Linden Lab Lays Off 10% of Employees

[Madi Perth]

I'm somewhat insulated in that most of my work is scripting, which hasn't changed that much. It takes longer to create the magic but the esteem and satisfaction rewards are good.

This is what I do. When I'm working on a script for project or just to work on it I can spend weeks just ignoring everything that happens.

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Child av are not a small segment of the population.

What I said, precisely, is that you are / were a relatively small segment of the population.

I've never seen actual numbers, which would be hard to quantify anyway because I'm sure there are a lot of part-time child avis. You represent a significant community I'm sure. And I'm also sure there was an impact on those doing family RP, etc.

But, to repeat my point, PBR cut across all lines, and impacted on people in every community in SL. Most of the people I know were relatively unaware of the changes to the ToS that impacted on children, but once the new FS viewer had rolled out, everyone knew about the issues PBR was causing.

 

[Arcane Portal]

Much of what you said made some sense but these two statements strike me as bizarre. Making shit for events is 100% optional but just a way to market yourself.

Also, what mystical, magical fairy tale platform doesn't have toxic users?

No. Monthly shopping events are where the money is at if you make content in Second Life for a living, it is absolutely not "just a way to market yourself". Collabor88, Equal 10, Kustom 9 etc. are what your bills can depend on. The difference can easily mean thousands of dollars.

You are correct with the second part, every platform has toxic users but you may be seriously underestimating what creators on SL have to deal with on a daily basis. There is a big appeal with not constantly having to deal with logging into people cussing you out because they don't understand it isn't your fault that Firestorm's PBR issues are the reason the dress they bought from you suddenly looks different, or having a person tell you how shitty you've become as a creator because you decided not to add back faces all the way up sleeves and the person is so angry it can't be used for photos they want to take.

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

They're scrambling to fix a lot of things these days it seems. Runatai put in a lot of work behind the scenes with people trying to get PBR to spec (with matching Substance Painter being the focus). Last I heard he knew the PBR release was borked before release, but couldn't do anything about a certain department screwing it up.

Yeah, I think the move to deferred rendering has caused lots of unforeseen problems in unexpected places. My sense is that the new iterations of the official viewer are at least decreasing the lag the previous one was causing.

It's interesting because I don't recall ever seeing LL essentially admit publicly to screwing up, and scurrying to fix things quite so frantically. It suggests to me that they were seeing some really worrisome signs when the FS PBR viewer was finally released. I think they got spooked.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I thought at one meeting he was introduced as head of the governance board. I do know that him and Kiera Linden hosted the governance board meetings every second Thursday. You know when there wasn't a SLB party or he wasn't getting fired.

Tommy Linden | We’re celebrating 17 years of #SecondLife thi… | Flickr

Second Life University - Governance Tips with Keira and Tommy Linden - Featured News - Second Life Community

Second Life: Governance User Group meeting (9 May 2024) (youtube.com)

Here is listed as a "Supervisor" in the first one. The second one he is also listed as a "Supervisor" and that is from 2022. The bottom one is link to the governance meeting I attended where I think he was introduced as head of the governance board. I'm not going to go through all that text to find the spot. He may have not been head of the board, but from the way he carried himself at the meetings he was definitely a top dog.

Linden Lab has done a good job of scrubbing him from thier official website.

Perhaps you're right.

However, Google tells me that Inara Pey, back in 2022, referred to "Keira Linden – who, as the Support Operations Manager, now has Governance directly under her management"

and I find it difficult to believe that something like the revised Child Avatar policy was written by the Governance Team alone -- I would be very surprised if it wasn't drafted and signed off at a much higher level.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Be Careful What You Wish for Department:

Upon reflection, I have to admit that the sleeker SL has gotten, the less enjoyable it has become to me. Sculpties, and then mesh, all improved the visual impact of SL. which was quite dazzling, but at the same time it made building and even just "being me" more difficult.

I loved making things, even though I was never very good at it. But then, I wasn't that bad either. I might not be able to build a castle, but I could build the bar where my social life centered. When mesh entered SL, however, the differences between that and what I could cobble together were stark and I was reduced to a consumer of other people's pretty objects. Fingers crossed that their vision and sensibilities aligned with mine.

I'm of the same kind of mind when it comes to that. I make 3D stuff and art, though not for SL, and obviously Blender is so much "better" and more powerful than SL's internal building tools that it's not even a contest. But, I -did- use SL's building tools pre-mesh, and I built some amazing stuff! I liked to think so, anyways. The limitations aren't really limiting when that's all there was, it was more like you just had to solve some puzzles to figure out how to get what you wanted out of prims, and that was very satisfying all on its own when you managed something clever.

Then came mesh and while I 100% get why people would rather use Blender and import something over using prims now that that option is available, it definitely killed a SIGNIFICANT part of SL's charm, and for exactly that reason Beebo. Content isn't user-created or user-generated (or whatever the exact terminology is now) anymore, it's stuff made by 3D specialists that you just buy. Obviously there's exceptions but by and large it feels like a lot of mesh creators are "users" of SL only insofar as they log in to import their stuff and put it up for sale.

What do people use prims nowadays for? Thinking:

- Rez a box as a temporary media prim for showing off a picture or watching a video

- Rez a box to temporarily sit on and transport yourself up to a specific height

- Rez a box to turn into a building platform

- Rez a box to temporarily mark or show parcel boundaries.

- Rez a box to put a utility script in

It's been years since I've seen someone rez a box for any reason other than those. And I literally can't even remember the last time I saw someone rez something other than a box.

 

[Madi Perth]

and I find it difficult to believe that something like the revised Child Avatar policy was written by the Governance Team alone -- I would be very surprised if it wasn't drafted and signed off at a much higher level.

There is still a large portion of the CA community that still thinks the policy was written to get rid of the CVA all together. Anyone who has attended the community and the governance meetings knows the real reason for the policy change. It was basically forced from outside by payment processors and Apple/Google to get the mobile app listed on the platform.

I actually liked Tommy Linden. After the meetings him and I would exchange a few comments and be off. That being said, there should be no doubt that the TOS change could have been rolled out better. I'm just wondering if Tommy and the governance board members were made a scapgoat for the issues this brought.

 

[Noodles]

What do people use prims nowadays for? Thinking:

- Rez a box as a temporary media prim for showing off a picture or watching a video

- Rez a box to temporarily sit on and transport yourself up to a specific height

- Rez a box to turn into a building platform

- Rez a box to temporarily mark or show parcel boundaries.

- Rez a box to put a utility script in

It's been years since I've seen someone rez a box for any reason other than those. And I literally can't even remember the last time I saw someone rez something other than a box.

The driveway under my garage is a big box, but I guess that technically falls under "platform".

 

[Free]

It's been years since I've seen someone rez a box for any reason other than those. And I literally can't even remember the last time I saw someone rez something other than a box.

I've recently been building mirrors. Technically it's a kind of box, but...

 

[Innula Zenovka]

There is still a large portion of the CA community that still thinks the policy was written to get rid of the CVA all together. Anyone who has attended the community and the governance meetings knows the real reason for the policy change. It was basically forced from outside by payment processors and Apple/Google to get the mobile app listed on the platform.

I actually liked Tommy Linden. After the meetings him and I would exchange a few comments and be off. That being said, there should be no doubt that the TOS change could have been rolled out better. I'm just wondering if Tommy and the governance board members were made a scapgoat for the issues this brought.

I attended the Community Roundtable on May 20. If you listen to Oberwolf's remarks from about 22:00 onwards, I think you'll see he's primarily concerned not about Mobile particularly but the reputational risk to SL as a whole, and the likely attitude of payment processors and banks, if another story arose like that horrible blog post earlier in the year and it somehow got picked up by the mainstream press.

Community Roundtable on May 20 - CEO Oberwolf Linden Pleads with Communtiy to Act Appropriately

(I asked ChatGPT to paraphrase his remarks from this point onwards)

Let me share a perspective from Linden Labs. Consider how many people listening here enjoy using their credit cards or PayPal. Think about the convenience of purchasing Linden Dollars, transferring them in-world, or converting them to U.S. dollars and depositing them into your bank account. If you appreciate that, try to see things from the viewpoint of these payment providers. For instance, if something controversial is posted publicly about what we’re discussing, PayPal won’t distinguish between role-playing adults and other scenarios. They’ll simply decide it’s something they don’t want to be associated with.

So when we talk about these changes, understand that it’s not just about you—it’s about Second Life’s safety and future. We’re making these changes for the platform’s overall well-being. There are external concerns we have to consider as well, like compliance with terms and conditions set by companies like PayPal, Apple, and Google. We don’t create these terms ourselves; they come from broader discussions, often finalized by legal teams.

To address Brett’s question on mobile: yes, we have to comply with terms and conditions from Apple and Google if we want Second Life to function as a mobile app. You might think we could have looser terms, but in reality, we have to operate within the strict regulations these companies impose. Society in general may not fully understand Second Life, and most people form opinions based on limited information without exploring the platform. That’s where things get complicated—because although everything we’re doing is for adults, the broader world may view it differently.

So, does this relate to mobile? Absolutely. It’s also tied to Apple and PayPal’s regulations. What we’re working on is bigger than just Second Life—we need to think long-term to ensure Second Life remains open, safe, fun, and sustainable. That’s our main goal: to keep Second Life thriving for years to come.

Regarding the feedback, I see the comment suggesting that if we “kick out the adults to satisfy PayPal, there’ll be no one left to use PayPal.” This is the kind of sentiment we’re hearing. But at no point did I say we’re going to remove adults from the platform. My point was that when drafting terms and conditions, we consider all stakeholders. Second Life was built to be open for adults, and we believe adults should be free to do what they want. We’re not imposing restrictions, but rather ensuring safety and compliance for all users across various parts of the platform.

 

[Noodles]

Personally, if they are concerned with payment providers, I would be worry that all the A rated content might be next.

Because it feels like increasinly payment providers dislike supporting sex.

 

[Daniel Voyager]

Second Life Regions Stats – Mid October 2024 Update

Current Second Life Main Grid Size as of 13th October 2024…

Total: 27, 715
Private Estates: 17, 928
Linden Owned: 9, 787

Sunday 7th January 2024
+ Total: 27, 746
+ Private Estates: 18, 112
+ Linden Owned: 9, 634

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I have taken the concurrent user data by Gwyneth Llewelyn since 2022 and produced a small graph, here we go:

As is evident, concurrent logins are normally working in a wave form. It goes down typically in march of a year, when people got more interesting stuff to attend to than sitting before the computer and starts to recover to march values somewhere around september. This is how it goes in 2022/2023.

2024 indeed is different. First the decline started as usual somewhere in march, but the difference is displayed that from march to july way more people went away than before. And while in august a small recovery started, we might already be again in another phase of decline. Only time will tell.

What to make out of that? First the decline this year was already bigger than usual, and this was before the ToS changes were announced. These happened at the beginning of may 2024. After that, the decline continued.

So what are potential drivers for this?

* the smear piece we had in March this year on Medium
* ToS changes
* the really bad and rushed introduction of PBR in June 2024

For me the biggest driver is the rushed rollout of PBR, because we don't see the normal recovery starting mid of summer. This really hurt the SL experience for a lot of people in a way that LL saw themself forced working together with Firestorm to address the issues. Furthermore there was even a big announcement on the LL landing page about when the issues were half fixed, so we can be sure that this really drove out a lot of people from the platform, maybe slowly to return, who knows.

Might be CA community leaving a contributor to this? Of course. But then again we are talking here about roughly 5000 concurrent less logins during a day now, which is depending on your base a decrease of 10%. I am pretty sure that the CA community does not make up 10% of SL's user base, but is a smaller percentage.

ToS changes just might have pissed off many people outside the CA community as well, another possible explanation.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

It's a sign of how long I've been gone that I have no clue what PBR is and why so many people are unhappy about it.

The issue with PBR is that upon introduction it really was a mixed bag: for some people it went well and flawless, while others had all types of major problems and hiccups, me included.

PBR itself is just another way to compute the lighting, enabling a pretty accurate display of metals for example. It's a really big improvement on visuals, which can be used by content creators to do stuff like not possible before. PBR also enables us to finally have real functioning mirrors in SL, not just fake ones.

The downside of it is of course that such new stuff needs some horse power. Here lies one of the first problems Linden Lab might have underestimated: you cannot turn off the advanced light model any longer. With the rollout of PBR it is always enabled by default.

So of course PBR in action is having some impact on FPS performance. The interesting thing though according to trustworthy benchmarks is that LL managed to offload this work load mostly on the GPU of your rack, so in theory you should see no really dent on FPS, probably even some improvements. If your GPU is capable enough, that is. Of course you need also the right CPU, as always.

The issue is that this is the optimum some residents of SL indeed experienced. But Linden Lab also changed major parts about the texture download queue in a way, that suddenly rezzing avatars and surroundings became much, much slower for many residents with a PBR enabled viewer.

For example when the first iteration of Firestorm PBR enabled came out, the time required to display my own avatar on an empty sim increased from 10 seconds up to 2 minutes. When going to medium attended meeting points some textures/avatars were still not rezzed at all or partially grey after 5 minutes being there.

Another issue was that the PBR rendering in the LL viewer was better than in Firestorm, because Firestorm took an older version which had indeed a major performance hit and this really pissed off many people.

In fact Linden Lab then put this on priority, and improved PBR in their own viewer quickly as well as Firestorm. Personally rezzing times are still not on par with the last pre PBR viewer, so I refuse to do that switch because I don't care about eye candy when a basic necessity - rezzing - is still working sub par.

Also LL managed to implement PBR without giving people a helping hand about the changes they need to do to have a nice, fluffy SL experience. For example with PBR introduced the standard environment settings were really looking kind of dull. This is why now many tip videos are around with people sharing EEPs to reproduce the former SL looks again.

Another thing is that due to PBR your sim lighting might suddenly feel... off a little and you don't know why. Again LL will not explain it to you. The reason why is because due to PBR now stuff suddenly matters which didn't matter much before. For a good PBR experience these are light sources and reflection probes.

The server puts reflection probes automatically over a sim, but their location might not always be the best to match objects. Moving light sources or adding them might also be a thing depending on your build.

Also thanks to the introduction of PBR neck seams are back again.

A future annoyance by the way will be the technical switch of Voice from Vivox to WebRTC, which is undergoing right now. At least Firestorm will support WebRTC only in PBR enabled viewers, LL of course as well. So using non-PBR viewers will become more challenging over time, if you want to do that and using voice in SL is your thing.

So in short: while PBR improved visuals a lot, it also added a lot of complexity to SL at least Linden Lab is not explaining the residents... much, it meant performance drops/issues for many, also a really dull visual experience with it enabled without telling the people why.

Also some images from a resident. This is the day cycle on midday using PBR without any manual intervention.

https://www.meta3dstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/PBR-Example-e1440106098549.png

This is midday by pressing SHIFT+CTRL+Y.

https://www.meta3dstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/PBR-Example-e1440106098549.png

And this is "Midday (Legacy)".

Anyway this Reddit here gives really interesting insights, many of them came true.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

No. Monthly shopping events are where the money is at if you make content in Second Life for a living, it is absolutely not "just a way to market yourself". Collabor88, Equal 10, Kustom 9 etc. are what your bills can depend on. The difference can easily mean thousands of dollars.

You are correct with the second part, every platform has toxic users but you may be seriously underestimating what creators on SL have to deal with on a daily basis. There is a big appeal with not constantly having to deal with logging into people cussing you out because they don't understand it isn't your fault that Firestorm's PBR issues are the reason the dress they bought from you suddenly looks different, or having a person tell you how shitty you've become as a creator because you decided not to add back faces all the way up sleeves and the person is so angry it can't be used for photos they want to take.

I see what you're saying. But it still seems like the difference between SL creation and other platforms is a matter of degree. Pressure to produce more stuff faster is a big thing for any content creator. Paying subscribers on any platform have no patience for the artist taking a mental health break... artists who produce stuff faster will make a lot more than those who don't.

Your second paragraph seems less about toxic users and more about the instability of SL and users not understanding the difference between what you do and don't control. That is a problem in a lot of IT related fields and will be a problem on any gaming platform to some extent. Most totally stable gaming platforms I know of haven't been around that long. SL is OLD which is both painful because of all the updates over time but also a huge boon since many current big name video games will just completely vanish.

I am not trying to say your complaints aren't legitimate I'm saying I'm suspicious that there are clearly much better platforms.

 

[Daniel Voyager]

I have taken the concurrent user data by Gwyneth Llewelyn since 2022 and produced a small graph, here we go:

As is evident, concurrent logins are normally working in a wave form. It goes down typically in march of a year, when people got more interesting stuff to attend to than sitting before the computer and starts to recover to march values somewhere around september. This is how it goes in 2022/2023.

2024 indeed is different. First the decline started as usual somewhere in march, but the difference is displayed that from march to july way more people went away than before. And while in august a small recovery started, we might already be again in another phase of decline. Only time will tell.

What to make out of that? First the decline this year was already bigger than usual, and this was before the ToS changes were announced. These happened at the beginning of may 2024. After that, the decline continued.

So what are potential drivers for this?

* the smear piece we had in March this year on Medium
* ToS changes
* the really bad and rushed introduction of PBR in June 2024

For me the biggest driver is the rushed rollout of PBR, because we don't see the normal recovery starting mid of summer. This really hurt the SL experience for a lot of people in a way that LL saw themself forced working together with Firestorm to address the issues. Furthermore there was even a big announcement on the LL landing page about when the issues were half fixed, so we can be sure that this really drove out a lot of people from the platform, maybe slowly to return, who knows.

Might be CA community leaving a contributor to this? Of course. But then again we are talking here about roughly 5000 concurrent less logins during a day now, which is depending on your base a decrease of 10%. I am pretty sure that the CA community does not make up 10% of SL's user base, but is a smaller percentage.

ToS changes just might have pissed off many people outside the CA community as well, another possible explanation.

Thanks for doing this graph. It would be good to see a website showing the real time daily/monthly/yearly concurrency levels. The grid survey graphs don't work.

It would be good to see a concurrency graph from 2009 to October 2024+.

 

[WolfEyes]

Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. People are unhappy about it because it tastes awful.

That ain't no lie!

 

[WolfEyes]

It's never got to 100k but it's reached 88, 000+ though.

Thanks. Good to know I remembered correctly.

 

[Charlemagne Allen]

It's a sign of how long I've been gone that I have no clue what PBR is and why so many people are unhappy about it.

I can't even pinpoint why I left. Partly it was computer problems that strained my inworld participation, but mostly it was that I just ran out of juice. What I have noticed, however, on my rare forays back inworld is that doing anything in SL is difficult. Once it stopped being second nature to walk, text, shop, build, I remembered just how steep the learning curve for SL was when I first joined back in 2006, when my mind was significantly more nimble than it is today.

I remember attending a party back then and literally being reduced to tears because I just couldn't juggle the UI, the windows of PMs and public chat, and all the other streams of information that bombarded me. I stuck with it, and eventually absorbed enough to function with less effort, but these days I'm far less motivated to go through that all over again, and frankly less able to rise to the demand.

All of which is a long-winded way to say that SL can be daunting to newcomers. So good luck to LL.

That's sad. We should go on an adventure or shopping or something soon.

 

[WolfEyes]

people are making bank from Sims

There are far too many excellent creators making free stuff for the Sims for me to believe anyone is earning a livable income from creating things from copyrighted sources. Anything you create for the Sims has to use Maxis' code/objects. Making money from that is illegal.