Second Life: Adult Content Problems

I am writing more about sex in virtual worlds and Second Life™ than I’m getting… Ciaran Laval has an article about Twitch: Twitch Explicitly Prohibits Second Life With Rules Of Conduct Update. The TL:DR is simply they have banned all content from Second Life, by name. The official details are in the Twitch RoC Update. I think there has been another edit since Ciaran posted his article.

Walk on through a red parade
Walk on through a red parade by Wendz Tempest, on Flickr

They say added for clarity:

If a game’s US version is rated Adults Only by the ESRB, you should not broadcast that game on Twitch. However, ESRB rated Mature versions of Adults Only titles are permitted for streaming, such as Mature versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy.

Games rated 18+ by other rating systems are fine to stream, so long as they are not rated AO by the ESRB, and they don’t violate the standard language of our RoC and ToS.

The peeps at Twitch are making it clear Adult Only… meaning sexual, content is NOT welcome. They list the games by name and SL is one. I suspect this is a move to save time and effort on their part, they are deciding what is too sexy by the game not the actual content. That saves them time looking at and deciding if the content crosses their line.

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Second Life in the NEWS

Massively Overpowered has an article by Bree Royce, I think she wrote it, titled SEX, LOVE, AND MMOS in the Working as Intended column. Second Life™ is mentioned but is not the focus. The image used for the article is from Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Save Your Advice Cause I Won't Hear
Save Your Advice Cause I Won’t Hear by [ HarlowHeslop.com ], on Flickr
Bree is on about the hypocrisy of those diss’ing those that role play sexual encounters in games. Also, the ridiculous concepts of putting down those RP’ing sex while playing as mostly nude female warriors slaughtering their way to the next level. 

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Hypergrid Business on Bright Canopy

Maria Korolov has written: Bright Canopy’s viewer in a browser supports voice, uploads, OpenSim grids. She is talking about the Bright Canopy beta that is in progress now. This version runs in an Internet Browser using the FRAME system. She explains how it works.

Serene Sanctuary
Serene Sanctuary by Loverdag, on Flickr

One of the challenges in using a streaming service is that the actual viewer is running on a remote server. Your computer is sort of doing remote control of that viewer. So, saving files (pictures) can be a problem as the local drive the viewer sees is on the server, not your home computer. 

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Who is Winning the Virtual Reality Race?

The financial people think it is Facebook and Apple that are positioned to win in the Virtual Reality War. But, it won’t be a fast war. It will last years.  Quoting Chris Ciaccia :

[A] Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster stated that virtual reality is likely the next key trend in technology, writing, “We liken the state of virtual and augmented reality today as similar to the state of mobile phones 15 years ago. It likely will take a decade before mainstream adoption as necessary improvements in displays and applications as well as lower pricing are needed to drive demand.”

Breaking bad$$$$
Breaking bad💵💵💵💵 by pokute Burt, on Flickr

They expect new virtual everythings to open up; gaming (obviously), live sports, concerts, immersive cinema and social experiences will have a VR version. The article, Facebook and Apple are Poised to Win the Virtual Reality Wars, gives us, at least me, some new ideas about VR can be used.

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Second Life: Server Roll Back

This morning (Wednesday) Linden Lab rolled a new package to the RC server channels. This afternoon, about 4:30 PM SLT, they rolled the RC channels back to the previous version. This happens when something goes side ways and crash rates, complaints, or server metrics  show a problem. We have no word on what the problem … Read more