Linden Lab Lays Off 10% of Employees

[Charlemagne Allen]

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.

You can always do a Patreon for content, including NSFW stuff.

 

[WolfEyes]

You can always do a Patreon for content, including NSFW stuff.

I don't do NSFW or Patreon. It's a hobby more than anything.

 

[Madi Perth]

That ain't no lie!

Pour mine back in the horse.

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

The end is near, they are gonna sell it or just shut it down. Everything LL does manages to hurts Second Life. You can only damage a platform so much before it just fails. Its been a great 14 years, but I won't be going anywhere else

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

In the future, when you do that FFY, thing you should probably strive to be more accurate. What you actually should say is minority of players, less than 4% of both adult and child AV were causing significant problems to Second Lifes public image. If Linden Lab had concentrated on fixing that issue from the start there would be no issues with Second Lifes public image today with this. Instead, Linden Lab chooses to pursue a ineffective system of 'wack a mole' policies and procedures that never addressed the real problem to start with.

Eventually this came to a head in April 2024 when Linden Lab mishandled the roll out of a new policy system meant to address this small 4% problem. Instead of correcting the real problem this caused a significant proportion of the user base to feel singled out and underappreciated for their support of the Second Life platform, causing them to exit the platform all together. On a platform with significant decline in user base; all this did was accelerate that decline by close to 10% in a few months.

Which brings us back around to the question at hand on Tommy Linden. As head of the governance board he would have had a direct hand in crafting and enforcing this policy, as well as how the system was rolled out. So, in a way, the decline over the last few months can be directly laid at his feet. Do you think this would have had a impact in the reason he might have been let go?

I always said EVERYTHING LL did regarding child avis and pedo play was totally effed up. It did absolutely NOTHING to address the problem and only served to alienate the innocent child avatar population.

But that is LL for you, they make a mess of everything they touch.

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

Wonder how much can I get on a quick sale of 4000+ sqm of 2x protected Zindra land? I'll get zero if Second life shuts down but if I'm not too greedy I could easily cash out two hundred bucks.

Something to defo consider

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

The end is near, they are gonna sell it or just shut it down. Everything LL does manages to hurts Second Life. You can only damage a platform so much before it just fails. Its been a great 14 years, but I won't be going anywhere else

I think people have been shouting the end of SL is near for a long time... LL's mess ups are often just more visible than when users creep up. I am doubtful SL will last forever but I think there is room for them to mess up for a long time before it finally dies.

And them being sold could be great... maybe a future owner would have the stones to do what LL won't.

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

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.

Similarly, just putting an avatar together became exponentially more complex with the advent of mesh bodies and especially mesh heads. The result was a standardized beautification industry that made it even more difficult to be an outlier -- such as an older butch woman -- than it had been in early days, and it had been hard enough back then. I identified less and less with my avatar, and perhaps it's that which snapped my frayed ties to SL.

I've moved on to Sims 4, where I can build to my heart's content. It's an empty world, devoid of ties to real people, but it's a fun sandbox.

Why did you stop building just because mesh became a thing? I still build to his day with prims, A cottage on one of my parcels is a mesh flf I bought, but I didn't tear down all my builds just because they weren't mesh.

And as for being unique, ditch the mesh head and use a system head you really like. I guarantee you will be one of a kind.

And now for something totally different... I had a 15 yr old noob hit me up for sex today, I was like, pity fuck, why not? He totally sucked, he didn't even have a hud for his cock, but after he had his 5 minutes of fun and left, I unfriended him, muted him and banned him from my parcel. It wasn't a total loss though, I got a blog post out of it.

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

IMHO* the health of SL is not helped by the fact that the primary function of the "marketing" department seems to be policing the official forums to ensure that all posts are doubleplus goodthink.


* For certain values of "humble."

LOL, maybe that's why they kicked me out of the forums, they weren't gonna have anyone left to moderate the bad apples and troublemakers

 

[Casey Pelous]

I get that LL is very concerned about the payment processors, and I can even empathize. If I got booted from my payment providers I'd be flipping burgers in very short order, pun only incidentally intended.

There was (is?) a site that was very upfront about being for erotic play -- unlike LL's cautious, "SL is for adult activities *wink wink nudge nudge* like building and texturing and, erm, you know, whatnot and thus and such...."

What was/is that site, and how do they manage payment? For that matter, porn sites must accept credit cards; I have a tough time imagining how the users would pay cash, though if the internet has taught us anything it is that demand for porn exceeds all other forces in physics. I also have a tough time imagining that no one on that site has ever engaged in age play. So, how do they get away with it while SL seemingly cannot?

 

[Beebo Brink]

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.

Most of the top Sims creators have Patreon support subscriptions. I spend about $10/month supporting my favorite mod scripters, usually $2 or $3 per creator. But when you multiply that by hundreds or even thousands of users, that's real money to be made.

 

[WolfEyes]

Most of the top Sims creators have Patreon support subscriptions. I spend about $10/month supporting my favorite mod scripters, usually $2 or $3 per creator. But when you multiply that by hundreds or even thousands of users, that's real money to be made.

Unfortunately, it's money made illegally if they haven't gotten the ok in writing from Maxis/EA. It's a loophole some creators use. I won't do it if for no other reason than I would be the one EA went after.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Unfortunately, it's money made illegally if they haven't gotten the ok in writing from Maxis/EA. It's a loophole some creators use. I won't do it if for no other reason than I would be the one EA went after.

No, that's not the way it works. As long as the content itself is free, Sims creators are allowed to ask for donations. My patreon support is entirely voluntary. I like donating to my favorite modders so it's worth their while to keep updating my favorite mods.

EA cracks down on modders selling their custom Sims 4 content - Ars Technica

 

[WolfEyes]

No, that's not the way it works. As long as the content itself is free, Sims creators are allowed to ask for donations. My patreon support is entirely voluntary. I like donating to my favorite modders so it's worth their while to keep updating my favorite mods.

EA cracks down on modders selling their custom Sims 4 content - Ars Technica

Like the article and I said, a loophole. if EA wanted to be its usual asshole self, they would not have been so generous to deliberately leave that loophole. I'm amazed people actually trust EA that much after everything EA has pulled over the years. Some of us have long memories.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

IMHO* the health of SL is not helped by the fact that the primary function of the "marketing" department seems to be policing the official forums to ensure that all posts are doubleplus goodthink.


* For certain values of "humble."

Not that I blame you, but I don't think you can have been keeping up with all the threads in the official forums complaining about PBR. The new Gacha policy doesn't seem particularly popular, either.

 

[Madi Perth]

The end is near, they are gonna sell it or just shut it down. Everything LL does manages to hurts Second Life. You can only damage a platform so much before it just fails. Its been a great 14 years, but I won't be going anywhere else

I imagine they will just try to sell it off but I can only think of two reasons anyone would want it. A large userbase to exploit or IP. Since there isn't much of a userbase left there goes the first one. I'm not sure about the value of the IP ether. The only reason I could see any one willing to buy it is simply because they like SL.

I still keep having dreams about Elon Musk buying it. I'm not sure that would be a boon or a curse.

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

I imagine they will just try to sell it off but I can only think of two reasons anyone would want it. A large userbase to exploit or IP. Since there isn't much of a userbase left there goes the first one. I'm not sure about the value of the IP ether. The only reason I could see any one willing to buy it is simply because they like SL.

I still keep having dreams about Elon Musk buying it. I'm not sure that would be a boon or a curse.

I wish Elon Musk would buy it. He believes in free speech, I'd get back in the forums. Best part, all the whiney left wing shits that inhabit SL would go boo hoo hoo and leave. Wait, they said the same thing when he bought Twitter, but the snowflakes are as thick as ever over there.

 

[Monica Dream]

I wish Elon Musk would buy it. He believes in free speech

 

[Monica Dream]

Best part, all the whiney left wing shits that inhabit SL would go boo hoo hoo and leave.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The end is near, they are gonna sell it or just shut it down. Everything LL does manages to hurts Second Life. You can only damage a platform so much before it just fails. Its been a great 14 years, but I won't be going anywhere else

I keep hearing that phrase since around 2008... so get a life.