Day: June 25, 2026

On Wednesday, June 24th 2026, Linden Lab held the third of the SL23B Meet the Lindens events, featuring members of the Product team. Notes: This is a summary (not a full transcript) of the majority of topics discussed at the session, and the official video of the session is embedded at the end of this article, not a full transcript. Timestamps are provided to the relative points within the video where specific topics are discussed, allowing readers who prefer to listen to the comments directly to be able to do so.

Table of Contents Participants PBR, Graphics, Performance PBR Roll-out and Optimisations Viewer Performance Graphics API and Improvements, and “Future Proofing” SL Region Crossings WebRTC and Voice Updates Technical Initiatives Current Projects Linux Support and Scripting Support Inventory and Content Organisation Improvements Simulator and Server Infrastructure Security: Phishing Attacks and User Protection Additional Technical Topics AI Use and Long-Term Vision General Marketplace Usability and Moderation Creating a “Second Life 2.0” OpenSimulator Interoperability Second Life 2-3 Years Hence Magic Wand Time SL Mobile Audience Questions

• Not all subjects are in chronological order compared to the video. I have attempted to group them by subject / responder. So for example, some audience questions on things like the viewer are placed within the related section of the text, but are given their own timestamp for reference.

Participants

Jerome Linden, Senior Vice President of Engineering – see panel, right. Geenz Linden, Viewer Development Lead. Juniper Linden, Web Properties Team. Leivathan Linden (formerly the Linden known as Andrew, the first LL employee), Second Life Server Team. Monty Linden, Second Life Server Team, currently focusing on TP / region crossings. Radix Linden, SL Mobile Team. Rider Linden, Second Life Server Team. Roxie Linden, WebRTC and Project Zero. Soft Linden, InfoSec Director.

Jerome Despret (Jerome Linden) Joined LL in March 2026, bringing more than 25 years of experience in the gaming industry to the role of Senior Vice President of Engineering.  He has deep expertise in massively multiplayer platforms, live service games, and large-scale engineering organisations.  Companies he has worked for include Maxis / Electronic Arts (deeply involved in The Sims Online and in taking The Sims 4 from development through to a full product); Zynga (overseeing Zynga Poker one of the company’s highest-grossing live service titles). His career has involved leading teams to deliver complex projects from early development through global launch across PC, mobile, and cloud-based platforms. In his new role at Linden Lab, he will focus on strengthening the company’s engineering organization and supporting the continued growth and technical evolution of Second Life.

PBR, Graphics, Performance

PBR Roll-out and Optimisations

[6:06-8:02] Since the introduction of PBR, some users have reported performance issues, whilst others have raised concerns about accessibility (e.g. photosensitivity and epilepsy triggers due to reflective surfaces, etc.).  Looking back on the roll out, what lessons have the engineering team learned, and what improvements can residents expect in future PBR optimisations?

Geenz Linden:

• Lessons: most important one would be getting people testing sooner and getting a larger cohort of people testing. A lot of the problems with PBR stemmed from this.
• This is actually one of the bigger challenges faced by viewer updates and new features in general, both in identifying the right time for testing and the right people to help test them.
• Improvements: LL is continuing to improve performance with PBR and is always looking at um new issues that people are reporting, from things like the skies not looking quite right on legacy content through to some of the accessibility concerns mentioned.
• PBR is here to stay, so the improvements will continue.

Viewer Performance

[8:08-9:35] Many residents are running modern gaming hardware, but still experience performance problems that may seem out of proportion compared to contemporary games. What are the biggest technical bottlenecks that limit Second Life’s performance today and what progress can residents realistically expect over the next few years?

Geenz Linden:

• Probably some of the biggest bottlenecks are going to be multi-threading. A lot of modern computers have a lot of processor cores allowing them to do a lot of things at once. The viewer hasn’t really caught up with hasn’t really caught up with that yet, and doing so would definitely help with overall viewer performance.
• Also going to inevitably hit a ceiling with how much performance can be squeezed out of [the now deprecated in most cases] OpenGL. So discussions are going on about how to migrate to something faster and more performant across a range of hardware.

Graphic APIs and Improvements, and “Future Proofing” SL

[18:56-21:10] With PBR increasing the rendering demands and modern technologies like DLSS and FSR becoming increasingly important is there a long-term plan to move beyond OpenGL towards modern graphics APIs (e.g. Vulkan DirectX12,  WebGPU). If so, what challenges make that transition difficult?

Geenz Linden:

• There is active discussion around how to go through and move away from OpenGL. Second Life is “a beast of a platform” to try and render; there’s a lot of content density in every single frame the viewer tries to draw. So Vulkan, etc., isn’t exactly a turnkey silver bullet sort of solution.
• Also need to be able to meet our current performance or better. This is also not as straightforward as just flip a switch and you’re on the new thing that’s magically faster. A lot of work goes into some of these newer pipelines to be able to get to that point.
• At the same time, there is making sure that the general look and feel of SL is maintained. SL has 23 years worth of content. So care has to be taken not to break things as much as possible when changing the rendering engine.
• There is also the wide range of hardware used to access SL. This can mean just because an API is supported across different hardware, it doesn’t mean it’s supported the same way across that hardware.
• All of this requires consideration and testing of options to make sure nothing is being broken along the way.
• [53:52-54:36] LL very well aware of where the industry is going with broader OpenGL support, plus the current version used in SL doesn’t have much performance headroom left. So, preliminary steps are being taken to make a move easier.
  • Those interested are encouraged to attend the Open-Source User Group [summaries here].

[21:25-23:08 ] From an engineering perspective, how much of Second Life can realistically be modernised while also preserving compatibility with the platform that has evolved for more than two decades?

Geenz Linden:

• When adding more modern rendering features, as noted, care has to be taken to avoid things like content breakage; people want to see things in SL the way the saw them on first joining the platform.
• This isn’t always possible so care must be taken when it comes down to updating the platform: to add / update, or replace?
• For example, the 2011-2012 work to add the original Materials (Blinn-Phong) to SL was purely an additive feature which didn’t disrupt existing feature sets; things looked about the same.
• EEP and Bento are other examples of things that added to SL rather than replacing or modifying existing features which also worked.

Region Crossings

[9:38-12:29] Vehicle users, role players, and explorers have long struggled with inconsistent region crossings. How difficult is this problem from an engineering standpoint? Are there any meaningful improvements on the horizon?

Monty Linden:

• On the technical load, has described this as a bug finding problem. Teleports and region crossings – and to an extent logging- in – touch almost every system, both in the viewer and server-side, involving something on the order of 100,000 lines of code get involved in the entire process.
• Given the complexity of the process, it is probably plagued by something on the order of several hundred bugs, some small, some innocuous, some unreachable, and a few of them extremely significant. Some exist architecturally; some are protocol definition problems and reliability problems.
• LL is very aware of the issues of teleporting and region crossings, and has significant projects in development to address some of the problems. So people will start seeing small incremental changes to fix the big ones, get the reliability better, a reduction in viewer disconnects, etc.
• This won’t be an overnight thing, and at times LL will ask for feedback, as this is a process that relies on people reporting specific and interesting problems that they are encountering; the team need to see a bigger spread of the bad experiences people are having. So please file bug reports.

WebRTC and Voice Updates

[12:32-16:14] What have been the biggest challenges with the new voice system and what improvements are currently being worked on?

Roxie Linden:

• Biggest challenges: the variety of audio devices and operating systems used in SL, not of all which can be tested in all combinations. So, if people are experiencing issues with Voice, please file a bug report.
• Voice is also a significant system with a lot of moving parts; a lot of servers, the simulators, the various viewers (and their release cycles in picking up code and fixes), etc., and orchestrating them all is a complex task when dealing with the size of something like SL, hence the slow and steady development and deployment.
• Issues: region crossing disconnects can still occur with peer-to-peer Voice communications. There are probably other issues, so again, bug reports are requested.
• However, WebRTC is entirely in-house rather than being supplied by a third-party, which means fixes can be implemented faster.

Technical Initiatives

Current Projects

[16:30-18:41] What are the most impactful technical projects that are currently underway that could significantly improve the Second Life experience?

Jerome Linden:

• Due to SL being around for a long time, a lot of the work being carried out is maintenance focused, but the work is not solely There are a number of big projects in progress. These include:
  • WebRTC, as mentioned above, and which could include voice-to-text transcription, and this is being experimented with and a project with it could start very soon.
  • Lua scripting: this is another major project which should hopefully ship in 2026. It is currently available in some regions for testing. A benefit with Lua is that it is a known language so creators from outside SL should be more comfortable with it then Mono or LSL.
  • There is SL Mobile, which is continuing to develop and allow the sharing of experiences between devices.
  • These are the big projects which will be / become visible over the next 6-12 months, with others in the pipe.
• There are also smaller project in progress – optimising graphics quality and performance. There is also work going on with the viewer UI.

Linux Support and Scripting Support

[26:19-26:40] Is there any possibility of an official Linux viewer returning in the future or will Linux support continue to rely primarily on third-party viewers?

Geenz Linden:

• Linux support will be returning, and will debut with the release of the Lua scripting viewer.

[26:53-28:23] Can you share any updates on the Lua scripting project status, timeline, and the long-term vision for modernizing scripting within Second Life?

Rider Linden:

• Not going to commit to a timeline, but as mentioned, it’s actually looking really good for Lua to be deployed later in 2026.
• Those who are interested, Lua is discussed at the Simulator User Group held every other Tuesday [meeting summaries here].v These meeting offer a lot of feedback that is helping to shape Lua.

[28:33-30:14] What is LL’s long-term vision for improving creator tools, documentation, education, and collaboration opportunities for builders and scripters?

Rider Linden:

• The Lua viewer will have quite a number of uh of improvements: tighter integration with external editors for easier coding, for example.
• There is also a VS code plug-in which has some fairly tight integration with SL, helping to keep function definitions up to date, etc.
• There is the in-development Getting Started with Scripting Portal with information on how to get started in scripting if you’re not a scripter.

Inventory and Content Organisation Improvements

[30:47-32:03] Many of Second Life’s core systems, things like inventory management, profiles, landmarks, and content organisation have changed very little over the years. Are there plans to modernise these and make them easier to manage?

Jerome Linden:

• Short answer: no plans yet, but it is heavily discussed.
• A focus right now is to make entering Second Life easier and a more pleasant experience. Part of this making systems like inventory more accessible, easier to use and more modern. So there are discussions, but currently, there is not an exact plan in place.
• Will say that he is expecting changes and modernisation around the system in the next 6 to 24 months.

We have a question about modifiable content transparency. Would it be possible to provide clear information about what parts of a purchase product are actually modifiable so that residents can make more informed purchase decisions before buying?

[32:09-33:20] Would it be possible to provide clear information about what parts of a purchase product are actually modifiable so that residents can make more informed purchase decisions before buying?

Jerome Linden:

• By transparency here, is reading people want to know what they’re buying before they buy it.
• In terms of the specifics of clarifying what can be edited, etc., in-world, there are currently no plans.
• In terms of the Marketplace, there are plans being discussed with the Product Team, but these are not ready for discussion. The short answer is that LL wants to make the Marketplace experience and buying experience better and easier, which also goes back to the new user experience and making it easier for them to engage in the economy.

Simulator and Server Infrastructure

[33:30-35:39] When will users see noticeable reductions in lag? What areas of server infrastructure are currently receiving the most engineering attention?

Monty Linden:

• Lag comes in three varieties: the user’s side [their hardware, Internet connection], network [the routing from the user’s Internet connection to the AWS servers used by LL] and server side [what is going on within the simulator / server that can cause lag]. Can only really talk about server-side and network.
• Unlike the viewer, server-side frame rates don’t have as direct a correlation to the experience.
• There has been work to improve a number of areas within the server-side over the past few years, such as “fairness”: when one avatar would undertake something like entering a region, for example, the simulator would focus on them as a priority and impact the experience of everyone already in the region. Nowadays, the person entering the region suffers a little more in terms of delay, but those in the region suffer less.
• More of this kind of work is being done so over time the server will get better.

Security: Phishing Attacks and User Protection

[37:14-42:02]

Hacked accounts and fraudulent Marketplace links continue to circulate through groups and chat channels. What tools or engineering solutions are being developed to help residents identify, report and avoid these scams more effectively?

Soft Linden:

• Phishing has always been an issue in Second Life, but attackers have recently adapting their tactics. Historically, resident reports have always been the most important factor in helping us identify campaigns and respond to them.
• This is not ideal as completing the Abuse Report is manually intensive. So for links, the ability to right-click a suspect link and auto-generate a report has been prototyped and might be deployed.
• It is hoped that such an approach will increase the number of reports on phishing attempts and allow LL to respond far more quickly.
• LL has also prototyped some changes that’ll give a clear signals when someone is about to visit a site that doesn’t match their personal browsing habits. This will be something that’s tracked locally in the viewer so as not to compromise people’s privacy or alter whatever browser privacy protection they might have in place.
• There is other work that’s intentionally less visible and aren’t for discussion as revealing them could offer bad actors a way around them.
• Overall, LL is aware these problems have increased and the goal is to make scams harder to succeed whilst making reporting easier, and finding ways to more effectively respond when uh campaigns do appear.

Some residents have suggested tighter restrictions around external links uh within the viewer to reduce fishing and social engineering attacks. So the question is how does Linden Lab evaluate the balance between security and usability in this area?

Soft Linden:

• There is always a trade-off. You don’t want the Wild West where everybody is left to judge everywhere alone; but you also don’t want to create a completely locked down experience that kind of breaks Second Life for everyday use.
• The overall goal has to be to avoid making all of you personally responsible for every risk, although this is not always fully possible, but it’s the right place to start.
• So when evaluating changes around security controls generally, LL starts with the questions is this actually making safer behaviour the easier behaviour? Are we making attacks less effective? Are we improving our own ability to respond when attacks do happen? Are we avoiding changes that make Second Life harder to use in ways that are going to frustrate you and drive you toward unsafe workarounds?
• Second Life has an incredibly complex surface. So there is not one universal rule for every context. So the approach is to add friction where the risk is higher and improve signals when something looks a little weird, and improve reporting response.

Additional Technical Topics

AI Use and Long-Term Vision

[23:25-25:20] Beyond generative AI, are there opportunities to use AI technologies to improve asset optimisation, performance, content creation workflows or other engineering challenges within Second Life?

Jerome Linden:

• To be clear, because AI is used for many things, LL has no plans to use generative AI to create content or anything like that for Second Life.
• AI tools are used within various workflows where appropriate – security challenges, code audits, team workflows, customer support workflows, etc.
• For features that would be a little bit more uh resident facing, AI would only be used where it makes sense. For example, it is hard to optimise assets using AI, because assets are all user-designed, and people do a lot of things with their content.
• But there are areas of optimisation where AI can be used, such as helping to monitor the Marketplace and make sure the listing are tagged correctly and in the right category and perhaps analyse if there are things that should be unlisted from the Marketplace.
• AI will also assist with the Voice-to-text transcription already mentioned.
• So, no plans to use AI generated content in-world, but a considered use of AI tools where appropriate.

[42:15-45:19] It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish authentic products from misleading Marketplace listings using AI generated images. What steps is LL considering to improve transparency, trust and discoverability on marketplace?

Juniper Linden:

• The Marketplace Team is very aware of this, although it is also a Product question as well and Engineering.
• It has come up through feedback reports at through the Web User Group meetings [summaries here].
• The real question is: yes there are AI-generated images and things like that, but what is the limit of what we consider AI in terms of assisting things? So LL is moving slowly on this so as to fully consider what controls, etc., are implemented.
• Companies have rolled-out AI moderation in a way that can be really aggressive and demeaning, such as mis-flagging AI-generated content, which would potentially upset SL content creators.
• If there is an opt-in process, how do creators know the level of AI use requires self-reporting?
• So there isn’t currently a single answer, because it is something LL is trying to figure out as the AI ecosystem changes and people experiment with it more. However, it is being monitored, and thought is going into how AI generated tools might help with some content moderation [as noted by Jerome], but full-on content moderation, this needs careful consideration.

General Marketplace Usability / Moderation

[45:33-47:36] Residents have expressed concerns about Marketplace usability (e.g. mis-labelled demos, listing moderation issues, vague rejection messages). Are there plans to improve the Marketplace experience for both shoppers and creators? For example, when are drop-down sizes coming or rollover images, etc., to make the MP resemble a more modern marketplace website.

Juniper Linden:

• There is currently a clean-up on listings [de-listing items with no sales over 2 years and where the creator has not logged-in to SL for some time]; together with work to modernise the MP.
• Given the age of the application, a lot of this work is from the ground-up, requiring a lot of internal work to break things down to be more manageable and easier for LL’s internal tooling.
• The hope is to revamp the MP as much as possible, but things are quiet right now as the foundational work gets underway in order to start tackling more of the technical debt within Marketplace.
• Once this work is done, then things like better error messaging and more persistence on jobs and retries can be put into place.

Creating a “Second Life 2.0”

[25:29-26:15] With Unity and Unreal moving towards interoperability in the coming years, has LL ever considered the idea of archiving the current Second Life and creating a new modern successor?

Jerome Linden:

• Short answer: No. There are no plans to do this.
• The issue is not really engineering but business: it will be very difficult to ask the entire resident population to switch ecosystems. And if you don’t then you have the complexity of trying to support two ecosystems [which LL has tried with SL and Sansar].

OpenSimulator Interoperability

[35:49-36:57] Is there any possibility of renewed interoperability or collaboration with OpenSimulator or have those platforms diverge just too far technically to make that practical?

Jerome Linden:

• There are no plans to engage with OpenSimulator.
• Whilst LL is very engaged with the open source community with the viewer, any involvement with OpenSimulator would require opening-up the Second Life simulator code base, which is not something LL plans to do.
• Keep the simulator code base private helps a lot in term of possible attacks and things like that.

Second Life 2-3 Years Hence

[47:43-49:15] If we were to look ahead five years, what do you think will be the most noticeable engineering improvements that residents will experience in Second Life?

Jerome Linden:

• Five years is a long time; better to answer in the 2-3 year time frame.
• As noted, currently the focus is on make SL more accessible to new users and grow the platform.
• This involves modernising the platform, as already mentioned: inventory improvements, marketplace improvements; there’s also Lua coming out, Voice-to-text transcription, plus avatar customisation.
• Believes that in the next two to three years there will be a lot of features and updates emerging. This will also provide opportunities to potentially rewrite some of the software that has been aging for 20 years.

Magic Wand Time

[49:18-52:55]If you could wave a magic wand and solve one longstanding technical challenge in Second Life tomorrow, what would it be and why?

• Leviathan Linden: I would vote for region crossings.
• Geenz Linden: content interoperability; the ability to bring content from other places into Second Life.
• Roxie Linden: communications – Voice-to-text; translation; text-to-speech; improving the ways in which people can communicate with one another.
• Rider Linden: would have said teleporting, but will go with more scripting improvements and capabilities.
• Soft Linden: less latency when it comes to playing games in-world, and form people around the world using SL.
• Monty Linden: more collaborative building opportunities; it’s one of the things that makes SL unique, and while necessary, some changes to SL have diminished it.

SL Mobile

[1:01:16-1:01:45] What is the status of SL Mobile?

Radix Linden:

• SL Mobile is still considered beta and is definitely a work in progress.
• There are a lot of changes coming down the pipe still and things are going to change in significant ways. But no specific promises; just more to come!

[Side note: see also this section of the Product Team Meet the Lindens session.]

Audience Questions

[54:48-55:22] Is there any work on a fix for memory leaks inside Second Life?

• Geenz: There is work reduce the memory footprint that the viewer takes due to the volume of content it has to process in real time. But it is a complex problem.

[55:32-56:08] Is there an official recommendation or just any insights you could offer people looking at trying to get the best laptop for SL?

• Geenz: Lots of VRAM will help you, together with a powerful CPU. SL doesn’t necessarily eat a ton of your GPU, but it will eat a lot of RAM and it does need a good CPU.[See Also: SL System Requirements.]

[56:43-57:20] How come that after rolling restarts on the Mainland, content can be lost and not be retrieved?

• Leviathan: There are some known ways that a region being taken down would fail to save its sim state; these may cause the majority of the cases of lost content. There are some fixes for these issues in the current simulator release.

[57:25-58:13] Could someone provide an update on using game controllers with the viewer?

• Leviathan: The game control project was started a couple of years ago with an original focus on exposing game control inputs to in-world scripts. Currently, the focus is on just making the viewer work with a game controller so that you can move around and configure your game controllers to do what you want. It’s a work in progress.

[58:16-59:09] Is PBR Bakes on Mesh going to be available soon?

• Geenz: short answer: it would be nice to add it. Longer answer: there are some steps which have to be completed first. There is an upcoming viewer, the Graphic Care Package viewer, lays some foundational work to get that going, e.g. the upcoming uh PBR specular extension support.

[59:25-1:00:34] Are there any plans to modernize the chat experience more broadly?

• Jerome Linden: There is no specific plan around chat right now outside of making IM chat histories persist across platforms. There are the already-mentioned chat related projects (transcription, etc.), but no plan to improve specific areas of chat, but like every feature, we’re trying to modernize it and make it easier to use.

[1:01:55-1:02:41] I have a question about the alpha glitch when multiple objects with alpha textures on them are on screen and behind and in front of each other. Is there any attempt still being made to permanently fix this?

• Geenz: LL is aware of various different solutions to tackle this issue, but a lot of these solutions would end up costing performance people who are on lower-end hardware. Graphic APIs like Metal and Vulkan would also definitely help out with this a lot – so updating the rendering API would probably have to be the first tasks to complete before trying to attack this in earnest.

[1:02:59-1:03:43] Do older accounts that never log in anymore that have a lot of things in their inventory, do they contribute to the bulk of information the servers have to hold on to, which may negatively affect how well they run? What impact does that have?

Jerome: Does not think the impact is major, right? We are talking of us storing data in some databases. So it’s not a main contributor to performance issues. >> Great. Thank you.

End of session.

SL23B Meet the Lindens Summaries

• Philip Rosedale
• Product Team (Grumpity and Keira Linden)
• Marketing and Growth (Brett and Fausto Linden)
• Second Life Studios

On Tuesday, June 23rd 2026, Linden Lab held the second of the SL23B Meet the Lindens events, featuring members of the Product team: Grumpity Linden, Senior Vice President of Product. Keira Linden, Manager of Customer Success and Trust & Safety. Notes: This is a summary (not a full transcript) of the majority of topics discussed at the session, and the official video of the session is embedded at the end of this article, not a full transcript. Timestamps are provided to the relative points within the video where specific topics are discussed, allowing readers who prefer to listen to the comments directly to be able to do so. Not all subjects are in chronological order compared to the video. I have attempted to group them by subject / respondee.

Table of Contents Grumpity Linden: Looking Back over the Past Year Questions To Grumpity Are There plans to Further Reduce the Barriers to Land Ownership? Will There be Adjustments to Mainland Tier? Will the Declining Value of Grandfathered Regions be Addressed? Why Did Subscription Fees Change? Will There Be More Changes? Will SecondLifeTime Memberships again be Offered? Will The be New Subscription Types? Will Premium Plus Benefits be Improved for Non-Merchants? Will the Availability of Premium Plus Homes be Improved for PP Subscribers? Will There be More International Payment Options? Why was Project Zero Cancelled? What’s Next for SL Mobile? What Areas of Innovation Excite You the Most? Will VR Support be a Part of SL? Will SL ever be Available for Steam, Gaming Consoled, etc? Supporting Non-US Residents Will Group Limits be Increased? Question to Keria Is LL Addressing Concerns about Bots and Scripted Agents? Will New Last Names be Offered More Frequently? How Are Issues of Doxing Handled? Will Account Security Options be Expanded? How is LL Looking to Protect against In-world Spamming? How Is LL Thinking About Age Assurance? Do Banned Users Get a Second Chance? How is the Support Team Structured & Does Feedback Work? Audience Questions

Gumpity Linden: Looking Back Over the Past Year

[Video: 0:2:56-0:4:48]

Sees the past year of one of continued change and growth for the better, both within SL and the Lab. Is particularly happy about Jerome Linden joining LL (see panel, right), with whom she works closely. Feels that bringing-in new staff is an important part of the company’s growth as it helps in thinking about the platform is different ways. Notes that much of the focus at the Lab over the past year & continuing into the future is looking at ways to grow the platform and bring new users into SL to keep it vibrant and help grow the economy. The latter has taken the form of a lot of experimentation, making changes, evolving ideas, and using all that has been learn in the planning process for the future.

Jerome Despret (Jerome Linden) Joined LL in March 2026, bringing more than 25 years of experience in the gaming industry to the role of Senior Vice President of Engineering.  He has deep expertise in massively multiplayer platforms, live service games, and large-scale engineering organisations.  Companies he has worked for include Maxis / Electronic Arts (deeply involved in The Sims Online and in taking The Sims 4 from development through to a full product); Riot Games (leading the engineering and operations function) and Zynga (overseeing Zynga Poker one of the company’s highest-grossing live service titles). His career has involved leading teams to deliver complex projects from early development through global launch across PC, mobile, and cloud-based platforms. In his new role at Linden Lab, he will focus on strengthening the company’s engineering organization and supporting the continued growth and technical evolution of Second Life.

Questions to Grumpity

Pricing and Affordability

[5:50-9:54] LL recently reduced the monthly tier on certain Private region types [see here], and has done so several times in the past. Whilst appreciated, there are some concerns about the overall pricing strategy. So, looking ahead, are there plans to further reduce the barriers to land ownership (e.g. lower set-up costs; lower monthly tier; new subscription models; unbinding Homestead ownership from Full region ownership)?

• Every day, things are getting more expensive – including the costs of running SL, and not just in the current economic climate.
• LL has always tried to approach pricing changes by weighing how to keep Second Life healthy and how best to invest in growing the platform.
• A major complaint for a long time was “the rent is too damned high!”, and LL has consistently tried to lower the barrier to entry for land ownership and for people to be able to participate in kind of in the land economy. Since 2017, LL has lowered land prices across both Private regions and Mainland.
• At the same time, LL has tried to keep the overall cost of participating in the SL economy down, including the cost of subscriptions, etc.
• However, it is a balancing act; LL needs to invest in SL so this can lead to prices being lowered in one area and other fees being increased – although SL is unique in this; has not seen any other company raise prices for one service and lower them for another.
• Given this, for land pricing, everything is on the table. LL reviews land pricing and the structures for entering land economy every year or so and considers all suggestions. So further changes are definitely possible.

[10:06-11:52] Private region fees have been reduced while Mainland costs remain largely unchanged. So what is the long-term vision for mainland? And are there plans to make mainland ownership more attractive or affordable?

• Mainland is a core component of the Second Life experience.
• The cost of Mainland has been reduced in the past [see here and here] and LL has also looked at possibly increasing the Mainland Land Capacity (Land Impact allowance [see here]), and LL has looked at how to make Mainland pricing and billing more sensible.
• LL is looking at ways to reinvigorate Mainland whilst keeping its free spirit alive, and hopes to iterate on all of this.
• Long-term vision is difficult express, in part because Mainland is still more “wild west” than [a covenanted] private estate. So it’s a case of trying to balance the open, free spirit experience and the continuity of it at the same time as making it reasonably affordable.

[12:04-13:57] There is a feeling among some long-term landowners that the recent private region pricing changes have reduced the value of the grandfathered or discounted rates that they’ve had for years. How do you balance making land more affordable for everybody while also rewarding these long-standing land owners?

• On the one hand, LL absolutely recognises the commitment that people have had to SL by holding grandfathered regions for so long. On the other, it’s an investment which has brought considerable returns: a buy down 10 years ago has paid for itself possibly a thousand times over.
• For LL to make land more affordable for everyone, they cannot continuously favour those who were able to participate in grandfathered option at the time when it was available. This amounts to newer people entering the land economy essentially subsidising the grandfathered regions, and thus potentially discourage them getting involved in the economy.
• So it’s a question of how does LL maintain a healthy world, and structuring land prices as has been done appears to be the best way LL can.

Membership Subscriptions

[14:18-16:15] Many residents understand the need to invest in SL’s future, but some were surprised by recent Premium subscription price increases. What factors drove that decision, and how do you measure whether residents are receiving enough value in return?

• The only people who can measure whether they’re receiving enough value are the residents. If you receive the value that is meaningful for you to continue to subscribe, you continue to subscribe.
• That said, LL has looked at many ways to approach this. One was to look across the industry at what is a typical annual discount versus monthly price. And what LL offers is still find that the annual discount for a subscription is more generous than seen across many other products.
• Another consideration was while there was a need to increase prices, subscriptions needed to remain accessible. Thus, Plus fees did not increase so as not to raise the barrier to entry.
• Similarly, Premium Plus No Stipend was not increased as that already lacks a major benefit.
• Suggests those on Premium /Premium wishing to keep all of their benefits can switch to Premium Plus No Stipend annual for the same price / for less than the equivalent annual or quarterly plan.
• Note that this is not to try to claim prices haven’t increased; but rather the direction LL opted to take.

[16:15-18:24] Can people expect future changes with subscriptions?

• LL is always looking at ways to improve subscription benefits.
• In 2017, Grumpity made a presentation on how to improve Premium subscriptions at a time when the numbers of subscribers were falling. Since then there has been continued investment in the benefits offered.
• In addition, LL has attempted to make subscriptions more appealing to different use-cases, and this will continue to be reviewed.
• There is also the new partnership programme with creators [the first part of which was announced in May] offering a new range of gifts to subscribers.
• There is also evaluation of benefits which might go into a subscription where there’s additional value to be offered. The subscription programme is not staying static.

[37:31-38:21] Will SecondLifeTime memberships return in the future? If they do, would Plus and Premium Plus No Stipend be included?

• While opportunities for extending the value of memberships is discussed, would not bet on SecondLifeTime memberships returning.
• However, if they did, then the No Stipend option would likely be considered.

[38:27-39:33] The Premium Plus No Stipend option has been arguably well received. Has LL considered expanding this model to Premium as a lower cost alternative?

• Is thrilled that the No Stipend membership has worked so well for residents, and considers it phenomenal value.
• LL did consider whether every subscription level should have a no stipend option, and it is still a possibility but not something being actively worked. Again, no promises.

[39:34-41:39] Some residents feel that the Premium Plus benefits currently favour merchants more than non-merchants. Are there plans to expand Premium Plus benefits particularly when it comes to things like Linden Homes and land options so that they uh all Premium Plus members can receive comparable value?

• Thinks this question refers to the roll-out of commercial parcels for merchant with Premium Plus accounts, which was an example of LL thinking about how subscription value can be grown, as is something of a pilot programme.
• Feels it is unlikely that LL will “keep throwing out free land”, but will continue iterating on how to give value to all subscribers.
• When looking at the current benefits, which group of users benefited from the last updates is considered, as is trying to do something specific for another type of user, together with benefits which might find favour across the broadest possible swath of residents.
• As such, LL is open to suggestions on benefits – just not necessary free money or land.

[42:15-43:34]  Linden Homes are a core value proposition for those considering / paying subscriptions, but Premium Plus members often mention that they have difficulty finding available homes. Are there plans to increase premium plus housing inventory?

• The Linden Homes team is constantly evaluating what is available, what are the occupancy rates on different themes.
• The phasing-out of the “old” Linden Homes required a lot of handholding with those moving from the old homes to the current offerings.
• Fully expects that there will be more Premium Plus inventory rolling out in the future, particularly given the uptake on Premium Plus No Stipend.

International Payment Options

[18:33-21:22] There have been broader questions on the economy. Are there any plans to make the Second Life economy more accessible and flexible for residents around the world?

• When looking at the SL economy, thinking has to be along the lines of the platform operating a currency exchange, the LindeX inside Second Life, which is both a core value in the platform and which evidence shows can be confusing for people coming in.
• So there is a need to make participation in this currency exchange less confusing for people.
• In terms of international payment options, LL is constantly looking for ways to extend these to more fully support everyone wishing to participate in the economy.
• No promises as to when these might surface, but they will hopefully be available for discussion as plans develop.

Product Vision and Future Development

[21:58-23:41] Can you share insights into the decision to close Project Zero [viewer-in-a-browser]; the technical or business reasons behind the decision, and what was learned through it?

• Project Zero work well, especially when used with events like SLB. However, it was really expensive.
• LL spent a lot of time for ways to make it less expensive and validate whether or not it could pay for itself. However, the decision to cancel it was based on two factors:
  • The hoped-for conversion of incoming users via Project Zero to returning / established users did not materialise.
  • The means by which it could pay for itself did not materialise.
• LL were not looking to make money off of Project Zero, but rather come out neutral in terms trying to provide the service through AWS.
• This wasn’t really possible without having to raise costs elsewhere, which was not deemed as being fair to users.

[23:42-25:12] There is some interest in browser-based access; so although that Project Zero has ended, do you still see a future where browser access could return in some third-party form? Or were there fundamental technical limitations that made a web-based SL impractical today?

• It could be possible for browser-based access to return. The issue is cost / monetisation. Project Zero was costing US $2 per hour with the pricing fully optimised with AWS.
• Prices can be lowered through lower-quality streaming, so that might be an option.
• However, given the time people spend in SL daily [and the use of poorer quality graphics being a deterrent] , there are probably not that may willing to pay for the service.
• There are no technical limitations to streaming SL; and LL would probably be happy to share what was learned through Project Zero if someone wanted to pick that up.

[25:24-28:41] What major features are next on the road map for SL Mobile, particularly around things like inventory management and deeper parity with the desktop experience?

• Actually attending the event via SL Mobile on a “not particularly fancy” cellphone, and is able to read chat and participate. As such, it’s clear the Mobile development has come a long way.
• Currently, the focus for the Mobile team is to have more predictable performance when running the App. This is being done through an optimisation of how Mobile is built.
• LL is not necessarily approaching Mobile development in terms of feature parity with the Desktop viewer.
• The approach is more how to build out a mobile experience that is complementary to the viewer.
• For example: Mobile is not going to be the means to go about content creation and asset uploads. But it is likely to be the means by which people can stay in touch with friend, etc., when away from their viewer.
• A lot of thinking is going into avatar customisation so both new and established users can go shopping, change their looks, etc., via SL Mobile. In fact this is something LL are looking to make more accessible through both Mobile and the Desktop.

[Side note: progress on SL Mobile development can be tracked via the monthly SL Mobile User Group meeting, which I also summarise in this blog.]

[28:57-31:42] What major areas of innovation are you most excited about today and what kinds of quality of life, graphics, or avatar improvements can residents realistically expect over the next few years?

• Spends a lot of time with Jerome discussing technological innovation that is available to LL in terms of performance and quality of life, so will leave those to the Engineering team’s session.
• Notes again that avatar customisation is going to be a focus in terms of accessibility for new users. This is not a matter of “dumbing down” capabilities, but revising the customisation flow um to make it possible for a new person coming in to understand how to “not wear seven jackets”, etc.
• WebRTC Voice has been a major benefit whilst being a slow process to fully implement, particularly because of the need to ensure WebRTC could support all of the functionality seen with Vivox.

[31:49-33:14] VR support can be a polarising topic. Some people like it, some don’t. But is VR support something that Linen Lab would like to revisit in the future even if it’s not currently on the road map?

• It has not been ruled out; there is the potential for VR to be on the roadmap, however:
  • Although there is no huge technical limitation in adding VR to SL, there are multiple smaller issues that would have to be addressed – such as optimising content and performance – which are not necessary easy to complete.
  • Globally, the VR market has shrunk [so potentially a lot of work for a minimal return].
• Is not saying “never” to VR in the future.

[33:17-34:27] Are there plans to bring SL to platforms like Steam, game consoles, or other emerging devices in the future?

• Were other platforms to be considered, Steam would probably be more likely than gaming consoles.
• HOWEVER, running on such platforms is not just a matter of a technology change. It involves negotiations and contracts and revenue sharing arrangement (and raising prices to pay for the revenue sharing).
• Being totally transparent, all of these decisions have to be considered in terms of the world and the cost to users. If prices have to increase by 30% for SL to be present on a different platform, would that be good or bad? Hard to say.

[59:23-1:02:22] What opportunities do you see for better serving residents that are outside of North America? This could be through events, payments, localisation, support or community initiatives.

• One of the ways that to serve international residents is just by making their experience better using localisation tools that will extend beyond just the UI.
• WebRTC, for example offers automated transcription and translation options for people using Voice. And it would support those with additional accessibility needs.
• Another way is to expand both payment and pay out methods, and making sure existing creators and those coming to SL are supported.
• There is the potential [under AWS] to perhaps locate servers closer to the communities they serve, reducing latency.
• One of the easiest ways to international communities is through those communities. Brazil is a success story like no other in this, because Brazilians are so actively involved in SL that more and more people come into SL. SO LL just tries to support that community in its work.

[1:02:28-1:03:34] So a lot of users are continuing to hit their group membership limits. Is increasing group limits or even rethinking group capacity something that LL is actively exploring?

• It would be nice to have a magic wand to solve problems like overloaded group limits, but unfortunately, this isn’t the case.
• All LL can do is try to improve the infrastructure supporting these capabilities and so increase limits. It is something that gets looked at all the time.

Questions to Keira

[Video: 34:38-37:14] Residents continue to raise concerns about traffic bots and scripted agents affecting discovery and search. What progress is being made to address bot related issues across the grid?

• Hears a lot of feedback through both Trust and Safety and Support regarding bots / scripted agents, and so understands that this is a topic which matters to a lot of folks, so wants to be straightforward
• Right now, LL is not looking to address any bot activity on a broad basis; it is not a focus right now.
• Obviously, all the feedback and reports that come in on bots are reviewed, and how bots are being used within SL and interacting with users and whether the interactions are harmful, or do they serve a purpose?
• There is also the Scripted Agent Policy governing the use of bots, and all bots should operate within the SL Terms of Service and Community Standards.
• If you are considering running bots, make sure you are familiar with the above.
• If you are witnessing bot engaging in activity you believe to be contravening the SL Terms of Service, community standards or any SL policy, file an Abuse Report so that the matter can be investigated.

[43:41-46:41] Last Names is one of the most popular features. As such, are there plans to release new names more frequently or bringing back legacy last names or expanding custom names, or just revisiting how last names are offered in general?

• New Last Names are usually made available around major events or special occasions, and carry a theme related to the event / occasion.
• It is possible to suggest potential Last Names, and this had led to an “enormous” spreadsheet of suggestions. Some of these are interesting and can get rotated into update if they fit; others might be harder, as they are nationality-based with possible limited appeal.
• In terms of you know bringing back legacy names and expanding custom name options, these are not things actively being considered; there are other projects sitting ahead of such considerations.
• Legacy names are difficult, as many older users feel highly proprietary towards their legacy name. However, many would like the option of having legacy names available when Partnering.

[46:54-49:29] Residents want to better understand how LL handles reports involving doxing and real world harassment. What improvements have been made or are being considered to better protect residents and improve communication around these cases?

• If you are experiencing harassment affecting you real life, please contact your local authorities. LL fully cooperates with law enforcement agencies who investigate those situations, and any official requests can be directed to LL’s legal department.
• If there is harassment that you’re experiencing that are on other platforms, please use their reporting systems. LL can only act on the information that they have through Second Life.
• If you’re experiencing doxing harassment within Second Life, please file an Abuse Report Provide as much information as possible.
• All Abuse Reports are reviewed by Trust and Safety who will take appropriate action based on investigations. All such reports are treated extremely seriously.
• Further advice can be obtained through the Trust and Safety User Group meetings [summaries here] and at the new Trust and Safety new in-world offices.

[49:37-53:39] Are there plans to expand account security options such as support for physical security keys as part of Second Life’s Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) system?

• Account security is under internal discussion and high on her agenda.
• LL has been taking a look at the current system and what is currently being used by other companies and what is proving effective for those companies.
• So initiatives are underway, but will not discuss specifics, other than account security is an active project.
• In terms of general security, user should: make sure they have a strong, unique account password; enable SL MFA; keep the record of the e-mail account used with SL current
• Don’t reuse password between different accounts (SL or between applications).
• From Grumpity:
  • The preference is to have support for every possible way to have MFA.
  • The fastest additional option that can be made available is MFA via e-mail. This should be coming shortly.
  • This will require the e-mail address recorded against you account details to be valid and verified.
  • Remember: off-line IMs can only be sent to a verified e-mail address; having a verified e-mail address is required for account recovery.
  • Those who have not verified thee-mail account associated with their SL account will start seeing prompts for them to do so, on their account pages.

[53:52-56:11]  Spam sent through disposable Groups and self-destructing objects does remain a frustration for many residents. What is LL exploring to give residents better protection against these types of abuse?

• LL is looking at ways to address this issue, but does not have anything to share with the meeting. Once information is available it will be communicated.
• Baseline advice if encountering the situation is to file an Abuse Report. Reporting spam incidents helps the trust and safety team identify patterns.
• Used the opportunity to talk about phishing attacks and the need for caution in clicking on links contained within messages, etc., particularly when received unexpectedly and / or from a non-friend.
• If a link takes you to a website requesting your SL log-in credentials, check the URL carefully for things like misspellings of words [e.g. “Marketpllace” or similar]. If the URL is masked by text, hover the mouse over it as it appears in the message to reveal the actual URL.

[Side notes: if you are using the latest Firestorm, enable the option to Disable URL Masking; and remember, Linden Lab will never request you enter your log-in details anyway via an in-world IM or similar message containing a URL, or via a viewer dialogue box.]

[56:16-57:36] As Second Life continues to grow, how is Linden Lab thinking about age assurance and protecting minors from accessing adult content while maintaining the openness that residents value?

• This is also something LL considers carefully. However, Second Life is ultimately designed for adults and that tends to shape the decisions made across the business, from how the platform is advertised, where it is advertised, hoe matters of compliance and regulatory needs are addressed as they evolve, etc.
• There is no interest at the Lab in making SL a platform for minors, and is broadly encouraged by some of the emerging frameworks that allow platforms to rely on operating system level age signals – the device or operating system itself carries verified age information um that the apps can read. These are seen as a reliable mechanism & a meaningful step forward.

[57:40-59:04] There is also a question about second chances for banned users: has LL ever considered a formal “second chance” or account reinstatement program for those that have been permanently banned but who may have changed or rehabilitated over time?

• LL does actually operate an appeals process for those who feel they have been unfairly suspended or had their account terminated.
• The process can be initiated via a Support ticket, and appeals will be reviewed by someone other than who recommended the suspension / termination. Such appeals have resulted in decisions being reversed as a result of additional information or similar.
• That said, there are certain violations where reinstatement is not possible.

[1:03:53-1:06:33] How is the support team structured and how does resident feedback  influence recognition and rewards for the staff?

• The support organisation is made up of three teams. Two of them are managed by Keira and focused on a distinct area of the resident experience: Customer Success and Trust and Safety. There is also the Land Team, a part of Product Operations.
• This structure enables support to have people who specialise in those three areas, allowing users to get the help they need.
• In terms of resident feedback, surveys are sent out (a little randomly) after a support interaction. The responses received are looked at on a rolling basis, and both the good and the bad is taken notice of, with the positive feedback being recognised as part of that agent’s performance review.
• If the feedback is less than positive, then the reasons why this is the case are looked and and treated as a learning opportunity, with an honest look at where things wen wrong and why.
• In addition, the feedback is looked at from the perspective of what was particularly good / bad about it, what are the broader lessons to be learned as a whole for support.
• The support teams are genuinely committed to getting support right, so feedback helps move things in the right direction. It really does help shape the teams and how support interacts with users.

Audience Questions

[1:06:53-1:08:21] Have you thought about changing the tier calculation for Mainland away from powers of two and more towards being able to just pay for the exact square footage?

Grumpity:

• There’s no direct answer. Has it been thought about? Yes, and there is evaluation going on about land offerings overall and Mainland pricing.
• Would personally love to move away from the current Mainland payment system that we have for Mainland. I mean, we charge in powers of two by however much you owned at any point during the month, with billing is in arrears and LL can’t bill ahead.
• But, there is a lot of complexity in how to unwind something that had been done for so long and changing it in a way that benefits current land holders as well as anyone entering Mainland ownership.

[1:08:29-1:11:11] There seems to be a growing sentiment among creators that it is growing increasingly less worthwhile to create for SL in the face of the growing use of AI to generate low-quality items, AI generated ads, etc. Is this issue on LL’s radar? Is there a plan to keep existing creators and artists on this platform rather than having them jump ship?

Grumpity:

• A facetious response would be to point out that every platform [with user-generated content] faces the same problem, and the faster they grow, the more they face it.
• It’s not a problem LL can solve on its own; but the company is looking at what tools are available, and more importantly effective, outside of the SL ecosystem so lessons can be learned to improve the SL ecosystem.
• At the same time, a significant differentiator with SL is how much can be earned through the platform compared to others. LL consistently tries to ensure creators get to keep as much of their earnings as possible, even allowing for fee increases.
• LL is also trying to grow the number of people coming into Second Life and engaging in the economy and becoming consumers. Part of this is discoverability. So LL does want to find ways to help people find good, fun, interesting content but without putting a foot on the scales too much.

[1:12:00-1:14:13] Today I bought the minimum amount of Linden Dollars for the equivalent US $2.50. Until some time ago it was L$512 for that amount of money, now it’s L$490. Has there been a re-evaluation of the Linden Dollar against the US dollar?

Grumpity:

• There has been a lowering of the minimum fee applied to Linden Dollar purchases [from US $1.49 to US $0.49 – see here for more].
• When you buy L$ in the viewer, there is a complex process on the back-end where an API that checks what the market rate is on the LindeX for the amount you are buying, and then there is the fee. As the minimum fee is now lower (and allowing for exchange rate fluctuations), then you can appear to get a larger amount.
• However, that the exchange rate does fluctuate means the process is complex when it shouldn’t be, so LL is looking for ways to simplify the mechanism and actually let people know exactly how much they will get when buying L$.
• There is nothing specific to report on this work as yet, but the aim is to make buying L$ more accessible / understandable.

[1:14:14-1:15:45] Are there any plans for Premium Plus homesteads [which do not require holding of a Full region to obtain] to have a larger Land Capacity that the current 5K – maybe closer to 10K. The current limiting is off-putting.

Grumpity:

• Neither a yes or no answer. The existing land offerings are being evaluated to try to balance value and cost, and Homestead are a part of this – but no promises.
• Understands the interest in being able to own land with greater capabilities for less, which is what LL has been trying to do over multiple pricing and capability changes.
• Private region tier has come down, and the 30K Land Capacity bonus is cheaper than ever. So maybe at some point uh it will become accessible enough for people to consider that instead of a homestead.

[1:15:48-1:16:51] What does LL plan to do to really support small non-profit educational projects in Second Life.

Grumpity:

• Difficult to answer without specifics. LL does monitor ideas and suggestions offered through the feedback portal.
• Educational organisations also receive a 50% discount on land ownership, so then US $99 tier should make it a lot easier to achieve.

[1:16:54-1:18:01]

Will there be the possibility of adding a creator subscription. I’m subscribed for the free uploads, but don’t require the gifts or stipend, etc. What are your thoughts about that?

Grumpity:

• Premium Plus was created as a creator subscription level as well as providing a way to offer more of everything – and giving free uploads did extend it.
• Still open to suggestions and ideas to extend subscription benefits and open, among other to ways of extending benefits to people who own private estates, for example, or who rent land on a private estate.
• Provide suggestions via the feedback portal for what you’d specifically want.

[1:18:37-1:23:28] I would like to have a general update on some of the projects LL has been testing over the last year or so. What has worked and what hasn’t worked?

Grumpity:

• Gaining new users:
  • As already mentioned, tested various ways to bring new users into Second Life, both different styles of campaign and different physical channels – Desktop, Mobile and (before it was halted) Project Zero
  • Actually found that Desktop did better than expected in getting new users into SL, so a lot of focus is on how to improve that experience for new users.
  • Also experimented with creator-built experiences as a way to engage new users and found out that some work better than others.
  • Confirmed that having someone support and guide new users makes a difference.
  • Also looking at ways to improve actually bringing users into SL and better understanding where they might be lost in the process. There have been some huge gains via SL Mobile in this, as so LL is trying to bring those lessons to Desktop.
• Project Zero and the UI:
  • P0 enabled changes to be made to the UI that a new user sees by hiding a lot of the complexity, with A/B testing confirming there was an improvement in early retention for people who saw the minimal.
  • These lessons are being applied to a new user-specific viewer experience, so users will get a client they can work with, revealing the complexity in layers.
• Looking at how avatar customisation can be improved for someone coming into SL. It’s complex in the viewer but not impossible via Mobile, so the work is to address both.

End of main session.

SL23B Meet the Lindens Summaries

• Philip Rosedale
• Engineering Team
• Marketing and Growth (Brett and Fausto Linden)
• Second Life Studios