I Have Gone on My Last Cam Sim, That's It, The End

[Prokofy Neva]

I've always found it humiliating to go to cam sims. You're there fluttering around in a wash of body parts rezzing, and pressing your nose up to the glass of the event, and of course punished if you use one of those automatic TP hammers trying to get in.

And it occurred to me today HOW UNNECESSARY CAM SIMS ARE.

All that event organizers have to do -- when they splash out to rent three or four sims to enable cam sims!!! -- is simply REPLICATE THE EVENT ON ALL SIMS. Hello!

Why would that be hard?

Merchants pay sometimes enormous sums to be in these events -- I have been in a few over the years and I know $2500 is a low fee (Fantasy Faire) -- some other more popular less niche events charged $3000 or more. So I wouldn't be surprised to hear these fees are $5000 now or $10000 for placement during the landing. Those called "sponsors" are obviously PAYING for that higher placement in ads on a web page.

The merchants  usually work on their booths on their home sim, then bundle it up in a rezzer or in "the yellow box," coalesced, and rez it out in a second at the booth. They can do that same five-second act on 3 or 4 sims as they do on 1.

Why not?

There is a really instinctive, primal fear of replication among merchants, that somehow this will lead to more copybotting. But that's ridiculous. The items are on no-transfer. Copybotters usually work in other ways, not at events, but they are inevitable and you combat them with exposure and DMCA takedowns.

Someone might argue that cam sims are homesteads rented for cheaper -- or whatever the argument is. I think a lot of them are in fact full-fledged islands that I see. Why on earth can't you rez 15,000 prims on the cam sim islands so people can BUY STUFF.

Why is this necessary? Because people in fact can't always cam in close -- it's laggy and crowded even on the cam sim. Worse, THEY CANNOT BUY FROM ANOTHER SIM.

This is a problem I experience constantly. Just now, at Collabor88, I was able to buy two items from two merchants who had one kind of vendor, and three items I wanted from other merchants could not be purchased, no matter how hard I clicked or how close I zoomed in or how much I went through the whole menu (a trick that sometimes works but usually not). So those are LOST SALES.

If you want to faff on about how you can cam in fine and buy things fine, that's ok, but I'm pretty sure other people have this problem, too. And more to the point, why should everyone pile up like flies beating against a window pane and struggle to cam into another laggy sim, especially one with obstructive walkways put in the middle of it (bad design idea) or stupid racing cards  underneath its transparent floor, or whatever other damn glitzy thing someone dreams up that is not an optimal build? Why can't we just walk around the event? Put out four copies of the event, the end. This shouldn't cost anybody any more time or money than it does. The organizers rent the sims anyways. The merchants have to land and rez their stuff in the booth anyways -- spending 10 minutes to repeat this simple act 3-4 times more costs them nothing and INCREASES THEIR SALES.

 

Edited August 9 by Prokofy Neva

[discussionbot]

12 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

This is a problem I experience constantly. Just now, at Collabor88, I was able to buy two items from two merchants who had one kind of vendor, and three items I wanted from other merchants could not be purchased, no matter how hard I clicked or how close I zoomed in or how much I went through the whole menu (a trick that sometimes works but usually not). So those are LOST SALES.

This is actually really infuriating. Sometimes the vendors won’t even rezz, I once had to jump through the platform on a cam sim and dive into the water just to get closer to the main event and make vendor rezz.

Subjecting myself to these shoddy lag-fested event regions for a miserable shopping experience all in the name of artificial exclusivity is increasingly starting to feel like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. 

Edited August 9 by discussionbot

[Prokofy Neva]

7 minutes ago, discussionbot said:

This is actually really infuriating. Sometimes the demo or actual vendors won’t even rezz for me, I had to jump through the platform on a cam sim and dive into the water on the cam sim’s parcel to get closer to the main event just to make the vendor rezz 😭

Some wonk will come forward with some technical reason as to WHY it is not feasiable to rez the event 4 times over in duplicates -- BTW, this was the original reason why The Electric Sheep let their libsl coder fool around with Copybot on behalf of a client (though they strenuously denied it) -- to create rock concerts with the same avatars and props rezzed repeatedly across multiple sims like "shards" so that thousands of people could see the same thing (something that for me is not the goal of SL but has always been a fetish for devs).

But some smart person out there will realize there is NOTHING to stop them doing this. They rent those sims, paying good money to LL for them -- they don't even get the use out of them after a few days. 

That smart person can't be me because I don't have the time, treasure, or talent to mount an event like this. But there are people in SL who do have the capital, the staff, the ingenuity. Someone will do this, and do it well. they may even put the demos for the large items on a separate sim, instead of up in the sky on the same sim, which means they really aren't less laggy in the end. Someone will do this brilliantly, and the others will copy them. They will make many more sales, and be happy. The Lindens may charge them more for the islands as a result, but likely they won't dare. 

[Cube Republic]

This is all fair and good but misses the point, I see it flying up there like a paper airplane. 

You create artificial scarcity -- marketing -- if it's easy to get in, not exclusive, alusive or enticing then you'll lose that buzz. So it's beneficial to have cam sims rather than instances of the same region. Throw scorn on me if you want, but this is like capitalism 101 lol and you can bet your bottom linden if PN or CR have thought of it, so have region-event owners and they don't want their expensive events to look empty. 

[Eowyn Southmoor]

Or. since most of these big events last for an entire month,  you can simply choose to not fall for all the marketing bs and wait a week, TP there when there are less people, turn off other avatars, and enjoy a quiet lag free experience

 

 

[discussionbot]

9 minutes ago, Eowyn Southmoor said:

wait a week

But I want my new shiny thing now! 😭

[Prokofy Neva]

55 minutes ago, Cube Republic said:

This is all fair and good but misses the point, I see it flying up there like a paper airplane. 

You create artificial scarcity -- marketing -- if it's easy to get in, not exclusive, alusive or enticing then you'll lose that buzz. So it's beneficial to have cam sims rather than instances of the same region. Throw scorn on me if you want, but this is like capitalism 101 lol and you can bet your bottom linden if PN or CR have thought of it, so have region-event owners and they don't want their expensive events to look empty. 

If you can only make a sale by creating artificial scarcity in an overabundant world where many people already have something like what you are selling, then I pity you.

You should be looking for every possible chance to make a sale, and make it easy for people to buy things. 

The only "buzz" that is happening at these endless events -- there are way too many of them -- is the sounds of flies hitting the glass on the windows from the cam sims.

They ALREADY look empty a day or two after they open! It would cost them mothing to MAKE MORE SALES in those precious first two or three days before the crowds inevitably lapse.

The event quickly falls below the fold on SeraphimSL, the largest shopping news aggregate site. So the window open to make sales is very small. 

Cam sims are already empty, ugly, and stupid.

Make more sales, and stop missing opportunities under the mistaken burden of belief about what the cool kids think or are doing.

[Prokofy Neva]

51 minutes ago, Eowyn Southmoor said:

Or. since most of these big events last for an entire month,  you can simply choose to not fall for all the marketing bs and wait a week, TP there when there are less people, turn off other avatars, and enjoy a quiet lag free experience

 

 

The market is failing in SL in many ways, in case you haven't noticed. There are lots of reasons for this.

One of them is hidebound thinking -- and hidebound thinking not about accepting the abusive PBR or not -- but hidebound thinking about what works in events and what doesn't.

It took WAY too long to bring We Love Roleplay out of the darkness of miles of difficult-to-navigate, dark, laggy passageways in rows around crowded booths. Finally they got the lightbulb over their head and put everything into a giant circle and put the booths accessible from that big open space.

There is no reason for me to have to remember which event is on with which thing I want for sale -- I often forget or get busy and simply don't want to bother again.

Opening day is a window that enables lots of sales -- when they stop making this experience such a negative one they will have even more sales. They can then delete the extra sims when the crowds die down. The end.

Why should I have to turn off avatars to go to an event?

Half the fun of an event is to see what stuff people are strutting around in. That also helps sales. 

[PheebyKatz]

I've never even heard of this before, though it makes sense that people would try it as a way of dealing with event traffic (albeit not an exceptionally useable one). I'd have thought instead to simply expand the event to cover multiple sims, rather than just have the extra sims be like holding pens for people to try and shop from within, myself.

It's funny, I see so many people complaining about how shopping events turn out for them, and inworld stores poof because everyone wants to go to the shopping events instead of exploring the grid and finding cool places to shop.

You'd think there'd be an obvious, intelligent solution by now.

Edited August 9 by PheebyKatz

[Persephone Emerald]

Another option to crowded event sims is what they call shopping HUDs, basically the SL version of shopping via a catalog.

Crowded shopping events can be frustrating, but they give bloggers and Premium account holders the opportunity to feel superior to the poor folk who have their faces pressed longingly against the virtual glass of the sim border.

Those of us on the inside know those rubber-banding against the border are cursing us out for not grabbing our stuff quickly and going home. Yet, this is one of the perks of paying for a Premium membership, so we can take our time trying on stuff and deciding which outfit to buy with our $L 300 gift card.

I have 1 Premium and 3 Basic accounts, so my alts have to wait their turn to spend their gift cards, and sometimes they don't get to spend them at all. 😞

[Midnoot]

33 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

I've never even heard of this before, though it makes sense that people would try it as a way of dealing with event traffic (albeit not an exceptionally useable one). I'd have thought instead to simply expand the event to cover multiple sims, rather than just have the extra sims be like holding pens for people to try and shop from within, myself.

It's funny, I see so many people complaining about how shopping events turn out for them, and inworld stores poof because everyone wants to go to the shopping events instead of exploring the grid and finding cool places to shop.

You'd think there'd be an obvious, intelligent solution by now.

I'm disgusted by these events due to the fact that they encourage store owners to make items exclusively event only so even if you see it in their store , you don't get to buy it unless you go to the event . I've never chased an event item and never will . And I lose interest in the store for teasing me . Principle boycott .  Of course I'm a minority and it probably barely affects them .  But im still doing it 🫡

Edited August 9 by Midnoot

[Clem Marques]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I've always found it humiliating to go to cam sims. You're there fluttering around in a wash of body parts rezzing, and pressing your nose up to the glass of the event, and of course punished if you use one of those automatic TP hammers trying to get in.

And it occurred to me today HOW UNNECESSARY CAM SIMS ARE.

All that event organizers have to do -- when they splash out to rent three or four sims to enable cam sims!!! -- is simply REPLICATE THE EVENT ON ALL SIMS. Hello!

Why would that be hard?

Merchants pay sometimes enormous sums to be in these events -- I have been in a few over the years and I know $2500 is a low fee (Fantasy Faire) -- some other more popular less niche events charged $3000 or more. So I wouldn't be surprised to hear these fees are $5000 now or $10000 for placement during the landing. Those called "sponsors" are obviously PAYING for that higher placement in ads on a web page.

The merchants  usually work on their booths on their home sim, then bundle it up in a rezzer or in "the yellow box," coalesced, and rez it out in a second at the booth. They can do that same five-second act on 3 or 4 sims as they do on 1.

Why not?

There is a really instinctive, primal fear of replication among merchants, that somehow this will lead to more copybotting. But that's ridiculous. The items are on no-transfer. Copybotters usually work in other ways, not at events, but they are inevitable and you combat them with exposure and DMCA takedowns.

Someone might argue that cam sims are homesteads rented for cheaper -- or whatever the argument is. I think a lot of them are in fact full-fledged islands that I see. Why on earth can't you rez 15,000 prims on the cam sim islands so people can BUY STUFF.

Why is this necessary? Because people in fact can't always cam in close -- it's laggy and crowded even on the cam sim. Worse, THEY CANNOT BUY FROM ANOTHER SIM.

This is a problem I experience constantly. Just now, at Collabor88, I was able to buy two items from two merchants who had one kind of vendor, and three items I wanted from other merchants could not be purchased, no matter how hard I clicked or how close I zoomed in or how much I went through the whole menu (a trick that sometimes works but usually not). So those are LOST SALES.

If you want to faff on about how you can cam in fine and buy things fine, that's ok, but I'm pretty sure other people have this problem, too. And more to the point, why should everyone pile up like flies beating against a window pane and struggle to cam into another laggy sim, especially one with obstructive walkways put in the middle of it (bad design idea) or stupid racing cards  underneath its transparent floor, or whatever other damn glitzy thing someone dreams up that is not an optimal build? Why can't we just walk around the event? Put out four copies of the event, the end. This shouldn't cost anybody any more time or money than it does. The organizers rent the sims anyways. The merchants have to land and rez their stuff in the booth anyways -- spending 10 minutes to repeat this simple act 3-4 times more costs them nothing and INCREASES THEIR SALES.

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way about "cam sims." Very frustrating.

As a customer, I usually just wait for events to end so that those items stop being "exclusive" and are brought to the creator's actual shop, where they belong. Then I check them out (if I even remember them) and decide whether or not I want to make a purchase. Tired of that event lagfest with dozens of avatars all piled up and barely able to move. Tired of being barred from entering the region when I'm practically ready to hand over my cash, or just want to quickly grab 1 item and leave. I'd rather wait than go through all of that hassle.

Edited August 9 by Clem Marques

[Prokofy Neva]

33 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

I've never even heard of this before, though it makes sense that people would try it as a way of dealing with event traffic (albeit not an exceptionally useable one). I'd have thought instead to simply expand the event to cover multiple sims, rather than just have the extra sims be like holding pens for people to try and shop from within, myself.

It's funny, I see so many people complaining about how shopping events turn out for them, and inworld stores poof because everyone wants to go to the shopping events instead of exploring the grid and finding cool places to shop.

You'd think there'd be an obvious, intelligent solution by now.

People go to events because they think the items will be cheaper or on discount of 20% or more for the duration of the event. Sometimes they are. But the dirty little secret of events is that most things are for the exact same price AFTER the event.

People also go to events to get free gifts -- but most of them are unopened and unusable and the best merchants disdain even making gifts for the masses.

I don't think making the event bigger with MORE merchants who will be hard to get through is the answer; I really think four idential sims is the answer for the first 2-3 days. It is not more work for the organizers to click a rez-faux button and have their entire decorated sim come out. If they need rez-faux lessons there are plenty of people who can give them. And it's not a chore for merchants to plunk out 3 more copies of their coalesced or rez-faux booth contents. The inducement of more sales will help them realize this.

Inworld stores have gone away because a lot of people will pay more to shop on the MP just so they can find things, rather than struggle past all the junk that people have in stores that get in the way. No one needs a front desk and a dummy sitting at it. They need a wall upon landing with sales items and the redeliver terminal -- period. Put your trinkets and prize cups for being best merchant at past events in your home, not your store, it's clutter. Etc. 

Put TP boards to take people to the section they need. Once people stop trying to make RL-style stores which have all kinds of lower priced junk up in front "by the cash registers" to catch your eye and make you buy cheap stuff -- virtuality is not an equivalent and we can area-search or fly -- these stores will be easier to get around.

Early TV was ugly and stupid because people just moved radio shows on TV and kept all the same habits as if the audience wasn't there. Over time, they realized they had to look better and do more. Early virtuality stores will be no different.

I'll never forgot the time I went up to Marissa Meyer, who used to be a Google executive, at TechCrunch and asked her a question. I noted that some of the apps in "Start-Up Alley" had internal searches but that Google was not searching them -- much like Google had stopped searching inside games when Sergei Brin was horrified at the game clutter in the early Google. 

So Google was missing out on people's browsing and shopping searches inside apps for music, stores, etc. (none of which exist today any more, overtaken by bigger platforms).

She stared at me hard and I realized she had never thought about all the lost business inside those newbie apps where people only searched inside the apps.

"Somewill will make it," she said of the giant search that would do this some day, and of course that was Google.

Someone will make it if you don't.

And my favourite Philip quote, when I complained that there wasn't a free all-perm printing press in SL to make magazines and books, but only one that was difficult to use and expensive.

"Someone will make everything," he said to me.

Think about that. Someone will make everything. He was absolutely confident that where needs arose, where logic would prevail, someone would come along and do a thing. So today you may still have no-transfer printing presses, but they are easier to use and more versatile, like TBF's. And some people just go outside SL all together to publish because it's too hard inside SL. 

But...indeed, someone will make everything -- unless SL itself fails, in which case they will go make those things elsewhere.

[Clem Marques]

43 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

I'd have thought instead to simply expand the event to cover multiple sims, rather than just have the extra sims be like holding pens for people to try and shop from within, myself.

This would be such a great solution.

[Prokofy Neva]

2 minutes ago, Clem Marques said:

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way about "cam sims." Very frustrating.

As a customer, I usually just wait for events to end so that those items stop being "exclusive" and are brought to the creator's actual shop, where they belong. Then I check them out (if I even remember them) and decide whether or not I want to make a purchase. Tired of that event lagfest with dozens of avatars all piled up and barely able to move. Tired of being barred from entering the region when I'm practically ready to hand over my cash, or just want to quickly grab 1 item and leave. I'd rather wait than go through all of that hassle.

I used to start wish lists thinking I'd do that -- but really, I don't. Who has the time and attention? They missed the moment, they missed the sale. Next! 

And so often tired and busy creators don't get that item back in their shop right after the event. Maybe they made enough sales and don't need to chip their nails to put it out. Maybe they think no one will come to their store. Of course some events now force you into the stores, using a HUD or "taxis" published online. I often don't have the patience for it.

Generally, with weekend sales now, I only bother even looking at a few that I think are going to be really worth it for housewares for my rentals or my own house.

[Prokofy Neva]

2 minutes ago, Clem Marques said:

This would be such a great solution.

This doesn't work for Fantasy Faire. Of course, Fantasy Faire is trying to be a place with fantastic builds, and a hunt -- and the shopping with the RFL vendors is almost a sidebar (although of course the reason for the entire thing now sadly, in my view).

But the sims are heavily packed with builds and while builders try to reduce lag, it's a slow rez.

If they made plain-Jane sims with no frills like stupid cars running under transparent roads (a look they haven't changed in more than a decade at that event), maybe it would work. But I actually think once someone tries 4 sims with identical content, that people will wonder why they never did this before and it will catch on.

[Clem Marques]

1 minute ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Generally, with weekend sales now, I only bother even looking at a few that I think are going to be really worth it for housewares for my rentals or my own house.

Same here, I always think twice about those purchases. If the item not particularly nice or useful to me, why bother going to the inworld store to buy it? A product is not worth buying just because it's "cheap"

[PheebyKatz]

45 minutes ago, Midnoot said:

I'm disgusted by these events due to the fact that they encourage store owners to make items exclusively event only so even if you see it in their store , you don't get to buy it unless you go to the event . I've never chased an event item and never will . And I lose interest in the store for teasing me . Principle boycott .  Of course I'm a minority and it probably barely affects them .  But im still doing it 🫡

Yeah, that's f*cked up. Buying things shouldn't feel like a competition sport, that just disappoints anyone who doesn't "win". Personal opinion, stuff like that is not optimal for either creative people who need money, or enthusiastic people who want to have fun spending it.

It's like locking down a mall and putting people through a chute, instead of letting them just roam the gigantic thing and spend freely.

[Jennifer Boyle]

What is a cam sim?

[PheebyKatz]

38 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

What is a cam sim?

I didn't know either until today. Apparently they all stand around on one sim so they can shop on the other one by camming over, because the sim with the actual shops is overfull and nobody else can get in.

I know, right?

Mind blown.

[Cube Republic]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

If you can only make a sale by creating artificial scarcity in an overabundant world where many people already have something like what you are selling, then I pity you.

You should be looking for every possible chance to make a sale, and make it easy for people to buy things. 

The only "buzz" that is happening at these endless events -- there are way too many of them -- is the sounds of flies hitting the glass on the windows from the cam sims.

They ALREADY look empty a day or two after they open! It would cost them mothing to MAKE MORE SALES in those precious first two or three days before the crowds inevitably lapse.

The event quickly falls below the fold on SeraphimSL, the largest shopping news aggregate site. So the window open to make sales is very small. 

Cam sims are already empty, ugly, and stupid.

Make more sales, and stop missing opportunities under the mistaken burden of belief about what the cool kids think or are doing.

I wasn't interested in your pitty, I'm pointing out why event owners probably do this. I didn't make the marketing rules, somebody else did that, and it's a tried and tested formula, that's why people sit outside Apple stores for the latest thing or que round the block for a Supreme branded top.  It's kind of proffessor obvious, especially like a decade plus into events.Wanting to get into something that seems exclusive is a primer for the brain and makes people want to shop , everybody falls for it, even you, that's why you're on a cam sim, instead of going later when it's not so busy. You're litterally sitting outside the virtual apple store, playing by their rules, then complaining that you don't like it and they should change it all for you. Then you probably wouldn't go, because you're the type of person that is stoked and can't wait and goes to the cam sim! How funny is that!

[Gabriele Graves]

I must be immune, either I get in within a minute or two of trying or I come back when it's less busy and try again, or not depending on whether I care enough.  Not getting in doesn't make me want to try harder, if anything it's more likely to make me lose interest.

Edited August 9 by Gabriele Graves

[Stephanie Misfit]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

People go to events because they think the items will be cheaper or on discount of 20% or more for the duration of the event. Sometimes they are. But the dirty little secret of events is that most things are for the exact same price AFTER the event.

And if you wait for a few weeks to a few months, you will find many of these items in weekend sales for 60 to 100L. I don't shop from certain stores at full price anymore because I know their items will be reduced to weekend prices very quickly.

[Faithless Babii]

42 minutes ago, Stephanie Misfit said:

And if you wait for a few weeks to a few months, you will find many of these items in weekend sales for 60 to 100L. I don't shop from certain stores at full price anymore because I know their items will be reduced to weekend prices very quickly.

Yes this ^^^ - I have to really really want something "right now" to pay full price at an event or store , the w/e sales put paid to me splashing my cash wildly around !

[Clem Marques]

25 minutes ago, Faithless Babii said:

1 hour ago, Stephanie Misfit said:

And if you wait for a few weeks to a few months, you will find many of these items in weekend sales for 60 to 100L. I don't shop from certain stores at full price anymore because I know their items will be reduced to weekend prices very quickly.

Yes this ^^^ - I have to really really want something "right now" to pay full price at an event or store , the w/e sales put paid to me splashing my cash wildly around !

It's often worth it to just wait until Black Friday if you're not in a rush to get an item from a store that doesn't usually have sales. That's one way to shop and really get your money's worth.

Edited August 9 by Clem Marques