Forced to close down

Amiryu Hosoi · August 17, 2012

Well, I am strolling the web today because today is the second time LL decided to charge my paypal account to pay for tier. I wanted to know if there would be a way to temporary pause a few of my sims. I own 4 sims that are open to the public and lots and lots of people are using them for free. The regions are Japan Edo time based and host several roleplay groups and a lot of residents. My market Hosoi Ichiba is paying for all 4 sims + advertisements + occasional gifts to new residents. I am also using SL as a toolbox to design and proof my RL Japanese themed designs.

Since the start of the world wide economic crysis we seem to be in I, like many others, noticed a decline in sales. However my Ichiba was still going strong up to the start of this holiday season. Seems people are finally running out of “playmoney”. Maybe after the summer my sales will start growing again but I have the odd feeling it won’t;-(

If my sales doesn’t recover I will need to close down my sims and SL will loose again 4 wonderful free landmarks. I know I am not alone in this. Already a lot of great places closed down to never return and a lot will follow. The idea I have to let down all those people that depend on the scenery that I created over the years will make me so super sad;-( For what I know there is no way I can preserve complete sims to reerect them on the LL grid or elsewhere later.

I think LL needs to rethink their business strategy. Like some people here said, LL has a great tool and nowadays their servers and viewers are very stable. If LL should decide to lower tier and startup fees I am sure new people will start using SL and people that moved away to, for instance Open Sim like environments, will come back to SL. I am afraid though that will never happen.

For example; a few months agoo I contacted LL to talk about pricing and possible discount on 24 private sims because I was in the race for a very big RL contract rebuilding a complete town and zoo in the Netherlands. (my client didn’t want to use Open Sim) The kind of project that could put SL on the map again as a serious tool and virtual environment. The answer however was NO! LL didnt even want to think about it!

I am simply not able to fund the 4 sims (1200 USD a month) from my RL income at the moment. Saying that makes me think about how much I payed to SL in tier and commision, etc. over the last 6 years… it must be in the region of USD 150.000+

So that leaves me with one option only. Praying sales will recover after the summer so my friends, residents and visitors can keep enjoying our little corner in SL.

For all people riding the same boat I would like to say; keep up the faith!

Hugs,

Amiryu Hosoi

Medhue Simoni · August 17, 2012

Sorry to hear this Ami! Each of us is on our own, to battle it out in the market. I do not think there is any doubt that your creations are stunning, but I must mention that I don't see any mesh creations by you on the marketplace. Mesh is the new thing. I tried my best to inform all of my fellow creators that mesh would take over the grid. If you are not making mesh, then you are going to continue to lose sales. Pricing is another big issue. Many merchants have dropped their pricing considerably. Of course, I have no idea what all the prices are in all markets.

Don't go down without a fight Ami. Make changes. Redo your pricing. Learn to make mesh. If I were you. I would immediately sell or abandon 2 or 3 sims, to conserve as much income as you can. Again too, I can not stress enough how important it is to learn mesh. Maybe you do have some mesh products, but I did not see any in your Marketplace store. Good Luck Ami!

Rya Nitely · August 17, 2012

Ami, I'm sorry to hear you're having difficulties, and I do agree with rebuilding old stock using all the new tools. However, I am finding that there are limits to mesh when it comes to prim count. I hoped they would replace sculpties but they won't. For example, how do I build an offsim mountain using mesh and keep prims low? I also find that sometimes I can't link a mesh item to my sculpted or standard prims as this blows out the prim count.

But yes, I am going over all my items and reducing prims using megaprims and sculpted prims, and my partner builds mesh items - and our profits are still very decent.

Paul Hexem · August 17, 2012

Medhue Simoni wrote:

Sorry to hear this Ami! Each of us is on our own, to battle it out in the market. I do not think there is any doubt that your creations are stunning, but I must mention that I don't see any mesh creations by you on the marketplace. Mesh is the new thing. I tried my best to inform all of my fellow creators that mesh would take over the grid. If you are not making mesh, then you are going to continue to lose sales. Pricing is another big issue. Many merchants have dropped their pricing considerably. Of course, I have no idea what all the prices are in all markets.

Don't go down without a fight Ami. Make changes. Redo your pricing. Learn to make mesh. If I were you. I would immediately sell or abandon 2 or 3 sims, to conserve as much income as you can. Again too, I can not stress enough how important it is to learn mesh. Maybe you do have some mesh products, but I did not see any in your Marketplace store. Good Luck Ami!

Medhue gives great advice. Update and put out relevant products and sales won't stagnate.

That said, LL is out of their minds for not reconsidering pricing. The prices are absolutely insane compared to any other 3D application anywhere, for any service at all.

Medhue Simoni · August 17, 2012

Gadget Portal wrote

Medhue gives great advice. Update and put out relevant products and sales won't stagnate.

That said, LL is out of their minds for not reconsidering pricing. The prices are absolutely insane compared to any other 3D application anywhere, for any service at all.

Thanks Gadget! Maybe tho, Ami could sell the sim to some other related role play operations. The fact that all 4 sims are together would seem to be a major selling point. So, maybe 1 sim is owned by some1 else, but every1 benefits by all the sims being connected.

Toysoldier Thor · August 17, 2012

Rya Nitely wrote:

Ami, I'm sorry to hear you're having difficulties, and I do agree with rebuilding old stock using all the new tools. However, I am finding that there are limits to mesh when it comes to prim count. I hoped they would replace sculpties but they won't. For example, how do I build an offsim mountain using mesh and keep prims low? I also find that sometimes I can't link a mesh item to my sculpted or standard prims as this blows out the prim count.

But yes, I am going over all my items and reducing prims using megaprims and sculpted prims, and my partner builds mesh items - and our profits are still very decent.

I agree with Rya,

Medue is correct that a creator should learn the newer creation / technologies LL puts out but for him to make that the crux of why her business is failing is incorrect. Mesh is still NOT 100% endoresed by the entire SL population - even to this day. Plesase Medue do not point out LL stats that prove me wrong. I see it every day that mesh is still not used by a good portion of the population. UNTIL seeing a mesh is what 95% of the grid will see, mesh has limits in it use at a large scale.

Example, I just moved my art gallery to my new sim, it including several of my mesh art statues throughout the floor. In the past 3 weeks since my new landscapes sculpties store and art gallery re opened on the new sim I have had several visitor come look at the place. I toured countless visitors. I would say that abou 1/3 of the visitors do not and continue to refuse to upgrade to a MESH capable viewer. 1/3 Medue!

Buiders cant create beautiful landscaped sims an know that 1/3rd of their visitors see deformed blobs all over the sim.

Some have older computers and when they tried the new viewers with mesh it crippled they PC so they went back. Some told me that they dont see the big deal with mesh that would force them to upgrade from a viewer that works fine.

Then as Rya said, mesh was born with a huge limitation that LL burdoned them with that makes Mesh even harder to bring to market - like large structure like landscapes and even homes. Mesh being penalized with LI when sculpties and prims are not. I have been creating and selling sculpty landscapes for years.... even a year later I cannot justify making a mesh pack because its LI is simply hit too hard with LI as soon as you try to grow it to any significant size. A 1 prim sculpty mountain is far cheaper than a 100 LI Mesh.

Then there is the stupid wild flinging calculations when you even try to augment a build with a mesh!! This is the biggest joke. Last week I tried to link one of my 3 LI mesh statues with a flowing prim/sculpty build I had that was 5prim. When I linked the the two together to consider selling it... 3 + 5 = around 8 LI? ROFL NOPE... In LL's calculation... 3 + 5 = 243 LI.

You can champion and cheerlead about how MESH is the magic solution every creator with declining sales must adopt to save their business but that is simply not the case.

I still ONLY sell sculpty landscapes in my store and other than the big slump that most of us felt in late June and into summer (MANY OF US REPORTED IT HERE - even those that do not sell mesh or sculpty) my sales are generally about where they were when mesh was introduced.

So Medue.... why is me not using mesh in my 100% sculpty store not collapsing?

You are correct that she should look how Mesh COULD be used to create and make sales. BUT you are off based on saying its the main reason her business is declining.

Toysoldier Thor · August 17, 2012

Sasly Ami you are experiencing something regarding the sales drop in June that a large number of merchants reported as well. Something happened in June - who knows what - that caused a noticeable slump in sales and it went into summer. I noticed it too but over the past few weeks it "SEEMS" to be recovering for now. Maybe with summer things will get better for all. But I am like you in that I think the general SL economy is slowly grinding down both to RL economic pressures and because of too much competition pulling interests away from SL.

Growing lag problem on the grid (because LL keeps adding new functions and has yet to put a big dent in focusing on lag reducing - i.e. PathFinder now added to all the sims by default which most dont need nor asked for but now have it running on their sims) makes it frustrating to enjoy being on the sim especially when participating in large events like concerts where30 - 50 - 90 guests show up.

LL's lack of customer service and dealing with serious AR's makes it scary for many grid residents (mostly women) to engage when wacked out Stalkers are allowed to harass and terrorize victims with ZERO support from LL to shut them down.

Competing open sims that are much lower cost to participat - especially when owning sims that cost a fraction the price of LL.

The mood of gloom around the grid about the future of SL.... "how long will SL be around" when everyone sees amazing beautiful sims shutting down almost every month because of the cost to operate and when you hear last year LL had 1800 abandoned sims. Being surrounded by bad news stories makes you believe it and you start looking for other options.

Also, since not many new users are entering SL - its critical that those that are long time vets of SL are kept happy and stay. But many of them are getting bored or have other priorities now or are dying off. Like a busines - this is a USER BASE NEGATIVE CASHFLOW. LL cant sustain a dropping userbase forever.

So there are countless factors that you declining business is likely a victim of. Not using MESH is just one small factor in this but since you are just a boat on the LL's / SL Sea... you go down when the seas drop.

I think you are doing the right thing.... Look at cutting your own costs. If that means dropping a non-revenue producing sim - then that is what you must do. You certainly would not be the first. Countless SL residents are closing sims and reducing their land usage. LL does not or cannt change its pricing model so dont look for any help from LL to make their sim teirs more competitive. As such, drop a sim.

Wish you luck !

Rose Mackie · August 17, 2012

I see a lot of the merchants saying "go mesh or die." I don't have mesh and my sales are about the same. I'm always suprised these days to see how well I am doing with my plain ole builds. I thought for sure I'd be passed over by "flashy" products. I think that people will buy your products if they fill a need, catch the eye, and are quality, low-prim, competitively priced items.

Toysoldier Thor · August 17, 2012

Rose Mackie wrote:

I see a lot of the merchants saying "go mesh or die." I don't have mesh and my sales are about the same. I'm always suprised these days to see how well I am doing with my plain ole builds. I thought for sure I'd be passed over by "flashy" products. I think that people will buy your products if they fill a need, catch the eye, and are quality, low-prim, competitively priced items.

Totally agree with you Rose. All my selling landscape packs are 100% sculpty only. I still generate about the same sales as I did when Mesh was introduced a year ago.

Medhue is well known for being one of LL's biggest champions of Mesh - even his pom poms are mesh He has been promoting that mesh is the savoir of the grid and that all non-mesh conformants will surely die a quick death since LL made mesh production last summer. A year later - I am still here and still making great money on my SCULPTIES.

The Mesh lovers keep wanting to overlook the major LI impact limit that LL placed on its ability to grow faster and they want to ignore the current technical limits that LL has still not addressed (like deformers for clothing). These are just small inconveniences to a mesh lover and the attitude is "too bad for those that refuse to see mesh - their loss". Well it might be their loss not seeing mesh but its also a major factor why many buiders of places and landscapes will not use mesh to replace sculpties and prims - if a large number of their visitors still cannot see mesh.

Mesh is real cool. I love mesh as a technology. I am even way more excited to hear now that LL is working on a Materials system. But logic for me as a creator that SELLS to my marketplace - mesh still has hurdles to jump before it reaches the "SCULPTY" usage comfort for builders.

As such.... I take the "MESH OR DIE AS A BUSINESS" post with a bit of a chuckle as they have been proven wrong so far.

Deja Letov · August 17, 2012

I have to agree with Toy. Just as an example, I have a paid to join VIP group and each month to that group I give away one free product. The product is always a new creation. Well 2 months ago my new product was a mesh object. It was the first mesh object I've offered in my store so I thought why not start with my group of VIP'ers. I got sooooo many IM's from customers asking me if I was going to continue to do only mesh for my group gift and really raising some negative comments from those people if I planned to do so. I have made a conscious decision to 1. not release mesh as a VIP group gift anymore and 2. not really focus on providing mesh even as a regular product offering, except a few random scattered products. I've played with it a bit and have made just a handful of items, but strangely they are not good selling items, even being mesh. I just don't see mesh as a strong reason for a business being successful. In fact I see it more impressive to content creators than to buyers. Buyers just want what looks good, they don't care how it gets there. mesh may have its day one day, but I don't think it's quite ready today.

As for the OP, I would definitely cut back on maybe one sim that isn't producing revenue. Don't give up completely, just make cuts.

Medhue Simoni · August 17, 2012

What some people fail to realize, is that 3d is not all SL. The importance of learning mesh goes way beyond Secondlife. See, myself, as a creator doesn't feel that making items for ONLY 1 platform is a very intelligent way to work, or spend my time. Everything that I make today, can be used anywhere I choose to bring it. In my personal opinion, you'll be writing your own 3d death note by continuing to create only for SL. If people want to occupy their time arguing the mesh or no mesh idiocy, please do it without referencing me.

This thread is about Ami and her problems. I seriously doubt that advising her to continuously create items that can only work in SL, is good advice at all. Unlike some people, I looked at Ami's whole collection and I see many items that would be half the prim cost in mesh, not to mention all the other bonuses of mesh.

Toysoldier Thor · August 17, 2012

Medhue Simoni wrote:

What some people fail to realize, is that 3d is not all SL. The importance of learning mesh goes way beyond Secondlife. See, myself, as a creator doesn't feel that making items for ONLY 1 platform is a very intelligent way to work, or spend my time. Everything that I make today, can be used anywhere I choose to bring it. In my personal opinion, you'll be writing your own 3d death note by continuing to create only for SL. If people want to occupy their time arguing the mesh or no mesh idiocy, please do it without referencing me.

This thread is about Ami and her problems. I seriously doubt that advising her to continuously create items that can only work in SL, is good advice at all. Unlike some people, I looked at Ami's whole collection and I see many items that would be half the prim cost in mesh, not to mention all the other bonuses of mesh.

No one "fails" to realize this Medhue. But not everyone has been put on this earth to create 3D models and make money on them. Nor was the OP's topic talking about how her business outside SL is failing. Her topic was about what is happening INSIDE SL. As such, what a creator does outside SL is not up for discussion on this thread.

Your response also failed to bring up the new argument you are bringing up now about "the bigger picture of knowing mesh and 3D modeling". Your response was very direct and in my opinion quite myopic in that you clearly were recommending strongly to the OP that the root cause to all her woes is that she is not adopting Mesh.

I know you are a HUGE fan of all things mesh but do you honestly believe that her non-adoption of mesh is the root to her problem with lagging sales in SL? Do you really think that the slumping sales in the SL economy does not have many factors and most of those factors have nothing to do with mesh?

Mesh is cool and 3D modeling to create a mesh export to SL is really cool - AS A TECHNOLOGY. But the most amazing technology cannot stand by itself to make it successful. There are many other NON-TECHNICAL factors that determine how fast and when Mesh or any other new technology LL introduces on the grid will become critical mass successful.

At this time MESH still has not reached critical mass. It has major hurdles to jump before it can. LL - in its proven "geek view" deploying a new technology onto their money making grid did not help matters by releasing Mesh with the huge mesh-only LI penalties when all older legacy prims and sculpties have no penaltioes. This was a big strategic failing on mesh go-live. In fact it is the LI penalties of Mesh that is the #1 reason I will not release a mesh pack for SL right now.

I am glad you love 3D modeling and SL Mesh so much, but you really need to put your comments in perspective when providing advice as to reasons why a fellow merchant sees slumping sales in SL. There is much more to the SL grid economy than Mesh.... trust me.

Darrius Gothly · August 17, 2012

Ami, even though we've had our disagreements and crossed swords, I have always respected and valued your input into our community. Yes, the loss of your sims would be a very bad thing from the perspective of the RP communities you support. But even more of a loss is the valuable insight and perspectives you bring.

Your absence from these forums has been felt for a long time. I always thrilled when I saw your name appear on a post ... yes, even when you totally pissed me off. *grin*

Linden Lab's refusal to negotiate a reasonable price adjustment when approaching them with a guaranteed sale of 24 Sims just baffles me .. and proves why they are still suffering in day to day business growth. It's an attitude born from the days when they had a pure monopoly ... something they don't have any more.

If you can find a way to reduce your monthly cash expenses, but still provide the market with your excellent builds, your brash and strong opinions ... and your unique personality .. please do so. I know that many of us would be lessened to lose you as a contributor and member of our "family".

No matter what the future holds .. my best wishes and prayers for a solution that meets your needs and desires .. and keeps the doors open to you for a long time to come.

Deja Letov · August 17, 2012

Medhue Simoni wrote:

What some people fail to realize, is that 3d is not all SL. The importance of learning mesh goes way beyond Secondlife. See, myself, as a creator doesn't feel that making items for ONLY 1 platform is a very intelligent way to work, or spend my time. Everything that I make today, can be used anywhere I choose to bring it. In my personal opinion, you'll be writing your own 3d death note by continuing to create only for SL. If people want to occupy their time arguing the mesh or no mesh idiocy, please do it without referencing me.

This thread is about Ami and her problems. I seriously doubt that advising her to continuously create items that can only work in SL, is good advice at all. Unlike some people, I looked at Ami's whole collection and I see many items that would be half the prim cost in mesh, not to mention all the other bonuses of mesh.

Medhue, i don't think anyone is failing to realize it, I think many just don't focus on things outside of SL. I think what you're talking about is more or less what you and possibly other creators who are doing this outside of SL possibly as a career maybe? However, advising someone to do it purely because it can work on other platforms to someone who doesn't work in other platforms doesn't make sense to me. Not all creators are in here to design for the masses of the world. I know for me, I just come into SL because it'sfun, I have friends here and yes...I like to run my business here and it's a game I have with myself to see how much money I can cash out each month. Obviously to someone like me, or the OP who is just trying to support a set of sims with SL money, talking about other platforms isn't a viable or sensible option. I don't know your backstory but it sounds like you do 3D design outside of SL as your living and that's great for you, but there are a great many of us who only do it in SL because it's fun to do and we make a little side cash. it doesn't mean we don't see potential of moving outside of SL, it just means we are trying to maintain a lifestlyle only in SL. Just keep in mind the reason people are arguing about mesh versus sculpts is because (and I dont mean to speak for you Toy, I could be off base) we are playing SL. Our businesses are running in SL. So why would we discuss the issue of mesh in any format except how it applies to our sl business.

Honestly, I wouldn't even have an idea on where to go outside of SL to create additonal revenue..except maybe inworldz which I have tried.

Toysoldier Thor · August 17, 2012

Darrius and I are on the same wavelength with his posting. As much as we have had our disagreements, you have proven to be a very successful SL creator and merchant and no one wants to see that shrink.

Sadly as I said and as Darrius is suggesting - like in RL economic crunches, if revenue begins to shrink then you need to focus on reducing costs.

LL simply does not understand that their old monopolistic hold on this market has gone away a few years ago but LL has never been the smartest Business Strategists. They are run from the CEO dows with a very strong TECH/GEEK culture and they do not grasp business factors. They do not see that the critical creators that have made SL the success it once was can very easily transfer their creations to other open sims.... an ability that LL founders ironically created because of their strong GEEK "Open Source rules" beliefs. So as a creator in SL - I have leveraged this ability by using the common technologies that SL and all its competing grid can use equally.

So as LL refuses to pull their heads out of the sand and realize that they need to address their teir fees and how to create more compeitive pricing to encourage Land Owner to keep and grow sims instead of abandoning them (which equal $0 revenue for LL).... sim owners need to take more drastic steps.

Closing down a sim to reduce costs is a sad but logical option. You wont get any sympathy from LL as they have watch and refused to stop many very high profile sims shut down in the past couple years which were used by LL themselves to promote why SL is so great. They wont negotite with you either.

I hope things turn around for your SL operations but make plans that they wont.

Toysoldier Thor · August 17, 2012

Actually Deja...

To expand on your argument back to Medhue on his thoughts of leveraging technology that can be used outside SL (like 3D modeling).... using MESH as opposed to Sculpties is actually a huge hinderance to that strategy.

Unlike Mesh... all my Sculpty packs were available to be transferred to other competing open sim grids (you all know which ones are SL's competitors). With sculpties I have been making a PROFIT on these grids outside SL. Exactly why would I create Mesh landscape packs that are currently not popular even in SL and 100% not possible to be exported into any other competing grid???

So contrary to Medhue's argument about mesh opens my world to bigger markets.... it is actually the other way around. SCULPTIES have and continue to be the only technology for me to take my creations I built for SL and sell them elsewhere - other open sim. Mesh would completely lock me into SL only.

If the OP would take Medhue's advice, she would be limiting her ability to sell her creation in any of these other grids.

Bittersweet Lime · August 17, 2012

Is there a statistic somewhere, how many mesh viewers are actually in use in SL?- Me, for example, I am not using a mesh viewer by many reasons, one of them is performance and another one is, that sculpties do the trick already with a lower performance impact. I tried mesh viewers and none of them could convince me to use them.

Medhue Simoni · August 17, 2012

I'm not going to go on arguing what I consider ridiculousness and ignorance. If people want to trust in what you say Toy, they have all the right to believe whatever they want to believe. My motive should be plainly clear, and that is to help as many of my fellow creators as I can, inform the public as to why their world sucks and is laggy, and to try and help make this SL world a smooth and enjoyable place to be in. Sculpties do not fit into those goals, and actually goes against them.

Dartagan Shepherd · August 17, 2012

Medhue Simoni wrote:

I'm not going to go on arguing what I consider ridiculousness and ignorance. If people want to trust in what you say Toy, they have all the right to believe whatever they want to believe. My motive should be plainly clear, and that is to help as many of my fellow creators as I can, inform the public as to why their world sucks and is laggy, and to try and help make this SL world a smooth and enjoyable place to be in. Sculpties do not fit into those goals, and actually goes against them.

For what it's worth, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I get what others are saying, if you're only into SL, there's no interest in creating content for outside of SL. That makes perfect sense, especially where income isn't the priority.

However, when it comes to seeking a full time income, and if you can handle mesh, SL alone is far too risky, the platform is too buggy and mesh content requires far too much babysitting during the creation process.

Add to that the unknowns of a completely idiotic and convoluted land impact calculation designed around offering less resources for LL, thereby reducing their cost and the greed factor of charging yet more costs for uploads.

As a "career" SL isn't it. Besides an unstable platform, LL is a lousy business partner. Personally I see them as a dishonest company because they've been dishonest in their dealings with me, disclaim all liability, offer no merchant or consumer protection, etc.

But agree that if creating content is more important than SL itself, and higher level income that you can depend on (given the obvious risks of being self employed) ... SL isn't the place to do it. Put your eggs into baskets where you have far more control, reporting, sales, stability and customer service.

And it's of course really, really nifty to get paid real money for real work, at something resembling modern wages.

Personally I've brought no mesh into SL. Not worth the crazy implementation and wacky calculations and extra work. There's just no way I'm bringing a mesh into SL for pennies that sells outside of SL for $25-$250 and up per model..

@Ami ... if these free sims are integral to upselling your products, hold out as long as you can, would be my advice. If it starts dipping into your pocket and not your profits, dump the sims at will. Better to sell less at profit than to be paying out of pocket for something you're not sure you can recover from

There's just so much RL "stuff" to spend $300/month on that re-invests in other ventures or gives you longer lasting satisfaction than a piece of virtual land.

Darrius Gothly · August 17, 2012

Further proof that the end of the world is nigh ...

Dartagan Shepherd wrote: