Increased Visitor Traffic to OpenSim Worlds During Spooky Season – Hypergrid Business

As autumn paints the landscape with hues of orange and the air turns crisp here in the U.S., we are gearing up for Halloween and the upcoming elections — enough reasons to perhaps hunker down indoors. But OpenSim is offering another reason to stay in, with a noticeable uptick in active users.

In the past month, OpenSim grids have seen an increase of over 3,000 active users, despite experiencing some grid outages and changes in how stats are reported. Meanwhile, the total registered users saw a slight dip, and there’s been a noticeable reduction in land area equivalent to 24,000 standard regions.

The explanation behind this reduction is straightforward. Simation Grid reported a steep drop from 25,408 regions last month to just 1,024. While large in size, it’s quite small in terms of user activity, with just three active users recently. It’s plausible this was just a test of server capacity — a common move to see how many regions a server can handle before pulling the plug on unused servers.

Currently, we’re monitoring a total of 2,675 public grids, 301 of which were active this past month, with 233 sharing their statistics. If your grid has a page with stats that we aren’t yet tracking, I’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. This can give your grid some extra exposure.

Looking at this month’s standings, OSgrid boasts the most expansive land area, covering 34,103 standard region equivalents, while Wolf Territories Grid is thriving with 6,950 unique logins in the past month.

Check out the chart, which shows how the Simation peak affected summer statistics, but land growth has since stabilized.

Our data excludes many grids using DreamGrid, a free open-source version of OpenSim, often used for private grids. OpenSim, akin to Second Life, allows users to create virtual worlds with ease, and even teleport to others. For tech-savvy users, it can run on personal servers for free, with commercial hosting starting at under $5 per region. You can find hosting information and the Firestorm viewer download link on our site.

Every month following the stats release, our Hypergrid Business newsletter will bring you the latest from OpenSim. Subscribe here to stay in the loop.

Now, let’s dive into the top grids by active users. It’s simple: the more bustling the grid, the better it is for making connections, selling creations, or organizing events. Here’s a peek at this month’s top 25 grids:

1. Wolf Territories Grid: 7,122 users
2. OSgrid: 4,910 users
3. GBG World: 2,435 users
4. Darkheart’s Playground: 2,206 users
5. DigiWorldz: 2,186 users
   […]

Moving to online marketplaces, Kitely Market currently showcases 21,048 product listings across 632 OpenSim grids, with the majority of offerings, specifically 35,920 product variations being exportable. The market is a go-to for legitimate content across both open and closed grids.

Interestingly, though no new grids were added to our database this month, 13 were marked as suspended, including Angel Souls and Phantom Rose. We’ll mark them as closed if they stay offline.

Looking at land area, OSgrid leads with 34,973 regions followed by Wolf Territories Grid at 29,566. Curious about other grids? The entire dataset, including hypergrid addresses sorted by popularity, is available for those creating a hyperport.

Ever wonder about historical grid statistics? They’re all here, detailed from 2009 onwards.

Lastly, if you know a grid that’s missing from our records, do drop me a note at [email protected]. Let’s keep exploring the ever-evolving virtual landscapes together!