Linden Lab lays off 30 staff

[Cristiano]

Wow, I didn't know my tiering down would have such an immediate impact.

 

[Ailsa Muliaina]

Suddenly glad I didn't just renew premium for another year.... I had a funny feeling between the price rises and mention of a higher level of premium etc, it just seemed like LL had a hole in their bank account and were planning to ask users for more money. There's some of that normally running a business, it just had a vibe about it that made me too wary of locking in the old pricing for another year.

I wouldn't miss Sansar if LL sold or killed it off, but it would be a shame if LL get bought by someone horrible. I'm tired of rapidly emptying and closing accounts on sites because they were acquired by a business I don't want to deal with. LL's user data would have value to some, I'm not sure if they'd attract a buyer who just wanted to work on SL/Sansar as products though.

I feel for the folk losing their jobs, seems a crappy time of year to be out of work.

 

[Casey Pelous]

If that rumour is true, I wonder who would buy them?

I'd guess someone interested in paying the current cash value of the future (slowly declining) profit stream. It would be sort of like buying an annuity. If I'm right (and if this isn't just yet another tech world rumor) downsizing the staff makes perfect sense, since it boosts the value of that profit stream.

More likely, I think, it's a sign LL is going to do with it what new owners would probably do -- milk the cash cow for as long as they can while investing as little as possible.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

That being said, I'm not super surprised that this is because of Sansar fallout. I guess all we can do is sit back and watch what steps LL will take to recoup.

Well we don't really know that for sure though. It's a sensible assumption, but there's no way of knowing whether it's the Sansar team that's been cut, or the SL team, or some of both. Ryan's latest update for example suggests that one of the "disappearing" Sansar lindens might have just moved to a less directly-interactive position. So for now just keep in mind that assumptions are still assumptions.

 

[Beebo Brink]

I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but it's just as likely that someone has bought out LL/Sansar/SL to kill it as competition for their own project.

Facebook's VR project, Horizon, comes immediately to mind. I could easily see Zuckerburg eliminating anything remotely like his offering.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but it's just as likely that someone has bought out LL/Sansar/SL to kill it as competition for their own project.

Facebook's VR project, Horizon, comes immediately to mind. I could easily see Zuckerburg eliminating anything remotely like his offering.

Both Facebook and Google do this kind of thing all the time, so that actually makes sense.

 

[RodeejahUrquan]

I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but it's just as likely that someone has bought out LL/Sansar/SL to kill it as competition for their own project.

Facebook's VR project, Horizon, comes immediately to mind. I could easily see Zuckerburg eliminating anything remotely like his offering.

Blergh.

Nothing is more vomit inducing than a FB backed VR with mom groups trying to hock their MLMs in 3D.

Moreover, if we were worried about ZuckZuck digging for personal info on a website...imagine a virtual world were folks go to live out their most private desires and fantasies?

 

[Sid]

I still can log in into SL, so we're all good.

 

[Beebo Brink]

I can't muster much grief for Sansar's passing -- if that is what we're seeing -- but I would be royally pissed if SL was knocked off, too, as collateral damage. The technology is old enough that I doubt it would be seen as competition for Horizon, but the question is whether it has enough of an income stream to warrant keeping it around.

 

[Wesleytron]

Facebook's VR project, Horizon, comes immediately to mind. I could easily see Zuckerburg eliminating anything remotely like his offering.

This would be my 'fear' - SL gets bought by some entrepreneurial ivory tower twat who fails to understand what they purchased and fails to comprehend that the thing they took over just to shut down as competition isn't actually remotely like the thing they are offering.

 

[Beebo Brink]

This would be my 'fear' - SL gets bought by some entrepreneurial ivory tower twat who fails to understand what they purchased and fails to comprehend that the thing they took over just to shut down as competition isn't actually remotely like the thing they are offering.

"Ivory tower twat"? That's not how you spell "corporate capitalist twat".

 

[Sid]

If that selling rumor should be true, I hope that Beth R. isn't involved.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Yeah but they also just recently closed down all their company-run public spaces; behind the scenes, it would seem the two platforms might be facing similar issues.

That would be the "there isn't a critical mass of users" problem I mentioned.

 

[Wesleytron]

"Ivory tower twat"? That's not how you spell "corporate capitalist twat".

Lol.. I stand corrected! As I was typing I was thinking.. "surely there's a better more appropriate phrase than 'ivory tower'"! But hopefully my sentiment wasn't lost...

Perhaps I should have just gone with 'total twat'

 

[Khamon]

Second Life can function as a cash cow for years if the owners will realize that it's an entertainment platform and cater to people who want to use it for entertainment purposes.

 

[Essence Lumin]

I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but it's just as likely that someone has bought out LL/Sansar/SL to kill it as competition for their own project.

Facebook's VR project, Horizon, comes immediately to mind. I could easily see Zuckerburg eliminating anything remotely like his offering.

I can't see Facebook worrying or caring about little old SL. They could well smother it with their hugeness without worrying about buying it. Though what I've seen of their proposed world with its legless cartoon avatars is different and lame.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Second Life can function as a cash cow for years if the owners will realize that it's an entertainment platform and cater to people who want to use it for entertainment purposes.

Well, yes, it can, but again, it all depends on the motivations of whoever bought LL (if indeed, it has been sold). There aren't too many investors interested in spending a chuck of money on slow, steady returns. These days especially, investors have gold fever and are looking for a flashy, sexy product that has the potential to make a technology splash. It's not rational, and it's not even good business sense, but take a look at the WeWork debacle for insight into the fevered brains of investment capitalists. New investors for an old platform is quite an optimistic view of what might be happening.

The more likely scenario is that someone like Zuckerberg is taking a scorched-earth approach and just razing the virtual landscape. Whether or not some aging platform like SL is true competition, and whether or not it fills a niche need for entertainment, all of that is probably irrelevant to him.

So color me wary.

 

[Luisa Land]

I am not sure whether this link is already posted



at the end Wagner James Au writes

"As for Second Life, Linden Lab is still hiring team members to work on that 16 year old virtual world.

Linden Lab Lays Off Over 20 Members of Sansar Team, Confirm Insiders; Social VR Platform to Continue Operating With Skeleton Crew

Confirming a blog post from Ryan Schultz (along with some ominous rumblings I heard last Friday), some insiders tell me that Linden Lab has recently laid off over 20 staffers working on Sansar, the company's social VR platform. Even more...

nwn.blogs.com

 

[Essence Lumin]

I am not sure whether this link is already posted

Linden Lab Lays Off Over 20 Members of Sansar Team, Confirm Insiders; Social VR Platform to Continue Operating With Skeleton Crew

Confirming a blog post from Ryan Schultz (along with some ominous rumblings I heard last Friday), some insiders tell me that Linden Lab has recently laid off over 20 staffers working on Sansar, the company's social VR platform. Even more...

nwn.blogs.com

That article says:

As for Second Life, Linden Lab is still hiring team members to work on that 16 year old virtual world.

Who knows how long those job offers have been up or how long they will stay up, but every one of them begins:

Linden Lab, a pioneer in the creation of virtual worlds, is poised for the public launch of “Sansar”, a social virtual reality platform that will democratize the creation of VR experiences. Linden Lab has been in business since 2003 and is best known for “Second Life”, the world’s largest user-generated economy.

 

[RyanSchultz]

Yes, apparently Nyx is gone.