Second Life creator launches virtual reality world Sansar

Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, has launched in public beta a virtual reality world called Sansar.

The VR environment lets individuals, companies and brands create, share, and ultimately sell immersive 3D social experiences.

Linden Lab said that Sansar was built from the ground up “to enable everyone to become a creator,” and is available for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows PCs.

The public beta launch lets anyone access the “thousands of amazing public and private experiences” in Sansar that were made by creators during a limited-access preview.

“Sansar democratizes social VR,” said Linden Lab CEO, Ebbe Altberg. “Until now, complexity and cost has limited who could create and publish in this medium, and Sansar dramatically changes that.

“It’s been inspiring to see the thousands of virtual creations that have already published with Sansar during our limited preview, and I’m looking forward to the explosion of creativity we’ll see now that we’ve opened the doors in beta.”

Sansar is free to use, with additional capacity and customer support available to creators through paid subscriptions, which start at US$9.99 per-month.

The launch comes less than a week after virtual reality social network, AltspaceVR, announced it would close down on August 3, citing “unforeseen financial difficulty”.

The venture-backed firm, which allows people to meet in a virtual environment, said that the combination of a failed funding round and the “general slowness of VR market growth” had made most of its investors “reluctant to fund us further”.

However, in the wake of the announcement, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey indicated he could step in to help AltspaceVR out of its financial predicament, after he tweeted: “Should I try to save @AltspaceVR? (caveat: may not be possible)”.