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Mobile Companion App for SL “Coming Soon”, Says Linden Lab CEO — Who Hints at 3D Viewer for Mobile Down the Road

Ebbe Altberg Linden Lab SL Mobile Lumiyq cloud streaming

His avatar festooned in both a Black Lives Matter T-shirt and Pride-themed pants, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg gave an in-world "state of SL" talk yesterday in celebration of the virtual world's 17th birthday. You can watch the whole thing below, but as far as I can tell, Ebbe doesn't really make any major announcements. However, he does drop a hint at the company's plans for developing mobile apps for SL (at around 1:06 in the video): 

We're still trying to figure out when we can actually enable the 3D viewer aspect of it into mobile but that's much further out for now we're working on what I would say is a communication companion app and I hope to see a beta of that pretty soon.

I'm assuming "pretty soon" probably means this year, but we'll see. This companion app has been in development since at least early 2019, and sounds very similar to "light viewer" third party SL mobile apps like Pocket Metaverse for iOS from over a decade ago. (Unfortunately now defunct.)

This is the first time I'm aware of that Altberg has acknowledged to the SL community that the company is working on a 3D viewer for mobile, which raises an interesting point:

Back in August 2018, Linden Lab was hiring a developer who could make a mobile app with 3D cloud streaming capability:

Linden Lab is looking for an innovative mobile app engineer to deliver a compelling, responsive mobile interface into Second Life… Experience with AWS or other cloud-based deployment models, especially streaming cloud-based rendering.

But it's nearly two years later, so it's strange we haven't heard much about that effort since then. (Ebbe mentioned it briefly in my 2019 interview with him.)

It's not exactly an unsolvable problem: OnLive had a cloud-rendering app for SL on mobile and low-end laptops back in 2014, and OnLive's former lead developer on that project suggested to me that another cloud rendering service should be feasible (with enough paying customers).

My guess is Linden Lab is focused on moving all of SL to the Amazon Web Services cloud (expected to happen later this year) before they focus on a cloud streaming option for mobile. Whatever the case, it sure seems a missed opportunity to not offer it sooner.

Anyway, rough notes from Ebbe's Q & A from intrepid rabbit report Daniel Voyager:

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4 responses to “Mobile Companion App for SL “Coming Soon”, Says Linden Lab CEO — Who Hints at 3D Viewer for Mobile Down the Road”

  1. Alicia Avatar
    Alicia

    “It’s not exactly an unsolvable problem: OnLive had a cloud-rendering app for SL on mobile and low-end laptops back in 2014, and OnLive’s former lead developer on that project suggested to me that another cloud rendering service should be feasible (with enough paying customers).”
    Like I said before when this was brought up the first time, LL would have to make SL a subscription-based game if they even try to make the mobile services a subscription-based fee. That means, folks, that every… and I do mean EVERY… account you have (main account and every alt account) will be forced to pay $11.99 per month/$10.99 quarterly ($32.97/3 month period)/$8.25 annually ($99 a year) plus tax as you will be paying the California sales tax. Bare in mind that you can only create one avi per account, so regardless, you’re getting rooked. LL simply can’t justify making people pay a fee for mobile services, just to log into SL; while you can simply log in via the main viewer or third-party viewers for free.
    If LL does do this, then the users with loads of accounts will have to decide on which accounts will be kept and which ones will have to be thrown out. Would bot accounts even be worth keeping under a fully subscription-based game, just to artificially inflate a the traffic on a sim? Would beggars, trolls/griefers and those who only pay/get paid in Lindens enjoy paying for a subscription just so they can log in? What about the creators and land owners who already make SL pay for itself? What changes would happen to them? These are some of the things no one thinks about, or even addresses, folks.
    With traditional MMOs, the full-subscription-based games do this literally at a fraction of the cost with different subscription tier costs and cosmetic items; while MMOs such as Lord of the Rings Online, TERA, DC Universe Online, all free-to-play with the option to upgrade to VIP (Subscription), offer stuff that also enhances your gameplay or unlocks it. At least with traditional MMOs, you’re paying one price to have at least 3-5 avis (depending on whether its full subcription or free-to-play).
    Folks, the bottom line is that LL simply can’t justify having a subscription fee for those on mobile while they can simply log into the main or third-party viewers for free. Something has to give, and that give would have to be to make SL a full, subscription-based game. Granted, there’s other reasons why they should (Adult/Sexual content), but that’s for another discussion.

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  2. CronoCloud Creeggan Avatar
    CronoCloud Creeggan

    Hamlet, you’re reaching with assuming they’ll be using cloud rendering. It would be quite possible to render SL on modern mobile. It might not have all the graphical bells and whistles, but it’s possible, after all Lumiya did it years ago.

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  3. Adeon Writer Avatar
    Adeon Writer

    A 3D mobile app is a long time coming, and would be something that could really revive SL…
    UNLESS it’s cloud computed. That changes it from potentially reviving SL to being dead on arrival.
    Please understand that.
    Unless the mobile platform can render the world locally on their own hardware, it is DEAD. ON. ARRIVAL.

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  4. Ezra 2.0 Avatar
    Ezra 2.0

    Mobile from store for one time purchase at $7.99 =Sold!
    Mobile Updates @3x yearly .99cents =Sold!
    Subscription Based SL Future =Second Life Closing!
    Firestorm is working on a Lumiya Alternative(Rumour)
    Just like they misjudged that whole Sansar disaster for going on a decade the death knell for SL would be not understanding the community by forcing thousands of residents to disappear overnight who cannot afford/ or unable to purchase premium(basic) or premium plus(basic+private regions)
    And why are the current servers several generations behind? (10yrs behind at the least!) because they thought Sansar would have became a success with it already in AWS, years ago they thought they would be winding down SL right about now and data center would be ready to close.
    If they offered a SLGO option I would pay to use that maybe $24.99 a month for all my accounts but not paid membership for each account, people forced to give up alts would lead to half the grid getting pissed off, becoming resentful towards linden lab.. then they would stop spending money. If they went to a pay to play access then Open Sim would finally seeing its day in the sun Kitely,Digiworldz and others would really take off.

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