Kotaku: Linden Lab

Lawsuit Demands Second Life Horses Be Starved to Death

Owen Good — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EDT

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Second Life's merits as an actual video game may be debatable but its impact on the economy is not. It has, for example, provided a huge boost to the new markets of virtual sex caskets and imaginary pet food. And ridiculous lawsuits, because America has been lagging other first-world nations in that important economic indicator. More »

Bootlegged Virtual Sex Toys Get Second Life Sued

Owen Good — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Yep. If Second Life's involved, how could sex toys not also be involved? A manufacturer of, uh, intimacy aids has filed a lawsuit alleging that users bootleg, with impunity, the virtual sex toy brand it also sells in Second Life. More »

See The GLAAD On Games Panel For Yourself

AJ Glasser — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:20:00 EDT

If your Kotaku comment made it into the talking points of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation panel a couple of weeks ago, this video immortalizes your screen name. More »

GLAAD Panel: Pearls of Wisdom And Points Of Discussion

AJ Glasser — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:40:00 EDT

I've got a re-cap of last Saturday's Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation right here, but if you're looking for quick quotes and interesting issues to rehash, here are a few gems. More »

Your Comments Fuel Gay Gaming Conference

AJ Glasser — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:40:00 EDT

Physically, you may not have been at EA Redwood Shores this weekend. But if you commented on to Justin Cole's op-ed column to Kotaku, you were there in spirit. More »

TASER Sues Second Life For $75,000

AJ Glasser — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:20:00 EDT

A lawsuit filed in Arizona on April 17 charges Second Life creator Linden Lab and a slew of other individuals for trademark infringement on TASER's handheld self-defense device. Insert zap joke here. More »

Linden Lab Buys Second Life Virtual Marketplaces OnRez And Xstreet SL

Mike Fahey — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:20:00 EST

Second Life creators Linden Lab have been shopping for shopping, acquiring virtual goods marketplaces OnRez and Xstreet SL in order to integrate them into their popular virtual world. More »

Scientists in Second Life

Maggie Greene — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:30:00 EDT

I was recently discussing the mainstream media's love affair with Second Life, and how the bloom appears to be off the rose. The Denver Westword News recently followed around a Denver University 'media specialist' who is working on SciLands, where NASA the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other scientific groups have a virtual outpost; while Jeff Corbin, the 'media specialist,' and other academics are practically beside themselves with the potentials for nuclear research in Second Life, the other side is presented: More »

So How Many People Actually PLAY Second Life?

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:30:00 EDT

Remember when you couldn't drunkenly fall out of bed in the morning without landing on some kind of Second Life news? Things were getting pretty serious for a while there, to the point where a lot of reports started spinning around that millions and millions of people were "playing" the thing. Millions? Really? Hardly. New Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has, in an interview with VentureBeat, laid out a new userbase disclosure model the company are working on for Second Life. They're not counting registered users as "users" anymore, because while over 15 million people have signed up for the service, nowhere near that many actually use it. No, the number of "simultaneous users" is around 68,000. That's it. 68,000. Sure, that's the number logged on at once, not the total number of "active" users, but the total can't be more than a couple hundred thousand. Chin up, Lord British, there's hope for Tabula Rasa yet! More »

How Casual MMOGs Are Making Money

Maggie Greene — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Lightspeed, a venture capital firm, checked out the average revenue per user for some casual, free to play MMOGs (Club Penguin, Habbo Hotel, Runescape, and Second Life), establishing that other that SL - which pulls in a little over $9 a month in ARPU, thanks mostly to virtual land upkeep - these sorts of casual MMOGs pull in around $1.25 ARPU per month. Which, until one considers the user bases of games like Club Penguin, seems like a damn hard way to make some money: More »

Virtual Property Disputes Landing in Real Courts

Maggie Greene — Sat, 17 May 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Ok, so virtual property disputes aren't exactly new, but there's a little wrap up on some of the current issues over at a Canadian website. Most of the issues discussed revolve around Second Life, but the questions of virtual property and other virtual issues are getting increasing attention: More »

NASA Wants Second Life On The Moon

Mark Wilson — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:40:00 EDT

A sense of community is important to NASA. That's why they opened a NASA mansion for parties and just hanging out, hacking software and making Uranus jokes. But the NASA mansion was only good during the night. NASA's Andrew Hoppin explains how Second Life allowed connections during the day.

...we got employees from all around NASA - the 10 geographies around the country - showing up at these Tuesday afternoon meetings. We formed a community of NASA and non-NASA, started coworking in Second Life. Cultural change started to take place at the agency...

But Hoppin would like to see this cultural change happen far, far outside the agency: More »

Second Life and ESL Instruction

Maggie Greene — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:00:00 EDT

A while back, we mentioned a journal article on using MMOs to aid second language acquisition. Now Forbes has a piece discussing the same issue, only with Second Life. The author spoke with several teachers about their approaches to using SL to educate: More »

Second Life's Got Some Vulnerabilities

Maggie Greene — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:00:36 EST

Dean Takahashi of the San Jose Mercury News revealed that people can take advantage of a known QuickTime problem and become virtual pickpockets in Linden Lab's Second Life. Steve over at PlayNoEvil points out that "anything can that actually affect the integrity of the game or business application should be completely independent of these services to ensure that a breach in 'the other guy's stuff' doesn't affect the security of your business - especially casual applications and services that do not see themselves as having security functionality." Linden Lab confirmed the vulnerability, but the researchers who exploited the flaw were quick to note the issue can be resolved with a simple patch. Still - I think Steve's got a point: More »

'The Office' Gets Second Lifed

Mark Wilson — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:00:08 EDT

After having some fun at Call of Duty's expense (in a way that I thought was both funny and not playing off Hollywood stereotypes), NBC's The Office is taking on Second Life later tonight. It looks like Dwight K. Schrute will be exploring the virtual world, hopefully without any encounters with snap-on genitalia. I have high hopes, so this had better be really funny. Or really really funny. More »

Could Preserving Second Life Create Big Brother?

Mark Wilson — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:20:12 EDT

Believe if or not, I cut a little out of the massive novella/feature on the Library of Congress preserving video games that ran yesterday. I know, I know. If that were in a newspaper, the world's oxygen supply would be suffering from the distinct lack of trees. Anyway, one of the matters that we didn't delve very deeply into was that of preserving Second Life. From project affiliate Jerry McDonough:

One of the big problems with second life when they talk about preserving it is this interactive experience. Linden doesn't do things like keep careful track of what users are saying, they're not filling their disks with years and years of transaction logs - I'm sure the users are very happy about that - but it means that if I took everything on SL's servers at the moment, what I've got is the neutron bomb version of second life - a bunch of very beautiful buildings with nobody in them.

But the topic raises a ton of ethical questions... More »

The Library of Congress Loves Video Games

Mark Wilson — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:00:49 EDT

When we usually talk about libraries and video games, it's generally a very formulaic story in which Small Town Library A is battling Parent Group B or Religious Group C to offer [fill in M rated game of choice] for the public to play. The conclusion is often that video games are probably suitable for libraries but there's controversy...yada yada yada. More »

Wii, Second Life Win Good Design Awards

Brian Ashcraft — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:00:04 EDT

Japan Industrial Design Promotional Organization (JIDPO) has announced this year's Good Design Award or the so-called "G-Mark." Design-wise, this is a pretty big deal. Almost 3,000 products were screened, and this year a total 1,043 products were given the coveted G-Mark. Out of those, there is a Good Design Award Best 15. Think of it as the cream of the crop, best of the best. The Nintendo Wii (and Wii-mote and Nunchuk) snagged a spot in that 15. The Wii wasn't the only gaming entry as Second Life also made it into the Best 15. Congrats Nintendo and Linden Lab! More »

FBI Checks Gambling In Second Life

Brian Ashcraft — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:00:15 EDT

SL creator Linden Lab says: More »

Linden Labs to Open Source Second Life Software

Brian Crecente — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:00:06 EST

It looks like Linden Lab is trying to get their paper subscription numbers to match their real ones. More »