Second Life Global Provider Program troubled?
by Tateru Nino 
Nov 16th 2009 at 9:00AM
Filed under: MMO industry, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds
Back in 2007, Linden Lab formed regional partnerships with companies to operate localized portals for the Second Life platform, called the Global Provider Program (also sometimes referred to by the Lab as the Gold Provider Program, though distinct from the Gold Solution Provider Program). Linden Lab identified three non-English regional markets that it felt were priorities for support and localization: Brazil, Korea and Germany.
The first of the providers was Kaizen Games in Brazil, followed by Barunson Games (then called T-Entertainment) in Korea in October 2007. Bokowsky and Laymann might constitute a third partner in this program for Germany, but the the actual arrangement there isn't very clear.
Earlier this year in March, Kaizen Games quietly terminated its participation in the Global Provider Program, though it retains Mainland.Brasil, the themed estate which it operated as a part of the program.
This month news comes down that Linden Lab let its contract with Barunson Games/T-Entertainment in Korea lapse without renewal in October 2008, having apparently changed its mind about Korea being a top priority for localization, and that Barunson Games has given up after 12 months of trying to negotiate a new deal.
"Korea is not one of our immediate priorities for localization," a spokesperson for the Lab told us late last week. Barunson Games told the Korean press that Linden Lab had "stopped providing Second Life in Korean and closed the Korean language site kr.secondlife.com and directed traffic to the English-language site" prior to the cessation of the contract in 2008.
Despite the Web-site having been more recently revamped, the new format Web-site doesn't have Korean localization. Linden Lab says that it hopes to have that present in future. Korean language support in the Second Life viewer remains in beta.
Barunson reports that they attempted to renew their Global Provider Program deal with Linden Lab for one year without success. Presumably the arrangement held enough value to justify that effort.
The Sera Korea estate in Second Life will apparently continue to exist, but it is not clear at this time who is going to be maintaining it. Linden Lab estimates there to be only 3,000 Korean Second Life users at present, and Korea Herald writer Choi He-suk observes that local users prefer a far different online experience to that which Second Life provides with its open-ended usage and unmanaged activities.
Aside from the unclear arrangement with Bokowsky and Laymann in Germany, there may be no Global Provider Program members left.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Doubledown Tandino said on 9:42AM 11-16-2009
Isn't this gold provider program obsolete now with the launch of Nebraska?
If they're getting $55000 per company for a packaged firewalled Second Life, why do they need a 'gold provider program' at all? There's still the solution provider directory... and if companies are paying $55000 each, then they can just pick out candidates from that directory. am I wrong?
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Tateru Nino said on 9:52AM 11-16-2009
Ah, no - this was regional language support and regional localized portals. Currency exchanges, websites and inworld mini-continents run by partners for the top-priority non-English-speaking countries. Whole different ball of wax.
aki.shichiroji said on 10:29AM 11-16-2009
To me, it makes far more sense to include localized support all rolled in with the other localizations which have been made available recently. Fully themed areas can be difficult to manage on a full time basis, especially if the immediate benefits are not apparent. How close were these local providers to the SL community? Exactly what did they provide which LL or similar resident groups could not? And what is the relationship between these local providers and the Global Provider program? Is it a program which they are paid to be a part of? or is it the other way around?
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Gwyneth Llewelyn said on 10:53AM 11-16-2009
Hmm I don't know how much I'm allowed to comment on this, but I might say that one of those "Global Provider Programs" were keen to break all rules set in the contract for personal benefit, aware that Linden Lab would hardly be able to track them down due to the language barrier...
Maybe they rethought their strategy because of that. I can agree that it's not easy to become "Second Life's representative in a country" without a massive support team and a full-blown local advertising campaign...
The Community Gateways seem to fit in the "gap" between "zero personalisation/localisation" (e.g. LL's own Orientation Areas) and "full immersion in a culture/language" that oversees all the aspects of the platform: orientation, welcome, training, land sales & parcel lease, culturally-tailored content...
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TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 2:38PM 11-17-2009
when will I be allowed to read about whatever happened and who was involved and such?