Linden Lab: The Tough Love Developer

Watching Second Life developer Linden Lab handle community relations is like watching a wildly schizophrenic parent raise a child. One minute they’re cuddling their offspring and the next they’re chaining them to the bed. The truth is, LL’s community relations aren’t broken – they would have to have something to break first, and there’s little indication they have any guidelines in place to break. Why else would they expend so much effort attempting to promote a creator-friendly environment – going so far as to institute both an in-world currency exchange and point-to-point teleportation in apparent attempts to prime the content creation engine – but do such a horrendous job working with them directly on high-visibility projects? If they had a real set of worthwhile guidelines in place, these issues wouldn’t arise… again and again and again.

If you’ve read my previous entry on the Second Life/Wells Fargo Stage Coach Island advergame meltdown (Link), you have some background. If you need additional clarification, Clickable Culture has parsed much of that same information and posted something that might help (Link). But in the end, all you really need to know is that there are too many creators asking questions and bluntly saying that they’re now hesitant to work with Linden Lab on any future endeavors. That’s not good.

In any event, I’m here now to post the next official(?) Linden comment on this mess (the best we have for now). From Reuben Linden:

OK, here goes with some clarifications:

1. 30 sims were purchased by Linden lab by Swivel Media on behalf of Wells Fargo for the purposes of the BETA project.
2. Bedazzle was hired by Swivel to create the content for Stagecoach Island
3. Approximately 20 vendors created clothing, attractions, etc. for the island.
4. Shortly before launch, we all realized that a single group would need to take ownership of the vendor items in order make the process of maintaining/modifying the build possible
5. Linden Lab, acting on behalf of Swivel, negotiated “buyouts” of the content to compensate the vendors for the right to use their content for the BETA period. These vendors were also promised the $L for any sales that resulted during the BETA period (this has not yet been paid and is a very small # due to limited participation)
6. When Swivel Media ported the content to ActiveWorlds, they confused Cubey’s content with content created by Bedazzled. I believe Cubey and Swivel and working out a resolution to this now.

I’ve already pointed out one questionable line item on the forum. And I see some other things said here that don’t really answer some questions that need attention. How anyone believes Linden Lab will open source the SL client when they can’t handle transparency at this level is beyond me.

5 thoughts on “Linden Lab: The Tough Love Developer

  1. Heh, I see we’re on the same wavelength here, after replying to your comment at Clickable Culture. I think we’ll both be watching to see where this whole mess ends up. It seems there’ve been some steps in the right direction. I have a feeling this might all be swept under the rug, like was apparently the case with the failed SLTV project.

  2. I’m not sure I even want to watch anymore… unless it’s to see some big media company absorb them and take this technology to the next level.

  3. “Hey, Reub!”

    mb time for the content developers to start that union…

  4. Do you approve or disapprove of the closed process, Csven?
    I think it’s essentially at the root of this and other
    stories — they coddle and fete creators. But they do
    so in an unsustainable way with no community support
    because it is not transparent and accountable — even
    to those who are feted. Their more open Developers’
    Directory is a step in the right direction, but they

    But why all this absolutism? They got this wrong, they’ll
    move on to the next. Hey, there’s always another guy to
    buy the island.

    What, there’s no room in virtual worlds to make mistakes
    and learn from them and move on? I suggest THAT rigidity
    could also be at the root of the two-sided problem that is
    community relations in SL.

  5. Hello Prok. I didn’t edit your post, but it does appear to be screwed up (quite likely a problem with my modified WP installation – apologies if that’s the case). If you want to drop me an IM or notecard with corrected text, I’ll fix it.

    Anyway the problem I have with this whole thing is simple: LL can’t have it both ways. They can’t be both a “new age” company hoping to usher in a virtuality-based socialized revolution and a self-serving capitalist entity protecting it’s proprietary assets, and – right or wrong – that’s the impression I get from the things I’ve read and seen unfold. While I might appreciate and support the idea of tech-supported social systems, I’m too much the pragmatist. So for example you won’t be seeing me wearing a “Lessig for President” t-shirt anytime soon. I mean think about it. Why is there so much hype in proprietary Second Life about the impending virtual world visit and lecture of a guy that appears to be all about releasing code to the masses to kickstart some future Utopia (or whatever)? If they really agree with him and others who seem to be of similar mind (like Doctorow), what are they waiting for? A buyout (note: listen to a recent audio interview with CEO Philip Rosedale to hear his “buyout” quip)?

    I’m no fan of Lessig’s, myself obviously. When he starts making his living solely creating the stuff he wants people to give away instead of also making money lecturing and consulting about it, then maybe I’ll bother reading anything further he has to say. But afaic, Epstein kicks his ass. I’ve seen first hand how other systems work and everytime I come back to the capitalist U.S. I’m thankful for the system we have. But like other people I know who’ve not had those experiences, the people at LL seem to believe they can have both, and while there might be ways to have some coexistence between the two worlds (my hope and belief), it’s not as simple as I think they believe. And it’s especially difficult if they can’t maintain any semblence of consistency in how they deal with these matters and with the content community they’ve publically claimed to be dependent upon.

    If they’re going to depend on content creators for the growth of SL, then they need to at the very least keep them reasonably informed. And in that they’re obviously failing. I suspect what they’re instead focused on doing is trying (unsuccessfully) to manage their image, which means they’re attempting to be selective in what they communicate and obtuse when they do communicate. I’ve found that getting a straight answer out of them follows the old “pulling teeth” adage. And while I understand the fine line they’re treading on some issues (like IP and trademarks), I don’t understand it when it’s nothing more than a PR story (Tony over on Clickable Culture is, imo, correct in saying that this one venture is less important than Linden Lab’s relationship with their own users).

    Sure, the Wells Fargo press was great PR. But if Wells Fargo decided Second Life wasn’t really what they wanted, why not go out to the community – or at least the people involved – and tell them openly and honestly what was going on? And up til now I’ve read what should be informed comments from those involved and gone away scratching my head. It SHOULDN’T be this hard! And in the process of making these communication decisions (aka blunders), LL opens itself up to increased bad PR and potentially alienating the people they claim are imperative to SL’s growth.

    In any event since you ask, at this point, I’m unsure where I fall wrt open/closed processes since right now the reality is that SL is a propriety world (even if the claim is that it’s “your world”). Again, I’m just being pragmatic. I might want the processes to always be open, but until I give this the thought it deserves, I’ll stay on the fence. It IS new territory. Forming a rigid opinion on all this will have to come later.

    However, I don’t see this incident so much as a case of “open/close” as one of simply poor management. Why was such a high-profile project which both directly (Bedazzle) and indirectly (Terra et al) involved content creators allowed to turn into this mess in the first place? How did someone at LL allow a creator of such high standing within the community and perhaps their own trusted circle become so bitter? And perhaps most importantly, why is it that so many are NOT surprised at the poor handling of this situation? There’s plenty of room for mistakes in this fledling technology. I’m not sure there’s plenty of room for repeating mistakes.

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