The Project Sansar Media Train Is Still Going Full Steam Ahead

The Project Sansar media train keeps on rolling as two more articles appear in the media and both of them also mention Second Life, although in more of a past tense when compared to Project Sansar. One of the articles is positive and one is rather cynically negative, but hey people are very much entitled to their opinion.

The first article is by Alice Truong over at Quartz; Could the Oculus Rift help give Second Life a second life? The headline is uncannily similar to a recent blog headline of my own, although my post wasn’t really about the Oculus Rift! This is a good article that deserves extra credit for taking advantage of Linden Lab’s Flickr pool, as do I in this post too.

The Quartz article makes comparisons between Project Sansar and Second Life and points out that it sounds like some of the concepts will be similar :

Some of Sansar’s rules will be slightly different, and the immersive VR graphics will be far superior (though it will still work on regular computers and mobile devices too). But like Second Life, Sansar isn’t a game with a clear objective. There are no bosses to defeat or princesses to rescue. Instead, people, playing as virtual representations of themselves, will carry out day-to-day, often fantastical, lives in a made-up world. They’ll explore, socialize, have cybersex, make art, perform, create businesses, build houses, go shopping, pay taxes.

The article does a good job of covering how Second Life works as well as looking ahead to how Project Sansar may work, with once again the concept of lower land taxes and higher sales taxes being pointed out.

This is an important point as it indirectly ties into a quote in the article from Bernhard Drax (AKA Draxtor Despres) who seems to feel that the corporations didn’t quite get Second Life :

“If you looked at it as a 3D billboard, Second Life did not work,” he says. But he notes the world flourished “as an artistic playground.”

I largely agree with Drax but would add that one of the barriers to Second Life being an artistic playground is the fact that the tier is too damn high! That is going to be addressed in Project Sansar. As for the corporations, I still feel they should have immersed themselves more with the community and rented spaces in shopping malls with other Second Life creators.

The Quartz article also points out that Second Life still has a decent following and that Linden Lab are still working with it :

Acutely aware that Second Life still has a fervent following, Linden Lab is trying not to alienate the game’s existing users. Though Project Sansar will carry many elements of the original, it is being developed as an entirely separate game.

That creates an opportunity to get rid of some things that didn’t work. “Second Life was built on top of something on top of something for years,” says Altberg. “Now that we get the opportunity to do that from the ground up, we thought, ‘Well, we’re going to make it a much easier-to-use product.’”

The second article is by Elizabeth Nolan Brown over at Reason; Second Life Creators Have Not Stopped Believing. Whereas the headline suggests Second Life creators have not stopped believing, the article itself suggests that Elizabeth never believed, she didn’t enter Second Life, but a friend of Elizabeth’s did, as a furry stripper, but not a very successful one by the looks of it.

One great part of Elizabeth’s article though is a quote from a wired article in 2007, that article itself isn’t positive but the quote from Frank Rose exemplifies the hype and excitement that surrounded Second Life back in 2007 :

IBM has created a massive complex of adjoining islands dedicated to recruitment, employee training, and in-world business meetings. Coldwell Banker has opened a virtual real estate office. Brands like Adidas, H&R Block, and Sears have set up shop. CNET and Reuters have opened virtual bureaus there. It’s as if the moon suddenly had oxygen. Nobody wants to miss out.

Elizabeth seems to think that Project Sansar, despite the Oculus Rift angle, does not sound that much different from Second Life :

In other words… Linden Lab learned nothing from the great Second Life fiasco. But maybe we all did? It will be interesting to see if colleges, corporations, and others take the bait again.

I actually welcome a bit of cynicism regarding the VR hype cycle, it’s a reality check and we’ve been here before. However I do not share Elizabeth’s cynicism, but then again I’ve been engaged with Second Life for over eight years and I’ve never once been a furry stripper in all that time, so there are many varied paths to take in virtual worlds.

 

Both of these articles, with their positive and negative points, help to keep Project Sansar in the news and by courtesy of that, Second Life. I’d be surprised if some people aren’t tipping their toes into Second Life on the back of these articles, not in large numbers, but the articles are likely to pique interest in some quarters.

Ultimately Second Life will be with us for quite a few more years than people expect and I’d wager that Project Sansar won’t be embracing all and sundry for quite some time yet either.