{"id":6734,"date":"2022-03-17T12:05:46","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T17:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.zoha-islands.com\/?p=6734"},"modified":"2022-03-17T12:05:46","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T17:05:46","slug":"russian-content-creators-in-second-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/russian-content-creators-in-second-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Content Creators in Second Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russian Content Creators in Second Life, Now Sanctioned & Unable to Cash Out, Contemplate Bad Options in Both Realities<\/h3>\n
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\"SL<\/p>\n

Though Linden Lab has not yet announced any plans to ban payments from Russian users<\/a> on its virtual world platform of Second Life, the US and EU banking sanctions have already taken their toll on SL content creators in Russia — especially those who depend on Second Life for their livelihood:<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the blocking of PayPal,\u201d as reader \u201cAlex\u201d explains in a recent comment, \u201call Russian creators were deprived of the opportunity to receive money from sales in SL. For many of them, working in SL is their main and only job.\u201d<\/p>\n

All this happens as Second Life users around the world create pro-Ukraine\/anti-Russian images<\/a> and the Second Life island of Moscow has been inundated by so many anti-invasion protesters<\/a>, the owners resorted to posting a massive billboard in virtual Red Square, imploring visitors to refrain from activism (above).<\/p>\n

In group chats, Second Life content creators based in Russia are now privately discussing their options, but are reluctant to air them with the Second Life community at large:<\/p>\n

\u201c[O]ut of sympathy and compassion for what is happening in Ukraine,\u201d as Alex puts it, \u201cRussian creators do not bring their problems into public discussion\u2026 Many [Russian SL] creators and their families are already left without a livelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex believes that some creators in the short term will continue creating in Second Life, even without a cash-out option, but \u201cwe will not be able to do this for a long time and will not be able to support our customers in the game as we have always done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RussianRussian creator Akirakiyoi Resident (pictured) tells me a similar story. In a painful irony, he was among the many Russian Second Life users who rallied to support their brethren creators in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s base of supporters in Russia, he tells me, are \u201celderly people who don\u2019t know what Netflix for example or Second Life is. Younger generations playing games and drinking Starbucks are not the people who vote for him, or who support him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of them not only play Second Life but in recent years, as Russia\u2019s economy continued to falter, have turned to virtual world content creation into a career.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of these creators don\u2019t have a real job since SL was their full time and we expect a major crisis in the country with high unemployment rates,\u201d says Akirakiyoi, who then adds: \u201cBut of course the first thing that needs to happen is this invasion to finally stop.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Russia<\/p>\n

Above: After pro-Ukraine protests by Second Life users, the <\/em>owners of Moscow island in Second Life erected this billboard in Red Square: “[T]his is just a historical sim, please do not gather here with political slogans!”<\/em><\/p>\n

Akirakiyoi himself runs a successful SL brand — so successful in fact, that due to the sanctions, he might leave Russia itself, in order to keep creating and selling virtual content:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to leave Second Life,\u201d he tells me, laughing. \u201cI will leave the country to access payment, but not Second Life.\u201d He loves the virtual world, for one thing, a regular Resident of Second Life, as are roughly 12,000 fellow Russians. For another, he is not the only person in Russia depending on his continued work int he virtual world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my full time business and I spent years building it,\u201d as Akirakiyoi put it. \u201cAnd also have my parents I need to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other tech savvy Russians yearning to escape Putin\u2019s reach, he acknowledges, may not be as lucky.<\/p>\n

Have a Great Week. From all of us at Zoha Islands\/Fruit Islands<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russian Content Creators in Second Life, Now Sanctioned & Unable to Cash Out, Contemplate Bad Options in Both Realities Though Linden Lab has not yet announced any plans to ban payments from Russian users on its virtual world platform of Second Life, the US and EU banking sanctions have already taken their toll on SL … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,3,4,5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6734"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}