Why is Second Life expensive?

[Hotbabe2004]

Of course it is expensive - average outfit is 300-800 l (about 1-3 usd) - for that price you can buy phone game. Mesh body is 2700 - more than 10 usd - for the price you can buy some indie game or dlc to big game. Head is 5000 - 20 usd for which price you can buy AAA game (on discount) or big DLC or bunch of phone games. Is really creating some mesh (with all scripts, alphas and stuff) come in comparision with creating full game or big DLC? Prices are simply outrageous. Either you find a way to solve this or you go. It is that simple.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Hotbabe2004

[Prokofy Neva]

46 minutes ago, Hotbabe2004 said:

Of course it is expensive - average outfit is 300-800 l (about 1-3 usd) - for that price you can buy phone game. Mesh body is 2700 - more than 10 usd - for the price you can buy some indie game or dlc to big game. Head is 5000 - 20 usd for which price you can buy AAA game (on discount) or big DLC or bunch of phone games. Is really creating some mesh (with all scripts, alphas and stuff) come in comparision with creating full game or big DLC? Prices are simply outrageous. Either you find a way to solve this or you go. It is that simple.

I don't want to sit and stare at a phone game in 2D, though. I would like to sit at my desk and see a 3D world on my desktop with which I can easily interact.

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Hotbabe2004 said:

Of course it is expensive - average outfit is 300-800 l (about 1-3 usd) - for that price you can buy phone game. Mesh body is 2700 - more than 10 usd - for the price you can buy some indie game or dlc to big game. Head is 5000 - 20 usd for which price you can buy AAA game (on discount) or big DLC or bunch of phone games. Is really creating some mesh (with all scripts, alphas and stuff) come in comparision with creating full game or big DLC? Prices are simply outrageous. Either you find a way to solve this or you go. It is that simple.

You're comparing apples to oranges and not very well either.  I'm not a gamer so all those examples are irrelevant and as Prokofy said, those are all 2D with no interaction.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Don't blame LL/SL. Blame the people who are willing to pay for it. Gotta love capitalism. 

[Jennifer Boyle]

22 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I was gonna check it out, but you have to sign up first, for a 3 month minimum.

Me, too. IMHO, the dev would be smarter to offer a trial month or two free or at very low cost .

I think one of the smartest things LL ever did was to let people try SL for free. OTOH, I don't think they were smart to offer a free trial with full functionality forever.

[Jennifer Boyle]

SL is expensive? Many, many other hobbies are more expensive. I spend pretty freely in SL pretty much buying whatever I want, and, on a per-hour basis, it costs me less than going to a movie, and a lot less than a lot of hobbies.

[animats]

I'm making a net profit from SL, without trying very hard. Mostly from escalators.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

10 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

As an alternative to the arguments put forward against the OP's complaint that SL is expensive, why not take a long hard look at the near-equivalent alternatives which are cheap? What happened to InWorldz? Great Canadian Grid? The multiple instances of Mr Pomposelli (sic) and quite a few others? They were far cheaper than SL for residents, but all that happened was they couldn't afford to survive the vicissitudes of fortune.

That's what you get for not getting your revenue model tuned to both operating costs and demand, uncertain futures.

beth said inworldz was costing her, 17,000 usd a month with rack space,  she said towards the end she was eating the bill personally for covering it and she lost her butt on it and poof things went.

[Talligurl]

I have spent I believe a grand total of $30.00 since starting in 2015, and all of that was in the first year. I stopped spending money pretty early, and have found ways to earn enough inworld to buy what I want, So no it is not so expensive that some people cannot take part.

[Chic Aeon]

And "I" never spent (bought) any linden dollars but earned it all camping, trivia, Linden Realms and then later creating products.  So you don't NEED to spend any RL dollars in SL.   

[Chic Aeon]

2 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

beth said inworldz was costing her, 17,000 usd a month with rack space,  she said towards the end she was eating the bill personally for covering it and she lost her butt on it and poof things went.

Since I "knew" the person you mention long before she started Inworldz (systematically causing another grid that I was on to fail) I personally wouldn't believe anything that she said. But of course it is your choice if you do.  I know a LOT of people "believed" in her and got burned.   And how does this fit into the original question?

 

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Chic Aeon
spelling

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, Chic Aeon said:

Since I "knew" the person you mention long before she started Inworldz (systematically causing another grid that I was on to fail) I personally wouldn't believe anything that she said. But of course it is your choice if you do.  I know a LOT of people "believed" in her and got burned.   And how does this fit into the original question?

 

 

not sure it does, much just throwing in what I knew about the inworldz situation and what it was costing according to her,  which sounds about right, but sounds like she had to many machines instead of vps's running.

[Rowan Amore]

3 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

beth said inworldz was costing her, 17,000 usd a month with rack space,  she said towards the end she was eating the bill personally for covering it and she lost her butt on it and poof things went.

Wasn't she trying to start another one?  

[animats]

The comments above about Dual Universe land cost are interesting. If land is free, what prevents someone from grabbing a lot of it? The need to defend it. The way DU works, I think (I haven't played it) is that, as with an SL premium membership, you get some land for your home base. That space (DU uses a hexagonal grid) is safe. You can build on adjacent land, but others can, too. And they can shoot up your stuff. That's what prevents filling up the world with junk. You can form a group and cooperate, or fight. It's very MMO, even if the underlying machinery is sandbox virtual world.

So that gives a bit more insight into the business model.

Again, being an MMO, everything is no-copy, you can't teleport freely and can't move fast without a vehicle. If you're killed you lose what you're carrying. So DU has a different set of user problems than SL. Notes from the DU tech support Discord stream:

• "... stranded in space and my ship is spiraling away, attempted to slow down and the game froze. guess i crashed? could you help me out?"
• "...Could i please have my ship tp'd to me. i died and now its 200m in the air and I'm on the ground."
• "...Was flying down to the moon's surface and ended up outside the ship. I'm now on the moon's surface and my ship is sitting 1.45 km above me. Is it possible to have my ship teleported to my position?"
• "...Entering Atmosphere and encountered situation that warranted a respawn, didn't respawn on ship and now my ship Steve is about 4 km off the surface and cannot reach or fetch it. Attempted to respawn on the ship and just ended back at my base on Sanctuary. Request: Possible to have ship teleported to my location."
• "... Ship just glitched through a platform after landing neatly and softly on it. The glitching of the ship going through the platform caused some damage to our ship. Request: Can you please repair our ship?

It looks like rescue, towing and salvage services will be needed over there.

Imagine if SL worked that way. If you wreck your vehicle, you have to call for a towing service to get it back on the road, and you're stuck there until they show up. If your boat runs out of fuel, you really need the SLCG. And all those services cost.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

37 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

Wasn't she trying to start another one?  

she did, after, with certain members of her's chunking up 20k or so money, it crashed and burned a couple months later. 

 

I have no idea if anything else came up after islandz or not.

[Arielle Popstar]

3 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I have no idea if anything else came up after islandz or not.

Last thing I heard/read was that she was partnering up with Alex of Aviworlds infamy, but since the article comment where that was stated has since been deleted by Alex, I take that with a bucket of salt.

Ps no-one ever really had any idea why Inworldz was costing $17K p/m as grids of comparable size like Osgrid only spend a $1000 p/m in server costs. Nowadays I think most are moving to a self hosted Dreamworldz install.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Arielle Popstar
added info

[Hotbabe2004]

14 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I don't want to sit and stare at a phone game in 2D, though. I would like to sit at my desk and see a 3D world on my desktop with which I can easily interact.

Who said a word about 2D games? You can buy 3D games for phones. And latest Assassin Creed is USD 10 - less than maitreya body! Whole damned AAA game is less than some damned mesh. Fair, of course!

 

13 hours ago, RowanMinx said:

You're comparing apples to oranges and not very well either.  I'm not a gamer so all those examples are irrelevant and as Prokofy said, those are all 2D with no interaction.

It may be irrelevant for you, but  did not have you in mind when I posted my comment. Fact is prices in SL are outrageous compared either offline or online games. And again - I am speaking about 3D games, so please stop this 2D bull*****!

Edited September 23, 2020 by Hotbabe2004

[Alwin Alcott]

9 minutes ago, Hotbabe2004 said:

 Fact is prices in SL are outrageous compared either offline or online games. 
so please stop this bull*****!

FACT is ..SL is't comparable to your offline or online games.

[Hotbabe2004]

1 minute ago, Alwin Alcott said:

FACT is ..SL is't comparable to your offline or online games.

May I know, why? 

[Theresa Tennyson]

28 minutes ago, Hotbabe2004 said:

May I know, why? 

Because with most other games you're limited to what the publisher provides within that game. If it was possible to buy a new upgraded body in those games, it may well cost at least as much as one does in Second Life. But it isn't.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Theresa Tennyson

[Hotbabe2004]

47 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Because with most other games you're limited to what the publisher provides within that game. If it was possible to buy a new upgraded body in those games, it may well cost at least as much as one does in Second Life. But it isn't.

Totally wrong! There are modifiable games with mega-tonnes of mods - including bodies, apparel, animations - everything! And everything is free, not like in SL.

 

But enough of this - all debates are useless. LL is not going to change it's business model, so no sense to talk about it. Now they even allowed creators ban users from they shops, so from now as Romans would said: either good reviews or nothing. Again, no sense to complain cause nobody gives it a... you know what I mean. May be that's why sl population is declining - once full sims stay empty. But that is totally different topic. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Hotbabe2004

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 minute ago, Hotbabe2004 said:

Totally wrong! There are modifiable games with mega-tonnes of mods - including bodies, apparel, animations - everything! And everything is free, not like in SL.

 

But enough of this - all debates are useless. LL is not going to change it's business model, so no sense to talk about it. Now they even allowed creatord to ban users from they shops, so from now as Romans would said: either good reviews or nothing. Anyway, no sense. 

If I want to stop a person from shopping at my stores than I have that right, as I do real life,  customer is not always right in all circumstances,  LL is not changing it's business model, LL knows what works for them and how much they can afford to move prices and other associated fee's without it hurting their bottom line,  right now, LL is moving services to aws,  it might get a little cheaper and LL might pass that on, but,  really now,   stop and think about all what's involved wiht keeping this running,  it's not cheap and never will be cheap.

[Alwin Alcott]

6 minutes ago, Hotbabe2004 said:

 But that is totally different topic. 

no .. not a different topic, but no topic at all.It's how things go, not only SL but also RL and other Lives.
 

[Hotbabe2004]

2 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

stop and think about all what's involved wiht keeping this running,  it's not cheap and never will be cheap.

Last comment in this topic. I stop and think about this: DOES CREATING MESH HEAD COSTS AS MUCH AS CREATING WHOLE 3D INDIE GAME? Think about it.

[Theresa Tennyson]

16 hours ago, Hotbabe2004 said:

Is really creating some mesh (with all scripts, alphas and stuff) come in comparision with creating full game or big DLC?

Why don't you try it and tell us?