Rodvik to Non Pro/User Content Creators: Bye

[Pamela Galli]

In this article http://allthingsd.com/20130705/fifteen-questions-for-linden-lab-ceo-rod-humble-about-second-lifes-tween-years/?mod=atdtweet Humble says;

 

"And we just released a materials test viewer, and materials allow professionally made 3-D models to come into Second Life. So, that’s what’s in the immediate future."

 

 

 

 

[Couldbe Yue]

M told us to get out of the way a few years ago, so it's not as if Rod is deviating from the corporate line here.

LL has done nothing to make it easier for us to make content for years now and those few token things have all been broken in some way.

I doubt any professional content creator would want to touch SL - between SLs reputation for sleaze and ip infringement and poor dmca mangement, it wouldn't be particularly attractive to anyone who has a reputation out in the real world.

By the time he's finished, SL will be a beautiful world that nobody goes to.  An interesting business choice but LL has always been a trendsetter in that area of fail.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Some of my favorite funny quotes from that article:

"I believe there will be a day when you’ll log in to your social network and see, “Oh, I got five bucks because I posted my silly cat picture.” What I’m trying to do is position our company to take advantage of that and facilitate people being rewarded for the time they put in."

and (speaking of those 400,000 new signups every month) ...

"It’s usually about 20 percent are going to be around a month afterward. That’s a massive drop-off, but it’s still not too bad compared to other services."

I'm sure professionals that are selling 3D models for between $25 and $1,000 USD will be flocking here in no time and appreciating the level of professionalism compared to the sites that they currently sell on. In fact, those film and game designers may give up their previous careers for SL.

After all, that 20% of 400,000 new signups every month that stick around for more than a month means 80,000 new customers for merchants each and every month!

 

[Vegro Solari]

Come now, don't be hating, Rodvik Linden is only the very busy CEO, he is not God! Obviously what he really meant is that the material enhancements could help bring more hi-fidelity 3D models in SL. That's a good CEO talking point, no?

Can we agree, a professional model is one which fits perfectly for its intended purpose, is efficient enough, and looks good. So just because your model doesn't have those new normal and spec maps, doesn't mean it's not a pro model! Maybe it doesn't even need them and the model fits just perfect for what you intended. You might think yourself non-pro as a creator because you're modest, but really if you craft perfectly fit-to-purpose 3D models using whatever techniques available or known to you, you are actually a pro. Yes!

Rodvik Linden knows that too well, since, I heard he's joined SL from a game studio background, so you can be pretty sure he understands you and meant no offense.

 

 

 

 

[Pamela Galli]

"Professionally made" means: made by a professional.

[Phoebe Avro]

I read that article the other day and that line struck me, but pro's wont work with sl because sl is "cheap" most people in SL are like canaries "cheep cheep", only more ripped mesh will fill SL

Also the comment about 400,000 new signups a month and a 20% retension rate, so thats like 80,000 permonth new residents that stay in sl and yet the login numbers remain the same as they were a year ago

[Jenni Darkwatch]

It's a touchy topic. Sure, SL takes progressively more skill to create competitive items. That's been true in a number of areas. Animations for example: The times where somone could create dance anims by hand are long gone. MoCap rigs are a must for such anims. Yet there's still plenty of pose makers and people who generate animations by hand - and they sell. Just high-end anims are firmly in the hands of pros.

With building it's been the same thing. Building with prims is easy enough that most people can learn it more or less well. Creating sculpts on the other hand is well above the head of the average creator (it still is over my head btw). Mesh introduced building with standard tools. Some of those are actually not much more difficult to use than SL's built in prim tools. Blender is the elephant in the room: It's unintuitive, very hard to learn and even harder to get any proficiency in it.

Materials is the same: It's actually not too hard to make materials, but it does take time and practice.

There's a reason there's plenty of builder classes. Even building with prims takes some practice. IMO he didn't say bye to non-pro or user content. If he had, we'd have build tools only for licensed creators. IMO, he simply did a very bad choice of words.

[Madeliefste Oh]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

"And we just released a materials test viewer, and materials allow professionally made 3-D models to come into Second Life. So, that’s what’s in the immediate future."

 

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He will have to hire some more DMCA agents then, for all these professional made 3D models coming into Second Life, since the hobbyists who upload them are in many cases not the copyright holder of the model.

[Perrie Juran]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

"Professionally made" means: made by a professional.

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I read that quote the same way you did and have gone back and re-looked at it and it still comes across like you said, "professionally made."  It could be he meant "proffesional quality," but it doesn't come across that way to me.

I understand that they want Second Life to sparkle.  I'm all for that.  But I also think there are non technical issues that need to be addressed like the mess that is the Mainland.  Is there even any thought being given to clean it up.  All that sparkly content will only make Mainland look worse under its current hodge - podge conditions.

[Pamela Galli]

Exactly.  It's not that professional 3D artists are going to flood SL with professionally made models, although there's no reason SL would not be a good market for them . 3D models are all over the interenet, many illegally offered for free, many legally for free but not licensed for resale, and they are showing up in SL -- tho not uploaded by the artists.

 

How are these artists supposed to monitor SL for ripped content?  That is not going to happen.

Rod meant exactly what he said. He wants SL to be full of professionally made content -- and from what I see, it matters not a whit to Rod who brings it in.

[Czari Zenovka]

I've always built and sold simple items...but those simple items still sell.  I'm going to keep on keeping on until and unless I'm somehow forbidden to build - which will then give me lots more free time to pursue other things in SL.  I won't be purchasing anything from the "professionals" since my SL spending money comes from my MP sales.  No more money = no more buying.

ETA:  I bet all these professional designers are going to be "thrilled" if some MP glitch keeps them from receiving the money from their sales.  Just sayin.

 

[Dartagan Shepherd]

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Phoebe Avro wrote:

Also the comment about 400,000 new signups a month and a 20% retension rate, so thats like 80,000 permonth new residents that stay in sl and yet the login numbers remain the same as they were a year ago

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Not to go too far off topic, but the reason I'd somewhat sarcastically mentioned those numbers is because they aren't real. Or at least not real in the sense that they're atl indicitive of painting a true picture of where we're at with SL.

Rod is on-script in his latest interviews and one of the latest press releases.

Assuming 400,000 new users a month is accurate, the 20% figure claims those are the amount of people who "are going to be around a month afterward". So Rod is saying that 20% of people who sign up, sign in again to SL a month later.

It doesn't indicate retention of users, it just says that many logged in 30 days later. It also doesn't provide any context whatsoever. How many of these are actually unique? How many are alts? How many are agents or bots? I've personally known people who have had between 25 and 100 alts. Alts are so common that context needs to be provided.

It doesn't tell us how many of them remain active users. Or how many log in after 2 or 3 or 4 months.

It also doesn't tell us a stat that's just as important ... how many people leave that offset this number.

The story used to be at various times with SL that the retention rate is actually more like 1% or less and that these newer users don't affect concurrency and other indicators because these new users spend far less time in-world than they used to. They certainly don't make up new purchases in land, because land is declining (currently holding even for the last 2 weeks, with minimal losses).

So even if the numbers are correct, it may as well be fictional. Signups on the internet really don't mean a thing. A new social or adult site can generate 20,000 signups a day and not make a dime or convert users to customers.

It's the same with Rod saying that to date SL has done 3.2 billion dollars USD in user transactions and that the last year it did half a billion during a decline in land sales. This points to some sudden boom that didn't actually happen. Or if it did an explanation is nowhere to be found as to how that could happen.

This is also without context. A user to user transaction can be anything. Another personal example is that I gave money to someone one time. They gave it back, I gave it back to them. We did this a bunch of times just playing around. Each of those counts as a user to user transaction. As does every L$ that goes into a game, or any time a L$ passes from one user to another or to a scripted object.. It doesn't at all indicate economic health for SL, it just indicates churn.

It's the same with the claim of 1.2 million a day in transactions for virtual goods (that would be us merchants). This is probably taken from the marketplace alone as it would be very hard to differentiate in-world sales from something else. Again, there is no context because these transactions could include freebies.

At any rate, you get the point. We and the public get spewed numbers that are basically meaningless, even when they used to publish quarterly reports.

There's no shame in real numbers and it would gain trust even if we're gaining or losing a couple thousand people a month.

LL doesn't know how to publish numbers that reconcile with each other or reality, they never really have. I get that most companies give you sugar instead of meat, but we kind of expect different behavior in "our world". An honest and trustworthy environment could be one of their biggest strengths, but they want to play start up for the rest of their lifecycle, which is fine too, but a shame when they've got a respectably sized product.

References:

http://www.lindenlab.com/releases/infographic-10-years-of-second-life

http://joyardley.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/the-rod-humble-interview/

And of course the one Pam pointed to in the OP.

 

[Pamela Galli]

Good post, Dart. I always enjoy reading your commentaries.

I agree, Rod is delusional if he thinks either that concurrency is growing or that anyone believes it is.

As for wanting SL to be filled with professionally made content -- I can make some pretty good looking mesh content, but I do it very slowly. Believe me it would be much easier, and a much more sensible business model, to get professionally made models off the internet and import them into SL, maybe after a bit of optimization.  And there is no risk. If you get DMCAed in SL, nothing happens to your account. There are no consequences, so if you get caught selling ripped content, you can just go rip some more.

 

This is what Rod has in mind. It is not an unintended consequence. 

 

 

[arton Rotaru]

IMHO, I think you are reading way too much into that line from Rod, about pro content.

However, nobody is forced to make, sell so called pro content. So what's the fear here? Are you afraid that only the so called pro content will sell, and nothing else anymore? And if that would be the case, can you really blame Rod for providing such possibilities to create pro content, or is it the buyers who would prefer such pro content?

 

 

 

[Pamela Galli]

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arton Rotaru wrote:

IMHO, I think you are reading way too much into that line from Rod, about pro content.

However, nobody is forced to make, sell so called pro content. So what's the fear here? Are you afraid that only the so called pro content will sell, and nothing else anymore? And if that would be the case, can you really blame Rod for providing such possibilities to create pro content, or is it the buyers who would prefer such pro content?

 

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I am just making an observation Arton. This is what Rod said. I am not reading anything into it.

I assume buyers will prefer professionally made content, just as over time they came to prefer sculpted content. 

[arton Rotaru]

Well, judging from your thread title, you are indeed reading something into it. Because with no word he said "Bye" to non pro creators.

Anyway, having new toys, gives us the opportunity to make all new content, which people might want to buy even more. So I really can't see it as a bad thing.

[Spica Inventor]

Maybe L.L. should institute some profit sharing to bring those 'Pros' into S.L. wink wink. ;-)