Rod Humble Moves Linden Lab Forward, But He Shouldn’t Leave Second Life Behind

I’m seriously having to drag my mouse away from add to cart on Steam where Football Manager 2013 is seductively glancing at me… well it’s more than a seductive glance, it’s winking, fluttering its eyelashes and licking its lips … I must resist, I mean it destroys your social life, it’s too time consuming these days … wait they’ve introduced a new classic mode which makes gameplay quicker, like in the old days, beta will be available any day now if I pre-order and resistance may be futile …

Now when I was a lad I knew more about the people behind games, people such as Paul and Oliver Collyer, whom brought us Championship Manager and are still part of the team now that it’s called Football Manager. Going back further into my childhood I knew who Kevin Toms was, he wrote a game called Football Manager for the Sinclair Spectrum, which I loved, the speccy game is not related to football manager 2013 in any way, shape or form.

Then there were people such as Ron Gilbert, Peter Molyneux, Jeff Minter yadda yadda yadda. However I had never heard of Rod Humble when he came to Linden Lab, by the time Mr Humble arrived my days of reading magazines such as Computer & Video Games, Crash for the ZX Spectrum, Amiga Power for umm, The Amiga or PC Gamer were long behind me. However those in the gaming world do know Mr Humble, when an article appears in gaming related sites, you see comments from people asking why is Rod Humble is at Linden Lab.

Indigo Mertel tweeted a link to a recent article on Giant Bomb: Rod Humble Would Like You To Meet Linden Lab 2.0, we’ll forgive them for putting “Linden Labs” in the sideline. The article is about Linden Lab, which must please the board, Linden Lab has long been known for Second Life, but under Rod Humble Linden Lab is starting to get known for being Linden Lab, rather than just the developers of Second Life, it’s an important step forward for the company.

The article and comments though, show where Second Life is for many, as well as showing the high regard Rod Humble is held in within the gaming community. Heck I held him in high regard because of his superb taste in being an Aston Villa fan, but there’s far more to him than that.

We also see the toxic nature of Second Life to some, a totally unfair reputation given how much can be done within Second Life, but they are there:

“I spent some time in Second Life. And just like the internet itself, Second Life is for porn.“is one comment, rather oddly they go on to exemplify Second Life not being used for porn.

“How the f*ck did Second Life generate $75 million in 2011? Who the f*ck plays Second Life besides weirdos? And there’s nothing they moved onto since it came out? It looks like shit, like Everquest 1. How are those weirdos still playing Second Life?  I can’t even read the rest of the article yet. That information is staggering. I need a minute here, Patrick” rants another comment, which then goes on to say Patterns looks interesting. This is what I’m getting at when I say Rod Humble is doing well to make people think of Linden Lab, not just Linden Lab’s Second Life.

Other comments say how awesome Rod Humble is, whilst another complains that Rod Humble has made him part with cash to pay Linden Lab, for goodness sake.

Gwyneth Llewellyn counters some of the criticism of Second Life, whereas Darrius Gothly ends the Rod Humble love in by bringing some criticism to how things are going for Second Life, suggesting it’s on death watch and being neglected. I don’t agree with all that Darrius says, there have been decent developments on Rod Humble’s watch, but there has also been an abysmal lack of communication with the userbase.

The comments and article seems to be positive about Versu, which is coming from the people formerly known as littletextpeople, whom were purchased by Linden Lab.

The article also includes a quote from Rod Humble himself regarding Second Life, the sort of comment we often see when Second Life is discussed:

“When the opportunity came up and Linden Lab got in touch…first of all, Second Life? Is that still around? [laughs] I looked, and it was really, really healthy. Also, it was a company that was ready made to do a whole bunch of other products, which I wanted to do.”

Well yes it was still around, it is still around too and doing fine but it could do with some excitement and buzz. The Second Life blog really is being shamefully neglected, really Linden Lab, this is poor. When people want to know about things, they will often read blogs, I read the Football Manager 2013 blog earlier, which is why my mouse has been hovering over the add to cart feature on Steam for the game. There’s really nothing on the Second Life blog that would have my mouse hovering over add to cart, or download, on the Second Life blog.

However, whatever happens with Second Life, Rod Humble has moved Linden Lab forward, can he help Second Life to grow stronger? Only time will tell, le’t’s hope they don’t take their eye off the ball, but they could do with some Second Life publicity to cash in on the Linden Lab publicity currently being generated. The sort of publicity that would suggest it’s not all about porn, that it is still vibrant and that there’s much to do here.

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