We haven’t carried out one in every of these shortly! However since I offered on OpenSim statistics on the OSCC convention in December, it appeared like a great time to look again at what occurred within the OpenSim group this 12 months.
2025 was a 12 months of dramatic highs and lows for OpenSim. We noticed the platform’s largest grid face its most severe disaster in years, watched the metaverse practically hit a million areas (kind of), celebrated main technical advances, and mourned the lack of one in every of our group’s most vital voices.
OSgrid’s database disaster
The 12 months’s greatest disaster hit in February, when OSgrid introduced it could wipe its complete database.
“All avatars that don’t have a backup of their OSgrid belongings elsewhere inside now and 5 weeks will irrevocably lose their full stock,” OSgrid secretary Foxx Bode informed Hypergrid Enterprise on the time.
The 18-year-old database had develop into bloated and damaged, directors stated. “Sixty p.c of it’s in all probability by no means used, and it kills the efficiency of our state-of-the-art {hardware}.”
Nevertheless it obtained worse. In early March, the grid found all IAR information had been corrupted, forcing a direct and indefinite closure, in accordance with a March announcement. The beforehand introduced March 21 reset timeline went out the window because the grid entered what directors referred to as “prolonged and meticulous” reconstruction with no particular reopening date.
The emergency closure triggered speedy migrations throughout OpenSim. Wolf Territories Grid reported over 100 new areas within the days following the announcement, whereas some smaller grids quickly blocked incoming transfers to stop system overload.
“Folks have robust opinions and suppose the metaverse is a few competitors, however we actually admire the assistance for our customers,” Bode stated, whereas warning smaller grids in opposition to accepting extra customers than their infrastructure may deal with.
Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner used the disaster to spotlight the significance of correct backup insurance policies. “You must keep each day backups of the complete system to allow you to revive it to the final secure state,” he informed Hypergrid Enterprise. “In the event you don’t do that and solely depend on information duplication then when a corruption happens you gained’t have uncorrupted copies of the information to revive to.”
OSgrid got here again on-line in April after a couple of month of downtime. The grid celebrated its 18th anniversary in July with a week-long seaside social gathering, then held its annual fundraiser and public sale in September.
The practically million-region anomaly
September introduced one of many strangest statistics tales in OpenSim historical past. An OSgrid person determined to map a complete continent, creating roughly 800,000 areas within the course of, in accordance with OSgrid president Dan Banner.
“They have been making an attempt to map out North America,” Banner informed Hypergrid Enterprise.
This introduced OpenSim’s complete land space to just about a million customary area equivalents — not less than on paper. For statistical functions, I adjusted the numbers to exclude this continental mission, since together with it could make the bar charts completely not possible to learn.
Main group occasions
The OpenSim Worlds Truthful was held in March on the Wolf Territories Grid. Organized by Cooper Swizzle, Koshari Mahana, Kimm Starr, and Rosa Alekseev, the honest featured 72 parcels for exhibitors and 17 themed leisure phases.
OpenSimFest 2025 was held in October, that includes occasions throughout a number of grids together with Wolf Territories, DigiWorldz, OSgrid, Kitely, Tenth Dimension, and Bridgemere, in accordance with organizer Lisa Laxton. The competition launched a brand new hypergrid broadcaster system from 0HubRadio.com and concluded with a Burning Ladies occasion.
The thirteenth annual OpenSimulator Neighborhood Convention befell in early December, with greater than 30 panels and displays. I offered on OpenSim statistics and moderated a panel about AI in OpenSim.
All of the displays can be found on the Avacon YouTube channel, on the OSCC 2025 Shows playlist.
New TV channel launched
This was simply introduced 4 days in the past — although additionally they posted a video about it 4 months in the past, which I missed.
NeverTV, a digital tv community launched by Neverworld Grid. The mission goals to create a full broadcast community with often scheduled programming, all filmed in-world with reside studio audiences.
In accordance with their announcement on OpenSimWorld, NeverTV is searching for present hosts, digital camera operators, administrators, information anchors, editors, and program administrators. They’re providing choose residents their very own often scheduled packages.
Survey outcomes
In October, I ran a grid survey forward of my OSCC presentation. The outcomes confirmed that Littlefield and Utopia Skye obtained the best general scores from their residents, with Wolf Territories additionally scoring surprisingly effectively regardless of being probably the most energetic grid with the most important person base.
Between them, respondents had visited greater than 50 completely different grids and named 27 completely different grids as their main houses. Kitely was dwelling to probably the most survey respondents, adopted by Littlefield and Utopia Skye.
Trying on the numbers
January began robust, with all OpenSim stats up in comparison with mid-December 2024. The land space of public OpenSim grids went up by 170 customary area equivalents, energetic customers have been up by greater than 700, and grids reported over 4,100 new registrations.
Then I took off just a few months. Life. Stuff. However I’m again!
Anyway, by 12 months’s finish, I used to be monitoring a complete of two,589 grids, with 246 energetic grids in December. Wolf Territories persistently remained probably the most energetic grid all year long by way of month-to-month distinctive guests.
Remembering Mal Burns
However 2025 additionally introduced an incredible loss to our group. Mal Burns handed away this previous summer season.
Mal was the creator and host of Inworld Evaluation, the weekly information and dialogue program that documented digital worlds for greater than a decade. What began as “Metaverse Weekend Evaluation,” which he co-hosted along with his accomplice Tara, grew to become Inworld Evaluation — the definitive speak present about OpenSim and digital worlds.
I had the privilege of becoming a member of Mal and Tara and different company from 2013 by means of early 2017. Week after week, we lined the OpenSim group — grid launches, technical developments, group occasions, and the individuals who made all of it occur. Mal had an encyclopedic data of digital worlds and an unwavering dedication to documenting all the pieces that occurred throughout the metaverse.
His final present was on June 22, and you’ll watch it right here.
Mal was recognized for his curiosity, his dedication to the group, and his ardour for exploring new digital worlds. He gave voice to what was taking place throughout OpenSim, interviewing grid house owners, builders, content material creators, and residents. By Metaworld Broadcasting, which he ran with Tara Yeats, he offered manufacturing providers for digital world occasions and created a useful archive of OpenSim historical past.
However maybe the best tribute got here in October, when Mal’s shut colleagues introduced they might proceed Inworld Evaluation. The present premiered its first post-Mal episode on October 26, and held a panel on the OSCC discussing “the choice and inventive decisions to proceed this system.”
You may subscribe to the brand new Inworld Evaluation channel right here.
There have been a number of different tributes to Mal Burns this 12 months, together with one on Inworld Evaluation itself, and a Neverworld Grid tribute in July and a Hypergrid Safari gathering in October.
There’s additionally a distinct video of this occasion on James Atlloud’s channel.
It’s becoming that Mal’s work continues. For greater than a decade, he was the voice documenting our group, serving to us perceive the place we’d been and the place we have been going. He was a real pioneer — somebody who noticed the potential of digital worlds early on and devoted himself to sharing that imaginative and prescient with everybody who would hear.
The OpenSim group is smaller with out him. However the archive he created, the group he served, and the conversations he facilitated will proceed to form this metaverse for years to come back.
Relaxation in peace, Mal. The hypergrid gained’t be the identical with out you.
