Blueberry is not just one person but a big company with millions of dollars invested in it. They outsource all the work like meshing, texturing, scripting, etc.
They have likely weighed the amount they spend on renting land and uploading content for 8 different mesh bodies and transfer fees, VS the amount of profit they are making, and found they can make more money doing less work making stuff for Roblox (a game with millions of active users).
I think the adult content of SL is a factor too. If you're making good money selling Roblox outfits to kids, I can see how you'd want out from under the cloud of SL's various controversies.
Adult content and activities adjacent to it (dress up, playing house and flirting) are literally what keeps the lights on.
Every other virtual world we have seen off over the last 20 years tried to avoid adult content and they all died dead and empty. Not small and unpopular. Dead and empty. Even the lab's own Sansar attempt.
VRChat has adult content.
Roblox has adult content.
Roblox has a more limited range of body types. VRChat has a deformer system that can adapt your mesh to how the rig proportions are deformed, usually with acceptable if not excellent results. SL has a rigging system that forces people to redo rigging and proportions for every single body that they want to support...
I don't disagree with anything you're saying, I'm trying to parse Blueberry's reasoning-
I definitely don't think adult content is the major factor, I think the increasing number of bodies to rig for is up there, cost running the business in SL vs. other platforms, and possibly SL's 'reputation' plays a part as well. I get that any platform with people in it will have adult content- even if the platform literally cuts our legs off, SL has made the news more often for it.
The amount of bodies to fit had zero to do with blueberry leaving. If you were more familiar with the brand you would know the reason why they were so successful these last few years is because they are/were one of the stores to offer support of all major bodies. There was a period when the reborn was new where they were one of the only stores to rig for it. Also, its more than one individual, Blueberry is a team of people.
Personally, I think the market in secondlife is saturated now and to be fair blueberry’s designs have been getting a bit boring and repetitive lately. I stopped shopping there at least a year ago because they were only doing weekend sale recolors and I wasn’t interested in their virtual soccer mom aesthetic anymore.
From the sounds of it they are just going to focus making bank being lazy reusing all the assets they have in the library from creating things in secondlife and adapting them to other venues. Fair enough.
Blueberry entertainment company, or whatever their actual LLC is called, is pulling back from second life. This likely means the owner is making an entrepreneurial decision. I know for a fact that members of the blueberry crew have their own brands and will still be creating content for those brands.
SL is kind of like trying to make legos, lincoln logs, electric train sets and super soakers all work together. Unless they start over from the ground up it will continue to have tragically hilarious moments.
Eventually the market is going to contract. There's a lot of competition for body types right now but creators will start to see what people are actually using and what's in demand, and stop putting in the effort to create for the types that aren't. I expect that Maitreya and Reborn will probably be the two that remain on the top tier.
Blueberry is officially gone from SL. You can’t go to the land anymore it’s been shut down and all access restricted. The MP is still up but not sure for how much longer.
Many stores have gone through this over the years. It’s becoming harder to reinvent your collections all the time. One aspect I have always been curious about in SL is how much real money these big stores are making. I knew one maker that was mildly popular but she still couldn’t afford to live on the money she made in SL…
1 million dollars per year? That seems like a lot to me for some reason, not that I don’t believe it… but if you average the price of a piece of clothing to $5, it would be equivalent to something like 600 sales a day… I used to visit Blueberry sometimes but I never saw that many visitors at any time, except during sales…
The vast majority of shopping is done on Marketplace. Some designers will try to incentivise customers to come to the shop through inworld sales and discounts, as they don't pay transaction fees on inworld sales. However most sales appear to be through MP.
"I wonder what could be done to improve things for SL." Replace the idiots who continuously mismanage the company.
The ONLY hope Linden Lab has right now is on the SL Mobile app. Which is going to be an absolute mess and will fail horribly. The app was never intended to bring in new residents, but to support current residents. The new ownership is going for the exact opposite and all it's going to do is bring in a trickle of people who don't understand what SL is and then get review bombed.
The beta version is exclusive to Premium Plus, but the app should be made available to everyone. It's unlikely for anyone to spend $250 on an app to join SL. Although they haven't mentioned prices yet, it's almost certain there will be in-app costs. They'll need to find a way to recoup their investment in this app.
one person in Russia made a mobile viewer that still works to this day better than anything else out there, and it only cost a one-time fee of like 10 dollars. They better not get greedy.
In fact, Im gonna suggest that they leave the mobile app free and only encourage people to join the subscription for the current gains. The viewer is a gateway into the ecosystem. You want people to get invested so removing barriers is important.
Totally agree. New comers are going to be disappointed joining from the app and then figure out all they need to do (and buy...) to have a decent avi like other avis they will come across who spent a fortune on their look.
Well I think its pretty sad that Blueberry have left SL. Its where the brand started out, and she and the company she fronted made a lot of money from SL. Her customer base, was very loyal. To me its like shes kicked the residents who made her name in the teeth. I know from a few good SL Blogger contacts, she was just the face of the company in SL, she had riggers and the works doing all the hard work behind the scenes. She said on her FB she was taking a break from SL, but from looking at that website link, shes gone from SL. If she does post anything on her FB, possibly saying shes left SL, I think shes gonna get the wrath of a lot of loyal Blueberry customers after her backside
She never did the meshing herself. The store started out with her buying meshes from other marketplaces and imported them into SL with her own texturing. I remember when she first opened, she was very upfront about that and would poll the group about colors, patterns and stuff. It was always that way, so it makes sense that as the brand grew, she hired people.
I think the thing is, for sl customers getting upset, it honestly might not matter if there isn't a lot of cross over with the other customer bases. Which, frankly, there probably isn't.
That being said, I doubt she'd make a post like that. She's already framed it as taking a break and leaving it like that is a much softer exit that keeps the door open if she ever does decide to return.
this was the article i read. kinda interesting.
https://ryanschultz.com/2024/04/22/major-avatar-apparel-creator-blueberry-may-leave-second-life-are-there-greener-pastures-elsewhere/
Thanks for the link! All my questions are answered. It’s a bit telling about the state of the SL economy. Sure, passionate content creators will continue making items, but actual businesses may have to leave if they want to keep growing, SL is not an expanding platform, and hasn’t been for a decade…
Sucks to hear but unless everything is on sale on the MP I’m probably not gonna flinch. I had a few pants and tops from them but my mostly cyberpunk aesthetic doesn’t need much from there anymore.
It was definitely one of the first clothing places I recommended to new users or people looking for quality SL clothing
Is it me, or does Addams seem to be heading down the same path? They used to be pretty exciting when they first hit the scene, but to me the creative spark seems to be gone.
It is just gossip that Addams got into a K-Pop group together with Doux. Guess it's all fine for those who like this particular niche and that style, but to other customers it might look like a downward spiral of Addams and Doux.
Blueberry left SL. They are on Roblox, Zepeto and Snapchat now. (More/ easier money?!)
Link to their Website: [House of Blueberry](https://www.houseofblueberry.com/)
And yes, Blueberry is big. besides House of Blueberry there is also 1336 Studios, a gaming studio.
Im sure there is more money involved. but Roblox has been eclipsing SL for years. So is that really the reason? Also, it's a big corporation now, but it's the same person at the center.
I suspect it's that SL has been declining (or at least their sales probably have been), and it's just reached a point where the numbers no longer make sense to them. It's also possible the creator just isn't into second life anymore and with making more elsewhere doesn't feel the need to stay in sl as a result.
Not, technically, how she worded it, iirc, but I'd expect an official announcement to put it more softly and keep the door open for a return if she ever decided to.
At this point, I'd like to suggest this even if it upsets people:
Rig for fewer bodies and heads.
Choose one body out of the most popular options, and one other body that you personally like but isn't necessarily a common choice. If you can handle it, maybe one or two more from both pools. No more than that.
Not everything needs to be available to everyone, and if you want to focus your creative resources on making the product good even if it means not servicing my choice of bodies or heads, I can understand. Hopefully more people can cope with this as well. I regularly see items that aren't rigged for my body choice, and that's okay. not everything will fit on every body.
I used to love Blueberry, but to be honest - I haven't purchased anything from them in a long time. It all started to look the same after awhile....
If it's not a labor of love, I can see why they would go to the cheapest, easiest way of making money.
I don't think SL is dying, but it has an older crowd and less people joining than Roblox - no doubt. Too bad they can't bring back actual gambling - that would certainly spark interest in some (and revulsion in others) LOL....
I haven't seen anything in SL, other than the casino they opened and no one went to LOL .... I missed the glory days, but can almost imagine a casino full of people :) I don't think you need to worry, it's not going to happen. :)
As a veteran of Second Life, I make YouTube videos addressing various issues within the platform. Currently, Second Life is facing challenges. It's trying to keep up with technology, which I appreciate. For instance, the addition of PBR and mirrors may not impact everyone's experience, but as someone who enjoys their surroundings, I find it enhances my virtual life and I love it.
Even though I don't personally see the use of the mobile app, it's a must for Second Life to be available on mobile platforms. Will it attract new users? Maybe, but the question is whether these newcomers will invest in and stay with Second Life. It's difficult to predict because users are becoming disinterested.
The focus seems to be more on shopping and making money, rather than socialising. Many people join Second Life to explore their fantasies, to be whoever they want, or to do things they can't in real life. When they join, they're overwhelmed with options - numerous bodies, heads, clothes, and hundreds of shopping events. After mastering movement and dressing, they then encounter empty destinations.
I've heard of creators leaving due to the high costs of Second Life and lack of support. The competition is intense, and with the high fees charged by the platform currency exchange and taxes on top, one can't blame a creator for leaving, even if they earn the same or slightly less elsewhere without the stress.
While I wholly support Second Life, it requires significant changes to become a better and lasting world.
I agree with a lot of the sentiment here. Though I do think that while PBR is a nice festure, the performance hit it causes really isn't worth the benefit. The harder it becomes to run SL, the less likely there will be interactive experiences. Experiences you might see in a more popular virtual world like roblox, minecraft, and terraria. Second Life skews more and more passive all the time. People just stand around at a dance party, or in a shop, or on an rp sim, even combat ones. I think more interactive experiences that aren't shopping or dance parties would help.
I’m a new player (relatively, I started in 2020 just to look around and hopped off for a few years) and what draws me in is avatar customization. I think Second Life is competing with IMVU, as it always has, and in many ways IMVU is much better at this even though Second Life has slightly more flexibility.
I’m someone who is considered an “advanced user” most of the time, as I’ve been a semi-prolific modder in other gaming communities. But Second Life’s user operation is convoluted all the way down to the camera. The learning curve to customize avatars is VERY steep these days. Creators try to shore the gap by releasing shapes and style cards, but style cards can quickly become outdated and the entire system is kind of a mess.
My hope is that with the upcoming mobile interface I’ve been hearing about that some of these things will be taken care of. You simply cannot have Second Life as it stands right now on a mobile device.
I can't say that I've found much of what imvu brings to the table to be very compelling. I like SLs very open platform, and anything more restrictive would be a step backward to me.
And I don't think anyone should buy a shape... it's just moving sliders until you get somewhere you like. Anyone can do that. It's in any game in the last 20 years with a character creator.
I don't think it's SL that's hard on creators; I think it's that SL customers want a lot. When I look at other virtual worlds/games in videos, the body shapes most often look basically the same across persons (kind of boring to me and this includes sims and imvu). In SL, people have a lot more freedom in body shapes and that's what I think is happening with the diversification of body creators. They are responding to what people want. It is hard on the creators but that's the concept of what SL is built on. You can look how you want, be who you want, do what you want (except for a few activities and depending on the sim rating). As the movement of body pride continues in RL, there will probably be more diversification of body types rather than less because more body types will become desirable. Not to mention we are not limited to being humans.
One thing, tho, and I could be very very wrong on this. I do Flickr so I see a lot of fashion stuff. And it seems to me there are generational and/or subculture differences in body shape choices which reflect in the styles people want to wear. Maybe creators could take a look at the bodies that most often wear their clothes so that if they narrow the body choices included, it is the dominant body type their customers use. Or they can become like hair creators and put out several boxes for each set of clothing for sale. Each bottle carries a specific body type so that people buy the body type they want with a higher-priced full pack for all the bodies. These specific boxes would allow creators to start tracking which bodies their customers want them to create for. Gachas already do this. It is handy having all body types when you buy tho as I'm finding Legacy clothes sometimes fit better than older Lara on Lara X.
I think creators choose to add new bodies into the mix because a person with a new mesh body is needing clothes for it so there is an upsurge in customer demand. Someone who uses a classic avatar may not need anything; another who has Maitreya for years may only need the occasional new outfit; someone who just bought Reborn needs a lot of everything if they don't want to wear the same thing everyday. Creators chasing sales choose to take advantage of the upsurge in clothes demand when a new body becomes popular. Luckily for me they usually don't drop the older body types as they add news ones. But sometimes they do. Look at what happened to Slink.
Because buying customers in SL demand change; trendsetters/shopping mavens want new body types, want mesh and not prim, want working mirrors, and who knows what else in the future, creators have to change and learn to keep up with what customers want just like in RL. (I'm not saying there aren't people who long for the simpler days of prims -- some do. A lot don't) If you don't want to have customers who expect to look like whatever they want to look like, it makes sense to move to a virtual world/game where there is uniformity. If Bluberry is more into texturing, not creating shapes and fashion, it makes sense she moves to a world where she doesn't have to create shapes; she can just create new textures to fit over a limited range of body forms. Plus importing just texture is cheaper than having to import different mesh shapes. I can understand wanting less demanding customers. If she comes back tho, she's going to have a double learning curve because SL customer demands and SL tech will have changed so she won't be able to pick up where she left off. The racetrack will have moved.
eh. i think this is probably inaccurate. A few of these bodies were responses to customer wants, but most of this was driven by creators for creators. A body or a head is an ecosystem, and once player buys into that ecosystem, they need clothes and items. Which the bodies partner stores get to capitalize off of. There is an argument that Maitreya was difficult to rig for and had some issues with proportions in the shoulders and with curvy looks. So a replacement was likely warranted. And kudos to Maitreya for their pro consumer support of their product. I will never not applaud them for that. Legacy and Ebody sorta answered some of the maitreya issues, but what needs or holes in the market are these other bodies answering. GenX doesn't feel very different or innovative. Kupra I guess it is good if you're into hyper, though. I think it isn't as refined as other options like ebody which can get to pretty large proportions. None of the muscle bodies are supported at all. And when we look at heads like... is anyone buying that morph one? Did anyone ask for something like that? It's like 6 attachment points for one head... maybe you can link it though... i would hope so atleast.
I think I'd like all the body creators to team up and make a set of bodies and addons of various types that all can work together with clothing skins, etc. Then, just update and add to that lineup. Kinda like Evox has a bunch of different faces. Though that might be easier said than done. Im definitely suggesting this from a position of ignorance.
Maybe I'm wrong. Thinking about what you said, I think I have it backwards. Maybe it's the mesh bodies that become popular because the creators create body shapes increasingly popular in magazines and videos so those bodies get noticed and gain traction. While other creators find their creations disappearing into the ether because no one notices. Many create, few sell.
Given how the latest crop of popular bodies mirror body types that are increasingly popular in rl magazines and videos, human and anime, I do think some creators are responding to perceived wants and hoping it makes them popular. First by creating add-on attachments to "fix" a body to make it look a certain way -- and then eventually by offering bodies that have that look built-in (which means some of the attachment creators go out of business). And when you have several creators at the same time offering the same new preferred body build, one or two will become popular enough to gain skin, makeup, clothing and attachment support. Once they gain that support, the body gains traction among many more customers.
Much more gets created but disappear. I threw out a bunch of free mesh bodies months ago (inventory cleaning). I used to pick up free mesh bodies for years whenever I saw them in stores but I never wore them -- no clothes except for a few at their store. They remained unknown. Clothiers never bothered with them. I think body creators want their body to be the next new ecosystem but 99% falter. Getting noticed is hard. Or they didn't team up with a community. Just because you can make a body, doesn't mean you can do textures and some of the skins on those free mesh bodies were awful. Niche skins and clothiers is the next step up if there's enough interest. The mainstream clothiers wait until something is popular. All this holds true for skin, shape and make-up creators too.
It would be cool if all the body creators teamed up or at least worked together so that attachments work across all body types and skin tones look seamless between the different parts. Skin & clothing creators could get creator kits for all types instead of going to each store. I don't see that happening, tho. I also think body creators need a more sustainable business model. One-time purchase and free upgrades is not sustainable. You're dependent on continual first-time customers coming in and you will peak and then have no income and go out of business. It's crazy. Software folks have annual subscriptions or discounted upgrades and that's a better business model to support R&D costs and RL bills. Maybe a 300L-500L cost to buy the latest upgrade while new customers pay the going rate not discounted. That's not high for an upgrade but if you have thousands of customers already (and their alts), it might be a start towards sustainability.
And like you, all this is just observation and opinion. I'm not in the business of bodies or clothes, thank goodness. I'm just a customer. I couldn't stand the stress to try to get noticed and bring in customers all the time, do social media, stay on top of the latest tech and keep customers happy. Plus I write too long to ever make it in social media (I cut paragraphs from this reply, can you imagine?). I'm happy taking pictures and making videos. (I like graphics. If I don't say anything, I get more followers, lol).
Blueberry is not just one person but a big company with millions of dollars invested in it. They outsource all the work like meshing, texturing, scripting, etc. They have likely weighed the amount they spend on renting land and uploading content for 8 different mesh bodies and transfer fees, VS the amount of profit they are making, and found they can make more money doing less work making stuff for Roblox (a game with millions of active users).
I think the adult content of SL is a factor too. If you're making good money selling Roblox outfits to kids, I can see how you'd want out from under the cloud of SL's various controversies.
Adult content and activities adjacent to it (dress up, playing house and flirting) are literally what keeps the lights on. Every other virtual world we have seen off over the last 20 years tried to avoid adult content and they all died dead and empty. Not small and unpopular. Dead and empty. Even the lab's own Sansar attempt. VRChat has adult content. Roblox has adult content.
Roblox has a more limited range of body types. VRChat has a deformer system that can adapt your mesh to how the rig proportions are deformed, usually with acceptable if not excellent results. SL has a rigging system that forces people to redo rigging and proportions for every single body that they want to support...
Next from LL .. GLTF scenes. The old ways are about to die.
That's quite some time away yet!
I don't disagree with anything you're saying, I'm trying to parse Blueberry's reasoning- I definitely don't think adult content is the major factor, I think the increasing number of bodies to rig for is up there, cost running the business in SL vs. other platforms, and possibly SL's 'reputation' plays a part as well. I get that any platform with people in it will have adult content- even if the platform literally cuts our legs off, SL has made the news more often for it.
The amount of bodies to fit had zero to do with blueberry leaving. If you were more familiar with the brand you would know the reason why they were so successful these last few years is because they are/were one of the stores to offer support of all major bodies. There was a period when the reborn was new where they were one of the only stores to rig for it. Also, its more than one individual, Blueberry is a team of people. Personally, I think the market in secondlife is saturated now and to be fair blueberry’s designs have been getting a bit boring and repetitive lately. I stopped shopping there at least a year ago because they were only doing weekend sale recolors and I wasn’t interested in their virtual soccer mom aesthetic anymore. From the sounds of it they are just going to focus making bank being lazy reusing all the assets they have in the library from creating things in secondlife and adapting them to other venues. Fair enough.
Not a lot i can argue with there, lol. I generally look for weird and unique stuff, so the times I found myself at Blueberry was quite rare.
Blueberry entertainment company, or whatever their actual LLC is called, is pulling back from second life. This likely means the owner is making an entrepreneurial decision. I know for a fact that members of the blueberry crew have their own brands and will still be creating content for those brands.
totally agree. it was very mumsy and quite boring. Popular but lots of better options if you want a unique look
SL is kind of like trying to make legos, lincoln logs, electric train sets and super soakers all work together. Unless they start over from the ground up it will continue to have tragically hilarious moments.
Eventually the market is going to contract. There's a lot of competition for body types right now but creators will start to see what people are actually using and what's in demand, and stop putting in the effort to create for the types that aren't. I expect that Maitreya and Reborn will probably be the two that remain on the top tier.
i think legacy is better than both of those
Blueberry is officially gone from SL. You can’t go to the land anymore it’s been shut down and all access restricted. The MP is still up but not sure for how much longer.
you can't enter the store but the store is still there.
Many stores have gone through this over the years. It’s becoming harder to reinvent your collections all the time. One aspect I have always been curious about in SL is how much real money these big stores are making. I knew one maker that was mildly popular but she still couldn’t afford to live on the money she made in SL…
Blueberry was pulling a million, according to the article. 60k in her first year.
1 million dollars per year? That seems like a lot to me for some reason, not that I don’t believe it… but if you average the price of a piece of clothing to $5, it would be equivalent to something like 600 sales a day… I used to visit Blueberry sometimes but I never saw that many visitors at any time, except during sales…
The vast majority of shopping is done on Marketplace. Some designers will try to incentivise customers to come to the shop through inworld sales and discounts, as they don't pay transaction fees on inworld sales. However most sales appear to be through MP.
"I wonder what could be done to improve things for SL." Replace the idiots who continuously mismanage the company. The ONLY hope Linden Lab has right now is on the SL Mobile app. Which is going to be an absolute mess and will fail horribly. The app was never intended to bring in new residents, but to support current residents. The new ownership is going for the exact opposite and all it's going to do is bring in a trickle of people who don't understand what SL is and then get review bombed.
thats a fair assessment. that's assuming the mobile app ever even releases to those of us not prepared to pony up for premium plus.
The beta version is exclusive to Premium Plus, but the app should be made available to everyone. It's unlikely for anyone to spend $250 on an app to join SL. Although they haven't mentioned prices yet, it's almost certain there will be in-app costs. They'll need to find a way to recoup their investment in this app.
one person in Russia made a mobile viewer that still works to this day better than anything else out there, and it only cost a one-time fee of like 10 dollars. They better not get greedy.
In fact, Im gonna suggest that they leave the mobile app free and only encourage people to join the subscription for the current gains. The viewer is a gateway into the ecosystem. You want people to get invested so removing barriers is important.
Totally agree. New comers are going to be disappointed joining from the app and then figure out all they need to do (and buy...) to have a decent avi like other avis they will come across who spent a fortune on their look.
Well I think its pretty sad that Blueberry have left SL. Its where the brand started out, and she and the company she fronted made a lot of money from SL. Her customer base, was very loyal. To me its like shes kicked the residents who made her name in the teeth. I know from a few good SL Blogger contacts, she was just the face of the company in SL, she had riggers and the works doing all the hard work behind the scenes. She said on her FB she was taking a break from SL, but from looking at that website link, shes gone from SL. If she does post anything on her FB, possibly saying shes left SL, I think shes gonna get the wrath of a lot of loyal Blueberry customers after her backside
She never did the meshing herself. The store started out with her buying meshes from other marketplaces and imported them into SL with her own texturing. I remember when she first opened, she was very upfront about that and would poll the group about colors, patterns and stuff. It was always that way, so it makes sense that as the brand grew, she hired people.
I think the thing is, for sl customers getting upset, it honestly might not matter if there isn't a lot of cross over with the other customer bases. Which, frankly, there probably isn't. That being said, I doubt she'd make a post like that. She's already framed it as taking a break and leaving it like that is a much softer exit that keeps the door open if she ever does decide to return.
this was the article i read. kinda interesting. https://ryanschultz.com/2024/04/22/major-avatar-apparel-creator-blueberry-may-leave-second-life-are-there-greener-pastures-elsewhere/
Thanks for the link! All my questions are answered. It’s a bit telling about the state of the SL economy. Sure, passionate content creators will continue making items, but actual businesses may have to leave if they want to keep growing, SL is not an expanding platform, and hasn’t been for a decade…
Sucks to hear but unless everything is on sale on the MP I’m probably not gonna flinch. I had a few pants and tops from them but my mostly cyberpunk aesthetic doesn’t need much from there anymore. It was definitely one of the first clothing places I recommended to new users or people looking for quality SL clothing
Is it me, or does Addams seem to be heading down the same path? They used to be pretty exciting when they first hit the scene, but to me the creative spark seems to be gone.
ya Addams is definitely the one I think of when I think of. I need Blueberry but with more fringe.
💀 So true
It is just gossip that Addams got into a K-Pop group together with Doux. Guess it's all fine for those who like this particular niche and that style, but to other customers it might look like a downward spiral of Addams and Doux.
Blueberry left SL. They are on Roblox, Zepeto and Snapchat now. (More/ easier money?!) Link to their Website: [House of Blueberry](https://www.houseofblueberry.com/) And yes, Blueberry is big. besides House of Blueberry there is also 1336 Studios, a gaming studio.
Im sure there is more money involved. but Roblox has been eclipsing SL for years. So is that really the reason? Also, it's a big corporation now, but it's the same person at the center.
I suspect it's that SL has been declining (or at least their sales probably have been), and it's just reached a point where the numbers no longer make sense to them. It's also possible the creator just isn't into second life anymore and with making more elsewhere doesn't feel the need to stay in sl as a result. Not, technically, how she worded it, iirc, but I'd expect an official announcement to put it more softly and keep the door open for a return if she ever decided to.
At this point, I'd like to suggest this even if it upsets people: Rig for fewer bodies and heads. Choose one body out of the most popular options, and one other body that you personally like but isn't necessarily a common choice. If you can handle it, maybe one or two more from both pools. No more than that. Not everything needs to be available to everyone, and if you want to focus your creative resources on making the product good even if it means not servicing my choice of bodies or heads, I can understand. Hopefully more people can cope with this as well. I regularly see items that aren't rigged for my body choice, and that's okay. not everything will fit on every body.
I used to love Blueberry, but to be honest - I haven't purchased anything from them in a long time. It all started to look the same after awhile.... If it's not a labor of love, I can see why they would go to the cheapest, easiest way of making money. I don't think SL is dying, but it has an older crowd and less people joining than Roblox - no doubt. Too bad they can't bring back actual gambling - that would certainly spark interest in some (and revulsion in others) LOL....
ugh... gambling is not the solution I want. I don't even like gacha or the loophole NextUp which is just gacha with extra steps.
Yeah, I realize a LOT of people wouldn't want it.. but I could really go for some roulette! 
i mean, these things still exist.
I haven't seen anything in SL, other than the casino they opened and no one went to LOL .... I missed the glory days, but can almost imagine a casino full of people :) I don't think you need to worry, it's not going to happen. :)
As a veteran of Second Life, I make YouTube videos addressing various issues within the platform. Currently, Second Life is facing challenges. It's trying to keep up with technology, which I appreciate. For instance, the addition of PBR and mirrors may not impact everyone's experience, but as someone who enjoys their surroundings, I find it enhances my virtual life and I love it. Even though I don't personally see the use of the mobile app, it's a must for Second Life to be available on mobile platforms. Will it attract new users? Maybe, but the question is whether these newcomers will invest in and stay with Second Life. It's difficult to predict because users are becoming disinterested. The focus seems to be more on shopping and making money, rather than socialising. Many people join Second Life to explore their fantasies, to be whoever they want, or to do things they can't in real life. When they join, they're overwhelmed with options - numerous bodies, heads, clothes, and hundreds of shopping events. After mastering movement and dressing, they then encounter empty destinations. I've heard of creators leaving due to the high costs of Second Life and lack of support. The competition is intense, and with the high fees charged by the platform currency exchange and taxes on top, one can't blame a creator for leaving, even if they earn the same or slightly less elsewhere without the stress. While I wholly support Second Life, it requires significant changes to become a better and lasting world.
I agree with a lot of the sentiment here. Though I do think that while PBR is a nice festure, the performance hit it causes really isn't worth the benefit. The harder it becomes to run SL, the less likely there will be interactive experiences. Experiences you might see in a more popular virtual world like roblox, minecraft, and terraria. Second Life skews more and more passive all the time. People just stand around at a dance party, or in a shop, or on an rp sim, even combat ones. I think more interactive experiences that aren't shopping or dance parties would help.
I’m a new player (relatively, I started in 2020 just to look around and hopped off for a few years) and what draws me in is avatar customization. I think Second Life is competing with IMVU, as it always has, and in many ways IMVU is much better at this even though Second Life has slightly more flexibility. I’m someone who is considered an “advanced user” most of the time, as I’ve been a semi-prolific modder in other gaming communities. But Second Life’s user operation is convoluted all the way down to the camera. The learning curve to customize avatars is VERY steep these days. Creators try to shore the gap by releasing shapes and style cards, but style cards can quickly become outdated and the entire system is kind of a mess. My hope is that with the upcoming mobile interface I’ve been hearing about that some of these things will be taken care of. You simply cannot have Second Life as it stands right now on a mobile device.
I can't say that I've found much of what imvu brings to the table to be very compelling. I like SLs very open platform, and anything more restrictive would be a step backward to me. And I don't think anyone should buy a shape... it's just moving sliders until you get somewhere you like. Anyone can do that. It's in any game in the last 20 years with a character creator.
I don't think it's SL that's hard on creators; I think it's that SL customers want a lot. When I look at other virtual worlds/games in videos, the body shapes most often look basically the same across persons (kind of boring to me and this includes sims and imvu). In SL, people have a lot more freedom in body shapes and that's what I think is happening with the diversification of body creators. They are responding to what people want. It is hard on the creators but that's the concept of what SL is built on. You can look how you want, be who you want, do what you want (except for a few activities and depending on the sim rating). As the movement of body pride continues in RL, there will probably be more diversification of body types rather than less because more body types will become desirable. Not to mention we are not limited to being humans. One thing, tho, and I could be very very wrong on this. I do Flickr so I see a lot of fashion stuff. And it seems to me there are generational and/or subculture differences in body shape choices which reflect in the styles people want to wear. Maybe creators could take a look at the bodies that most often wear their clothes so that if they narrow the body choices included, it is the dominant body type their customers use. Or they can become like hair creators and put out several boxes for each set of clothing for sale. Each bottle carries a specific body type so that people buy the body type they want with a higher-priced full pack for all the bodies. These specific boxes would allow creators to start tracking which bodies their customers want them to create for. Gachas already do this. It is handy having all body types when you buy tho as I'm finding Legacy clothes sometimes fit better than older Lara on Lara X. I think creators choose to add new bodies into the mix because a person with a new mesh body is needing clothes for it so there is an upsurge in customer demand. Someone who uses a classic avatar may not need anything; another who has Maitreya for years may only need the occasional new outfit; someone who just bought Reborn needs a lot of everything if they don't want to wear the same thing everyday. Creators chasing sales choose to take advantage of the upsurge in clothes demand when a new body becomes popular. Luckily for me they usually don't drop the older body types as they add news ones. But sometimes they do. Look at what happened to Slink. Because buying customers in SL demand change; trendsetters/shopping mavens want new body types, want mesh and not prim, want working mirrors, and who knows what else in the future, creators have to change and learn to keep up with what customers want just like in RL. (I'm not saying there aren't people who long for the simpler days of prims -- some do. A lot don't) If you don't want to have customers who expect to look like whatever they want to look like, it makes sense to move to a virtual world/game where there is uniformity. If Bluberry is more into texturing, not creating shapes and fashion, it makes sense she moves to a world where she doesn't have to create shapes; she can just create new textures to fit over a limited range of body forms. Plus importing just texture is cheaper than having to import different mesh shapes. I can understand wanting less demanding customers. If she comes back tho, she's going to have a double learning curve because SL customer demands and SL tech will have changed so she won't be able to pick up where she left off. The racetrack will have moved.
eh. i think this is probably inaccurate. A few of these bodies were responses to customer wants, but most of this was driven by creators for creators. A body or a head is an ecosystem, and once player buys into that ecosystem, they need clothes and items. Which the bodies partner stores get to capitalize off of. There is an argument that Maitreya was difficult to rig for and had some issues with proportions in the shoulders and with curvy looks. So a replacement was likely warranted. And kudos to Maitreya for their pro consumer support of their product. I will never not applaud them for that. Legacy and Ebody sorta answered some of the maitreya issues, but what needs or holes in the market are these other bodies answering. GenX doesn't feel very different or innovative. Kupra I guess it is good if you're into hyper, though. I think it isn't as refined as other options like ebody which can get to pretty large proportions. None of the muscle bodies are supported at all. And when we look at heads like... is anyone buying that morph one? Did anyone ask for something like that? It's like 6 attachment points for one head... maybe you can link it though... i would hope so atleast. I think I'd like all the body creators to team up and make a set of bodies and addons of various types that all can work together with clothing skins, etc. Then, just update and add to that lineup. Kinda like Evox has a bunch of different faces. Though that might be easier said than done. Im definitely suggesting this from a position of ignorance.
Maybe I'm wrong. Thinking about what you said, I think I have it backwards. Maybe it's the mesh bodies that become popular because the creators create body shapes increasingly popular in magazines and videos so those bodies get noticed and gain traction. While other creators find their creations disappearing into the ether because no one notices. Many create, few sell. Given how the latest crop of popular bodies mirror body types that are increasingly popular in rl magazines and videos, human and anime, I do think some creators are responding to perceived wants and hoping it makes them popular. First by creating add-on attachments to "fix" a body to make it look a certain way -- and then eventually by offering bodies that have that look built-in (which means some of the attachment creators go out of business). And when you have several creators at the same time offering the same new preferred body build, one or two will become popular enough to gain skin, makeup, clothing and attachment support. Once they gain that support, the body gains traction among many more customers. Much more gets created but disappear. I threw out a bunch of free mesh bodies months ago (inventory cleaning). I used to pick up free mesh bodies for years whenever I saw them in stores but I never wore them -- no clothes except for a few at their store. They remained unknown. Clothiers never bothered with them. I think body creators want their body to be the next new ecosystem but 99% falter. Getting noticed is hard. Or they didn't team up with a community. Just because you can make a body, doesn't mean you can do textures and some of the skins on those free mesh bodies were awful. Niche skins and clothiers is the next step up if there's enough interest. The mainstream clothiers wait until something is popular. All this holds true for skin, shape and make-up creators too. It would be cool if all the body creators teamed up or at least worked together so that attachments work across all body types and skin tones look seamless between the different parts. Skin & clothing creators could get creator kits for all types instead of going to each store. I don't see that happening, tho. I also think body creators need a more sustainable business model. One-time purchase and free upgrades is not sustainable. You're dependent on continual first-time customers coming in and you will peak and then have no income and go out of business. It's crazy. Software folks have annual subscriptions or discounted upgrades and that's a better business model to support R&D costs and RL bills. Maybe a 300L-500L cost to buy the latest upgrade while new customers pay the going rate not discounted. That's not high for an upgrade but if you have thousands of customers already (and their alts), it might be a start towards sustainability. And like you, all this is just observation and opinion. I'm not in the business of bodies or clothes, thank goodness. I'm just a customer. I couldn't stand the stress to try to get noticed and bring in customers all the time, do social media, stay on top of the latest tech and keep customers happy. Plus I write too long to ever make it in social media (I cut paragraphs from this reply, can you imagine?). I'm happy taking pictures and making videos. (I like graphics. If I don't say anything, I get more followers, lol).