The aftermath of the CSI:NY episode in Second Life

As many VTOR readers know already there was an episode of CSI:NY that prominently featured Second Life in the plot recently (I still haven’t seen it). Some predictions that there might be as many as one million new avatar registrations because of this one TV episode. 440 sims were reserved to be prepared to ramp up to the load. That number has since been slashed to 32 sims, which might still be too many.

I’m sure CBS got some kind of special bulk deal but at $299 a month per sim, the one month charge for 440 sims? $131,600. That’s only the tier fees and doesn’t include the help to man those 440 sims — now many of those people (avatars) out of work.

This is a perfect example of how cost prohibitive and expensive it is to prep for an event that is expected to scale inside Second Life. If you figure 50 people capacity per sim times 440 sims that’s 22,000 maximum capacity across all the sims. CBS had to be hoping those anticipated million new avatars wouldn’t show up at/near the same time. Second Life doesn’t work very well in its current incarnation for mass audiences interacting, but is quite effective well with smaller, more personalized events like what Jeff Batronious is doing with Amazon Web Services.

With not enough people showing up for what arguably was the biggest event in SL history, will this be the last big push to get people inside Second Life? Something tells me the answer is yes. What do you think?

Other more scalable platforms, we’re ready. More than ready.