Category: Linden Lab

Linden Lab to sell payments platform Tilia to Thunes

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Tilia.io

It has been announced that Tilia.io, the all-in-one payments platform established by Linden Lab in 2019 and which manages payment processing and cashing out for Second Life (as well as supporting a number of other platforms and virtual environments), is to be acquired by Singapore-based business-2-business (B2B) payments infrastructure firm Thunes.

The acquisition of Tilia will be for an undisclosed sum, and follows an agreement being reached between Thunes and Tilia majority owner Linden Research (the formal name of Linden Lab). However, it is still currently awaiting regulatory approval, so has not  – as of the time of writing – being finalised.

News of the acquisition was made public via a press release widely circulated by Thunes on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024 (see links below for some of the reporting on the announcement), and has sparked comments, discussions and questions on a number of Second Life related forums.

Who Are Thunes?

Thunes is regarded as a start-up company, although it has been operating for some eight years. As a B2B payments company, Thunes powers payments for major brands such as Uber and Deliveroo, and also to global Fintech companies such as PayPal and Remitly.

They boast that with a single connection, businesses and their customers can both send payments to, and receive payments from 133 countries around the world, with support for 84 currencies and some 550 alternative payment methods (ATMs), including 129 recognised mobile wallets. Whilst headquartered in Singapore, the company has regional offices in London where communications on the deal with Linden Lab are being handled), Paris, Shanghai, New York, Dubai, and Nairobi. In addition to providing a B2B payments infrastructure direct to businesses across the world, Thunes also provides payment services to the banking industry, a service it is aggressively growing in order to more fully compete with SWIFT, the world’s dominant international financial network.

In December 2023 Thunes achieved a market valuation of some $900 million, with its series C funding round bringing the company some US $202 million investment – including from the likes of Visa, the global payment giant, Singaporean government investment vehicle EDBI, and US-based Endeavor Catalyst.

Why Would They be Interested In Tilia†?

Tilia is particularly attractive to Thunes as it is already a fully licensed Money Service Business (MSB) across 48 US states and territories, thus allowing Thunes to readily extend its services to business owners and customers across the United States – including Tilia’s current customer base, which obviously includes Second Life, as well as VRChat, Upland, Avatus and Unity. In addition, through brand recognition within the content creation market and its expertise in managing token-based virtual economies such as the Linden Dollar, Tilia provides Thunes with a ready-made means of expanding its presence in these markets both in the United States and globally.

What Does This Mean for Second Life‡?

This is perhaps harder to quantify from the side-lines. However, there are some points which may be worthy of note:

  • Following regulatory approval, Tilia will be re-branded Thunes, but will continue to be based in San Francisco.
  • The agreement is subject to an exclusive 5-year collaboration, Thunes will provide payment processing and payouts to Linden Lab across Thunes’ global network.
    • This should allow Second Life users and creators to enjoy more options for buying Linden Dollars and for cashing-out “in a more cost-efficient manner and with increased transparency”, with the Lab adding via a comment on a Reddit thread, “without additional costs”.
  • In support of the above, the Thunes press release includes the following statement from Brad Oberwager, Linden Lab’s co-owner and Executive Chairman:
Thunes is an exceptional company that directly connects nearly every payment method and market worldwide. The combination of Tilia and Thunes will give Linden Lab’s customers more payment choices, and the ability to receive pay-outs in real-time, anywhere, into the wallet or bank account of their choice. It will be business as usual for our people and our customers as we bring Tilia and Thunes together.

I reached out to Linden Lab on hearing the news, and was informed that although the company has nothing further to add to the Thunes press release at this time, those from the company who will be attending the forthcoming Community Round Table (informally announced during the April 19th Lab Gab session, and featured in my summary of that event) will be prepared to discuss the acquisition. I’ll have a post on the Round Table as soon as all information relating to it (where, time, how to attend / watch) is publicly released.

With thanks to Coffee Pancake for the alert.

Related Links

† Please note I am not an financial services expert, this section is therefore a subjective best guess.
‡ Again, please note this is a subjective best guess, even given the supporting quotes.

Note: updated to better reflect Tilia’s relationship with Second Life.

Linden Lab: statement on recent allegations

Posted on by Inara Pey
© and ® Linden Lab

In February 2024, an article was published on the social journalism website Medium¹, making various allegations against Linden Lab and some of its employees and contractors together with various users on the Second Life platform, as well as claims relating to some of the services provided to users of the platform.

At the time of the article’s publication, I contacted the Lab concern its claims and allegations, but other than referencing a broad statement being given to those contacting Support on the matter, and an off-the-record comment, there was no official response for the purposes of quoting. As such, I decided not to comment on the claims or the Lab’s response until such time there was any formal statement on the matter, rather than writing on the basis of pure speculation.

Such a statement was made on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024 (when I happened to be away from Second Life entirely, dealing with an exceptionally hectic personal life, hence the somewhat belated nature of this piece). It came from company owner and Executive chairman, Brad Oberwager, who is, as many know, extremely hands-on with Linden Lab and its products.

If you have not already done so, you can read the full statement from Mr. Oberwager here.

For my part, I’ll simply highlight the core part of the statement, coming as it does after numerous in-world and on-line demands that the Lab publicly respond to the piece published via Medium’s website:

I promise you that we are taking this very seriously. Very. Full stop. 
I promise we hear you. We know you’re angry and you’re confused. We are working to do our best to resolve your concerns and restore your trust in us. These are complicated issues and we want to do things right. We will make mistakes along the way. I wish I could say we will not, but we will. 
As owner of Linden Lab, I have initiated a thorough investigation, both internally and with external partners, to review whether or not there have been any violations of our company and community policies by employees, contractors, or community members. While early preliminary internal investigations suggest that some of the accusations are unfounded, I want to make sure that we get additional investigative support externally to ensure that the process is fair and thorough.
One of our top priorities has been to ensure the safety of our residents, moles, employees, and families. There are real people behind the avatars, and it has been important to confirm that nobody was in actual physical danger. 
Additionally, I am taking proactive steps to review and revamp many of our policies, including a comprehensive review of our Community Standards, Content Guidelines, and Ageplay Policy. Any violation detected will be met with swift enforcement actions to protect our community. We’ll be sharing these revised policies in the coming weeks and, critically, we are turning to the community to help us shape the future of how governance operates within Second Life. 

While there were almost immediate calls on on social media and in-world for the Lab to make known its response to the allegations made and provide “full transparency” (or even a basic “we are investigating”), they were perhaps premature.

Given the seriousness of some of the allegations made (including the potential for them to be defamatory towards the company and the individuals named), caution of approach in even the most preliminary investigation was bound to be required, together with legal circumspection on what the Lab might or could say. This is further compounded by the fact the Medium piece brings together numerous different claims and allegations, some of which are perhaps easier to verify (e.g. issues within the Marketplace), others of which are not (including obtaining some veracity concerning the author of the piece, particularly given its pseudonymous nature²). Ergo, any investigation, either preliminary or in-depth, would / will take weeks (even months) to complete.

Nor, frankly, should there be any expectation that – given a statement has now been made – that the results of any investigation will be publicly disclosed in full once completed. There may well be legal or other ramifications which preclude this from happening.

That said, I do welcome the statement by Mr. Oberwager; it actually speaks well of the company that as soon as they have been in a position to respond to user sentiment on the matter, they have done so, and through the voice of their owner .

Footnotes

  1. At the time of writing this piece, the article in question has been found in violation of Medium’s rules of publication, and is subject to further investigation, and thus suspended from being viewed.
  2. The Medium piece was published under the account name “dantesedmond1844”.This appears to be a intentional reference to Edmond Dantès, the protagonist in Alexander Dumas’ 1844 novel of revenge / vengeance, The Count of Monte Cristo. Which, given the overall nature of the article, to me would appear to be a very curiously coincidental choice of account name (or possibly a contextual choice).

Note: as this piece is related to an on-going investigation onto an article containing unproven (and potentially questionable) allegations against specific individuals, it is requested than any comments offered in response to this piece forgo naming or otherwise discussing those individuals.

VWBPE 2024 What’s up With the Lab: Grumpity, Kali and Signal Linden

Posted on by Inara Pey
via VWBPE

Update: March 16th, 2024: Regarding SL Voice and capabilities, as mentioned in the latter part of this summary, please also refer to: 2024 week #11: SL TPVD summary: new approach to voice in SL for information on the new WebRTC for Voice in SL.

On Thursday, March 14th, 2024 Grumpity Linden, the Lab’s Senior Vice President of Operations, along with Kali and Signal Linden joined Phelan Corrimal for the annual Above the Book session at the Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference, entitled What’s Up At the Lab.

The function of the session is to explore what’s “new” at Linden Lab  / with Second Life and their impact on educators and non-profit organisations using the platform.

The following is a summary of the session covering the core topics raised. The notes provided have been taken directly from the official video of the session, which is embedded at the end of this article. Time stamps to the video are also provided to the relevant points in the video for those who wish to listen to specific comments.

Notes:

  • This is a summary, not a full transcript, and items have been grouped by topic, so may not be presented chronologically when compared to the video.
  • Timestamps are included to allow a direct jump to a subject / comment.

A Little Background

Grumpity Linden: is responsible for the Second Life Product and Engineering teams. She originally started at LL whilst working for The Product Engine, and was involved in the development of Viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio), prior to joining LL full-time in 2014. Her role covers all aspects of product development and platform engineering, and as well as having a strong technical background, she also brings a strong element of interpersonal skills and psychological expertise to the Lab’s management team via her studies at the Johns Hopkins University.

Kali Linden: is now a Director of Engineering at the Lab, reporting into Grumpity, specifically focused on the Lab’s web properties (e.g. lindenlab.com, secondlife.com, the Marketplace, etc.) and associated UI and API design. She has a keen focus on matters pertaining to content creation and also in working in the non-profit sphere, describing herself as a “Nonprofit-preneur” as well as a “Nerd-Gamer”.

Signal Linden: is the Director of the Second Life Server and Viewer engineering and development teams. He has been involved with Second Life since 2008, and joined Linden Lab in 2015 by way of the likes of Amazon. He is a strong believer in the potential of virtual worlds, and a keen proponent of open-source software and collaborative development. He has perhaps most recently been visible as the communicator of, and driving force behind, the Lab’s moves to the use of Github to manage viewer development and issue tracking for their engineering and development environments.

Product Development Path

The glTF™ Roadmap

[Video: 4:43-19:26]

  • When SL introduced mesh import (2011), the COLLADA (Collaborative Design Activity) interchange file format  interactive 3D applications was selected for use within SL for importing mesh models to the platform. This decision was based on its widespread (at the time) use and recognition as an international standard (ISO/PAS 17506).
  • Since then, content creation and the industry have moved on, and the glTF (graphics library Transmission Format) has been developed over the last decade by the Khronos Group (also responsible for COLLADA), as  a standard file format for three-dimensional scenes and models. Recognised and adhered to through the industry, it is the specification of choice for Second Life to move to using.
  • Linden Lab views glTF adoption as a combination of:
    • Making the platform more accessible to a wider pool of content creators (as in theory, content made for X or Y in adherence to the core glTF specification (currently version 2.0 (no extensions) for SL) could be dropped directly into SL “as is” subject to licensing)
    • Making the actual import and use of glTF objects and scenes adhering to the specification pretty much a drag-and-drop capability.
  • While the techniques involved in glTF content production may be more complex, it is hoped that by adhering to the specification, content creators and users in SL will have great access to more accurate documentation to support the learning process, and have access to a broader set of libraries / tools presenting the means for that drag-and-drop capability with items and objects arriving in SL and looking vastly different to how they appear in authoring tools.
  • Physically based rendering (PBR) for materials was the first step in glTF adoption, and required a large-scale overhaul of the SL rendering engine. With its deployment and update, LL are now looking to to build out glTF support and capabilities.
  • Notably, the work now allows LL the opportunity to investigate  – and potentially implement – the support of  importing of entire glTF scenes (object, scripts, animations, etc., as noted above) into SL and have them stored as a recognisable asset.
    • This requires another significant overhaul of SL to support glTF hierarches, and so is liable to be a long-term project.
    • However, work on scene import and its associated requirements is due to start around mid-2024.
  • Note: this conversation included the export of glTF scenes from SL to elsewhere. As Linden Lab are still investigating requirements for permissions, etc., plus determining what will be required to allow scene import, no definitive answer on this could be given at this point, and so I’ll do no more than mention it here. Please refer to the video below if interested in the conversation.

SL Mobile

[Video: 30:02-36:28]

  • SL Mobile remains in closed Alpha testing (Premium Plus users only) and the current testing is generating a lot of feedback.
  • The initial focus was on rendering – with work still on-going – to ensure scenes and avatars could be rendered with a fidelity similar to that of the viewer and robustly.
  • This saw limited functionality in other areas to start with, but the functionality is being built out, and will continue to be built out and enhanced. Recent updates include:
    • Start a new chat from any chat screen
    • On the Nearby Chat screen, see how many people are nearby.
    • Streaming audio support.
  • As the functionality is built out, LL plan to start looking more broadly at Mobile use-cases (e.g. bringing-in new users, which requires considering a set of capabilities – signing-up, getting in-world, making connections, etc.) which are different to many of those sought by existing users (e.g inventory sorting).
  • Some capabilities found in the viewer will not be available in Mobile “for a while” (e.g. building), and core capabilities required for content creation (e.g. mesh importing) may well remain bound to the desktop.
  • That said, basic object interactions – sitting on objects, driving vehicles, etc., – will be supported.
  • In terms of broadening the existing SL Mobile user base, the hope is to do so “in the first half” of 2024.
    • More widespread usage does require more thought around interactions with third party environments (app stores, Tilia for L$ management, etc.) before such expansion can take place.

On-Boarding New User Experience

[Video: 36:40-42:34]

  • With the introduction of the Senra avatars in 2023, LL added a web-based avatar customisation flow as a part of the on-boarding process. This process continues to be refined, wit the idea remaining that new users will start with Senra and its available clothing and accessories (LL supplied or via user creators), but eventually move to other systems.
  • However, it is recognised that in-world avatar customisation is “hard”, so to further assist in new users gaining familiarity with in-world avatar customisation, LL are – as has been suggested by existing users – looking to implement a similar, easy-to-understand flow to customising avatars in-world.
    • This does require a series of back-end changes to systems to be made, so will still be a while in come.
    • It will, by necessity, given the huge range of options available in avatar customisation, be somewhat constrained it terms of trying to build a more complex look, but it should allow use users to make changes to their avatar and produce a good result.
  • As a part of the on-boarding process, LL is looking to improve the registration API that is provided to Community Gateways for on-boarding users directly. No firm decisions on what might be updated and why, but the Lab is interested in hearing from Gateway Communities, those using the Reg API on the changes they would like to see. suggestions via the Second Life Feedback Portal.

General

  • Scripting [Video: 19:27-24:52]:
    • The last two years have seen LL become more responsive to requests for more scripting capabilities and functionality.
    • The plan is to continue with this, and those with specific requests – even if made in the past – are asked to use the Scripting Requests board on the Second Life Feedback Portal to do so.
    • Interoperability with external API (e.g. web APIs) is often being considered on a request basis.
  • Voice in Second Life [Video: 24:56-29:50]:
    • It is acknowledged that SL’s voice capabilities (powered by Vivox) have been largely unchanged since their introduction in 2007 (and Vivox has long since ceased active support on Linux).
    • LL are looking to improve Voice capabilities in SL with technologies which will enable the addition of new functionalities – such as new capabilities in-world such as adding scripted control of voice capabilities.
    • As with PBR and glTF, the work currently under consideration for Voice in SL would be foundational as / when decisions are made and projects start rolling, allowing capabilities and options to be built up over time.
  • Marketplace [Video: 42:40-43:56]:
    • In line with the work on SL Mobile, the Marketplace / web team are working on trying to make the Marketplace responsive on Mobile, enabling shopping via ‘phone or tablet and also improving the MP’s appearance on the viewer’s in-built browser.
    • Marketplace Search is also going to see further improvements (e.g. additional filtering).
    • Also see my more recent Web User Group summaries.
  • Feedback move from Jira to Github  / Canny [Video: 44:14-48:30]:
    • The decision to move away from Jira was primarily due to Atlassian (who produce the Jira software) changing their licensing model, making an open-ended system available to all SL users prohibitively expensive for the Lab.
    • Github Issues was selected as the core replacement tool due to it both it being a good collaborative tool or developers and users, and it is a key tool used within the likes of viewer (open-source and simulator code development.
    • Canny was settled on for the general user-facing front-end the Feedback Portal) as it has “good” integration with Github, and has a range of tools which allow information to be grouped and displayed (e.g. Marketplace bug / issues; viewer bug reports, projects such as Combat 2.0, etc.).
    • It also allows for a wider range of feedback to be given, and for prioritising work in terms of popularity of ideas, identifying issues that can be widely beneficial and rapidly implemented, etc.
    • The Feedback Portal provides general user access to tickets; those with Github accounts (e.g. open source or third-party viewer developers) can access the Github issues side of the system (with some security / sensitive data exceptions) via their Github accounts.
    • The switch-over was completed in mid-February 2024.

Checking out the Second Life Community Exhibition

Posted on by Inara Pey
Second Life Community Exhibition (SLCE), January 2024

On Tuesday, January 30th, 2024, Linden Lab announced the opening of a major new addition to their Welcome Hub / Motown Experience gateway, which itself opened in June 2023, as I wrote about in Linden Lab and Motown: a new approach to user on-boarding in Second Life.

The new addition – called the Second Life Community Exhibition (SLCE) – is designed to occupy north-west corner region of the nine-region Lab-managed estate, replacing what had been the laser tag area. However, at the time of writing it was limited to a smaller area extending outward from the main Welcome Hub region, between the Motown and and shopping regions. In terms of it’s purpose, it is intended to do exactly what the name suggests: provide active communities within Second Life with the opportunity to promote themselves to both established users visiting the Welcome Hub and its associated regions as well as to incoming new users arriving at the Hub.

Following the design design aesthetic of the Welcome Hub, the Community Exhibition area currently has room for some 32 community displays, with eleven occupied for the opening. According to the official blog post on the Exhibition, the displays will be cycled between communities as time goes on, in accordance with the response of new users to the various displays when visiting the exhibition – a statement which tickles my curiosity as to how such “resonating” will be measured (purely on the basis of the number of teleports from any supplied portal? If so, what about those displays providing access by giving landmarks or HUDs?).

Second Life Community Exhibition, January 2024

The ten communities initially presented comprise: Boystown (LGBTQ+ friendly), Drivers of SL (hosts of the famous Grid Drive events, as well as helping to represent sailing and flying in SL), Virtual Ability Inc., Non-Profit Commons, Club Furzona (Furry community focused on music, writing, animation and 3D modelling amongst much more), BURN2 (the unofficial virtual celebrations marking the physical world Burning Man traditions), plus four well established communities offering people both a sense of community and a place to live: Bay City, the Caledon community and estate, the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) and (my “home town” of) Second Norway.

Linden Realms is also represented, although it’s hard to consider it a “community” in the traditional sense. However, of all the Linden games introduced into Second Life, it does seem to be the one with the most enduring popularity, and it certainly offers the potential for new users to make friends whilst racing around and collecting gems, so its inclusion shouldn’t be sneered at.

Second Life Community Exhibition, January 2024 – expansion area for further community displays

Nor are these merely static informational areas – the aim is to both promote communities to Second Life residents and bring residents into the communities. As such, and as indicated earlier in this piece, each participating community is expected to provide some form of access into their community / experience, be it via teleport portal or HUD landmark giver, etc. In addition, communities can provide links to other resources they might have – websites, Discord channels, etc., – and displays / exhibits can utilise multi-media, etc.

Communities wishing to join the Exhibition can do so via the SLCE application form, which includes general guidelines on requirements / expectations. As to the rest, I’ll leave it to Strawberry and Patch Linden to discuss, via the Lab Gab recording below.

Overall, this would appear to be a good initiative – outreach to new users (and even existing users) is something communities and groups within Second Life can find difficult, so providing what is very much a “doorstep” opportunity to reach people through a  physical resource like this is something a broad cross-section of communities and groups could find beneficial, allowing for acceptance and length of time(s) featured within the Exhibition space.

SLurl Details

Is Blocksworld, a Former Linden Lab Property, about to Make a Comeback?

Posted on by Inara Pey
Credit: Blocksworld LLC

In 2012, as a part of efforts to expand their product portfolio, Linden Lab acquired a trio of Nordic developers operating under the name of BoldaiAB and who were building a physics-based 3D sandbox video game.

That game was called Blocksworld, and the three developers disarmingly referred to themselves as being “From the country that gave you Minecraft and the country next to the country that invented Lego”, whilst promoting the game’s initial (limited) release with an equally light-hearted promo video.

A year after the acquisition and in mid-2013, Linden Lab took Blocksworld to a global audience, where it proved very popular among gamers of all ages, and remained so throughout its life .It never made the jump to Android, as the Lab has hoped, but it did get on to Steam Early Access in late 2017 and was also briefly offered in a browser-only option. In fact, Blocksworld remained so popular with players that the Lab kept it going long after the other products acquired or developed around the same time – CreatorVerse, Versu (which reverted to ownership by its original developers), Patterns, and the always oddball Dio – ceased to be.

Fortell’s founder Alexey Menshikov pictured in 2022 for an article on Ukraine’s games industry in GamesBeat. Credit: GamesBeat

However, in 2019, Blocksworld appeared to reach the end of the line when Linden Lab announced a “pause” in its development and promotion, prior to the servers running it going off-line June 2020. Shortly thereafter the game vanished from the Apple Store, and whilst it remained advertised on Steam Early Access, there was no actual game available to load.

After that, all fell silent on the Blocksworld front until around the middle of 2023, when rumours started circulating that the game had been acquired by Fortell Games Inc., a company founded in 2022 by one Alexey Menshikov.

While the name may not be familiar, Menshikov is a games developer hailing from Ukraine, where he originally worked at the country’s first major games studio, Action Games, prior to branching out to establish his own studios. He now resides in Los Angeles, where Fortell Games is based.

As these rumours started doing the rounds, it was also noted that the Blocksworld page on Stream Early Access had been updated. Reference to Linden Lab as the developer  / publisher had been replaced by the names “Blocksworld LLC” and “Fortell Games Inc.”, although the game itself remained unavailable, attempts to load it still hanging at the log-in splash screen (which also still reads © 2018 Linden Research Inc. All rights Reserved”).

Blocksworld on Steam Early Access, December 2023: note the developer / publisher company names

Even so, this all suggests that Blocksworld has been released / sold by Linden Lab (although whether or not “Blocksworld LLC” is the trading name being used by the game’s original developers or not is beyond my ken), with Fortell Game’ at least having publishing rights to for it. More recently, further indications that Blocksworld is in the process of being revived have popped-up.

On November 27th, and after 6 years of silence, Blocksworld’s Twitter account came back to life with an EKG heartbeat gif. The post gained very positive feedback; hardly surprising, given Blocksworld still has an active fan base – so much so that an unofficial attempt was make to keep it going following the original server shutdown, when player-fans established Blocksworld: The Secondary Sever for a time.

The Blocksworld Twitter account updated on November 27th, 2023 – the first post in six years, featuring a EKG gif, suggesting the game is being revived

Then on December 2nd, 2023, the Blocksworld website, which had since June 2020 redirected to Linden Lab’s corporate pages, started displaying a beating heart shape and the tab banner “Coming Soon!” Thus it would seem that indeed, Blocksworld is on its way back – and I’m now quite keen to see where this all goes, even if Blocksworld is no longer part of the Lab’s stable. As such, I’ll attempt to keep tabs on things going forward and hopefully update on this for those also interested.

Now, if only we could see Patterns and its little Dorito Man get some similar love and attention. Oh well, one can dream…

VRChat uses Tilia LLC to Power Its Creator Economy

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Tilia LLC.

Tilia LLC the digital payments platform created by Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, is to power VRChat’s new Creator Economy, the first phase of which was launched on Tuesday, December 5th, 2023. In doing so, VRChat becomes the latest in a growing list of platforms and games utilising Tilia’s capabilities, including Second Life, Unity and Avatus.

The announcement came via a press release issued by VRChat and published by numerous outlets including Business Wire, which revealed the first phase of VRChat’s new Creator Economy is called Paid Subscriptions. It allows VRChat users to subscribe directly to their favourite creators and support them financially. In return those creators are able to craft unique, custom experiences for their supporters to enjoy. Eventually, the new Creator Economy is intended to allow the half-a-million creators using the platform to receive compensation for their work.

In particular, the Paid Subscriptions system is closely linked to the VRChat’s Udon custom scripting language, allowing creators to more easily build custom experiences for those supporting them through the service. IT has also been developed to work with many of VRChat’s other systems with the aim of enabling pre-existing communities on the platform to monetize their offerings as the Creator Economy is built-out and enhanced.

We’re thrilled to finally launch the first piece of the VRChat Creator Economy, Paid Subscriptions! Our community is responsible for everything magical in VRChat, and the Creator Economy enables us all to financially support our incredible creators. Our hope is that with more support, our creators can bring even more magical content to the platform.

– Graham Gaylor, Co-founder and CEO of VRChat

As an all-in-one platform and service, fully registered across the United Stats as a  licensed money transmitter, together with decades of expertise in dealing with digital currencies and token systems which can be transferred to and from fiat currency, Tilia occupies a unique business space. It is both able to provide platforms like VRChat with unique insight into operating and managing digital economies, and it can supply the core systems and services necessary to do so, whilst meeting all the various compliance and regulatory requirements for digital transactions and money transfers, relieving customers of the need to do so themselves.

Since it inception, Tilia LLC has been gradually building its client base and working to establish strategic partnerships, such as with J.P. Morgan Payments as announced in October 2022, and which saw an expansion of Tilia’s board (read more here). However, within the sector of immersive 3D social  / creative environments, VRChat is a name that is probably as instantly as recognisable as Second Life, and represents a major new partnership for Tilia LLC going forward.

Tilia was built to support the unique and complex requirements for creator-based economies. We are proud to partner with such a recognised innovator like VRChat as they seek to further encourage, empower and enable their creators.

– Brad Oberwager, Tilia LLC CEO

Read more via the press release.

Additional Links