Is It Time For A Linden Lab Login Account?

Back in 2009 Argent Stonecutter created a Jira suggestion that I very much agree with. SVC-6212 Create Master Account Name, Linking to Avatar Names. The idea here is that you’d login to Second Life and then select an avatar name to go inworld with, this would mean linking your alts, which could have benefits for issues such as Mesh uploads, which are currently on an avatar basis, so even though the person behind Ciaran Laval meets the requirements to upload Mesh, my alts don’t, this despite the fact that my alts are known by Linden Lab as they linked them for the cases of being adult verified back in the day when the requirements were more stringent.

I shouldn’t need to have payment info on all my avatars, having payment info on my overall account deals with this. However whereas this has merit for Second Life, it has even more merit now that Linden Lab are releasing new products. Patterns, Creatoverse, Dio and Versu are all Linden Lab products. There are different ways these products are delivered with some aimed at the mobile community and some web based but with Linden Lab producing multiple products doesn’t it make some sense for me to have a Linden Lab account, rather than a product specific account?

Blizzard do this, I have one login for World of Warcraft, the same one works for Diablo III and would also work for Starcraft II. This just makes the process of purchasing products easier, it makes billing easier. I’m already a Linden Lab customer, a bird in the hand and all that.

Linden Lab instead, seem to be turning to Facebook for some of their products. I’ve been through this before with Kitely, Cloud Party and Spotify. Kitely and Cloud Party now both allow me to login without the Facebook requirement, Spotify from what I can see, still requires Facebook for new accounts. I don’t use Spotify because I don’t have a Facebook account.

I can understand why companies, especially startups, turn to Facebook for assistance with their login process. I can also understand why companies allow a Facebook login option, as some do with Twitter too. However I can’t really understand why companies, once they are established, persist with Facebook being the only login in town.

In reality, you should want to own your own customers. Linden Lab are not a startup, they’re an established company. I’m a bit bemused as to why they want to send their own customers to Facebook. As I said earlier, I can understand why they’d want to attract Facebook customers by providing a Facebook login option, but they should be offering their own logins too.

Maybe when these products are officially released and gaining traction we’ll see more logic to this Facebook tie, but even then, it surely makes sense for Linden Lab’s customers to have a single login for further future products. This Linden Lab login should be the basis of the master account Argent Stonecutter requested via the Jira.



6 Replies to “Is It Time For A Linden Lab Login Account?”

  1. No, it isn’t time for a Master login Account.

    It’s LONG OVERDUE where SL is concerned.

    Funnily enough, I covered this way back in the mists of time as well, and was cogitating the same point again earlier, although admittedly not in relation to Dio, Versu, SL, et al, but simply in reference to SL & as a result of revisiting the re-revised (but still pretty hopeless) “new” Destination Islands.

    You raise some excellent points on the issue in a much wider context.

    However, in the Lab’s defence, might be wothwhile pointing out that they initially made Patterns only available through Steam, but moved to make it available directly through the Patterns website in December. Ergo, making Versu and Dio accessible directly through their respective websites may be on the cards.

    What also matters here is how, exactly, are LL going to generate revenue from the likes of Dio and Versu. This may in turn impact on how people access them and what the account requirements are – the Facbook access may be akin to the Patterns Genesis release (although admittedly saying, “try this free”, then charging down the road is a highly dangerous route to take … unless “free” means limited options – such as storage space, tools access, in the case of Dio).

    Another issue within the Lab is that development of the new products is entirely separate from that of SL. There are two different Directors of Product within the company, each with a very different remit to the other. As such, it is hard to say how much cross-pollenation of ideas goes on, even at senior management level, and how much remains entirely siloed within the company (just like so much development work in SL still appears to operate on the “island” approach, with little inter-team communications).

    Damn you, Lord of Dee, now you’ve got my little brain boggling and a blog post fomenting…!

    1. Yup fair points, that’s why I mentioned future products, not all products may be suitable for a central login to access them. However as more products arrive, which I’m sure they will, then having a single login just seems easier.

      Versu I think will have charges for customisation, they are going to introduce features to allow you to create and customise your own characters, with your own unique dialogue too.

      I’m still not sure what Dio is going to be about but we should find out very soon, that looks close to completion.

      1. Re: versu – yup, I saw that and commented in my piece on it :). Actually wonder if it might be broader than that, given that the way the FAQ references the game engine could possibly be read two ways…

        Dio looks to me to be a kind of PinFourInstaSquareGramTrest (sort that one out).

        And yes, it should be launching ahead of Versu, if the Lab sticks to the order Rod Humble has already indicated. I’d actually be a little surprised if it doesn’t turn up during January…

  2. A master account would be great, but just allowing you to use your SL ID instead of your Facebook account to sign up to Dio and Versu would already be useful to SLers – and maybe to LL, which would be able to try to find some public for its new products among their own user base.

    1. Yup, a Linden Lab account to use for their products does seem to make sense. That’s how other companies, such as Blizzard, work it, so your SL login becomes your LL login …. if that makes sense!

      That’s a good point you raise, that it makes it easier for their already existing user base to look at their other products.

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