One of the reasons Ebbe Altberg cited for breaking the news about Linden Lab’s planned new world was because he had been talking to the press, implying that he had mentioned it to them. I decided to google the news and didn’t find many news stories featuring Ebbe Altberg. I did find one from San Francisco’s SFGate : Just how real can virtual reality get? This is largely about virtual reality itself and talks of the Oculus Rift. However Linden Lab have been in the news because of Second Life’s adoption of Oculus Rift and in the SFGate story they quote Ebbe Altberg :
This week, new Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg demonstrated for the first time how his company’s virtual online world Second Life looks when redesigned for an Oculus Rift.
Since taking over in February, Altberg has tuned the company’s focus to developing a next-generation Second Life that will include immersion technologies.
“We want to be part of it and help it succeed because it gets us closer to what we have in mind for what a virtual world should be,” he said.
However the press stories regarding discussions with Ebbe aren’t appearing in droves. The story that is appearing is the news of Linden Lab’s planned new world and those stories are largely based on Hamlet Au’s confirmation of the news over at New World Notes.
Digital Spy Uk : Linden Lab building spiritual successor to Second Life. That story doesn’t cite Hamlet, it cites Gamasutra’s story about the new world :
The team behind Second Life has given a statement to New World Notes about its next major project, saying that it is aiming to build the next generation of virtual world.
Polygon go with the spiritual successor headline too and say :
Second Life developer Linden Lab is currently working on the spiritual sequel to the massively multiplayer online social title, according to a statement the developer provided to Polygon.
This new game, first reported by New World Notes, is a “next generation virtual world” that is “in the spirit of Second Life,” an open-world game that will focus on user-created content and interactions. The San Francisco-based studio noted it is actively hiring for this project, which is still in its “very early days.”
The Gamer, gets itself a little confused in a couple of areas in their reporting of the story :
Linden Lab’s highly successful social experiment Second Life is today celebrating it’s 10th birthday, and what better way to celebrate than announcing to the world that a follow-up to the unique online sandbox is in the works?
According to a statement released by the developer’s New World Notes blog, this new ‘spiritual sequel’ will be “an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king.” Stopping short of admitting that the new game will be identical to it’s predecessor, Linden expand on the statement and say that “The next generation virtual world will go far beyond what is possible with Second Life, and we don’t want to constrain our development by setting backward compatibility with Second Life as an absolute requirement from the start.”
I think we can forgive them for not realising Second Life is celebrating its eleventh birthday but New World Notes hasn’t officially been part of Linden Lab for many a year!
Massively wade in to the fray in their story and the headline is interesting – Second Life’s Linden Lab Confirms New Virtual World In Development :
Linden Lab has confirmed that it is currently working on a new virtual world in the spirit of Second Life. According to an official statement at New World Notes, this new project will be “an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king.” If that sounds exactly like the description for Second Life already, the studio points out that, “The next generation virtual world will go far beyond what is possible with Second Life, and we don’t want to constrain our development by setting backward compatibility with Second Life as an absolute requirement from the start.”
One of the areas where I felt Rod Humble did a great job when he was CEO was in introducing new products, so that people would talk of Linden Lab, rather than Second Life. However it still seems the power of the Second Life brand trumps Linden Lab in some quarters and that’s rather positive about the strength today of the Second Life product.
SegmentNext get a cheap but amusing headline –Second Life Is Getting A Second, Uh, Life :
Development company Linden Lab revealed that it’s working on a successor for its online world, Second Life. It sent a statement to New World Notes, which mentions:
Linden Lab is working on a next generation virtual world that will be in the spirit of Second Life, an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king.
Currently, the company is hiring to work on the project. It should be a sizable improvement towards its current online environment, which is more than a decade old by now.
JeuxOnline even wade in with a story on this –Un « monde virtuel de nouvelle génération » pour faire suite à Second Life :
Raison pour laquelle le studio Linden Lab travaille aujourd’hui sur la « suite spirituelle de Second Life », devant définir ce que doit être un « monde virtuel de nouvelle génération ». Peu de détails sont communiqués sur le projet, découvert par Wagner James (l’un des « journalistes » emblématiques de Second Life, sur son blog New World Notes) et confirmé officiellement par Linden Lab qui entend rassurer les utilisateurs de Second Life quant à l’avenir du monde virtuel.
Impressive stuff. However what this tells us really is that despite all the barbs, all the jokes, all the comments along the lines of “Second Life, is that still around?”, despite all that, Second Life and Linden Lab are still big enough news to be considered worthy of stories and that means there is still plenty of life in the Second Life product yet, it’s not out on its feet. I’m sure there will be plenty more stories as the new world gets closer to release.
One thing to note though is the timing, Second Life has had its profile boosted by the Oculus Rift because the Rift has got tongues wagging about virtual reality again. This is definitely the right time for Linden Lab to talk to the press, even if their new product is light on details.
please send me an email with my log in info! New puter and I lost all of my information!