Partnerships: How to Get Second Life to Feature Your Work
I've been meaning to write this article for a while, and I'm excited to finally share my experience collaborating with Linden Lab on my machinima project, NAMARA. If you're unfamiliar, I work with a small team to create machinima in Second Life. Among several titles, NAMARA—a fantasy-style isekai set in the magical world of AETHER—is my personal favorite.
How It Started
I came across a post on the Second Life forums where a voice actress mentioned that Linden Lab had supported machinima projects before—particularly through their Second Life Cinema, a full region with a virtual movie theater. How did they get the support? “Just ask’” was the reply.
That made me wonder: Could it really be that easy? Just ask? Would the Lindens promote our series? And if they did—what kind of difference would it make?
Before reaching out, I wanted to make sure we had everything in place:
Copyright-compliant content: Our YouTube videos had to be clean of any copyrighted music or assets.
Consistent quality: While "quality" is subjective, we aimed to make something visually appealing, polished, and representative of how cool Second Life can be.
Second Life viewer usage: I made sure to mention that I filmed NAMARA using the official Second Life viewer. (Controversial, I know—but it's actually the best performer on my aging computer!)
Once I’d reviewed our footage for the millionth time, I finally sent a message to the Second Life marketing team.
The Yes That Changed Everything
To my surprise, they replied within a few days—and said yes. They even offered details on what they needed from us. Admittedly, I wasn’t totally ready to launch, but I knew if we were going to do this, we had to do it right.
Meanwhile, my husband and I were also working on a NAMARA comic adaptation. We planned to print it eventually, but the opportunity to pair the cinema premiere with a Kickstarter campaign was too good to pass up. We got to work: laying out pages, prepping promo videos, writing the story pitch—all the essentials.
Here’s how the campaign unfolded:
Second Life announced NAMARA’s screening on their official channels. (Cue screaming.)
We launched the Kickstarter, aligned with their post—hoping to catch the attention of curious fans.
I reached out to Philip Linden to appear on my PODsCast to discuss onboarding in SL (and promote NAMARA while I was at it). He said yes!
We released a new NAMARA scene to build buzz and bridge fans of the machinima and the comic.
We premiered at the Second Life Cinema—with help from Luci (Romy’s voice actress) who hosted the screening. I'm not much of a social butterfly (even in-world), but Luci rallied people for the premiere, and we watched all the way through. We even picked up a few new fans!
We posted two "Shorts" style videos to explore if bite-sized content could boost traffic and character visibility.
The Results: 30 Days Later
YouTube Stats:
NAMARA Channel
• Views tripled (just under 1,000)
• Subscriber count rose by 10%Bay City Studios Channel
• Views tripled (around 2,700)
• Gained 30 new subs (3% increase)
Comic Kickstarter: A Bit of a Flop
While it didn’t fund fully, we reached 10% of our goal. Some pledges came from friends, but others were from genuine new fans—and that felt amazing.
Honestly, I was more disappointed in Kickstarter than Second Life. From what I’ve learned, Kickstarter handpicks projects for homepage features, but only if early traction is strong. I had hoped the SL endorsement would boost us into their spotlight, but it never happened.
Worse, I was constantly spammed by fake “marketing agencies” offering to “guarantee funding.” The messages followed the same script:
Ask a generic question about the campaign
Offer off-platform help
Pitch expensive services
It made it hard to distinguish real support from bots, and honestly, it soured the whole process.
I probably won’t use Kickstarter again because of this, and because getting the word around the Second Life community moves a little more slowly than Kickstarter’s 30-day pressure cooker allows. We may revisit a print release when we hit 500 subscribers, but until then, we’ll keep making pages and preparing.
Final Thoughts: Second Life as a Partner
Linden Lab was fantastic to work with. I hope to partner with them again—maybe for a Season Finale or a bigger event down the line. Their support helped us reach more people, and that alone was worth the effort. They were amazing partners to work with, and regardless of the size of your brand, I encourage anyone to reach out to their team for any kind of partnership in the future.
