t need SL to be any more than it is already – I just want it to work. I also want the people at Linden Lab to pay attention to those of us that use their platform when we tell them, politely, that it is broken.
That can come from someone who uses SL as a virtual life or as a game. At present we are all equally treated – we are all ignored.
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