Mainstream failure of SL & Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

[Rowan Amore]

Guess that we're just glossing over the fact that most of the sex sims 'packed with people' are just places packed with AFK avatars and NO ONE IS HAVING SEX THERE.

Yes, it's a sex sim.  Yes, it's at the top of search.  So what?  That only proves people aren't too bright.  They pay for a region where no actual people go.  Whoopie!  Let's advertise that.  "Join Second Life and have all the AFK sex you want.  We have regions full of bots ready to satisfy your every need.  No need for idle chit chat.  No need to update your avatar.  Just come on in and have at it!"

Pretty sure there are better places on the internet for watching cartoon p0rn...

 

[Quistess Alpha]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

can you confirm there was - or was not - a "PG Sandbox" versions of "The Sims"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_Online shut down in 2008?

ETA; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_Mobile still exists though.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Quistess Alpha

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think a lot of their messaging about "enjoy summer" or the current splash screen, even if cringe-worthy, is based on the idea that they need to appear to furries. Or Blacks. Or LGBT.

These groups don't need to be exclusive.  Linden Lab could be appealing to LGBT Black Furries, who also happen to be into BDSM, and are big spenders.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Quistess Alpha said:

Minecraft, Roblox. . . GTA5?

and of course, yes you can "but it doesn't XYZ" to disqualify them, but those are the only vague qualifiers (and GTA5 is only a honorable mention because my first SL friend said she did some work in the modding scene there) unless you count all the things without user-generated-content.

Minecraft and Roblox are explicitly games for kids. Sure MC has some adult 'mega lego' appeal but the social spaces are predominantly about packing children in and making them buy DLC. Private servers are one thing, public servers via bedrock are something else entirely and that's the focus.

GTA is .. a game with mods. Skyrim would be a better example of that, but even then .. if you want massively actually social, it's final fantasy or to a less degree WoW.

[Innula Zenovka]

2 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Sansar and other PG worlds fail socially because the lack of sex means people self censor.

I can't speak from experience of the place but that certainly doesn't coincide with what I've heard about SL's Teen Grid.

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Quistess Alpha said:

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

can you confirm there was - or was not - a "PG Sandbox" versions of "The Sims"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_Online shut down in 2008?

Yes, that was my memory. (I read a lot.)

So if it "did" exist but "does not" exist, that means it isn't an example per Coffee's request for current examples.  Even if it were a "PG Sandbox".

 

[Caeruleiae]

1 minute ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think you're mistaken about this. Look at the resumes and corporate descriptions of LL on lindenlab.com and other business sites and you will find some pretty impressive resumes and experience

I don't doubt their prior skills and knowledge-I do doubt their ability to properly market sl though. I wouldn't be amazing at marketing sl either-the difference between m and them is that I would know it right away and wouldn't let the marketing languish the way it has for the entirety of sl's existence.  If they have better ideas for how to market-they really should be bringing them to people who can bring them to fruition. Stagnation in marketing will kill even the best company-but especially one that is looking to expand their audience. I'm not saying they're idiots-just saying they wouldn't last long for us if they didn't have the ability to get it done and weren't willing to speak up about what's not working. That's what I have to do when something isn't working or a campaign isn't giving us the results we think it should-figure out why address issues adapt and modify where necessary. Sometimes it means putting people better suited for the job in that position.

I think the methods they've chosen for marketing aren't working and have never really worked. I think they need to go further outside of the box-regardless of the resumes people on the marketing team might have. If they can't give results those really don't matter-do they? Ll is looking to expand the resident population-retain those new people-and maintain the ones they have there. That means they need to venture away from whatever they've done so far because it just hasn't resulted in the numbers they want. I mean I don't want to make it sounds as if I am only intending to insult them-but clearly what they've tried doesn't work-so change things up. 

And yes get away from the whole idea that some people-some groups-some communities-whatever-are better than others and deserving of more attention. I stand by my belief that ll does not know their audience and at this point-may not even know their future target audience. They can do better though-of that I'm sure. 

[Chery Amore]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Is there no "Sims" example? I am ignorant, but I thought there used to be a "Sims Online".  

I think that @Silent Mistwalker has written about Sims a lot. Silent, if that was indeed you - can you confirm there was - or was not - a "PG Sandbox" versions of "The Sims"?

 

Lol there was a lot of sex going on in the Sims Online too  through roleplay and all they had was talking to each other while making out in a hottub or Woohoo bed. People will do what they can with what they have...

 

[Prokofy Neva]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Is there no "Sims" example? I am ignorant, but I thought there used to be a "Sims Online".  

I think that @Silent Mistwalker has written about Sims a lot. Silent, if that was indeed you - can you confirm there was - or was not - a "PG Sandbox" versions of "The Sims"?

 

The Sims Online, where I was a member starting in the beta in 2000, had children as young as 9 in it because they didn't control the door well. 

It had no conscious adult furniture or animations or places. The entire thing was PG by conscious intention.

But people have a way of turning anything into sex, especially if they are 14-year-old boys. So adult activity went on, and of course romantic things like kisses and weddings -- and in some ways, they were better than SL because things like a kiss or a hug or a pat on the shoulder was right in the pie chart menu, not separate inworld -- but that's because all the avatars were the same dimensions, it was all company created.

There were some illegal game patches you could run with TSO which made the sims naked and anatomically correct, primitive by SL standards.

The "sandbox" version of TSO which they tried in the last few years of its existence was not quite "sandbox" in our meaning of the term.

"Sandbox" was a place where yes, they tested all their new things (usually to disappointment, like the milkshakes, and the McDonald's restaurants which didn't fill up hunger -- somebody's anti-corporate sabotage at work there).

But they also made all the motives harder, the skilling harder, etc. So some of us went to the Sandbox simply because we were tired of all the cheats and hacks and bots that burned through the skilling and made more money in-game -- there in the Sandbox, it was really hard work and slowed things down. We had a group that mainly used TSO to do interesting builds and internal games and social scenes.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

Guess that we're just glossing over the fact that most of the sex sims 'packed with people' are just places packed with AFK avatars and NO ONE IS HAVING SEX THERE.

The presumption that people are AFK or bots is false. Some are .. someplace have a rolling kick home hammer you have to interact with regularly if you want to remain. No one talks in local at  those spots either.

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

Pretty sure there are better places on the internet for watching cartoon p0rn...

but apparently here is one of the favorite places .. for unknowable reasons.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

GTA is .. a game with mods. Skyrim would be a better example of that, but even then .. if you want massively actually social, it's final fantasy or to a less degree WoW.

Got it, so the unicorn is a "social platform" with a "sandbox". Not a "game with mods".

Second Life is still a "game", I think.  

I'll have to wrap my mind around how a "sandbox" vs. "mods" fits in. 

But now I understand it's not just "a game" that counts, it's a "social platform" (which Second Life happens to be both).

 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

The Sims Online, where I was a member starting in the beta in 2000, had children as young as 9 in it because they didn't control the door well. 

It had no conscious adult furniture or animations or places. The entire thing was PG by conscious intention.

But people have a way of turning anything into sex, especially if they are 14-year-old boys. So adult activity went on, and of course romantic things like kisses and weddings -- and in some ways, they were better than SL because things like a kiss or a hug or a pat on the shoulder was right in the pie chart menu, not separate inworld -- but that's because all the avatars were the same dimensions, it was all company created.

There were some illegal game patches you could run with TSO which made the sims naked and anatomically correct, primitive by SL standards.

The "sandbox" version of TSO which they tried in the last few years of its existence was not quite "sandbox" in our meaning of the term.

"Sandbox" was a place where yes, they tested all their new things (usually to disappointment, like the milkshakes, and the McDonald's restaurants which didn't fill up hunger -- somebody's anti-corporate sabotage at work there).

But they also made all the motives harder, the skilling harder, etc. So some of us went to the Sandbox simply because we were tired of all the cheats and hacks and bots that burned through the skilling and made more money in-game -- there in the Sandbox, it was really hard work and slowed things down. We had a group that mainly used TSO to do interesting builds and internal games and social scenes.

Thanks!

Sorry @Silent Mistwalker if it was Prokofy and not you I was thinking of. I apologize.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But people have a way of turning anything into sex, especially if they are 14-year-old boys. So adult activity went on, and of course romantic things like kisses and weddings

The "no sex here" loop hole is also routinely met by discord. We have certain groups using SL to hookup, before moving the roleplay to a "safer" venue.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Whoopie!  Let's advertise that.  "Join Second Life and have all the AFK sex you want.  We have regions full of bots ready to satisfy your every need.  No need for idle chit chat.  No need to update your avatar.  Just come on in and have at it!"

Pretty sure there are better places on the internet for watching cartoon p0rn...

When I go to a real life "adult site" to look at pictures, the ads for "cartoon p0rn" site sound a lot like what you describe. 

I've never tried one so wouldn't know for sure.  (It would be interesting to find out, but the signup process is probably a hassle, I assume no "free options" and you have to give your CC to try a "free trial", etc. etc.)

 

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The presumption that people are AFK or bots is false. Some are .. someplace have a rolling kick home hammer you have to interact with regularly if you want to remain. No one talks in local at  those spots either.

No, there were no avatars engaged in activities with others.  All the avatars I cammed, each and every one, was by themselves.  Almost exclusively naked female avatars.  The escort places are even worse and just hide 30+ avatars in a box.  I checked one at the very top of the list last week.  100,000+ traffic.  Not a single person in the club aside from 2 women on poles.  There were several skyboxes each packed with avatars.

Just because there are a lot of sex places in SL doesn't mean they are being used by anyone.  THAT'S my point.  Stop using search as some measurement of how popular and important sex is in retaining users.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Coffee Pancake]

7 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I can't speak from experience of the place but that certainly doesn't coincide with what I've heard about SL's Teen Grid.

SL's teen grid was super bad ... Kids don't self censor, they just find another way .. egged on by all the adults pretending to be teens.

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

42 minutes ago, Caeruleiae said:

Please go back and read the post I had responded to. I DID read your post and addressed it. Someone else said that they didn't think ll should implement something-I am not the one that said it. There is no need for hostility. If you actually read any of my posts at all you will see I am all for ll promoting ALL communities and ALL interests in sl. I always have been-and I've gotten a lot of flack from people right on these forums for saying it.

In fact coffee is one of the people that jumped on my ass when I said that ll doesn't spend enough time in world-ad therefore doesn't understand their userbase. I have said it countless times-ll does NOT know its audience-nor how to market it-let alone market to a future audience. 

First you should understand that not once have I mentioned anything about implementing anything in the viewer. I have never addressed that.

Second, I realized yesterday that we are saying mostly the same thing with different wording. But you probably already realize that by now since it's obvious you haven't made it to my next post at the time of this typing.

Peace? 🌿

[Rowan Amore]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

When I go to a real life "adult site" to look at pictures, the ads for "cartoon p0rn" site sound a lot like what you describe. 

I've never tried one so wouldn't know for sure.  (It would be interesting to find out, but the signup process is probably a hassle, I assume no "free options" and you have to give your CC to try a "free trial", etc. etc.)

 

I wouldn't know since I don't ever visit adult websites.  😇

[Persephone Emerald]

22 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

[snip]

Go look at Belli and all the empty homes .. because people have elected not to use them, instead they build naughty skyboxes which due to the build restrictions are all very easy to find. 

LL are and have been focused on the empty homes. They wont look up .. where the people actually live.

We don't have to look for skyboxes to see if Belli homes are being used or not. Look in About Parcel and check on objects to see how much of the Land Impact is being used. Then if you want to see how it's being used, cam inside the houses and skyboxes.

LL for their part, doesn't go inworld to do either of these things. They just keep track of what percent of the houses are owned by a resident or not. This statistic, along with owned islands and mainland, shows where their money is coming from. LL doesn't care how many sex beds people have and whether they're being used or not.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

The escort places are even worse and just hide 30+ avatars in a box. 

Obviously this is bad and shouldn't be allowed .. 

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

I checked one at the very top of the list last week.  100,000+ traffic.  Not a single person in the club aside from 2 women on poles.  There were several skyboxes each packed with avatars.

Just because there are a lot of sex places in SL doesn't not mean they are being used by anyone.  THAT'S my point.  Stop using search as some measurement of how popular and important sex is in retaining users.

There is a not trivial cost associated with running a full region club. 

Even if there are only a handful of active "real people" .. they are still paying more directly to LL than all the book clubs combined.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

We don't have to look for skyboxes to see if Belli homes are being used or not. Look in About Parcel and check on objects to see how much of the Land Impact is being used. Then if you want to see how it's being used, cam inside the houses and skyboxes.

This is a great point!  When I had a Belli home, it was mostly empty and I NEVER built a skybox.

Lack of furniture doesn't mean "skybox", it just means someone wanted a Belli home and doesn't care to add furniture.

 

[Rowan Amore]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

they are still paying more directly to LL than all the book clubs combined.

They pay the same for their region as the book club region unless book club regions get a discount?  

This has just turned into a load of nonsense so I'll just sit back and watch the goal post moving and back pedaling from afar.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Prokofy Neva]

2 minutes ago, Caeruleiae said:

I don't doubt their prior skills and knowledge-I do doubt their ability to properly market sl though. I wouldn't be amazing at marketing sl either-the difference between m and them is that I would know it right away and wouldn't let the marketing languish the way it has for the entirety of sl's existence.  If they have better ideas for how to market-they really should be bringing them to people who can bring them to fruition. Stagnation in marketing will kill even the best company-but especially one that is looking to expand their audience. I'm not saying they're idiots-just saying they wouldn't last long for us if they didn't have the ability to get it done and weren't willing to speak up about what's not working. That's what I have to do when something isn't working or a campaign isn't giving us the results we think it should-figure out why address issues adapt and modify where necessary. Sometimes it means putting people better suited for the job in that position.

I think the methods they've chosen for marketing aren't working and have never really worked. I think they need to go further outside of the box-regardless of the resumes people on the marketing team might have. If they can't give results those really don't matter-do they? Ll is looking to expand the resident population-retain those new people-and maintain the ones they have there. That means they need to venture away from whatever they've done so far because it just hasn't resulted in the numbers they want. I mean I don't want to make it sounds as if I am only intending to insult them-but clearly what they've tried doesn't work-so change things up. 

And yes get away from the whole idea that some people-some groups-some communities-whatever-are better than others and deserving of more attention. I stand by my belief that ll does not know their audience and at this point-may not even know their future target audience. They can do better though-of that I'm sure. 

Notice they now have a new CMO -- chief marking officer -- all companies had CEOs for decades -- then they added CTO because the techs felt the executive didn't understand tech -- and now LL and possibly others (haven't seen it) put in CMO as they feel executives and techs don't understand online marketing, either. They aren't the top jobs necessarily -- they implement under the guidance of the VPs. Brett, with 16 years in LL, is a VP above the CMO if I understand it correctly.

But bring in a CMO they did, and again, I'm hazy on what he does all day, although I'm relieved that we have now established the correct pronouncing of his name is SteyeFeye, and not anything that might appearl to 14-year-old boys, who aren't here anyway, right?

Again, the Lindens have found from experience, and no one on the forums certainly persuaded them otherwise, that making an ad on YouTube that plays to furries, or Blacks, or LGBT, or middle-aged females inclining toward Victorian Fairy -- whatever demographic they want -- doesn't bring people in the door. Other things produce more revenue, so they do those things, like a partnership with the show CSI they had at one time, or whatever the come up with now, like Motown. 

To their credit, the Lindens finally recognized that Black entrepreneurs are really a thriving, growing tip of SL; the Black YouTube shows have the most views and subscribers, and they should encourage this instead of letting SLHamlet and others endlessly post misleading editorials that you can't get decent skins for people of colour in SL. Of course you can. So a fair amount of their customer-directed or outworld-directed advertising has more diversity now. 

For the longest time, years ago, the Lindens had a young woman who didn't look quite of age wearing ornate jewelry living in a hazy fairy world -- that's definitely a demographic, and helps bring in the traffic of 20-something men to mate with 40-something women that is a peculiar staple of our Second Life. 

Somehow, they need to broaden this but it's not easy.

I don't think anyone on the forums knows the audience. I feel I know it a bit better than others with my rentals because I see a lot of different people and sims more than groups that just stick to their own kind and live on one sim. I think the population is still a majority of female, and whether that's females from RL birth or m2f doesn't matter. The Lindens didn't win over much of the largely male online gaming population. I think it's a better world as a result.

There's another factor at work here, and not sure if it helps or hurts. The Lindens are basically a small work force in a highly differentiated, special, and even odd company. Once you clear the hurdles to come in the door to be hired there -- often by having first accrued credentials as a resident -- you tend to stay for a very long time. The Lindens reward loyalty in staff but also have a cult-like unwillingness to let people go even if they fail (until they do). Other, bigger companies might rotate out the marketing guy the way some news companies rotate out the Moscow bureau chief because they figure they automatically become ineffective or "go local" to the detriment of their jobs. I don't get the impression that the heads of LL sit with spread sheets showing retention and sales and pin the fluctuations on that to one marketing or press person. If anything they are very collectivized in their work.

The corporate culture that Philip Linden installed, for better or worse, still prevails, despite efforts by some subsequent leaders to overthrow it in various ways. And I think generally that's a good thing for the world, although I think some elements of it are destructive to them and the world. It has lasted 20 years as a result.

It does pay to remember that while we're not a product in terms of what data can be scraped from us as on Facebook, but we are now part of a product that is "the world" which the Lindens, while immersed in, generally live outside of as a company.  The commodification of SL began after Philip, who used to say he was creating a world, and the victory of the platformistas, who said it's merely a platform to do various things on, including fantasy worlds, but it can also be for business, education, training, etc.

[Coffee Pancake]

5 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

They pay the same for their region as the book club region unless book club regions get a discount?  

This has just turned into a load of nonsense so I'll just sit back and watch the goal post moving and back pedaling from afar.

No it hasnt ..

The tiny number of tiny book clubs, all combined, are less than one region. The hundreds of adult regions are right there.

[Persephone Emerald]

29 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think you're mistaken about this. Look at the resumes and corporate descriptions of LL on lindenlab.com and other business sites and you will find some pretty impressive resumes and experience

I've already explained why I think, despite the best marketing minds and skills thrown at this, SL is a hard sell.

What I do think they are wrong about is their unwillingness to cut the resident population in on the deal, which I think would grow the platform for both parties.

That is, they pick and choose *some* residents who are their pets to get a coveted berth in the Web Hub Shopping District, or Shop 'n Hop, or other opportunities, but they don't open this up for simply cash. That was how Anshe Chung grew the telehub markets which is where most of the revenue of SL was made in the early years (not now). She simply democratically made it available for a price. While it's true not every poor person from every poor country could come up with that cash price, some entrepreneurial poor people could, at least for a time, and that's how they got eyeballs for their wares.

The Lindens used to provide ad space on pillars at all telehubs for a two-week period. When the telehubs were removed, they took this away. I think they should emphatically bring it back, make it a reasonable fee, and not worry overly about "adult content". 

I think they should have networked roadside billboard space for rent as in RL, and that would help improve the view and make the ugly extortionist stuff have to recede because the business community would have attractive, reasonable advertising space instead of the blight they have. I directly asked Brett about this in one town hall and he said ugh, we don't want billboards, because he couldn't really envision how this could be done WELL. But it certainly could. Any Linden content is perceived as better by the population at large; that's why "Linden protected" is still a real estate value. Make advertising Linden-protected!!!

They could sell space on the splash screen -- they have done that periodically but don't stick with it.

Some lawyer type, perhaps among the new owners, has injected this fear of brand confusion or appearing in a space with resident brands that might drag them down -- hence the utterly unjustified and stupid requirement forced on us in recent years among the SL Exhibitors spaces that we cannot show our logo, much less have a tip jar. Let people have logos and tip jars, and you will the quality improve, not worsen, as most quality brands in SL don't bother with a space where a) they can't display their logo or advertising b) make any amount of cash.

There is an inherent fear of commerce among the technocommunist ideologues of Second Life, and a fear of "any business but my business" among the technolibertarians who tend to prevail today. That's not the American Way, and frankly, not even the European or Asian way, where there is less tolerance of free commerce. 

The Lindens used to share the newbie stream at least with their pets, the FIC or even the resident-run Linden infohubs, to some extent. Then they were disappointed when their cramped A/B tests showed that no, going to Cubey's airfield or even Prokofy's Casablanca type sim didn't increase retention. I think A/B is not how this should be studied, and it also has to be done not with random scripts (the set of targets is too small to randomize well) and more openly -- anyone can PURCHASE a piece of the newbie stream on a billboard, an ad, an event, something. When the Lindens go back to welcoming and not fearing their co-creators of the world, they will do better. For that, they will have to close their ears to the forums complainers.

I'd rather SL would not be turned into Virtual World Facebook, thanks. So, no. Just no.