Category: News-Opinion

The Drax Files Radio Hour: after Humble

Posted on by Inara Pey

radio-hourThe fourth show in this engaging series kicks-off with Rod Humble’s departure, as broken original by Jo Yardley herself (kudos, Jo!), and with interesting insight from Dean Takahashi on what might have happened – primarily focusing on the attempts to diversify, some of which as I’ve commented myself, don’t appear to have come out too well.

There has been a lot of speculation over the reason for Rod Humble’s departure. Many have pointed to it being a case that he “failed”, with the intimation that he was fired.

Jo thinks the decision to leave was his – and I agree with her. As she says, and I’ve alluded to, the Lab’s reaction suggests the move caught them off-guard (or as I have referred to it, they were caught with their knickers around their ankles); they simply didn’t see it coming.

Will Wright (image courtesy of Gamesbeat)
Will Wright (image courtesy of Gamesbeat)

The show also touches on Will Wright’s departure from the LL board, which was likely first noted by Ezra (at least in this context) in an NWN comment as the news about Humble’s departure spread.

In September 2013, news broke that Wright had, together with Avi Bar-Zeev, raised some $5 million to establish Syntertainment, a company which is “dedicated to changing the world through uniquely fun and lasting user experiences” and which will ” focus on the intersection of entertainment and reality. ”

Whether Wright’s departure from the Lab occurred at the time Syntertainment was launched (which would seem likely) or some time between that event and Humble’s departure is unclear. It does, however, lead to speculation in the show that it may be where Rod Humble may be heading. This doesn’t quite seem to gell with his own comments on his future, of which he says, “I am starting-up a company to make Art, Entertainment and unusual things,” suggesting he is creating a company, rather than joining a start-up. But, time will tell; and it may be unwise to discount his bond with Will Wright.

There is a lot of good input on the subject from a number of interviewees, and kudos to Harvey Crabsticks in particular for his comments on market segments, potential reach and on the future – and Rod Humble’s tenure. Well said on all! On a broader scale, Hanno Teitgens offers up insight as to why Second Life and virtual worlds remain hamstrung – although his view on the direction the company should take may upset some, and I’m not sure I agree with his summation of OpenSim, which shares all of the problems inherent with Second Life in terms of growing an audience, which the lower cost of land has failed to demonstrate itself as a deciding factor.

Perhaps the most fascinating interview is with Evonne Heyning and Joyce Bettencourt, who chart the evolution of the Lab and its outlook from the perspective of those who actually dealt directly with the Lab’s management on a professional level.

Beyond Rod Humble’s departure from the Lab, the show touches upon a range of topics, including the buy-out of Cloud Party and where it might lead. This was also touched upon within the interview with Hanno Teitgens, with he and Drax having an interesting exchange of views on the oft-pointed to subject of virtual worlds “needing” to be browser-based for access. 

Feedback

The Drax Files Radio Hour undoubtedly hits a strong stride with this podcast. It provides a good summation of Rod Humble’s tenure from all sides, and an excellent piece with Evonne and Joyce which really puts the evolution of Linden Lab in a perspective many may not have considered.  The depth of the central subject is plumbed to great effect, and the mix of interviews and comments presented a strong narrative of their own which gives the show considerable flow – and considerable food for thought.

Silence may be golden, but it also weighs heavy

Posted on by Inara Pey

I keep promising myself I won’t start banging  on about Linden Lab’s inability to openly communicate. That was more-or-less the tone of things in this blog back in 2011 (see my views on business, communication and growth, and the growing frustration over the Marketplace situation in 2012, and weel as point in between and after, if interested). However…

Rod Humble may have gone, but the Lab apparently has yet to issue any statement in reponse to enquiries from the media
Rod Humble may have gone, but the Lab has yet to issue any statement in response to enquiries from the media

Friday 24th January saw the news break that Rod Humble had departed the Lab. According to his own comments pass to others at the time of the announcement, he’d left the Lab “last week”. If so, this could mean the Lab has been absent a CEO for about two weeks, and they have yet to say anything on the matter.

It’s not just the fact that repeated enquiries from the likes of Hamlet Au and I (among others) have gone without response – we’re still small fish in the ocean of blogging / journalism. Where the story has been picked-up by the games media, it also appears that enquiries made to the Lab also remain unanswered.

True, the message has been somewhat slow in spreading to the media at large; only Gamesbeat picked-up on the news in the 24th along with as did Games Industry. Since then Gamasutra covered the news on January 28th, as did  Massively. Nevertheless, one would have thought some message would have been forthcoming from the Lab in order to squash the potential for speculation or negative rumours to become established as fact.  Or could it be that Rod Humble’s annoucement was a knickers-around-ankles moment for the Lab?

See what I mean about speculation?

Beyond this, as Ciaran Laval observes, there is still ongoing confusion and upset relating to attempts to cash-out and  / or tax ID requirements.  A part of this seems to be down to the Lab possibly being overwhelmed by the inflow of documentation, and it is taking time to clear things up. However, the fact that noting is  – once again – being done to communication matters and provide some form of open feedback really isn’t helping matters at all.

Of course, the Lab may well feel secure in its position that the majority of SL users are likely to be oblivious as to what is going on, and are happy knowing that SL is still there for them when they are ready to log-in. But in terms of those who are investing time, effort and money into helping make Second Life a place people want to log-in to and enjoy, not actually taking the time and effort to offer reasonable clarification of what is going on as requires things like cash-outs and tax (and, indeed, what is and isn’t required ahead of time) doesn’t tend to send a positive message, but does tend to add a little more weight to an overburdened camel’s back.

In writing about Rod Humble’s tenure, I pointed out that communications had started on a downward trend prior to his arrival, and had continued to sink throughout his time there, despite his own initial attempts to ramp things up. This smacks of a deep-seated cultural element within the company (driven out of the board?) which doesn’t see communications as having any real priority. As such, I’m not holding my breath in the hope that things will change, even with a new CEO, when (if?) we ever get to hear about one being appointed.

But even a short-term upswing, as witnessed in the months immediately following Humble’s arrival at the Lab prior to the downward trend resuming, would actually be better than we have at the moment.  I won’t borrow from Tateru again and use her Silence of the Lab logo, but I can admit, I’m sorely tempted to do so.

Lab Updates Bot Policy

Posted on by Inara Pey

On January 30th, 2014, Linden Lab updated its Bot Policy. The update is small, but potentially far-reaching, outlawing the use of bots for mainland parcel purchases.

Updated by Patch Linden, the revisions comprise two parts: a comment on the use of bots in mainland parcel sales, and an update to the policy itself barring the automated purchase of mainland parcels via bots, etc. In turn, these read:

Mainland parcel sales and bots

Some bots are used to automate the purchase of Mainland parcels priced below fair market values.

Using bots to purchase Mainland parcels is not allowed

The use of bots, autonomous software, scripting (manual or automated), scripted agents, or any systems or software internal or external to the Second Life service that circumvent, automate and/or remove the human interaction required to purchase a Land parcel within Second Life on the Linden Lab owned Mainland is prohibited.

The updated policy
The updated policy – click to enlarge (or follow link to read in full

With thanks to Mona Eberhardt.

 

Your avatar and you: opening the digital frontier or perpetuating the status quo?

Posted on by Inara Pey

Nick Yee is senior research scientist at Ubisoft who has been involved in studying the psychological impact our avatars can have both on ourselves and with others since the early 2000s, starting as an undergraduate researcher focused on Everquest before moving into studies involving Second Life. He is also the author of the recently published The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us– and How They Don’t, an examination of our increasingly complex relationships with our digital Doppelgängers.

In an article for Slate magazine entitled Virtual Worlds Are Real, Yee offers something of a taster for the book, and it’s a fascinating piece outlining the profound effect avatars actually do have on us, and which actually goes some way towards explaining why security concerns over how virtual worlds might be used weren’t as silly as people might think.

Nick Yee
Nick Yee

Some of what Yee covers is already familiar to many of us using Second Life; we’re often prone to state ourselves, while the avatars on the screen may be pixels, the minds and emotions behind them most certainly aren’t. Hence why  – unfortunately – Second life has been known to attract psychological predators bent on baiting others for their own perverse amusement, either individually or in cliques.

Many of us are also familiar with a range of studies and also individual cases where the positive identification with our own avatars has been shown to yield genuine benefits. Most recently, we’ve had the remarkable story of Fran Swenson (Fran Seranade in SL), and there have been studies such as those by  Dr. Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, which demonstrated how people’s choice of avatar directly affected their real-world existence and how they view themselves. Then, of course, there were the 2010 Stanford and 2011 Indiana University studies into avatars and weight loss. Yee points to the latter studies and on one involving students who, while initially unwilling to consider the future proved far more willing to put aside money for retirement after engaging with their virtual Doppelgängers which had been digitally aged by some forty years.

These are also positive examples of how we relate to out avatars and, in some cases to those around us. However, Yee also points out there are negatives as well. In terms of gender, for example, he notes how those using the opposite sex for their character within World of Warcraft were more likely to conform to gender expectations, helping to perpetuate a false gender stereotype. “We assume that virtual worlds allow us to reinvent ourselves and leave behind offline norms and prejudices,” Yee notes in regard to this. “But the truth is more sobering. Virtual worlds can and often perpetuate the status quo.”

The Proteus Paradox
The Proteus Paradox

That avatars can have a profound psychological impact on us might also help in understanding why GCHQ and the NSA were (are?) concerned about the potential of virtual environments to foster terrorist or other activities.

At the time the news on the activities of GCHQ and the NSA broke, there was talk of how an “Osama bin Laden” like avatar could be used to influence others. Yee counters the dismissals that such worries were “nonsense” with a quite sobering counter-argument.

Just before the 2004 US Presidential election, Yee and his colleagues invited people of voting age to each sit before photos of the two contenders: John Kerry and George Bush and select, purely on the basis of the photos, who they would be inclined to vote for. Unbeknownst to each participant, either the photo of Kerry or the photo of Bush has been morphed to include around 25% of the participant’s own features.  The result?

“Even in a high-stakes, high-information election scenario,” Yee says of the experiment, “our study participants were more likely to vote for the candidate they had been morphed with. When participants were morphed with Kerry, the effect was strong enough to have won him the election.”

Yee goes on, “That study helps explain why a Bin Laden avatar is potentially useful: It could be individually tailored to potential recruits. In a virtual world where every user sees only her version of reality, a Bin Laden avatar could be tailored to hundreds of users at the same time. ”

This doesn’t excuse the manner in which GCHQ (in particular, who developed a means to access and trawl the XBox Live network and who sent three days gathering some 176,000 lines of data pertaining to Second Life chats, IMs and transactions) and the NSA went about their business within Second Life and World of Warcraft, but it does tend to underline why they were concerned.

All-in-all a fascinating article introducing what would appear to be a fascinating book. I’ve already ordered my copy.

Related Links

Call for chapter proposals on art in virtual worlds

Posted on by Inara Pey

Dr. Denise Doyle of the University of Wolverhampton, UK, has issued a call for chapter proposals for a new book to be entitled New Opportunities for Artistic Practice in Virtual Worlds, which she will be editing.

Dr. Denise Doyle (image courtesy of Wolverhampton University)
Dr. Denise Doyle (image courtesy of Wolverhampton University)

Dr. Doyle is an Artist-Researcher, and Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at the University of Wolverhampton, PhD Co-Supervisor at SMARTlab Research Institute, University College Dublin, and Adjunct Professor in Virtual Worlds and Digital Practice, Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD U), Toronto, Canada. During her PhD research she developed Kriti Island, an art laboratory space in Second Life, to investigate creative practice in virtual world spaces. She has published widely on the subject of the virtual and the imaginary, the experience of the avatar body in virtual worlds and game spaces, and the use of virtual worlds for creative practice.

Her call for proposals has been issued through a number of outlets, including Wired Online, and JISCM@il. It reads in part:

Introduction

Although virtual worlds remain unstable phenomena a substantial amount of research continues to be undertaken within them and is reflected in the number of disciplines that study them particularly in an interdisciplinary context.  Whilst there is already a history of artists investigating new spaces and new technological forms this exploration has continued more recently with sections of the artistic community utilising virtual worlds as a new form, or a new potential artistic space. Established real-world artists have explored virtual worlds as environments for practice and a number of artists and designers have continued to specifically work with Second Life to explore the potential and limitations of the platform itself. A range of early key works and other seminal works produced in Second Life still hold strong to be scrutinised in the context of new technologies and for their contribution in expanding our understanding and experience of virtual space.

Objective of the Book
The mission of the publication is to provide a coherent account of artistic practices in virtual worlds and to consider the contribution the Second Life platform has made in an historical, theoretical and critical context within the field of art and technology and digital art. The book will bring together a diverse group of stakeholders who have yet to have a coherent dialogue on Second Life’s contribution to artistic practice and will provide a platform to bring together artists critical reflections on the work they have undertaken in the platform and in other virtual worlds. Finally, the volume will examine the specific features and characteristics of Second Life that contribute to the virtual aesthetics and languages born out of the nature of avatar-based interaction that have been developed by the artistic and creative community.

Target Audience
The volume is intended for both artists and scholars in the fields of digital art, art and technology, media arts history, virtual worlds, games studies and a broader academic audience who are interested in the history of art and technology and the philosophical implications of virtual space. It will be an important study book for media arts, games studies and virtual worlds studies students and will be a useful resource as a historical and critical reference for new media art. The book will be of value to the field of the philosophy of technology and contribute to the continued theoretical discourse of physical and virtual space.

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit a 2-3 page chapter proposal which clearly explains the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter, and the call includes a list of recommended topics proposals might consider (although they are not restricted to just that list of topics. Chapters from accepted proposals will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), and it is anticipated it will be released in 2015. Please refer to the call itself and the IGI global website for details of their publications.

Important Dates

  • February 28, 2014 –  Proposal Submission Deadline
  • March 15, 2014 – Notification of Acceptance
  • June 30, 2014 – Full Chapter Submission
  • August 30, 2014 –  Review Results Returned
  • October 15, 2014: – Final Acceptance Notification
  • October 30, 2014 – Final Chapter Submission

Those wishing to submit proposals, or who require further information on this call should contact:

Dr. Denise Doyle
Faculty of Arts, MK Building
Molineux Street
University of Wolverhampton
WV1 1SB

With thanks to Draxtor Despres

Three in ten: a look back over Rod Humble’s tenure at LL

Posted on by Inara Pey

It’s been a great 3 years! All my thanks to my colleagues at Linden Lab and our wonderful customers I wish you the very best for the future and continued success! I am starting-up a company to make Art, Entertainment and unusual things! More on that in a few weeks!

With these words, and a few personal notes to the likes of Jo Yardley, who broke the news to the SL community as a whole, Rod Humble’s departure from Linden Lab entered the public domain.

Rod Humble, with a little reminder from his past
Rod Humble, with a little reminder from his past

Rod Humble officially joined the Lab as CEO in early January 2011, although according to BK Linden, he had been logging-in during the closing months of 2010, “exploring and experimenting in-world to familiarise himself with the pluses and minuses of our product and the successes and challenges faced by our Residents”.

Prior to his arrival, and under the much maligned Mark Kingdon, the Lab had been investing in hardware and infrastructure, with Frank (FJ Linden) Ambrose being recruited into the company to head-up the work. This continued through the first year of Humble’s tenure as CEO, paving the way for a series of large-scale overhauls to the platform in an attempt to improve performance, stability, reliability of server / viewer communications and boost the overall user experience.

Much of this work initially announced in 2012 as “Project Shining”.  It had been hoped within the Lab that the work would be completed within 12 months; however, so complex has it proven to be that even now, more that 18 months later, elements of core parts of it (viewer-side updates related to interest lists, the mesh-related HTTP work, final SSA updates) have yet to be fully deployed.

Even so, this work has led to significant improvements in the platform, many of which can be built upon (as with the HTTP updates paving the way for HTTP pipelining or the SSA work already generating core improvements to the inventory system’s robustness via the AIS v3 work).

SSBAsaw a complete overhaul over the avatar rendering process in order to eliminate the bane of users' lives: bake fail
SSA, aimed at eliminating the bane of users’ lives,  bake fail, was one of a number of projects aimed at benefiting the user experience

It might be argued that these aren’t really achievements on Humble’s part, but rather things the company should have been doing as a matter of course. True enough; but the fact is, prior to Humble’s arrival, the work wasn’t being done with anything like the focus we’ve seen under his leadership.

A philosophy he brought to the Lab was that of rapid development / deployment cycles, as he indicated at his first (and only, as it turned out) SLCC address in 2011. This saw the server release process overhauled and the three RC channels introduced, making it easier to deploy updates, patches, and fixes to address bugs, issues and exploits.

Humble referred to this as “putting the ‘Lab’ back into Linden Lab”, and in fairness, it didn’t always work as advertised, as with the initial experience tools deployment in June 2012, which resulted in a spate of grid-wide griefing. However, it is fair to say it has generally resulted in less grid-wide disruption and upset.

More recently, this approach has also been applied to the viewer release process, allowing the Lab to focus more sharply on issues arising within the viewer code as a result of changes or integrating new capabilities. This in turn has largely eliminated the risk of issues bringing viewer updates to a complete halt, as happened in the latter part of 2012.

One of the more (to many SL users and observers) controversial aspects of Humble’s tenure was the move to diversify the company’s product brief. When talking to Giant Bomb’s Patrick Klepek in October 2012, he candidly admitted his initial attraction to the post was born from the company being “ready-made to do a whole bunch of other products, which I wanted to do.” He’d also forewarned SL users than the company would be diversifying its product brief during his 2011 SLCC address.

Many objected to this on the grounds it was “taking away” time and effort which might be focused on Second Life while others felt that it was a misappropriation of “their” money, or that it signalled “the end” of SL. In terms of the latter, the reality was, and remains, far from the case. In fact, if it can be done wisely, diversification might even, over time, help SL by removing the huge pressure placed upon it as the company’s sole means of generating revenue.

Diversification isn't in itself a bad idea; the problem is ensuring that a company diversifies wisely. Some of LL's initial efforts under Humble's guidance mean the jury is still out on that matter
Diversification isn’t in itself a bad idea; the problem is ensuring that it’s done wisely. The jury’s still out in that regard with some of LL’s initial efforts

The problem is that the direction that has been taken by the Lab thus far doesn’t appear to be the most productive revenue-wise, at least in part. The apps market is both saturated and highly competitive (and even now, two of the products in that sector have yet to arrive on Android). Similarly, it might be argued that Desura could be more valuable as a marketable asset than as a long-term investment), and dio appears to be going nowhere. All of which leaves Patterns,  which in fairness does appear to be carving a niche for itself, and has yet to be officially launched. It will be interesting to see what, if any, appetite the Lab has for continuing with these efforts now that Humble has departed.

There have been missteps along the way, to be sure. Humble’s tenure has been marked by a series of ongoing and quite major issues with the SL Marketplace which the company appeared to be completely unable to bring under control. These prompted me to wonder if “putting the ‘Lab’ back into Linden Lab” might actually work in all cases.  Worse, they led to a clear and continued erosion in customer trust where the Marketplace was concerned and quite possibly damaged Humble’s own reputation. Despite promises of “upping the tempo” with communications and updates, all merchants saw was the commerce team reduce communications to the bare minimum, and refused to hold in-world meetings which might otherwise have improved relationships.

Similarly, some projects were perhaps pushed through either too quickly or without real regard for how well they might be employed. Mesh was perhaps prematurely consigned to the “job done” basket, particularly given the loud and repeated calls for a deformation capability which were spectacularly ignored (and are only now being addressed, after much angst and upset in the interim, all of which could have been avoided).  Pathfinding has failed to live up to the Lab’s expectations and still appears to be something that could have been pushed down the road a little so that other work could carried out which might have left people more interested in given it a go.

Continue reading “Three in ten: a look back over Rod Humble’s tenure at LL” →