Second Life and Steam?

Linden Labs has announced that they will make SL available on Valve's Steam network. For those who don't know, Steam is an online gaming community with roughly 40 million users. Linden Labs has said  that they plan to improve the graphics in SL and this move would make SL appeal to serious Steam gamers.

However, better graphics means the need for better hardware. Will this force longtime users to leave SL?

Reaction is very mixed. Is the bold move good or bad for the future of SL?

Some are optimistic and excited about the change. They would like to see better graphics. But the lab does seem to be unresponsive when it comes to fixing lag and other big issues. Will those issues be fixed?

Still others believe this move is unwise. SL is a networking platform. It may not be facebook, but still...it is a place for people to socialize and keep in touch with friends, not a place to level up and beat old scores and opponents. Also, there is the creating aspect. Will gamers be interested in content creation and shopping? That's rather doubtful. Gaming is about playing a game and talking to other players, not building houses (for example) or dancing at Tempura.

So what do you think about this move?
Here is one negative comment from Hamlet Au's blog:

Both of these are interesting and exciting pieces of news.

I worry about the move to Steam, however as, even with materials, SL is in extremely shoddy shape.

LL has never taken presentation seriously.

The human starter avatars have amateurish proportion mistakes, the windlight defaults seem designed to make SL look awful, the camera placement seems straight out of 1995, and everything from the appearance editor to the resource management tools have unforgivable flaws.

Sl needs materials, no doubt about it, but LL needs to address these other problems as well.

If LL does not want to repeat the 2008 hype bubble and inevitable collapse that followed then they have their work cut out for them in turning SL into a polished, presentable, professional product which achieves the "shared creativity tool" ideals Rodvik has used to describe his vision of SL.

I wish them the best of luck. I am extremely fond of SL and want nothing more than to see this become a huge success for LL. However, if they are not prepared to work for it and continue to ignore some of SL's more serious shortcomings, this move to Steam could prove a costly misstep.

 So what do you think about this move?

-Victoria Lenoirre

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