It is another of the Internet's most cutting-edge applications outside the Web: the online community of surrogate identities in the 3D realm of Second Life. It's a virtual world supported by real dollars from companies that lease virtual space, providing the service with real revenue. But just how many real users does it have?
In a recent partnership agreement announced with the National Basketball Association, Commissioner David Stern cited what he characterized as Second Life's six million users. A check today of the site's Web home page refer to its 6.16 million "residents," 1.62 million of whom have logged on within the past 60 days.
In a story for InformationWeek published last week, Executive Editor Mitch Wagner asked a representative of Linden Lab for a clarification of Stern's quote. As he describes in a blog post last Friday, the number he received in return was staggering: While the company estimates its own flesh-and-blood user base to have reached 3.2 million at the end of last March, he learned, its actual user retention rate is close to 10%. Based on that formula, Linden Lab's everyday user count is close to 320,000.
At GDC 2024, Convai showed off a new AI NPC demo made with Unity. They also announced new features and partnerships with game developers.
Online life sim Second Life is removing gacha mechanics later this month, citing a "changing regulatory climate" as its reason for banning the surprise mechanics
Do that with Marvel Avengers and every other Gacha game and the wold would be great.
So, what games are you not allowed to stream on Twitch?
As they should be. There's no need for these kinds of games. It's just prurient nonsense.
