Dartagan Shepherd Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Zanara Zenovka wrote: Ilyra Chardin wrote: When SL was established originally, linden dollars were just game money and you could not purchase or sell it. Then residents started buying it from one another and some even began to sell it on ebay. It was an unforeseen, unplanned for side effect. This prompted linden labs to allow the purchase and sale of the game currency. Interesting - do you have a reference for that? I'd been looking for some L$ history and havent been able to find anything. Altho entertainingly enough, I did manage to find this Wired summary of SL from 2006, which, apart from the outdated figures, is still uncannily accurate overall. Gaming Open Market first introduced and handled currency for Second Life, Phil says it's good among other points here: http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2004/01/61999?currentPage=all It gets lucrative: http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/gaming_open_market_trades_over_1m_usd/ Later, Phil decides it's "too" good to let someone else have: http://alphavilleherald.com/2005/08/betrayed_linden.html Some oldbies are still familiar with the term GOM'ed, speaking of that fiasco, which basically means take the offer or die. And so it goes, welcome to the acquired Marketplace. LL now has this to say on a press release concerning both currency and the Marketplace: Founded in 1999, Linden Lab is a developer of digital entertainment that inspires users to create, socialize, share -- and have fun. The company pioneered the virtual currency and marketplace with Second Life, the massively multiplayer online platform, where hundreds of millions of user generated items are bought and sold for real money and which entertains millions around the globe. Linden Lab is headquartered in San Francisco. More information can be found at lindenlab.com. From: http://lindenlab.com/press/releases/12_02_16 Edited to add more detail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zanara Zenovka Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Ah brilliant - thanks Dart - good sources Yeah trying to research things like that demonstrates one of the weaknesses of the wiki system, where diachronic info risks being lost to revision, and old-fashioned reporting shows its value. GOM story is classic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamie Cheeky Posted March 9, 2012 Author Share Posted March 9, 2012 my partner had a shop as well on the sim which is still here - Adagio was just ticking along with the odd sale and the wizards den was supporting the island - while i did a univeristy degree. But now all sales have just literally stopped im sorry i probably didnt make that clear as i should have - needless to sya both stores ar eon the same island right next to each other so they both have seen a massive reduction! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Madeliefste Oh wrote: A point is also that you have much more competition now then five years ago. I did a bit of research on this and found these figures: 2007: total businesses in SL 42.597 2010: total businesses in SL 64.651 More recent figures are not available, but I guess the number of businesses is still growing, while the hours spent online by all residents are declining. The number of items for sale grows and grows. When every merchant releases one item per week and it comes in for example 3 color variations or permission variations, this means about 200.000 new items available per week for customers. In this pile of new goods your item is burried soon. Not even to mention the items that are available already and that have gained visibility on the marketplace or by being rezzed in many places in world. I agree SL businesses has grown overall in number.....but would say it is definitely shrinking In-World, as witnessed with all the sims and land being abandoned over the last year. However those giving up an in-world store, still maintain their presence on Marketplace.......some of those Merchants probably constantly updating with new products, whilst others just leave old stock listed and don't add any further to them. Even Merchants that have moved over to Inworldz Grid, would still have their products on SL Marketplace too. (it makes sense and costs them nothing!) Marketplace will eventually become too over-crowded to make a RL income from it.....with the exception of a handful of top-selling Merchants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Ilyra Chardin wrote: As for LL's push towards MP over in world stores, t hey're getting a cut of every sales transaction. MP is set up so that just about anyone can put products out as long as they have a spot to put their magic box (which could be a linden home, a rental plot or their friends' sim. And a lot more people have entered into that market than had ever set up in world stores because they can be a merchant on MP with little investment - more so because there is little to no governance of MP. There is a percentage of merchants who are not content creators at all and are merely selling those freebie full perm (or at least copy / trans) items that they've picked up along the way. If you do the Maths like I've done on repeated occasions...Linden Lab strategy to move shopping to Marketplace makes no sense at all for the company's profitability. Firstly Land/ Sim Tiers are paid in USD and are taken as income at source....whilst Marketplace commissions are just another "Sink" earnt in Linden dollars that cannot be taken straight to income. Sinks and sources are used to balance the Lindex and money supply of the SL economy. Secondly even if you hypothetically count MP Commissions as LL income it would not begin to compare to the Tiers lost from commercial land & Sims abandoned over the last year. Approx $4.75 Million USD Tier income has been lost over the last year....a certain percentage of that figure relates to Sims/ Land that had Commercial activities. MP commissions current run rate is around $80-100 k USD p/mth (if it were converted and taken to Income) so it does not compare....it's a lot less! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Anaiya Arnold wrote: Luna Bliss wrote: What I'm saying is that I think LL believes it's more advantageous for them to attract a lot of people paying tier vs a few businesses paying for full sims and taking a lot of money out of the game. ........ Most sim owners probably never need support unless something is wrong on LL's end, in which case they'd still have to do something whether it's a private sim that has gone awry or an area holding 40 homes of users who all have access to live support. The only difference there is whether they have to deal with one single, probably technically astute or SL-familiar owner, or 40 probably very confused, probably very SL-unfamiliar, and probably rather newish accounts all with access to live support. I own a bunch of Sims and i rarely need to contact Live Support......maybe once every 2 months and it might not be Sim related....it could be regarding billing or being charged more for Search fees or a Classified Advert that i had stopped.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Medhue Simoni wrote: As far as what LL is doing that contradicts your theory, just look at MESH. How about Pathfinding? LL know's that for SL to move forward, the content has to get better, and more efficient. This will likely bring in more professional content creators, who are definitely going to expect to cashout. When I stated earlier that LL made a conscious decision to market Land more, I was not implying that they were maliciously hurting merchants. I don't really think LL can comprehend how the things they do hurt the merchants. Plus, we basically had 1 CEO in charge when everything was destroyed, and now we have another that doesn't know anything about how things were before. Firstly Mesh and "Pathfinding capabilities" and all the rest of the little shinies...will not necessarily lead to improvement in retention rates...which are the core of SL problems. Mesh is not going to be the saviour of Secondlife.....it's overblown and overhyped scenario! Other MMOG platforms have had Mesh for years! (e.g IMVU), I do believe one of the OS Grids has had it working successfully for quite some time now. A Professional Mesh product creator is not going "nickle & dime" themselves in SL, when there are so many outlets (e.g Daz3D, Renderosity etc etc) to sell their products for significantly more dollars ...which bears some relation to their time spent in creating those products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WADE1 Jya Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Heh, what I think of their "pathfinding" is I can write my own paths. I know I am a strange one, but I prefer to create the algorithms myself, not using someone else's blackbox system. That is why I have my creations running around right now on screen of my mobile device :catvery-happy: Yes I have eyes on this same info Rene, which is one reason I'm quite insistent now for Lindens to continue releasing their quarterly figures, with usual profitability statement. I know they mean well, but not nice to keep people in a darkness. My little pet shop survives inworld but I must consider how Second Life is doing overall & where Linden future might be 6 months from now, such going-on has ambiguous appearance. For these people, if sales are down perhaps diversify as Linden CEO does. Mesh is an open door and a way to let no walls stand in your way as creator. Thank you Lindens, Second Life has been like a school to me. I came here knowing nothing & now I feel I have graduated. What to do around the old schoolyard now? :catembarrassed: Best of luck to everyone in these times of bad realworld economy. We are all under attack from plutocrats. Be agile and smart. Let's hope Lindens survive (I think they will) & that WWIII does not begin also with all our "world leaders" engaged in the crazy war talk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 WADE1 Jya wrote: Yes I have eyes on this same info Rene, which is one reason I'm quite insistent now for Lindens to continue releasing their quarterly figures, with usual profitability statement. I know they mean well, but not nice to keep people in a darkness. My little pet shop survives inworld but I must consider how Second Life is doing overall & where Linden future might be 6 months from now, such going-on has ambiguous appearance. If sales are down perhaps diversify as Linden CEO does. Mesh is an open door and a way to let no walls stand in your way as creator. Thank you Lindens, Second Life has been like a school to me. I came here knowing nothing & now I feel I have graduated. What to do around the old schoolyard now? :catembarrassed: Best of luck to everyone in these times of bad realworld economy. We are all under attack from plutocrats. Be agile and smart. Let's hope Lindens survive (I think they will) & that WWIII does not begin also with all our "world leaders" engaged in the crazy war talk. Hi Wade If you have invested the time in learning how to create Mesh products.....the Internet is your oyster. In your position i would not keep all your eggs in one basket.....with those skill sets, look to sell your future products on other platforms or digital content websites like Daz3D. All the best...I'm sure you'll make it! PS. I think LL diversifying into non-SL products is the way forward in terms of their future profitability and survival. I know SL might suffer on the one hand (neglect)....but the flip side might lead to SL survival if LL has a sounder financial base (stronger Balance Sheet). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Don't tell the professional mesh designers, but SL is not nickels and dimes :-) I have been dragged kicking and screaming into the wonderful world of learning Blender, so I can make mesh. I have now become a professional mesh designer. I still have a lot to learn, but some of my stuff looks good enough to sell on Renderosity -- but I don't want to do that. I want to sell in my store! My prayer is that LL will thrive, will not kill SL, and not leave me to sell stuff on some 3D website. How boring! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dartagan Shepherd Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 GOM and the exchange is kind of a funny story, in its way. Not that it's an uncommon practice for acquisitions, but the general rule of thumb for LL seems to be ... It's your world until it reaches 7 figure revenues, and then it belongs to us. Not only does it belong to us, but we thought it up in the shower in 1982 while dreaming of multi-user legos. Not sure why you'd be dreaming of legos in the shower, but there it is. Watching to see if Linden Realms isn't the latest in that policy for game development after breedables hit that 7 figure mark collectively, like the exchange and marketplaces before them. Getting smarter, no offer needed these days, it's acquisition by assimilation. Edited to snarkily add: Must not forget the land market and Linden Homes, themed pre-built sims and putting land on sale. In the case of Linden Homes, these are procedurally built with programming, not hand placed. This mass production of content still needs work. Give it time though, the new process deponds on working in slow motion. The upside is steady squeeking as opposed to righteous wrath. @Pam You're next, cookie. Linden Fab 'fabs due out in 2015, complete with working appliances. Don't mind me, I'm amusing myself today at your expense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Pamela Galli wrote: Don't tell the professional mesh designers, but SL is not nickels and dimes :-) I have been dragged kicking and screaming into the wonderful world of learning Blender, so I can make mesh. I have now become a professional mesh designer. I still have a lot to learn, but some of my stuff looks good enough to sell on Renderosity -- but I don't want to do that. I want to sell in my store! My prayer is that LL will thrive, will not kill SL, and not leave me to sell stuff on some 3D website. How boring! No reason why you can't create for both mediums with different content. At the end of the day, it's another source of income, if this is your full-time work. I would hate to place all my income potential in the hands of Linden Lab.....a couple of bad SL strategies and that future income could be blown apart. Nikel & diming is just a phrase i use....describing the majority of SL products priced lowly in their game currency (relying on volume sales to garner any worthwhile income) . You sell Houses (& Furniture)...single units that sell for several $dollars per item, so probably don't fall under that banner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 My designs are already optimised for SL. No way would I put them up for sale full perm anywhere. No, my eggs will stay where they are in the SL basket, unless LL drops the basket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 That's why i said "different content" which would not be sold in Second Life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dartagan Shepherd Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Rene Erlanger wrote: That's why i said "different content" which would not be sold in Second Life. So you say. It'd end up in here anyway either ripped or retopologized. Like one of the questions in the test you need to take to upload mesh reads (paraphrased): Jane see's stolen mesh content, why is that? Correct answer: It's not Linden Lab's fault, they can't police "everything", you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 They had a case a couple years back, when a skin was hijacked from Renderosity....and brought into SL by a leading Skin creator. She got rumbled badly....and effectively closed shop thereafter. Her reputation was tarnished forever. I dare say she has re-surfaced with a new avatar and product line. The Renderosity artist was informed by SL players, and the whole affair was publicised on a well known Bloggers website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Ah well that's an idea, if I ever have extra time on my hands. Rene Erlanger wrote: That's why i said "different content" which would not be sold in Second Life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dartagan Shepherd Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Very nice, good to see us watching out for each other. On that decline and speaking of final acts of desperation, thought you might want to get a load of this: http://www.ipromisephilip.com/ Who needs conspiracy? It just doesn't get any more silly. Give me your new years resolution money. Next up ... willBuildVirtualWorldForFood.com or willBuildAnyStartupYouLikeForFood.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Wow that is wacky.....even wackier are the nutjobs that participated :smileysurprised:. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Actually, I am also tempted to participate: "I promise you won't be giving my money back." Let him take that to his lawyer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WADE1 Jya Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 lol gotta say that his latest website effort there it just looks sad ..... i think rodvik has better ideas everyday of the week, so let's hope for the best that he takes SL somewhere where the past CEOs could not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 http://www.ipromisephilip.com/ Who want to promote himself in public as someone who has no friends, but needs Philip Rosedale to make a silly deal like this? Who wants to be a loser? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paula001 Goldschein Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 haha what's wrong with being a loser? we are all losers at least in one aspect of life.. the one setting aside 2,4k for taking some friggin pics seems to be at least stable financial wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anaiya Arnold Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Like his idea to limit access to creation tools in SL to "professional creators", whatever that means? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 It means that, if you're disallowed access to the creation tools, you're also defined as not being professional, and vice-versa. Basically, it's a way of defining "professional" strictly in terms of whether or not LL finds you politically convenient, and then shutting your business down because you're politically inconvenient, while seeming to (or at least trying to seem to) shut your business down due to "nonprofessional status". When that day comes, I'll make it one of my basic life goals to see SL legitimately crash and burn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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