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Eddy Vortex
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2 hours ago, Foxx Ghoststar said:

Thanks for making this post, I was able to make a friend aware to hit the redeliver board.

I had Slink hands and feet back in the day! They were so pretty lol, I would literally go around barefoot as much as possible because of the prettiness 😂

Then bodies came out with all included and I moved on.

I feel sorry for creators these days honestly, so many different bodies to deal with and rig for. I could never have that much patience!

I am afraid Belleza will close too. Their latest bodies has not been the super success. I think what keep people away, is the high price. In todays oversaturated market of female bodies, you have to kill the competition and go for mass sale of a low priced product, not sell a few expensive ones. I always repeat myself with this example: Lelutka were way behind Catwa in popularity. Lelutka gave all previous buyers of the new heads a free update. Instead they could have said "Sorry, new UV, these are a new product, no redelivery". The EvoX UV would have been an obscurity and die. Like Slink Cinnamon & Chai did.

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4 hours ago, Lexxi Gynoid said:

Sad to hear about Slink.

My first mesh body came in 2012 and by Yabusaka Loon (PETITES). At the time I wondered what it'd be like if someone resized things to human sized - these were tiny little mesh pixies. After that came a cute mesh dragon, but, dragon, so I move on.

So: Dates are first date I had the item.  Obviously some of this will be "wrong" in term as to when things came out (like Belleza). 

2012: Petites

2013: Dragon

2014: WoWMeh; CMFF MBody (v39); Slink Physique (v1); TMP

2015: Eve Slim (v8.4); Eve Pulpy; Maitreya Lara (v2.1); Kemono (v1.13.25); Elena (v1.2)

2016: Tonic Curvy (v3.02); Tonic Fine

2017: Avatar 2.0 (v1.14.3)

2018: Abar eBody Curvy (v8.4); Altamura Robert; Altamura Valentina; Altamura Brigitte

2020: Legacy (v1.3.2); Kalhene Ariadna; Inithium Kupra Kups (v01.1); TinyThings Anastasiya

2021: Kalhene Anya (v4.0); Mirana (v1.3); Lovebody Aphrodite (v2.2); Inithium Kupra (v03); Belleza Freya (v5.4); Belleza Isis (v5.2); Belleza Venus (v5.2); eBody Reborn (v1.52); Kalhene Analexa (v4.2); Kalhene Erika (v1.3); Cinnamon & Chai; DIGISONA: Miyu Avatar; Rebirth Eden (v1.2)

2022: Belleza Gen X Classic & Curvy; Prima Elite; SP Peach

Unknown date: Altamura Emanuelle; Dev Nana

Great collection!!! It is bodies there I never heard about.

Can you find clothes for them all? 

I list Maitreya as a 2014 body because it was released 24th December, 2014.

Merry Christmas to Marianne from myself, I said, and bought the body that day, or the day after.

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9 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Great collection!!! It is bodies there I never heard about.

Can you find clothes for them all? 

I list Maitreya as a 2014 body because it was released 24th December, 2014.

Merry Christmas to Marianne from myself, I said, and bought the body that day, or the day after.

Clothing for all of them? Hehe - I giggle because I've almost never found clothing for Mirana when I bought it (around when it was released) or since.

I'm not sure about clothing. I tend to jump between a few, not all of the bodies. Mostly, lately, Erika, Reborn, and GenX.

I didn't think of it, but all on my 2014 line is gone now (including Slink). Technically a free version of TMP is still around, but I don't count that as TMP still being around.

Petites from 2012 are still around and stuff for it can still be bought. Dragon doesn't wear clothing. 

For 2015 - Lara is still around. I think, though not sure, that Eve is still around. Kemono is the one Anime people wear (I think), so it's probably still active. No idea what "Elena" is, though I own it. 

For the 2016 line: Tonic is still around, though they recently put out a new body (Prima) so not sure if it'll stick around. And I just bought an outfit from a recent event for the Prima body.

For 2017 & 2018: Never wore any of these for any length of time, so no idea if still around or have clothing available. 

Legacy & Kupra are still around. Kalhene Ariadna is no longer sold. Not sure about Tinythings.

Kalhene Anya & Analexa are both no longer available to be purchased. Only Erika is still avaiable to be bought.

I still see clothing for all Belleza bodies, though more for Freya & GenX bodies. Cinnamon & Chai just closed. Digisona is still around, I think, but I've never seen it supported.  You can find clothing for Rebirth Eden (like Kalhene, Rebirth makes a lot of clothing for it's own body) & Lovebody.

Not sure about the other bodies.

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3 hours ago, AzureWaves said:

Some brands that should close don’t actually close. They keep staying and milking the money like Genus. No new products or promised updates for years. If Genus left,  I would not be surprised. 

They have been teasing a new update of Genus, with screenshots, in Genus group chat in the last few days. I couldn't nail them down on an actual date, but it looks like it is coming.

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23 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

I didn't say that. I'm pointing out that there's a difference between organizing a departure and simply slamming the door shut with a note taped to it. Real life stores closing is a totally different beast- products I buy from them I can take apart and fix myself. They're not no modify.

"I'm done supporting this, here's the source files so someone else can take over" is something we see in software a lot, for example.

Yeah, exactly. There's people with money and time invested in development on a brand new body that are going to come in when the holidays are over and be in for a surprise.

I guess you don't live in an area affected by the pandemic.  All around my neighbourhood, already devastated by the Internet, which had already taken all the book stores, cafes, and video stores, little shops and cafes had signs "Sorry, closed, owner died" or "Sorry, closed, son died, had to go back home" etc -- or nobody went in their restaurant so they suddenly closed when the rent fell due. It happens. Even though we relied on them for years. I now have to walk 2 miles to buy batteries. 

And maybe you don't have the "right to repair" movement in your country, fought by people like Louis Rothman who was forced out of NYC. Not everyone can fix their own stuff, nor do the companies make it easy to fix.

And...Why would someone take their intellectual property and release it to the wild? Nobody with a "brand new body" now is reliant on *this* supplier; that's part of why she left. Other brands overtook it, in addition to her personal tragedies, which means she didn't want to stay in the SL rat race any more. And there, I can't blame her.

I remember back in the day, the famous sex bed maker Stroker Serpentine, in utter exasperation, released his poses on full perms to undercut the business of people who copybotted him. It's inherent in a virtual world.

 

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1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I guess you don't live in an area affected by the pandemic.  All around my neighbourhood, already devastated by the Internet, which had already taken all the book stores, cafes, and video stores, little shops and cafes had signs "Sorry, closed, owner died" or "Sorry, closed, son died, had to go back home" etc -- or nobody went in their restaurant so they suddenly closed when the rent fell due. It happens. Even though we relied on them for years. I now have to walk 2 miles to buy batteries. 

And maybe you don't have the "right to repair" movement in your country, fought by people like Louis Rothman who was forced out of NYC. Not everyone can fix their own stuff, nor do the companies make it easy to fix.

And...Why would someone take their intellectual property and release it to the wild? Nobody with a "brand new body" now is reliant on *this* supplier; that's part of why she left. Other brands overtook it, in addition to her personal tragedies, which means she didn't want to stay in the SL rat race any more. And there, I can't blame her.

I remember back in the day, the famous sex bed maker Stroker Serpentine, in utter exasperation, released his poses on full perms to undercut the business of people who copybotted him. It's inherent in a virtual world.

You totally missed both points I was making.

Making things easy to maintain and fix by end users was exactly what I was arguing for. Otherwise, when people shut down we effectively have to throw our stuff away.

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My alt was able to teleport to the accessible corner of the sim, cam in to the redelivery terminal, and get redelivery of all his Slink products last night. I tried to TP there today and could not, and my alt couldn't, either, so redeliveries must be  done.

I do not think Siddean Munro had an obligation to do anything. She would have been within her rights to delete the store with no notice at all. That said, it's hard for me to imagine her being in a situation that allowed her to post a lengthy announcement and converse with group members that wouldn't allow her to give a couple of weeks' notice. After all, all she would personally have had to do is authorize and empower someone else to take care of things. If she had really wanted to do something nice for her customers, she could have made all her products free or set the prices to L$1 or L$10, or had an agent do it. Frankly, I wonder, since she had no more use for her SL content, why she didn't. It would have cost her nothing and would have made her a legend in SL.

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12 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

Frankly, I wonder, since she had no more use for her SL content, why she didn't. It would have cost her nothing and would have made her a legend in SL.

I wonder this as well.  It could be many things.  Maybe we will know someday.  Who knows?

But, I think that absolutely SLINK brand is a legend, with many, many happy memories, as it stands right now.  They are under no contract to continue to provide support, and it costs money for land. 

Edited by EliseAnne85
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16 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

My alt was able to teleport to the accessible corner of the sim, cam in to the redelivery terminal, and get redelivery of all his Slink products last night. I tried to TP there today and could not, and my alt couldn't, either, so redeliveries must be  done.

I do not think Siddean Munro had an obligation to do anything. She would have been within her rights to delete the store with no notice at all. That said, it's hard for me to imagine her being in a situation that allowed her to post a lengthy announcement and converse with group members that wouldn't allow her to give a couple of weeks' notice. After all, all she would personally have had to do is authorize and empower someone else to take care of things. If she had really wanted to do something nice for her customers, she could have made all her products free or set the prices to L$1 or L$10, or had an agent do it. Frankly, I wonder, since she had no more use for her SL content, why she didn't. It would have cost her nothing and would have made her a legend in SL.

Is the redelivery already ended? It is January 3rd. That was quick.

I have mixed feelings about the sale in November - If customers bought Cinnamon & Chai bodies on sale, it is still not cheap, and the third party support will end now.

So those customers sit with a new product they bought in good faith, while the creator had already thought about closing for a long time.

Is it (morally) right to do so?

(I took a screenshot in case the blog is gone soon)

 

slink sale.png

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3 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Is it (morally) right to do so?

My take on the moral/ethics end of it is like that quote "don't criticize what you can't understand.  You (or me) never walked a mile in that man's shoes".   And, I don't think we can understand it.

To end so abruptly, to me, suggests there is more to the story, and also that she didn't feel she needed to share those reasons with the community.  It could be related to closing books or she was taking a loss as these are difficult economic times.  Even with a Black Friday sale for Cinnamon Chai, what if perhaps only one or two sold?  Or none even.  If you aren't a business owner through COVID and the war you may not know what it's like.  To continuing taking losses on top of a lot of other serious life issues, it just may be time to close the books and her health comes first.  I'm not making any new items now for SL.  To me, that's like going negative peanuts.  I will do other things also.  

My business has been slow since around Halloween until it was almost nothing by Christmas.  I've thought of closing altogether myself but with a door open to perhaps start again at a more opportune time if it arrives because, for one thing, the market for SL is quite saturated overall.  November spending in rl was way down, and that's holiday time, the biggest spending time of the year, but rl people were not spending in November.  Readings have not come in for December spending yet.

Edited by EliseAnne85
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3 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Even with a Black Friday sale for Cinnamon Chai, what if perhaps only one or two sold?  Or none even.  If you aren't a business owner through COVID and the war you may not know what it's like.

These points weren't raised by the owner, and she was quite open about her personal life, so I think it's safe to say economic reasons are not the main one, or not at all. What I can say for sure is: if I had bought any of their bodies at the November sale, I'd be really disappointed right now - and feeling a little bit cheated.

I don't see a moral dilemma here: if you know you're leaving a business where people buy counting on updates and support, you stop selling, don't sell even more and slam the door days later. Did she know she was going out of business in November? I can't affirm, but if that's the case, then it was immoral.

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16 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I am afraid Belleza will close too. Their latest bodies has not been the super success. 

Gen.X Classic was the first new body I purchased when I decided to leave SLINK, but I noticed just like with SLINK there weren't many designers designing for it and all the clothing being released was all cookie cutter too similar to each other. Also, like with SLINK some designers would only fit one version of the body and not the other. Of course Gen.X is still new- but too many bugs and not enough fashions helped me decide to quickly shelve Belleza and go with Reborn...    

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18 hours ago, AzureWaves said:

Some brands that should close don’t actually close. They keep staying and milking the money like Genus. No new products or promised updates for years. If Genus left,  I would not be surprised. 

Are you aware why Genus remains open, but the updates are postponed? Let's put it simple ... It's hard to keep your mind on your hobby and Second Life, while in real life your country is being bombed by a madman.

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I can’t imagine the time and money that was poured into making an optimized performance body with first of its kind features. I’m sure she was devastated when it flopped.  Siddean badly misread the market. Maybe if C&C was a curvy body like HG that still has some designer support, it would have had some success. 
Adding in the difficulties in her RL, she decided to close. Understandable, but I think she should have given some advance notice. I’m sure there are Slink users who would have liked a chance to make final purchases as she did make and sell clothing and accessories for the bodies she created. I suspect she had been planning to close at least since November because her Black Friday ad said once in a lifetime. 
Slink lost the chance to have a profitable closing sale (not the bodies but the fashion). 

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11 hours ago, l3m35 said:

These points weren't raised by the owner, and she was quite open about her personal life, so I think it's safe to say economic reasons are not the main one, or not at all. What I can say for sure is: if I had bought any of their bodies at the November sale, I'd be really disappointed right now - and feeling a little bit cheated.

I don't see a moral dilemma here: if you know you're leaving a business where people buy counting on updates and support, you stop selling, don't sell even more and slam the door days later. Did she know she was going out of business in November? I can't affirm, but if that's the case, then it was immoral.

Based on the wording in her Black Friday ad, I suspect she had already decided to close. I wouldn’t call it immoral, though. The bodies and huds can still be used for now.  I doubt Belleza has plans to update its older bodies but still sells them. It’s not like it would be if Legacy closed and no longer supported its web based hud. 

it’s very unfortunate for C&C users since she was basically the only designer making clothing for it. She must be truly done with SL to not even stay open on the marketplace and sell only fashion. 

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9 hours ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Are you aware why Genus remains open, but the updates are postponed? Let's put it simple ... It's hard to keep your mind on your hobby and Second Life, while in real life your country is being bombed by a madman.

Theyve been entangled in DMCA drama and non-updates for years now, prior to the war. Please.

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12 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

wish she was willing to sale everything, minus the accounts.   could be worth an investment to keep it running.

I think part of the reason she closed is because it was no longer worth the investment. Majority of designers do not sell anything for Slink male and original Physique bodies and support for HG has greatly declined. There’s too much competition. The bodies would have to be updated and bring something new to the market. 

Edited by Risque Tempest
Grammar error
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1 hour ago, Risque Tempest said:

Based on the wording in her Black Friday ad, I suspect she had already decided to close. I wouldn’t call it immoral, though. The bodies and huds can still be used for now.  I doubt Belleza has plans to update its older bodies but still sells them. It’s not like it would be if Legacy closed and no longer supported its web based hud. 

it’s very unfortunate for C&C users since she was basically the only designer making clothing for it. She must be truly done with SL to not even stay open on the marketplace and sell only fashion. 

I think it would be better to name the sale for "Leaving SL" instead of Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale, as she did in the screenshot I posted. 

She could announce it as a sale lasting out the year, and the doors will be closed Dec. 31. All open and transparent.

She choose not to.

I feel bad for the C & C body owners who bought the body on sale, then took a break from SL for the Christmas Holidays with their family. They came back to find out that not only the body creator, but also the store who sold clothes is gone. (One Bad Pixel)

It was good that the  C & C body was so little popular, it could not be many who bought it in November. Fewer to be unhappy now.

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1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

I think it would be better to name the sale for "Leaving SL" instead of Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale, as she did in the screenshot I posted. 

She could announce it as a sale lasting out the year, and the doors will be closed Dec. 31. All open and transparent.

She choose not to.

I feel bad for the C & C body owners who bought the body on sale, then took a break from SL for the Christmas Holidays with their family. They came back to find out that not only the body creator, but also the store who sold clothes is gone. (One Bad Pixel)

It was good that the  C & C body was so little popular, it could not be many who bought it in November. Fewer to be unhappy now.

I agree, she should have been upfront about her intentions to close the business (if she knew then that she was closing).  This has hurt the brand’s reputation. But TMP was able to come back and be successful so maybe it won’t make a difference if Slink reopens. 

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27 minutes ago, Risque Tempest said:

I agree, she should have been upfront about her intentions to close the business (if she knew then that she was closing).  This has hurt the brand’s reputation. But TMP was able to come back and be successful so maybe it won’t make a difference if Slink reopens. 

Ha, yes TMP suddenly dropped the price of the Deluxe body from 5000 L to 500 L, and set the whole clothing line to free. Without any information. This stayed like that for months, then TMP added Bento animations and the price went up to 1950?

And then came the Legacy release and rebranding to Meshbody.

I have had fun re-reading Billy Beaverhousen's blog entries "What's eating TMP" where he started to write about that strange price drop without any communication. I do not link, because he has some NSFW images. But it is easy to search and find his blog.

Fun times. I had that Deluxe body, but had already moved on to another body, so no problems for me... It was (and is) crazy that a brand who suck so much in communication not only survives, but succeeds.

So Slink could absolutely come back. 

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On 1/2/2023 at 7:53 AM, Marianne Little said:

I am afraid Belleza will close too. Their latest bodies has not been the super success. I think what keep people away, is the high price. In todays oversaturated market of female bodies, you have to kill the competition and go for mass sale of a low priced product, not sell a few expensive ones. I always repeat myself with this example: Lelutka were way behind Catwa in popularity. Lelutka gave all previous buyers of the new heads a free update. Instead they could have said "Sorry, new UV, these are a new product, no redelivery". The EvoX UV would have been an obscurity and die. Like Slink Cinnamon & Chai did.

So far Belleza has had a sale on their new bodies twice (that I know of) since their release. So I think Belleza may realize they set the price too high. 

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18 hours ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Are you aware why Genus remains open, but the updates are postponed? Let's put it simple ... It's hard to keep your mind on your hobby and Second Life, while in real life your country is being bombed by a madman.

I'm not quite buying that argument.  Genus heads were wonky way BEFORE Putin started his game of thrones.  We begged and begged for them to at least fix the twitchy eyes, and they never did (and ignored our requests or said, "Soon!").   What was their excuse back when they weren't being bombed?  Why did they not even try to repair the eyes in the multiple years they had before the war began? *crickets*

I actually paid for one of their heads and used it a lot, but I had to use a third-party pseudo-fix to keep my eyes from weebly-wobbling.  Once EvoX came out, I ditched Genus, and I don't plan on returning because they have never been very reliable.  A business that stubbornly remains silent for years doesn't deserve my money. 

 

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26 minutes ago, Lysistrata Szapira said:

I'm not quite buying that argument.  Genus heads were wonky way BEFORE Putin started his game of thrones.  We begged and begged for them to at least fix the twitchy eyes, and they never did (and ignored our requests or said, "Soon!").   What was their excuse back when they weren't being bombed?  Why did they not even try to repair the eyes in the multiple years they had before the war began? *crickets*

I actually paid for one of their heads and used it a lot, but I had to use a third-party pseudo-fix to keep my eyes from weebly-wobbling.  Once EvoX came out, I ditched Genus, and I don't plan on returning because they have never been very reliable.  A business that stubbornly remains silent for years doesn't deserve my money. 

 

Before the war was the pandemic and before that were DMCA complaints. I understand the lack of updates.
I have 3 Genus heads (two I paid for). I wore them frequently despite not liking their hud. Then I started using AK. But when EvoX came out, AK got permission to use their UV. And then they started a new line of heads using EvoX. At the time, basically the only difference between the Advance series and new one was EvoX (something they didn’t even create). LeL instead updated their regular Evo heads with the new UV.  What AK did is worse than understandable lack of Genus updates. 
I love LeL’s huds and their animations. I won’t go back to Genus, but that has nothing to do with their business practices. 
Sorry for being off topic. 

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I don't really understand "brand loyalty." A brand is, essentially, a marketing concept, or at best a collection of things made by a single producer, usually impersonal and corporate, and I don't feel loyalty to things. I feel loyalty to people.

So I wouldn't say that I've ever felt any "loyalty" to Slink as a brand. I like its look, and, pre-BOM, the HUD was one of the best around, so I stuck with it as my main body for as long as it was reasonable to do so. When it became difficult to wear new clothes because it wasn't rigged for Physique anymore, I bought a Maitreya, not because it's a better body (it isn't) but because it's well-supported and relatively easy to use. (It also has the Petite add-on, which I like.)

Slink is a brand, but Siddean is a person. I don't think "loyalty" would describe my feelings about her, but I admired her achievements and in my dealings with her, as well as second-hand, she made it clear that she was a really nice person. But that's not the same as being loyal to Slink.

The distinction between brand and creator is maybe even more important with reference to Genus. I wear a Genus head, and I have every intention of continuing to wear a Genus head for so long as it is viable to do so. That's not out of loyalty, but rather purely because I've achieved (after LONG work) a look I like with it. I own, and have tried to work with no less than four different modern LeLutka heads: they are objectively superior to Genus -- but I can't make them look the way I want them to. So, no. I remain a Genus user.

So sticking with Genus is, for me, purely about my own needs, not about the "brand." It's also not really about the trials and tribulations of the creator of the heads either, but I do think some might exhibit a bit more tolerance and understanding with regard to her. First there was a long nuisance DMCA that literally knocked the head off the market for months. That likely had some pretty significant spin-off effects, perhaps financial in nature, in RL. Then, as I understand it, there was a pregnancy and a new child. And then -- Covid, and the war in Ukraine. I'd say there are some pretty significant mitigating factors here.

Judging SL merchants in the same way we judge RL corporations -- Amazon, or GE, or whatever -- is kind of silly. Most of these "companies" are single craftspeople producing everything themselves, for a relatively marginal profit. If Jeff Bezos breaks his foot, or gets pregnant, there is a fleet of people to step in and keep things running. If something untoward happens in the RL of a Second Life creator, there isn't going to be that sort of cushion. Unless there is real evidence of fraudulent intentions, I think it would be good to cut SL creators, who are really the independent "artisans" of the digital world, a bit of slack.

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