New Land product? Gaming Sim?

[Medhue Simoni]

Just a thought but:

I'm thinking that LL needs a new land product, specifically for RPG, FPS gaming, parks and recreational areas. Not for residential use. These, I'm thinking, would be the size of 4 normal sims. These could come with less prims, as open areas don't really require many prims. Plus, we have mesh to do things in creative ways and save lots of prims. Mesh is practically a requirement for most of the things these sims would be used for, at least, from now on. If script memory and speed could be enhanced in anyway by combining 4 sims, that would be a huge plus too.

The way I look at it. RPG and gaming types of things are massively hampered in SL because of the size of a normal sim. The size is too small for a decent size RPG, which means the owners have to buy more sims to make it even playable and have enough area. At $300 per sim, that is totally crazy, and you have to deal with sim crossings and all that. It only seems logical to me that with LL concentrating on more gaming type of development, that creating a specialize sim for such activities only makes sense.

Pricing could be like this:

$500 - Gaming Sim

$300 - Private Sim

$200 - Mainland Sim

Yeah, I know LL has other options, but to me, those are BS. Oh, and yeah, I rounded everything up, just for ease of explaining. Ultimately, I would like to see a completely different price structure. Maybe, something similar to this"

$425 - Gaming Sim

$200 - Private Sim

$150 - Mainland Sim

What do you think?

[linkin Slate]

Interesting you brought this up been thinking over this same topic today my self.

As to the bigger sims  LL has before sold the mega sims  4 sims conected as one. probally still on there self some where yet to bring out for just a perpose. ( i belive they where like 900 a month ).

As we can see how LL has matured , it has come to a point where it seeks profit where it can. Problem is the player need to also follow these steps. (meaning)  If you buy a sim, one needs to at lest cover costs,and make some profits.

Gameing sims> its seems like next step yes, But if  a mega sim was 900 a month , how would you cover that cost ?

Seek Advertisments from comercial real life buisness with in game ?

Charge a fee to play ?

Another factor is .people like and want new content. for example a new game comes out they will play it all week long,stay up  every night, till they finish. then wait for the next version to come out.

Just like in sl somehting new comes along people ooo and ahh then off they go to see somehtign else.

You would have to update your game every few months to keep interest.

All this is doable, if the underlying costs wasnt there. 

Another thing to think about is , are they really talking  to us about.gameing sims,? 

Talk was that the LL Realms sims was done to show some investors, then later open to us to  test.

SL is a sellable platform. you can buy and set up on your own servers.

I wonder if the true market there after with all this ,is outside our sl Grid.

 

 

[Chelsea Malibu]

So, if I am reading you right, you are suggesting that you could get a higher performance sim for a few more bucks?

I vote yes!  Better performance and perhaps even a larger land map for a few more bucks. At that point, it would make gaming viable here or it could also bring back the corporate world who left in large part over the lack of sim capacity.

[Medhue Simoni]

Yeah, at 900, that is just way too high. Only established, profit driven RPGs could even consider that. Maybe, if that 900 included a decent marketing scheme. Promoted by LL always get's a heck of alot more traffic. Maybe, Game creators could submit designs, and if approved, we get the sims for 900, hopefully cheaper, and LL does some MOTD and Destination guide marketing for the game.

@Chelsea - At 500, like I suggest, It would be hard not to jump at that, considering the deal. 900 tho, that put's alot of pressure on you to get decent income right away. Unless I already had a working very profitable game established, it would be difficult to consider jumping into that.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I very much like this idea, but wouldn't want to see it limited to games I could think of many non residential uses for one if it supported more than just the 40-60 avatars plus build a regular sim can handle without running into lag issues.  I've been approached by RL companies and institutions about SL but the population limits and/or land size  of a regular sim were too restrictive for what they had in mind. 

Perhaps there could 3 versions, one that gives you the equivalent of four sims of land but the same avatar population and prim support as a regular sim, one that is regular in size but supports a much larger avatar population and more prims and one that does both.  Pricing could vary by version and reflect the resources needed to run the particular type  of sim.

As you pointed out, supporting the acquisition and tier price of such sims may be dicey at best.  You'd almost have to have access to substantial RL money personally or in the form of investors, corporations or other institutions.  What you offer there would have to have a large and continual draw of people willing to pay a price that would support tiers, staffing and marketing,  either in the form of a substantial (comparatively speaking) fee or by lots of micro payments. This would have to come from the attendees themselves. 

Charging entrance or subscription fees has not been successful in SL.  With a few exceptions, most of attempts fail quickly because so much of the population is not willing or able to spend for this, In fact the mentality seen to  be that all venues should be free.

Relying on rent from SL shops would not cover it, even if you managed to get a very decent rent and keep all the stores rented all the time - something very difficult to do now on a regular sim.

Advertising or offering RL products isn't the answer either.  This has been tried before and has failed miserably.  Marketing research shows that most people don't want to see RL advertising/products in SL and will avoid it.  They are here for the fantasy and fun and not to be bombarded with reminders of RL. Even if it were acceptable to residents, pricing for advertising would also have to be low as  the number of times such advertising is seen by people (impressions) would be very small compared to RL advertising.  I can put an ad in a local publication for a few bucks that would be seen by many more people than would ever see it in SL.

However,  if laws were changed and casinos were ever allowed in SL again......  :smileyvery-happy:

[Medhue Simoni]

Yeah, maybe they should just be non residential. That's really the only requirement that I would see that makes sense, as residential sims are for a specific purpose and already have a well established pricing and standard.

How a sim owner pays for a sim can be a challenge, and the reluctance of RPGs to break away from old non profitable ways only adds to the problems. Unless an RPG is directly connect to or supported by the combat or RPG system they are using, it is unlikely that the RPG is sustainable. I always see RPG owners looking for options, but rarely see them change anything. Mostly it seems, because they hear negativity from their base about giving up their current weapons and such. So, you have their base wanting more, but not wanting to buy anything new, lol. This stuff will work out eventually tho, with all the creative minds in SL.

[Setekh Ichtama]

I have a feeling this won't matter at all.

According to GridSurvey statistics, Second Life has been losing roughly 170 private estates per week for the past two weeks and only time will tell if this is a sign of what's to come.

Prices have to drop and soon or there won't be a whole lot of sim purchasing.