Wagner James Au / New World Notes

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Despite Mobile, Streaming, Etc., Second Life Peak Concurrency in 2025 Down Somewhat From 2024 Levels

Second Life CCU 2024 2025

Note: "Population" in this context refers to peak concurrent users online

Reddit /SecondLife host "0xc0ffea" recently posted some fairly surprising data, citing numbers scrupulously documented by longtime SL blogger Daniel Voyager: The number of peak concurrent users in SL every month this year are consistently down somewhat from 2024, a loss from 2,687 to 3,954 month over month. (See chart by "0xc0ffea" above.)

Yes, a few thousand less users online is not a significant loss — except this loss has been consistent, and has been happening despite a wave of improvements and additions to the platform, as they note:

The peak monthly population this year has dropped by several thousand compared to this time last year, this is probably worse than it looks with increased botting (including LL's own AI experiment), the mobile mania promotion (which ran most of February during the steepest drop) in addition to paying users L$ rewards for using the mobile app and Project Zero.

Read it all here. l'll be following up with Linden Lab on these numbers, of course. It's quite possible the loss would have been even sharper, were not it for the addition of mobile, Project Zero, etc. Also, it's too early to say what impact the Creator Partnership Program will have on user growth.

Indeed, someone else on /SecondLife just posted about their own first-time user experience in SL, praising Mad Pea's game quest system from the program in particular:

I was not expecting it to be so populated! Even searching for sims myself based on niche interests, I would randomly happen upon a group of people or just others exploring as well. I had the idea I'd be exploring alone most of the time.

The "experiences" in SL are pretty interesting, especially stuff like MadPeas. I didn't know this kind of thing existed, I thought it was just walk around and explore, not actually stories and games.

Read all of that one here. Ultimately it's clear that incremental improvements are not moving the needle, and that highly radical rethinks of the platform are needed. But that's another conversation!

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4 responses to “Despite Mobile, Streaming, Etc., Second Life Peak Concurrency in 2025 Down Somewhat From 2024 Levels”

  1. Peter Avatar
    Peter

    History will call it the “PBR bump”.
    PBR was introduced rushed and problem-loaded, and left many users out in the rain. The Lab stayed silent or dismissive regarding those problems for quite a while, making users – many of them residents for many years – increasingly frustrated and disappointed. The fixes came late, Philip’s 11th hour return came late, and by then a chunk of residents have been gone for good.

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  2. SLWasSoldNewOwnersDontCare Avatar
    SLWasSoldNewOwnersDontCare

    Second Life is just old.
    It had it’s time but players have far more and even more affordable options for them to play Mr. Dressup and Barbie along with building and even incorporating gameplay.
    When a game is old there is only so much you can keep propping it up. I’m sure it will keep to its niche numbers where it is right now, but as far as its growth? Nah. It’s made up of a core fan group that can keep it up and running on life support but Roblox, VrChat and many others are the places the virtual world types want to be.
    The rest are playing games, dressing up and building worlds and homes in Fortnite

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  3. Wagner James Au Avatar
    Wagner James Au

    Roblox has been around since 2006 and is now huge. So maybe age in itself isn’t the problem?

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  4. Otoa Avatar
    Otoa

    (Oops I meant to post it here…)
    As a tourist (than tinkerer) I want to see thing that WOWs me. When I came back to SL in 2021 everything was WOWing to me (because I left around 2016) and with PBR settling down, I feel I have seen many typical things in SL. And… I am running out of things to see. Although almost everything is amazingly beautiful in SL, I feel many things are like snapshots of someone’s moment or expression—frozen in time. But not enough are alive. Not enough move, evolve, or surprise me. I can only find the depth and complexity in the mechanics of Second Life (like scripting and stuff…). I still love SL, but this abundant stillness without depth or dynamic complexity is starting to feel a little empty to me. I know I’m part of the problem, not the solution—but I still feel it.

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