Peering Inside: Second Life's driving principle
Filed under: Business models, Opinion, Second Life, Peering Inside
There are a lot of competing interests in Second Life -- users, businesses of various sorts, marketing and image companies. There's a lot going on.
Ultimately, if you had to sum up the driving principle behind Second Life in a word, it would have to be continuation (or longevity, if you prefer).
The show must go on, as they say, whatever problems and vicissitudes crop up. Second Life's operators, Linden Lab are primarily focused on the continuance of the platform.
Given the choice between upsetting thousands of users, and disrupting hundreds of inworld businesses - or closing down, Linden Lab will always bet against closing down. That's business.
Back in 2006, Second Life moved to open registration -- no longer requiring a (sometimes unavailable) credit card for identification at signup. Signups and then premium accounts surged, a slew of social and cultural problems impacted the grid and the overall operation of Second Life ultimately broke even.
'Broke even' -- that means 'not going bankrupt and closing down'.
It isn't that Linden Lab doesn't care about your personal circumstances or experiences. It isn't necessarily that they do care all that much about ageplayers doing their own thing in quiet corners of the grid. What it is about is Linden Lab making sure that Second Life is still here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and they will do whatever it takes to ensure that.
Even if you don't like it. Even if I don't like it. Even if the corporations don't like it. Even if none of us like it, we pour on the hate and half of us quit; so long as Second Life remains a going concern.
If it keeps Second Life going and avoiding bankruptcy, it gets done. No amount of discussion, debate or howling changes those decisions - because that is as nothing to the howling there would be if Second Life announced closure instead.
Open registration, island price rises, bans on ageplay/wagering/interest payments. Linden Lab's primary responsibility to users is to still be there tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Nothing we say, and nothing we do dents the drive for continuance. Outside of those areas, Linden Lab seems to be a lot more negotiable, but continuation is the line that can't ever be crossed, and won't ever be compromised.
You might consider Linden Lab to be risk-averse, even timid (they certainly give that impression) -- but at the end of the day, any risks they might take are ultimately with whether your Second Life will still be here tomorrow, and that isn't something they take lightly.
Everywhere in the news, you read about businesses who say that they are "betting the company" on some risky strategy or venture. I doubt we'll ever see that phrase from Linden Lab.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-25-2008 @ 2:23PM
SqueezeOne Pow said...
Good article. A couple things, though...
a) I would say the driving principle behind SL is "keeping up appearences". At the user level, corporate level (real corporations that is) and at the LLevel.
The unverified account deal was all about APPEARING to have millions of users so that corporations could go in and APPEAR to be on the cutting edge of technology and society and some users could APPEAR to be running big time businesses and get press which leads back to SL APPEARING to have millions of users and being important.
The bad performance of SL means that it's all more about looking good than actually DOING anything anyway. Sure Windlight's pretty but it makes the FPS go down to 3!
This all ties into...
b) People aren't actually leaving. How else could there be 60,000 people online this weekend? Many of you complain and say "as soon as there's a good alternative then I'm leaving SL!" much in the same way alcoholics say "I'm never drinking again!" after waking up with a bad hangover in the bed of a nasty looking stranger. You're addicted and the bartender/LL knows it.
Anyone paying attention knows that the way to hit LL is in their pocketbook. What many don't know is what part of things in SL affect LL's pocketbook. The answer: logging in.
As long as you log in you're essentially voting for LL to keep up what they're doing. Spending L$ doesn't really matter as much as just showing up.
Project Open Letter was a joke because there were no consequences to not following it. If there would have been a "...or else we will all stop logging in" condition put in there it wouldn't have mattered anyway because everyone would still have logged in. They'd just find a way to justify it to themselves. As grumpy and dissatisfied as they are they're addicted.
Basically, LL does what they do because they know you'll all come back. As you stated in the article they don't exactly care all that much about what individuals SAY. That's because what they DO is come back and still pay for (or at least participate in) SL which is all that LL is ultimately concerned with.
Phil wants to APPEAR to be the guy that thought up and successfully implemented the internet in 3d. So far we're all helping him attain that appearance!
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2-26-2008 @ 2:29AM
Patchouli Woollahra said...
Windlight is a eyecandy upgrade AND a performance upgrade for most SL content.
framerate drops are bound to happen if you slam the sliders to the max with any SL viewer, but Windlight has significantly more going on at that level that the impact is more significantly felt.
I have to run SL at minimum level owing to aging hardware, and Windlight slightly better despite this fact at the same bottomfeeder settings. replacing avatars with imposters that render less often has proven to be in particular a major boost, especially in crowd conditions such as Luskwood on a dance night.
2-25-2008 @ 7:33PM
Ninoramai Hax said...
LL's goal is both continuation and appearance.
Even though SL's been around for a few years, it's still a very new technology. The business world still has yet to figure out truely solid revenue streams, thus keeping this ship running is key to allow the community time to figure things out.
And appearance is truely important. SL must appear to be stable enough, and appealing enough to keep businesses (small and large) returning. LL must maintain the appearance of longevity to maintain the energy of the developers in creating new innovations. No one wants to spend a part of their soul developing something for the world, if there's a risk of it going poof one day. And maintaining this appearance also gives LL time to figure out what in the world they are doing, and where exactly it is they want this beast of a world to go.
~Nino
http://theimmersivelife.blogspot.com
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