Second Life creator Linden Lab launches open beta for social VR platform Sansar, currently supported on HTC Vive VR headset, the Oculus Rift, and Windows PCs
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat :
Context & Ripple Effects
Sansar has been a long time coming: Linden Lab first surfaced it in 2015 as Project Sansar, an Oculus-targeted successor to Second Life slated for release before the end of 2016, and the open beta arrives roughly a year past that target. What Linden Lab brings to social VR that rivals lack is a working creator economy — the company says Second Life generates roughly $650 million a year and has paid out $1.1 billion to creators since 2003.
The competitive field is already crowded: AltspaceVR launched on Gear VR in early 2016, and Facebook debuted its own social VR app, Spaces, as an Oculus Rift beta in April 2017. Sansar's open beta supports both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift plus Windows PCs, giving it broader headset reach than Spaces had at launch.
First-order effects
- Second Life's established creator base gets a new destination built for VR, letting Linden Lab test whether its creator-payout model transfers from a 2003-era virtual world to modern headsets.
- Facebook Spaces' Rift-only beta suddenly faces a rival available on Vive, Rift, and desktop out of the gate, pressuring Facebook to widen its own platform support.
Second-order effects
- The cross-platform pressure lands quickly: within months Facebook adds HTC Vive, SteamVR, and Windows desktop support to the Spaces beta, matching the multi-headset posture Sansar opened with.
- Smaller social VR entrants like AltspaceVR face a squeeze between Facebook's distribution power and Linden Lab's monetization track record, forcing them to differentiate on niche communities rather than scale.
Third-order effects
- Independence proves fragile in this category: by 2020 Linden Lab sells Sansar outright to Wookey Project Corp (an undisclosed-sum acquisition), suggesting standalone social VR platforms struggle to sustain themselves once platform giants commit to the space.
- If the pattern holds, social VR consolidates around entrants who can subsidize the platform with other businesses — Facebook with ads, Linden Lab with Second Life revenue — while pure-play startups become acquisition targets or shut down.
The trend: Social VR is consolidating around companies with existing economies or distribution advantages, squeezing independent platforms toward acquisition.