What does your family and/or friends think of your business?

[Deja Letov]

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine recently. She thought it was absolutely ludicrous that someone could actually make a living (however small) by building things in a video game. This came about after her asking me if i wanted to go and do something with her at a certain time, to which I replied, I wish I could, but I already had other plans. My other plans? Holding a 2 hour promotion event in my store in SL. Her response was simply that it's a game, and nobody really cared if I actually showed up. And if they did they were acting like just as big of a nerd as I was. All of this was rather funny to me but later it got me thinking...what a **bleep**! LOL  seriously, I remember when I ran a business out of my home several years ago, I was under the same "attitude" from others....people not taking it seriously, thinking I was just playing around with my day, thought they could stop by my house anytime because I wasn't doing anything.

I can MAYBE understand how someone could possibly think badly of a business in SL if you are only spending your real money on it and not making anything for profit, but even then, I don't think it's all that fair.

I've never been one to spend a huge amount of time in SL, but lately I've increased it by just a few hours a week in hopes of increasing my revenue by a certain amount of $L...sort of an experiment I am doing. And this increased time, seems like a "waste" in the eyes of friends and family. It seems the only ones who really appreciate it are my husband and kids...mainly I'm sure because they are the ones who know what I cash out each month to pay for our movie nights or dinners out. In fact this month, my SL money paid for school clothes for all 3 of my kiddos.

How do you deal with all of this with your family and friends. Just ignore them? Play nasty nice? Dig a hole and keep them in the backyard? :)

 

[Deja Letov]

hahah I never realized I could get *bleeped* on the forum. For those paying attention my bleep was a good word for a mean nasty woman that starts with a B 

[VRprofessor]

I don't have your specific problem, but most people are simply ignorant of the size of the video games industry.  I was (only a little) surprised to learn that some games bring in more revenue than all but the biggest movies.  Facebook + Zynga along with Apple + apps have done a lot to legitimize and normalize the micro-transaction market.  A market worth billions of dollars for intangible goods. 

 

[Deja Letov]

I told her that very same thing. In fact I even told her "you know the commercial on TV where they have the online school for video game design? It's on TV and it's popular for a reason!". People are into it.

[Syo Emerald]

I know those reactions. Not especially for virtual stores, but for video games as a whole. The momemts when the company you would most like to work at is in the game industrie or to quote one friend of mine: "Isn't that a thing for kids?" (while I could see how mature she felt at that moment...god, tell me again how much better hobbies such as "partying" and "shopping" are...) :catwink:

Just typical reactions from people who have no idea what they are talking about.

[Pamela Galli]

I used to get a lot of flack for being a SL "addict". I tried to explain that I was creating stuff but to them it looked like "playing a computer game".

Now that it is my job, everyone is super supportive.

[Deja Letov]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

I used to get a lot of flack for being a SL "addict". I tried to explain that I was creating stuff but to them it looked like "playing a computer game".

Now that it is my job, everyone is super supportive.

---

Yup you sound a lot like me Pamela. Even my husband, who I actually met in SL and you would think would be more understanding, didn't get it at first. It took until I started showing a profit for him to "get it". It's a shame people won't take it seriously as our income source until we're successfully pulling in a profit. I'd like to show them all the companies that are currently running at a loss every year yet are still looked at as a business.

 

[Sassy Romano]

I tend to keep it quiet simply because they wouldn't understand. Plus for the couple or so that I have mentioned it to, once it gets to "what do you sell?", it becomes a bit awkward lol. They definitely wouldn't understand!

 

I just enjoy it because I like to make things, regardless of the environment and it keeps my mind active as I learn new things. I can't be bothered to explain my actions.

[Princess Verwood]

I've found that people who don't play games, be it online or off won't really understand, like you're friend. It doesn't sound like she is "into that". I personally don't really mention it to other people beacuase like some have already mentioned, you know they won't understand. Almost like you can pretty much predict their response. My husband is supportive since we met in SL and he knows about it but if I told my other family or friends I could guess spot on they would look at me like I'm insane.

But at the end of the day Deja, it is you who is bringing in an extra amount of money per month due to your silly game and not her! :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

[Deja Letov]

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Princess Verwood wrote:

I've found that people who don't play games, be it online or off won't really understand, like you're friend. It doesn't sound like she is "into that". I personally don't really mention it to other people beacuase like some have already mentioned, you know they won't understand. Almost like you can pretty much predict their response. My husband is supportive since we met in SL and he knows about it but if I told my other family or friends I could guess spot on they would look at me like I'm insane.

But at the end of the day Deja, it is you who is bringing in an extra amount of money per month due to your silly game and not her! :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

---

I think this is so true. It's funny because anytime my husband has one of his "gamer friends" over, if they see it on my screen and ask me what it is, they totally get it. In fact, they usually ask me how hard it is to build and could they do it? My friends, however, you're right, most are not gamers and they do not get it at all. I guess I just need to make more gamer friends. I think my husband has an easier time with that because 1. he's male and gamers have a higher quantity of men then woman and 2. he's younger than I am, which I think the younger you are the more likely you are to game. I very rarely find women my age who are serious gamers like I and my husband are. Our game collection is huge, and in fact, his friends think it's awesome and most of my friends just say things like "why do you let him buy so many games". Which I laugh at because then i say...first, I don't "let" him do anything and second, did you not notice we have 2 of almost everything? LOL

 

[Freya Mokusei]

My background gets a little complicated, but the short answer is I've proved to just about everyone who will listen that SL is an awesome place.

While I was studying in university, I used LSL in combination with other languages to build a successful eCommerce engine that I used to prove to my lecturers that I could enter a digital marketplace, set up and organise a 'brand' and make money there. Important stuff! I graduated top of my class.

After university I found myself unemployed for a small stretch. So I used professional contacts (SL content creators ) to build a portfolio of cool stuff by working for scripting clients (work mostly carried out in SL). I used this portfolio to score the equivilent of my 'dream job'. I even showed pictures of SL at my interview.

My parents watched over my shoulder for an afternoon while I took them (via my avatar) to a virtual church service, where they listened to a congregation of New Zealanders, and their priest. They got a good chance to see worldwide religion and how immersive the 'show' of SL could be. They didn't really 'get' the environment or the avatars, but they appreciated its ability to bring people together.

My friends have had a harder time getting to grips with it. I've had several of my friends join, grow bored and then leave. They just don't seem suited to it. But they've seen the work I've done, and the recognise its value for other people (and for me). I keep showing them pictures of events that I'm involved in, but I'm pretty sure they're a lost cause.

[Deja Letov]

That's an awesome story Freya! I love that you got your parents involved. Sounds like you are doing well!

[Freya Mokusei]

Thanks! It's a testament to the friendliness of a lot of the people in SL, to be honest. I couldn't have stayed engaged in SL and done well in my exams without a lot of the people I'd met here. Likewise I'd have gone fairly crazy while unemployed without content creators giving me their own stories of employment troubles, (and their constant stream of adjustments they wanted to my scripts ). Events like Relay For Life give me another reason to publicise the awesome things SL does 'in the real world', in terms non-SLers can understand.

SL is a great place to learn, practice and chat with people who all have awesome insights into different businesses and cultures. It's a very easy world to be 'proud' of, in a way, when showing it to non-SLers.

 

[Marigold Devin]

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Deja Letov wrote:

hahah I never realized I could get *bleeped* on the forum. For those paying attention my bleep was a good word for a mean nasty woman that starts with a B 

---

Did you mean "b1tch"?  I wasn't allowed to say n1p, in the context of n1p across to (location).  Odd forum censorship sometimes, eh?!

I like your option of putting them in the backyard.

My brother (whose computer I use to access Second Life) understands perfectly the attraction of it, knows it's not a game in the usual sense of the word, and has ensured the room the computer sits in has access to plenty of daylight and fresh air, but he has noticed that I have got something of a 'Tefal head' since become an SL-geek :matte-motes-confused: as he calls me.

I don't bother even trying to explain to the friends who don't get the attraction to SL.  If they somehow think I would rather be shoe shopping when they have the stinkiest feet in the universe, and cannot see why being in SL is preferable, there is no way of explaining really.

[Czari Zenovka]

The first thing this topic made me think of is a book called "The Virtual Community" by Howard Rheingold.  Written in 1993, it is a classic work on the subject of the internet as a community unto itself.  It is now available in an online version here:

http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/

I have been a "Netizen" since the mid-1980's, having first worked as a sales representative for a franchise that sold the first IBM Personal Computers when they were first introduced in 1981 which led to my interest in computers; then was introduced to "the net" while in grad. school and had a free (dialup) internet account through the university.  I conducted a large part of my research online via the internet prior to browsers.  The term "hyperlink" was a big deal then.  During that time was also when I discovered IRC,  a text-only chat medium, and was introduced to "the virtual community."

My experience re: how others view my involvement online is similar to Freya's.  From the outset my mother viewed being online as a waste of time and that the internet ushered in porn.  She and I had many heated discussions with me trying to explain that the people I met and became friends with in chat rooms (many of whom I later met in RL) were just as "real" to me as friends I see "in person" and that porn was around long before the PC, and her hanging onto the stance that only "losers" were online.  At one time we actually had an "agreement" not to mention computers/internet because it invariably led to an argument.

Years later when I joined SL her opinion had not changed but we'd pretty much come to a "detente" on the subject by then, with her occasionally expressing her disapproval of the internet and relaying horror stories of people who were stalked and/or murdered from online interactions, etc. to me.

Fast forward to the present.  This issue with us has been ongoing for 20 years...lol.  However, a couple of things slowly began changing her view to realize there are many positive aspects to being online in general and SL in particular.  The first real breakthrough was several years ago when I enrolled in a SL Spanish language class offered by a RL school that now operates in SL as well.  The instructor has a Ph.D. in linguistics and is otherwise extremely credentialed in acedemia.  What was great fun, a wonderful learning experience, and only possible via the interrnet - the instructor lives in Spain.  This was something to which my mother could relate, whereas internet "chat" or games was not in her frame of reference.

The second thing that contributed to my mother having a better view of the potential of the internet was when I began attending a SL church of my RL denomination.  The ministry is overseen by and under the diocese of a Bishop in England.  The people who lead the worship services are either retired ministers of the church or studying for the minstry so, once again, a "bonafide" RL presence online.  One of our members wrote a doctoral thesis on "Religion in Virtual Reality."

My SL business does not pull a RL profit to date, but it enables me to enjoy a very nice SL without putting any USD into it.  I was telling my mother about how in operating a SL business I need to not only create products, but make the ads, think of how to best present my products in my shop, and how to market them.  This struck a chord with my mother as she loves merchandising and worked for many years in high-end women's clothing boutiques. 

For me, my main issues have not been anyone in RL not understanding my SL business but, as related, just being online in general.  Interestingly, the people who don't understand my interest in having a SL business...are other SL residents!!!  One of my SL friends tells me I need to get out more to "have fun."  When I try to tell her that, for me, having a SL business *is* fun, it just doesnt' compute. (No pun intended.)  A guy I see on a semi-regular basis only comes to SL to dance and I can tell doesn't get it.  I actually had another guy "break up" with me because, quote: You're a businesswoman and the thought of building something bores me to tears."

Interesting topic, Deja.  Thanks for starting it.

[Perrie Juran]

I know a DJ who is RL Disabled and the tips they make are the difference between living on 99 cent TV dinners and being able to afford real hamburger and real potatoes.

[Sea Warcliffe]

For those who woudlnt understand, I just say that Ive been learing "2d and 3d applications for virtual worlds". Makes me sound all accadenic and stuff. Hubby likes the additional funds I can contribute to the house, vacation and fun things.

I have a friend who was teasing me, until I asked him what if someone paid you to do something you already wanted to do - like go to a bar and hang out with your friends? Or what if your hobby basically made going to the bar free? Then he stopped teasing me

[Paul Hexem]

My family absolutely thinks I'm wasting my time playing video games, despite cashing out profits from time to time. I don't even try to correct them anymore.

 

When they ask where I got extra money, I just say I sell drugs. At least that argument is more amusing.

[Madeliefste Oh]

My family is used to the idea that I prefer to spend time on things that they (and most people) do not consider as something normal. I have worked as an actrice and theatre director for quiet a while. Last ten years I have been working in an exhibition space where we show experimental contemporary art projects, none of my family members has ever visited the place. I never insisted to do so, because I know on forehand they would not enjoy what we are doing there.
What I do in SL is something they understand better then the art projects, because it is much more concrete. And they have more interest in it as well, though the interest in mainly in how my shops are running in financial terms. What they absolute don't understand is that people are willing to pay for virtual goods. They think like: you spend money, but you get nothing back that you can hold in your hands, so you are just wasting money.
I try to explain by comparing it with people who  go to the movies or to a musical, they do exactly the same, they pay to watch and when they leave the building they have nothing left they can hold in their hands. But they don't get the parallel.

My friends are mainly artists or are closely related to the artistic field. Though none of them is active in or attracted to SL, they are interested in what I do in SL, and don't consider it as a waist of time at all. Most of them find it interesting that I'm exploring 'the new media' as creative outlet and encourage me for this.

[Josh Susanto]

I'm not making a living in SL, but I'm making enough now that at least my wife has become supportive of my activity.

The first things I try to explain to people about why it's a worthwhile activity are:

1) I buy real stuff with SL money. Real dental work. Real Gymboree fees for my son. Real groceries. Not a lot of stuff, but real stuff, and more of it all the time.

2) It's a simulated environment that continues to develop and is used by a million or more people world-wide. So even if you make a virtual rock, log, or plumbing component, if it's not total crap, a few people will pay something for it eventually. It's almost inevitable to make some kind of money on each product eventually, so it's partly just a question of how many things you can make.

3) It costs almost nothing, except time and a little bit of electricity that I suppose I could otherwise be using for TV or online gambling, pr0n and Zynga games that don't pay anything back or allow me to develop any kind of skills or useful social networks. 

4) If I do nothing else with it starting right now, it will probably just continue to accumulate money while I sleep. Do you know a lot of people who have jobs like that?

5) I don't know why people buy the stuff that they buy, but it's also not necessarily my problem. They could be architects or game designers or something like that, exporting the data to use elsewhere as well, but mostly probably not. BUT (and this matters, yes) at least what they buy won't be ending up in a landfill in a few years. If the data becomes functionally obsolete, you just won't keep seeing it around. This allows people to constantly re-engineer things without producing any physical waste, and that's GOOD. It may take decades for your dream home to become a stable concept either in SL or RL, but in SL, it will cost you maybe a million dollars less to keep getting it not-quite-right for a while. 

6) Seeming to be someone different can be very therapeutic for some people. The test of whether being taller or thinner or something and seeing whether or how anybody treats one differently can be a pretty important experience, even if it is not totally conclusive. I specifically cite Peter Dinklage as someone who is said to have benefitted from a telephone job on which he talked to thousands of people who had no reason to imagine he might be a dwarf. SL is like that. People are not what they pretend to be in RL, either. But in SL, the pretense is both more complete and more transparent; not more transparent in terms of revealing people as they really are, but in terms of not even seeming to do that.  Offering people more and better components in their various simulations enhances the suspension of disbelief and thus potentially offers a more compelling therapeutic vitual experience. Especially for the disabled, or for people who need help to realize that part or all of their disability is in their mind (that's a lot of people, really).

7) N00bs want houses, cars, guns, and shoes. After a while, they have as much as they could want of anything they could want in RL... well, almost. Then maybe they discover that happiness is more a function of doing than of having. This is an important lesson that (like the house thing) costs a lot less to learn in SL than in RL. Offering a lot of different stuff to users allows them to develop the habit of thinking more about why they want something rather than simply whether they can afford it. A big house isn't necessarily interesting or impressive in SL. Neither is a fast car. Etc. I have watched young users think their way out of blind materialism in SL a lot faster than tends to happen in RL. They still buy stuff, but they buy different stuff for different reasons. It's sad that most people in RL will never have the real experience of not caring that they can afford big houses or fast cars or whatnot. 

8) People buy all kinds of paintings, furniture and decor in RL, too. And a lot of it is stuff which, if we watched someone making it, we'd say "REALLY???". And that stuff can't be infinitely copied, modified and redistributed around the globe at the click of a button. So how is it better, exactly? It's really even more impermanent in most cases, and it uses up RL resources every single time someone makes another one. Isn't it at least better to practice a little bit with virtual stuff before making and/or buying things in RL? Consider the comparative cost, for example, of dicovering in RL that maybe you don't really want to own a complete SM dungeon after all. Just one more thing to consider before being dismissive of the value of what virtual merchants provide. 

 

[wrable Amat]

LOL I keep my SL to my self,I am a strange person that lives by a time line and have he ability to portion out my SL time in a fashion it never cross the RL time line

but not long ago after many people asked us to add a little adult role play to our maternity system I found my self in front of blender sculpting genitals for a conception add on and we make our designs from scratch even the animations so I drew the short straw on who was going to make the prims for this add on..

My mother called that days and said   "hey!! What are you doing?"    my reply    "im making balls...."    

which I followed by " dough balls for pizza" a few seconds later...But the fact is I was really  sculpting.......I will  let your mind draw the image as it was BURNED INTO MINE!!!

Not the image I was needing tattoo to the back of my scull on a Saturday I will add...... I would really hate to explain all this to my family ... It follow with " If you need extra money we can help!!! Do not do that!!" I am from a god fearing  deep south family.

So my answer is ,I look around and whistle pretending to have no idea about it when people talk about  thing like SL or spending any time online.

[Deja Letov]

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wrable Amat wrote:

LOL I keep my SL to my self,I am a strange person that lives by a time line and have he ability to portion out my SL time in a fashion it never cross the RL time line

but not long ago after many people asked us to add a little adult role play to our maternity system I found my self in front of blender sculpting genitals for a conception add on and we make our designs from scratch even the animations so I drew the short straw on who was going to make the prims for this add on..

My mother called that days and said   "hey!! What are you doing?"    my reply    "im making balls...."    

which I followed by " dough balls for pizza" a few seconds later...But the fact is I was really  sculpting.......I will  let your mind draw the image as it was BURNED INTO MINE!!!

Not the image I was needing tattoo to the back of my scull on a Saturday I will add...... I would really hate to explain all this to my family ... It follow with " If you need extra money we can help!!! Do not do that!!" I am from a god fearing  deep south family.

So my answer is ,I look around and whistle pretending to have no idea about it when people talk about  thing like SL or spending any time online.

---

hahaha This reminds me of the time my 16 year old kid walked by my office when I was adjusting some sex positions into a new bed i was making. He saw my female avatar totally riding on top of a male avatar with pink and blue sticks going through them (to adjust). All he said was "mom...uhm...why are you humping that dude." I just about died. He went and told his step dad I was looking at cartoon porn. LOL

 

[SimonTemplar Bernard]

My RL partner is a mid level manager with scads of business training. She doesn't quite understand my sl addiction, but as I point out, compared to a real life business, my monthly losses are miniscule.

Recently, after about 4 years of trying, I am starting to figure it out and make a tiny profit. She is supportive. I ran some projections for her, and her eyebrows went up. "That's not bad.. I hope it works!" Then I just shut up, because me talking about SL bores her to death.

So- support on the home front, despite not really understanding the whole SL thing.

[Spica Inventor]

My friends in effect give me the crucifix sign with their index fingers whenever I suggest they try out S.L. thinking they would get sucked into it being creativity freaks like myself which they probably would. hehe ;-)

[Toysoldier Thor]

Its actually pretty funny how all those in RL around me : my immediate family, my friends, my co-workers respond about my attempts to describe SL and that I run a couple businesses in SL.

My immediate family, in laws and friends just don't understand my overall addiction to SL (ie. that I love singing Karaoke most nights and that I attend 1 or more virtual live concerts pretty much every night, or that I create art from inside SL and have an art gallery and go to art exhibits etc etc etc). 

In fact, the "boggles the mind and can't grasp the concepts of all these virtual activities" attitude I get from my family initially was even worse regarding what I initially got from my Co-Workers (you know the boys will be boys kind of poking).  I repeat...  "initially".

But my immediate family cannot dismiss the fact that over the past 3 years my SL Sculpty Landscapes business has been generating a pretty consistent $300-$400US per month and they see the results from the business when I buy myself a $2500 Alienware laptop from my profits and a new Nikon DSLR and using the profits to kickstart my move of the art I created in SL to a RL art site selling real Canvas.  They don't joke or rib me when they know my paypal account has a lot of RL "hot money" in it 100% because of my small virtual business.

My co-workers stopped making fun of me very quickly when I told them how much I make from - as one of my co-workers said - "SELLING VIRTUAL ROCKS".  In fact what one of my cocky mouthed co-workers (yeah a friend that loves to rib ppl) keeps saying....  "I can't even make fun of xxxx because as crazy as this whole secondlife is, he is making $100's of real money each month selling virtual rocks to the masses in SL".  It bugs him even more when I tell him that I only spend about 2 hours a week actually maintaining my virtual store.  So the ribbing at work ended long time ago

Ironically, I got into SecondLife in the first place because of my work back in January 2008 when one of IBM's top scientists of structure software, Grady Booch, did a presentation to our local I.T. community.   He did it via a huge IMAX SecondLife session while he was sitting comfortably at his home in Colorado.  A local IT vendor set up a SL viewer that was then projected on the huge IMAX screen and Grady sat at his IBM island while interacting with a RL theatre of local I.T. professionals - including me and my fellow co-workers.  I was so amazed at how this was possible that when I got home I immediately registered an account with SL.  My rez day was Jan 23, 2008.  The rest is history.  I did actually even briefly meet Grady in SL as I got to know the IBM sim's manager who knows him well.

So that my take on this topic.