Wagner James Au / New World Notes

VRChat the Company Working With Sawhorse, Major Immersive Marketing Studio Behind Big Brand Activations in Roblox & Fortnite

June 18, 2025

Above: VRChat's listing in the AWE exhibitor tradeshow

A small booth at last week's Augmented World Expo could herald a pretty big move for VRChat the company:

They are now partnered with Sawhorse Productions, a top immersive marketing agency that's done a number of brand activations in metaverse platforms Roblox and Fortnite — including, most recently, a vampire game they created in Fortnite to promote Ryan Coogler's hit movie Sinners. (Trailer below.)

"Sawhorse is working with VRChat because we see it as an important UGC gaming platform for brands to activate on," CEO Nic Hill tells me, laying out his studios' upcoming plans:

"Our first phase is to build custom avatars for the new store. " (That was added to the platform this month.) "Then phase two is to integrate brands into game experiences and help them reach the VRChat audience and make impact there. We feel like brands looking to reach the more aged-up gaming audience of VR-first users should be leveraging VRchat."

He's right about aged up: Based on a survey I conducted with top VRChat YouTuber Syrmor, nearly 60% of the user base are in their 20s or older, with about 15% of them 30 or older.

Nic believes his existing clients could be a good fit for future VRChat campaigns:

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Survey: Nearly 1 in 4 Second Life Merchants Make $50,000 or More a Year from the Virtual World

June 18, 2025

22% of SL merchants surveyed in my 2025 state of the Second Life economy report— nearly 1 in 4 — earn real life income-levels of revenue from their Second Life content. By "real life income", I mean they earn $50,000 or more per year, which generally qualifies as a decent or excellent living, depending on various contingencies (local cost of living, number of working people in household, etc.)

In other words, when you consider that around 1600 Second Life merchants gross $10,000 or more a year from their SL content (according to Linden Lab), that would translate to over 350 SL creators who can live off of their SL creativity. Notably, that's almost twice as many people as Linden Lab itself employs full-time. (182, as of last year.)

Subscribe to my Patreon to read the whole report, and to get ideas/data for building your own SL brand!
Politically Provocative Second Life Art Installations Created & Photographed by Penumbra of Carterville

June 18, 2025

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Penumbra of Carterville may be doing a public service with “Toxic Tampons” as we are informed that they have found toxic pesticides in tampons at forty times the legal limit for water. Somehow I don’t think it is accidental that the tampons are shaped like rockets and march in a tighter formation than the U.S. Army did for Trump’s Dear Leader cosplay. You can see them at work in Penumbra’s short video:

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She provides a link to the installation so you can see it for yourself.

For more of Penumbra’s activism in SL, click here:

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Watch: MetaGravity Creating Minecraft Server With Up to 100,000 Concurrent Players — Up to 5,000 in a 100 Square Meter Area!

June 17, 2025

Here's the latest demo video of the Quark engine from MetaGravity, which employs "causal partitioning" (more on that below) to enable single shard virtual worlds with massive concurrency. They're showing off that technology later this year with their own Minecraft server, which they say will be able to handle up 100,000 concurrent players. (You can sign up here to request early access.)

Matthew Chuen, Head of Ecosystem at MetaGravity, says they're also able to handle high local concurrency, i.e. the number of avatars in your immediate vicinity:

"We have successfully handled 5,000 players within a 100-square-meter area with excellent performance," he says. "This is possible because our Causal Partitioning technology is fundamentally more efficient than traditional servers, avoiding the exponential lag that typically makes such high-density scenarios impossible."

Without diving too deeply into the technical details, here's how MetaGravity describes Casual Partitioning:

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Cajsa’s Choices: Stunning Second Life Photos of Somber Men by Spek

June 17, 2025

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Spek posted this picture “Runner” today. He’s alone on a beach that seems set up for massive crowds with cabins for vacationers. This pictures feels very lonely. I think he may have deliberately created that loneliness by dressing his avatar in dress pants with a belt and a white oxford shirt. He is apart from the scene, not dressed for it and all alone. On one level, it’s capturing alienation. It reminds me of a Robert Frost poem about snow, of all things.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars – on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

For more from Spek, click here:

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About That Linden Lab Job Mentioning “Gambling and Crypto” Applications…

June 17, 2025

Originally publisher on my Patreon

A recent Linden Lab job posting has causes some community grumbling (as here) because of how it might be interpreted:

We’re looking for seasoned BizOps Director to architect and build our operational framework from the ground up. Initially operating as an individual contributor, with the potential to build and lead your own team as business units scale. This role is pivotal to launching and scaling innovative business lines—including gambling, skill-based gaming, crypto applications, and virtual-world simulations. You’ll work cross-functionally to drive strategic planning, develop financial models, and build scalable processes that support hyper-growth.

Does this mean Linden Lab is actively planning to add gambling and crypto features in Second Life?

Not necessarily. I’m told by an insider that there are no active gambling or crypto initiatives going on in the company right now. (Indeed, when I asked Brad Oberwager about bringing gambling to SL last year, he told me:

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Second Life Community Mourn Loss of Talented Machinima Filmmaker Tutsy Navarantha — Watch His Acclaimed 2011 Short “Journey into the Metaverse”.

June 16, 2025

I'm sad to read the news that the real life owner of Tutsy Navarantha, acclaimed Second Life-based artist, recently died. Many SL community members have already posted farewells and memorials on his RL Facebook account.

He created until close to the very end, such as this poignant image, "Alone Against the World" on Flickr last March. (Cajsa's tribute to his SL photos is here.) My fondest memory of him can be watched above — 2011's award-winning "Journey into the Metaverse", one of the best Second Life machinimas ever made. I interviewed him about it then, getting a glimpse of his artistic vision and a bit about his fascinating first life:

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Spotlight Search: What Smaller, Newer, Lesser-Known Second Life Brands Deserve More Publicity?

June 16, 2025
Last week's open forum where readers recommended new-ish, small-ish brands for me to feature went so well, I'd like to make it a regular series.* So I ask once again:

What new-ish, smaller, lesser known SL merchants/brands deserve more attention and publicity?

To nominate your favorites, please go to Comments and post:
- Name of the brand
- Marketplace page
- Main social media channel
- Short description of why they deserve more attention/publicity.
There's no hard set guidelines for what brands qualify as "new" or "small", but here's some flexible ones:

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Top Three Posts Including a Deep Look at the Second Life Economy, a Wayward AI-Meets-Nethack Contest, and Three New-ish/Small-ish SL Brands to Check Out

June 16, 2025
Second Life Shopping Ideas: Neon Sign, Swinging Earring & Meme Tattoo from New-ish, Small-ish Reader-Recommended Brands

June 13, 2025

We're getting some good reader recommendations for new-ish, small-ish SL brands that deserve more coverage. So let's start now with some shopping ideas for the weekend! Beginning with this steampunk-esque, customizable neon sign from SIGNA*.

"Two of the main artists built roleplay and art sims for over 10 years without doing anything commercial," says reader "Raincoat". "I've seen what they can do and some of the stuff that's in the pipeline, this marketplace is just the tip of the iceberg and a space to be watched for sure."

Two more recommendations below!

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