Gaming News: "Power To The Players" Act

 

 There's always something going on in gaming news. Recently Steam changed how it's games are displayed. There's also been talk about AI-generated games, games in which developers let AI do all the work in designing games from graphics, combat systems, story plotline, etc. But there have been other developments that caused a little more buzz than usual. 

 

Lately there's been a rather unwelcome message from many gaming companies: "You don't really own the games you pay for, only rent for the privilege of playing for a while. And we can cancel it any time we want." One example is NBA 2K25 , "The game, which retailed for $69.99 for the standard edition and $99.99 for the All-Star Edition, will be delisted from digital storefronts on October 30 and will have its online servers shut down on December 31, only two years after its initial release." 

 

US Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York City cited this particular game in his "Power To The Players Act," which he introduced a few days ago, "When you pay for a game, you should own it. Consumers must have the right to own, the right to play, and the right to transfer the games they buy. A game that can be taken away the moment a company pulls the plug is not a purchase. It is a rental disguised as a sale. Families in the Bronx and across the country save up to buy these games, and they deserve better than a license that can vanish at any time. The Power To The Players Act ensures consumers own what they buy and can keep playing long after a company moves on.”
 

Should the bill become law, the US Federal Trade Commission will enact regulations to protect ownership of games. But it's not a done deal as the majority of bills in Congress die in Committee. Vice suggested the gaming industry would complain offline modes were too expensive to build. The Verge would state last month in Pennsylvania, legislation was introduced that if made into law would require companies selling games in the state to offer an offline mode or offer a 25% refund if the game is killed.

 

Sources: PC Gamer,  House.Gov, Vice, The Verge

 

Bixyl SHuftan 

 

Announcement: SL Christmas Expo Registration Now Open

 

It isn't just Linden Lab getting ready for the Christmas season a little early. So are the people behind the Second Life Christmas Expo. Earlier this month, they announced registration was open for bot special event sponsorship and merchant registration. 

 

This year's theme is "A Nutcracker Christmas." The event itself, which raises money for the American Cancer Society, runs from Friday November 27 to Sunday December 6. 

 

Announcement : This Saturday At The Science Circle

 

10 am SLT Saturday Oct 24
Geography as Destiny: A Look at Hormuz and Other Choke Points 

 

A relatively lightweight military power, Iran, has throttled the world economy by capitalizing on its geography, the Strait of Hormuz. Is geography destiny? The answer is “no,” we should not take “destiny” too seriously; but at the same time, we tend not to take geographical influences seriously enough. In this talk I examine the meaning of geography as destiny in terms of Hormuz and various maritime choke points. 

 

By Meryl McBride

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/66/129/30 

 

Scenes From Burn2, Continued

 

 

The Burn2 art and music festival continues. Yesterday we featured "The Man." What gets less attention but is still important is the festival Temple. This year, it's located in the center-north sim. People put prayers, tributes, and other short comments in the burner in the middle, and during the Temple Burn they are spoken (or rather texted) aloud. The Temple Burn is on Sunday October 25. 

 

 And of course there's the art exhibits.

 

 And the art and music events. Some unscheduled ones take place after Midnight.

 

Burn2 takes place for three more days after today.

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Cartoon of The Day: Two-Tu Tuesday?

 

Taken at Burn2. He has a skirt on, and when asked he was saying it was really a tutu, and it was Tuesday so why not "Tutu Tuesday?"

 

But looking at the design of the garment, there was one more pun.

 

By Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Reader Submitted: "Dinner Is Served"

 

 From Zada Burry, titled "Dinner Is Served." Was there a takeout place across the road? Or with those bat wings and sharp teeth, someone's about to get a hickey that will take a while to heal?

 

By Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Burn2: "The Man" Is Up

 

It took a little time, but "The Man" for this year's Burn2 art and music festival is up. I went by yesterday evening, and it was no longer in pieces on the ground, but it and it's base were built and upright.

I had a few words with Zoren Manray, the primary builder of "The Man." He told me because of real-life he had been delayed in construction, but had it "mostly up" by Tuesday night. Like other years, this one is based on it's counterpart at the real-life Burning Man, "every year an approximation of the real-life Man is made." But there are small differences, "the RL one had more trusses instead of solid parts and more artwork inside. Overall the shape and design is the same though. This year the design was interesting since the base was quite tall. Usually there is only one deck, but this has three. This also meant that in RL they had to limit the number of people on it to 40 or so.. to keep it from being overloaded."

"Also since they had to make the base so strong it lead to an interesting burn. It just did not want to collapse." Zoren did say they would at least try to make the burn last a little longer. 

 

At night, neon tubes inside The Man make it more visible. And like what could be done with the real one, one can climb up it. Zoren did say there were a last few touches on it.

 

The "Burning of The Man" will take place on Saturday October 24. 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Events This Week In SL Clubbin'

 

Here's what's going on at the Sunweaver-Angel, Montecito Bay, and Furry Fashion clubs.

Club Cutlass: Temporarily Closed

Happy Vixen: DJ Charlee, DJ Scratch, DJ Mr. E, DJ Khyra

Club Zero Gravity: DJ Rose - TBA

Xanadu: DJ Jesse 

 

Montecito Bay:  DJ Moni, DJ Cookie, DJ Chucklepuppy, DJ Moff

 

Furry Fashion:  Forest Creatures, TBA, Cyberpunk

 

Urban Furry :  Closed

 

Read the schedules in SL Clubbin'

  

Nothing New On The Sunny Estates

 For those wondering about the Sunweaver Estates, there have been no new developments about their future. The sims are still up, despite their owner Rita Mariner having passed away a few months ago. When I last talked to Shockwave Yareach, he told me there's been no word from Linden Lab about them. The most likely is there's still money in Rita's account, and as long as money goes from there to Linden Lab, there's no issue. But there's no telling how long it will last. 

 

In the meantime, life, or in this case virtual life, has gone on, with Club Xanadu having taken the Wednesday at 6PM time that the now inactive Club Cutlass had and a few more people going to it's Saturday at 8PM party. The Happy Vixen has also seen more people drop by, especially with it's Halloween Haunt set up.  

 

When there's more news about the future of the Sunweaver sims, we'll let you the readers know.

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

EOTB: Applications Being Accepted For Christmas Shop And Hop

 

It's still mid-October, and Halloween isn't for almost two weeks. But already Linden Lab is getting ready for the Christmas season. On Friday in the official Second Life blog, the Lab announced they were accepting applications for stores in this year's Holiday Shop and Hop.

 

Halloween may still be spookily lingering, but we’re already brewing up plans for the festive season! We’re excited to announce the return of our highly anticipated Holiday Shop & Hop event. Mark your calendars for a spectacular shopping extravaganza ...

 

Those interested in taking part need to fill out a Google doc form (here).  As with Shop and Hop events in the past, participating sellers need to offer a 20% discount on all items on sale, plus offer a free gift to any shopper regardless if they're in the store group or not. It either must be a new product, or a gift card worth at least 300 Linden dollars. All products, and store decoration, must be rated moderate. Nor is anything political permitted. And stores cannot be used to promote items at other events. 

 

Those interested in taking part have until Sunday October 25 to send in their applications. The Holiday Shop and Hop will take place from Friday December 4 to Sunday January 3, 2027. 

 

To read more about the Shop and Hop, Click Here.  

 

 Bixyl Shuftan

 

"The End of The Road" For OSgrid, Second Largest OpenSim Virtual World To Close After 19 Years of Operation

 

With virtual worlds being dominated by Second Life and VRChat, OpenSim gets only a relatively small amount of users these days, about 164,000 monthly users compared to about 600,000 to 750,000 of SL. With over three hundred OS worlds, it doesn't usually make much news when one closes. But a few days ago, OSgrid, the second largest one, announced that after nineteen years it was finally "The end of the road."

 

 For 19 years, OSgrid has been more than just a server or a platform. It was a digital frontier built on a radical premise: that an open, decentralized metaverse could thrive entirely on community, trust, and shared architecture. Today, it is with a profound sense of loss that the OSgrid board must announce the end of this journey. We are officially calling it a day.

It wasn't lack of usership that was the problem, the grid remains the second-most OpenSim world used. It wasn't from a lack of staff keeping it up, according to them the team remained dedicated. The reason the nineteen year old virtual world was deemed beyond worth saving was because of one single hacker who took advantage of the grid's open code framework to flood it's infrastructure with huge amounts of junk data  "Our inventory items table exploded from 3 GB to a crippling 139 GB, turning routine 10-minute database backups into 12-hour ordeals. Our assets are effectively poisoned." 

 

The damage wasn't from one single attack, but repeated ones that were not stopping. when the staff discussed how to stop them, the only way to do so was to abandon their philosophy of an open grid and change to a closed one, "to truly end the attacks, we would simply have to permanently lock down the grid. We refuse to compromise the very soul & model of OSgrid just to keep the lights on. Spending 11 hours a day in shifts—blocking attacks and cleaning up poisoned data—is no longer sustainable as a volunteer effort. We have survived and combatted many forms of attacks over the decades, but Entropy has finally won."

 

Hypergird Business stated twice in the past two years, OSgrid was down for a month, once in March 2025 to clear it's database of corrupted information, and June this year, blamed on "metadata size limits."  

No more registrations to the grid are being accepted, and the final membership meeting was yesterday, Sunday October 18. The grid will close at Midnight, December 31. 

 

Sources: Hypergrid Business, OSgrid

 

Hat tip: Fluffyfoxy364

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

More Burn2 Scenes

 

Burn2 continues, with it's exhibits and music events. 

Besides the DJ events, the Lamplighters have some shows of their own.

 

 Like other Burning Man events, they made decorating porto-potties an art form.

 

 Last time there was no sign of "The Man," just a construction site in the general vicinity of where it should be. And it looks like I guessed right. Yesterday I saw the effigy lying down. Maybe it will be up by tomorrow. 

 

All for now,

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Cartoon of The Day: Loose Threads

 

 Taken at one of Merryjest Starchild's events. In the audience was someone dressed as the "Nightmare Before Christmas" antagonist Oggie Boogie. So just why is he freaking out about a loose thread being pulled? Well, watch the movie to find out.

 

By Bixyl Sullin 

 

A Glance At Burn2

 

The Burn2 art and music festival is going on. At the 12-sim area, music parties are going on. 

And there are numerous art exhibits up. 

But there is one thing I haven't noticed. I didn't see the wooden effigy known as "The Man." I did see this build under construction close to the middle of the area. Maybe this is the future spot.

 

Stay tuned for more. 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Holy Presence Christian Church

 

 

With so much publicity about the naughty side of Second Life, it's not always easy to remember there's a spiritual side as well. There are a number of churches still offering services in Second Life. Among them, the Holy Presence Christian Church in Majorero.

 

The church considers itself interdenominational, and services are at 9AM every Sunday by Michiel Allaire (MichielAlarie Resident).

 

Holy Presence Christian Church is a REAL Church which offers a full range of Christian church experiences like, weddings, baptisms, Christenings, prayers for healing and emotional deliverance, family gatherings and social events.  We have everything a real life church has to offer, right here in SecondLife. 

 

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Majorero/181/92/154 

 

Announcement: Eternal Night Vampire Ball

 

 

 Saturday October 17

 

Noon to 2PM SL time

 

The Green Fairy, New Toulouse 

 

 

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/New%20Toulouse/62/206/24 

 

SL Video: "This Is Halloween"

 

 (click here if the video does not play)

 

From  Blue R on October 13