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Rene Erlanger wrote:


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.

 

Rene, sorry, but you are so wrong here. See, the problem with selling a really good mesh model on any other site, even the Dazstudio Marketplace, is who the heck is going to buy it? The only people buying models are people playing around with stuff. In IMVU, you can't do anything with the model. IMVU also has a crazy avatar skeleton to animate all kinds of things, even attachments. What is the point of all that when all you can do with that model is look at it?

SL is the ONLY place where you design a model, and ten minutes later it is in a virtual world for every1 to ride it or whatever you want to do with it. That has massive appeal for any1 that likes to create models professionally. When you throw in a state of the art, simplistic pathfinding system.... Oh Boy..... now you got some crazy stuff. I did a bunch of game Modding, back in the day, and I've seen some sophisticated Waypoint systems. This pathfinding LL made, It is simple and powerful. The only thing we need to finish the mix, is custom bones for our NPCs. Once we have that, we'll have the craziest, most interactive environments you have ever seen in your life.

Mesh was also needed to lower the lag. See, the primary reason for lag is content and how it is made. Yeah, sure, LL could do all this back end work to get more avatars on a sim, but the content will still make the limitations exist because of all the data that each avatar soaks up. LL is trying to be nice and not blame all the lag on content, at least openly. It is completely understandable that people want things to look awesome, but very few people understand that using 100 textures on 1 sword is way overboard. With mesh, you get a better overall look, more control over the data, and the ability to use your creation in any 3d platform.

Everything that I make for SL, I can use in 3ds Max, Blender, IMVU, Unity, Maya, Daz, and I could literally go on and on and on. I've just spent the last few days working on a movie that I'm making inside Daz Studio. It takes place inside a boxing venue. To fill the scene, I have to make dozens of models, like the boxing ring, the bleachers, the gloves, and dozens of other items. Every single 1 of those items that I make for this little movie, I can sell in SL. And, I can use this super awesome, professional program to made super cool promotional videos for all my SL creations. I even spent a day adding new bones to the SL avatar inside Daz. I'm gonna use the standard SL avatar model as the extras in my little movie because they are much more low poly than the detailed genesis character, and I have made lots of SL clothing that I can use for the movie. So, it f...ing rocks that all these things are so enterchangable now. Even all my SL animation works on any skeleton in Daz, and every animation that I create for the movie, I can convert for use in SL. I just made this awesome KO animation in Daz, and now I can also sell it in SL or use it in my combat system.

No, mesh is not the savior. The SL saviors will be the people that make things happen. All these little parts tho, makes it better for all of us. As a creator, or merchant, all my work that I do in SL is now compatible everywhere, which means, I can sell them anywhere. It means I have more security, irreguardless of what happens with SL. For the community, they get a more engaging, detailed, and lag free environment. Although, people have made some great places in SL, there is very little for the average person, who strictly just wants to be entertained for play a game. SL has primarily been a place where people like to create. The reason SL is not have mass appeal, is because there is little for the masses to play with. Mesh and many of the new tools make SL more of a game environment, which is what it needs to have, to have mass appeal.

 

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I'd also like to add:

If you are a professional model creator, you work for some1 that tells you how to make your models, and what is important, and what is not. Those limitations FAR exceeds any SL limitations. Essentially, in SL they decide what is important and what is not. They have total control over the creations they make, and an audience of millions ready to buy it. The top SL prices are not much lower than the prices on sites that sell professional models, but we have an extremely active marketplace. The only reason creators charge more on those other sites, is they don't sell as many. I can sell animation anywhere, even on my own website, cause people with the right knowledge can use that animation, irreguardless of the format, anywhere. I don't sell on many other sites cause I won't make enough sales to warrent the effort.

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I'm not convinced Medhue....and the proof will be in the pudding,  when we see the key indicators of the SL economy growing in the right direction!  For the last 3 years that hasn't been the case.

I still believe it all comes down to Linden Lab marketing their Second Life platform to the masses across the internet (like other MMOG companies). What you've described above, might help improve retention rates, which is the other historical bug bear that Linden Lab has.

I do agree Mesh and some of the new tools does improve SL environment and makes it more compelling. Creating grid wide Games are the way forward imo......people need alternative engagements to what we have now.

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Medhue Simoni wrote:


... The only thing we need to finish the mix, is custom bones for our NPCs. Once we have that, we'll have the craziest, most interactive environments you have ever seen in your life....

 

 

Actually we also need rigged cloth. Like Havok cloth or an equivalent. Then SL will be next to impossible to beat.

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I do think they could market it more aggressively.

But that should seem to give them the choice of flat out lying to potential users as to what to expect or trying to use a non-misleading ad slogan like "Second Life - it mostly doesn't fail."

If they could fix some of the more basic problems first, they wouldn't have to face this choice.

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Hi,

Sorry I didn't read every reply but I am happy to share my experience of land stores V SLMP I have been trading in SL for 7 years and on the internet (external licensed textures) for 2 years.

Few factors to bear in mind.

1) We sell textures = texture shopping in world has ALWAYS been frustrating at best so it makes sense that people would prefer to browse online and LAG free (Which is why we opened our own website 2 years ago)

2) Animations MUST be previewed in world and I suspect the same for skins and clothing I could be wrong and I am aware you can add a demo item to your listings which I am sure would help the sale of SLMP items but it plays against the in world stores traffic and sales. 

In world sales and indeed traffic has been slowly declining for 3 years.

Traffic prior to the start of March was around 2300 daily. Its dipped since then. Bearing in mind a lot of our customers browse our website rather than stand in the store clicking laggy vendors and then they can take the product ID number from the website and type it into our search terminals (in world) and TP direct to the vendor. So we loose "browsing" traffic due to this. How much I don't know. 

Sales have been stable from the in world store for 18 months but traffic took a hit at the start of March (sales hold the same more or less) 

I  find many people visit the store because they see textures on the SLMP

Most of our customers (in world) find us from the SLMP or word of mouth. 

I have got to the stage were I am going to look at the profits generates just from in world sales and weigh them against the £280 a month I pay for my island because it seems pointless holding onto an island if people prefer to use either SLMP or our website. (Not sure...its more complex than that I guess) 

You cannot compare sales and traffic to pre 2007 - pre the recession - pre the freebie hunt mania - pre the novelty of SL wearing thin.

SL by default falls into the "disposable income" bracket of household funds and as such is hit very hard. How many people can justify or indeed afford to rent a virtual island in the current economy?

(I suspect this is why LL are focusing on the SLMP more now as they realise trying to sell niche hobby type content (virtual land) in the current economy is void.

You could argue (and many do) that they could lower the prices but I have no clue how much it costs LL to run servers so I guess they figure they can't afford to rent land cheaper than they do.

SL as an economical platform is constantly changing both internally and from external factors. 

Its hard for most people trying to make money in virtual or indeed real life and each time the media reports another negative financial story, consumer confidence takes another hit and people start watching their purse strings.

 

 

 

 

 

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A couple things, as entertainment budgets are cut....it's usually RL activities like holidays, restaurants, theaters, subscriptions to any hobby activities. Actual home entertainment increases (computers, movie subscriptions, Cable TV, XBox etc etc) as it acts as a cheaper substitute.

Other MMOG platforms have grown during the recession but not Second Life. That's because Linden Lab have failed to market their own product, whilst others have. You have to remember Second Life is FREE to play, you don't need to own land...and there's plenty of content that's freely available to improve Avatar appearances. ....yet still Second Life concurrency hasn't grown.

In terms of Private Estate sims on the Grid, were back down to summer 2009 levels (23k)....so even due to the lack of Linden Lab marketing, the Sim count is no worst than the beginning of the recession.

I do agree that Linden Lab can't reduce Tier fees that much....as they have a lot of overhead costs.

They cannot replace Marketplace commissions (a Sink) with their main Income stream, which Land & Sim fees......the maths just doesn't stack up at all! Sim & land tiers are something like $6 Million usd a month, whilst MP commissions as a sink converted into USD would be around 100k usd p/mth (That's from charging 5% comm, so even if they upped it to 30% comm, it still will be little by comparison)

 

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Yea I know I couldnt (And can't) understand why they couldnt at least offer some kind of incentive to try and get people back on the land wagon again but it seems they have focused on the lesser fee of premium account payments by marketing a free Linden Home.

Personally, I think it would build a better creed of members if they offered a free unfurnished 512 plot of land as I got when I was new.

It was on this land that i started to play and experiment with prims and applying textures and later,  opened my 1st store and then I paid to extend the land more and more until I was able to afford 1/3 of a sim and then eventually buy an island.

But that was pure business and if you can cover the overheads with the sales revenue then thats fine BUT to own an island just for kicks at $380 a month is right at the top of "online game" monthly subscriptions.

Perhaps the amount of freebies and freeloaders is at least part of the problem - it drives prices down and it drives consumers to "expect" freebies were once they expected to pay.

IMVU.com have around 140,000 logged in any any given time.

IMVU.com market themselves everywhere. 

IMVU.com does not have freebies. Their marketplace has no platform for them. In short, if you place something on the marketplace you literally can not price it for free.

One incentive to pay for a premium  account at IMVU.com is the ability to become a merchant, you can't do  that with a free account and as such, by paying for premium they also verify your ID by way of PayPal and email. You also have to digitally sign to say you have read and agreed to the TOS for being a merchant which includes understanding copyright and how to avoid it and the penelty if you choose to ignore it, which in theory at least, increases the quality of merchants and reduces copyright violations (Again, in theory) 

IMVU.com's client is browser based (something that LL looked into 2 yrs ago) and as such they have no limitations to how many people log on at the same time.

SL's client cannot manage more than 80K at the same time (Dont quote me on the exact figure) so LL cannot be as aggresive in their marketing campaigns due to technical limitations.

I don't like IMVU.com, you can't compare the two platforms, SL wins hands down when it comes to the virtual experience but it seems they have a recipe for success. 

 

 

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LillyBeth Filth wrote:

 

Perhaps the amount of freebies and freeloaders is at least part of the problem - it drives prices down and it drives consumers to "expect" freebies were once they expected to pay.


I predicted this scenario over 3 years on these SL forums.......so here we are now! :smileysad:

The gradual effects of price dumping!! You know the SL economy is in bad shape, when you see half decent Skins being sold for 100 L !! Over 50% of SL regular users, don't spend a single Linden dollar during any given month!

 


LillyBeth Filth wrote:

IMVU.com have around 140,000 logged in any any given time.

IMVU.com market themselves everywhere. 

IMVU.com does not have freebies. Their marketplace has no platform for them. In short, if you place something on the marketplace you literally can not price it for free.


Bingo!! :smileywink:

If Linden Lab had IMVU's top level management.....Second Life would probably be twice as big with twice it's daily concurrency by now! . IMVU has relentlessly marketed themselves over the last 3-4 years right across the Internet.....and at the right time i.e during a recession!

 


LillyBeth Filth wrote:

 

One incentive to pay for a
premium  account at IMVU.com is the ability to become a merchant,
you can't do  that with a free account and as such,
by paying for premium they also verify your ID by way of PayPal and email.
You also have to digitally sign to say you have read and agreed to the TOS for being a merchant which includes understanding copyright and how to avoid it and the penelty if you choose to ignore it, which in theory at least, increases the quality of merchants and reduces copyright violations (Again, in theory) 
 


LL could learn a thing or two from IMVU's model.

 


LillyBeth Filth wrote:

 

IMVU.com's client is browser based (something that LL looked into 2 yrs ago) and as such they have no limitations to how many people log on at the same time.

SL's client cannot manage more than 80K at the same time (Dont quote me on the exact figure) so LL cannot be as aggresive in their marketing campaigns due to technical limitations.

I don't like IMVU.com, you can't compare the two platforms, SL wins hands down when it comes to the virtual experience but it seems they have a recipe for success. 

 

Yep, I don't like IMVU either...Second Life wins hands down in most departments.

Second Life could scale upwards, but they would have to make changes to their architecture and adopt a totally different approach.  For instance they could decrease the loads by splitting the Main grid into different logins e.g all Mainland sims on one networked Grid and all Estate Sims on another..so effectively 2 different login screens. They already have that now with agni and aditi (Beta Grid)....and could use or develop Interoperability Grid technology to travel from one Grid to another without having to log out....and with Inventory transferred (or waiting) for you.

This was something Phillip & his team were working with OS Grid developers a few years back.....in typical LL fashion it became another aborted and canned project.....but this is actually the future for Open Sim grids.

"OpenSim also uses an architecture known as "Hypergrid", which allows users to teleport between multiple OpenSim-based virtual worlds by providing a hyperlinked map which indexes public grids. This allows for public grids to retain teleportation links to each other without having to be on the same grid

So yes, Second Life could scale upwards...but their approach would have to be quite different!

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

Second Life could scale upwards, but they would have to make changes to their architecture and adopt a totally different approach.  For instance they could decrease the loads by splitting the Main grid into different logins e.g all Mainland sims on one networked Grid and all Estate Sims on another..so effectively 2 different login screens. They already have that now with
agni
and
aditi
(Beta Grid)....and could use or develop
Interoperability
Grid technology to travel from one Grid to another without having to log out....
and with Inventory transferred (or waiting) for you.

This was something Phillip & his team were working with OS Grid developers a few years back.....in typical LL fashion it became another aborted and canned project.....but this is actually the future for Open Sim grids.

LL cannot do that, LL is not the copyright holder of the items stored in inventories.

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Madeliefste Oh wrote:


Rene Erlanger wrote:

Second Life could scale upwards, but they would have to make changes to their architecture and adopt a totally different approach.  For instance they could decrease the loads by splitting the Main grid into different logins e.g all Mainland sims on one networked Grid and all Estate Sims on another..so effectively 2 different login screens. They already have that now with
agni
and
aditi
(Beta Grid)....and could use or develop
Interoperability
Grid technology to travel from one Grid to another without having to log out....
and with Inventory transferred (or waiting) for you.

This was something Phillip & his team were working with OS Grid developers a few years back.....in typical LL fashion it became another aborted and canned project.....but this is actually the future for Open Sim grids.

LL cannot do that, LL is not the copyright holder of the items stored in inventories. The only reasoning for splitting the Main Grid is to decrease loads so it could scale upwards.

but if both grids were part of Second Life....there must be a way to make accessible the same Inventory to be used in both parts. The only reason for splitting the Grid into 2 , is to decrease loads and thereby allowing to scale upwards......otherwise SL would forever have a ceiling of 80-90k peak logins before it falls over.

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

 

but if both grids were part of Second Life....there must be a way to make accessible the same Inventory to be used in both parts. The only reason for splitting the Grid into 2 , is to decrease loads and thereby allowing to scale upwards......otherwise SL would forever have a ceiling of 80-90k peak logins before it falls over.

As long as all inventories stays in SL there is no problem with IP right issues indeed.

But still I don't see it happening, those two grids. We had two grids for a long time, one was for minors. They joined both grids, as I remember well for cost reasons.

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Things on SL have been broken for over 8 years....depends which parts really irritate you! Smooth Sim crossings would be nice.

Freebies in themselves are not bad, it's the sheer quantity that's hit the grid over the years that's taken it's toll......it's bound to! How can you have an economy "loosely" based on supply and demand...when you have such large quantities of Freebies available. Can you imagine how Shopping Malls & High Streets would look like if that were hypothetically the case in the RW too? (for argument sake, ignore costs & manufacturing processes)

IMVU has 6 million products listed on their Catalog shopping site.....not a single item is free!  It hasn't done their concurrency any harm with peak logins of 140-150k.....with a younger userbase that has less disposable income!

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There were only a few hundred Teen sims to begin with....probably less than the size of the Zindra continent.

It wasn't solely for costs.....it was Phillip's initial vision. The gamble was expecting the large influx of teenagers (just like IMVU)...but it never materialised.

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Although, IMVU does do some things right, they do quite a bit very wrong. IMVU does not rent out land, they take a massive cut on the content that they sell. You must "derive" everything you make from a default IMVU created object. This is also why they spend more on getting people to buy stuff. Animation is heavily promoted there. I made 2 animations there and sold both a number of times, even tho I've never been back. IMVU made more on them than I did, and I have no way of even cashing out, unless I want to pay some 3rd party 30% to get some real money. So, to any merchant, SL wins, hands down.

IMVU has some of the same problem as SL tho, which is retention. They have 150k or more strictly because they market themselves so much. As soon as you take away the marketing, it all will fall apart. Without newbies, their economy fails. SL is quite a bit different in that respect. It is not the newbies that keep the economy up here. Heck, it will be weeks now before a newb even needs to buy something, lol.

To me, the problem is not that SL isn't marketed, it is all about getting the newbies to stay. Until you fix the retention rate, all the marketing in the world is not going to help you in the long run. Where I think SL fails for the merchant class, is the total lack of promotion. Technically, besides the 1 Shopping link at the top, LL does almost nothing to promote shopping at all. You could easily be a newb and not learn that there is a marketplace. In the early days, marketing for merchants was everywhere, not because of LL, but inspite of them. Now, LL's wiped all signs of any kind of merchant promotions. It's practically ridiculous.

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Yes sorry, I meant IMVU have a recipe for success. :) 

However, in relation to the comment on IMVU.com having huge disadvantages, that is a simple matter of taste and preference.

SLs UI is very complicated comparatively speaking so I suspect that is why the retention rate is poor.

IMVU UI is easy "because' its limited. Its quite literally a "point and Click" thing which I got bored with after 5 minutes

BUT I am coming from years of being used to a SL environment.

If i was coming straight off FaceBook or totally new to 3D chat worlds (only uses text bases chat rooms) then IMVU would seem very "exotic" as it offers a simple way to allow you to create a virtual persona and still chit chat with other people.

Add the ability to play your own music into your own virtual house and it must seem very high tech and unique.

Imagine an IMVU member logging into SL for the 1st time? It must seem daunting, over complicated and frightening, I imagine they would run back to IMVU quick sharp.

So for a pure "Social, dress dolly and have cyber sex" user....IMVU is the obvious choice, at least on first experience.

It depends what you want, what you have already experienced and what you expect when it comes down to which is the best

But from a business POV IMVU know how to generate income and as a merchant I have to take my hat off to them for that alone. 

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RE: IMVU.com

I accidentally signed up for a subscription with payments taken out every 3 months. They took 25 euros recently from PayPal and I hadnt logged in for 3 months

Naturally I cancelled the automatic payment via PayPal

BUT I got an email instantly which was asking me why I cancelled, what areas do I think could be better, what did I like, what didnt I like and a whole ton of other market research questions.

THIS is the kind of thing that impresses me. They are pro active about learning from their userbase and I assume if enough people say they left because of ABC then they would change ABC

They are just so much more on  the ball when it comes to promotion, marketing and generating profits which whether people like that or not, LL need profits in order to keep afloat.

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I talked to a number of the merchants over at IMVU. From our conversations, I got the impression that the majority thought that SL content creation was far more complex than it actually is. Maybe it was the coding aspect, cause they don't really seem like the coding type of crowd there. This was all somewhat funny for me, as the IMVU animation creation workflow is far more complex than SL, but way more limiting as to what your avatar can actually do with those animations.

The biggest impression I got from them, was that SL was super expensive. They generally thought that you had to buy a sim to be a merchant. I tried to explain that it doesn't cost a merchant anything, if you want, and that IMVU was WAY more expensive for a merchant than SL. It is quite hilarious to see a community where content creation is actually way more complex and almost impossibly profitable, think that SL is worse for them. :smileyvery-happy:

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Many many things beyond our control directly impact people spending money in SL from gas being $4-$5 a gallon gas to people losing their jobs in RL , to people leaving SL for better/different venues because the new and shiny has worn off.  Is absolutely nothing we nor LL can do about those so I am gonna take this opportunity to simply rant about some things, we merchant do have control over.

I make all my  revenue from MP.  My sales too have declined, so I thought I would open an in-world store. While it is newly opened, the real traffic count is 0 most days. There are things that need to be appended there when I get time.  I build for my tastes so am a niche market and not that concerned about making money.  I have a day job and SL is a hobby.  Having said that, I still watch my sales and traffic because there is pleasure in selling something. ALL money I receive in SL is kept in SL and spread around to spend with other merchants. What little I make NEVER covers my sim tier nor my expenses, and hasn't in the last 4 years.

When I opened my store, I did what many in-world new merchants do and started checking out the lucky chairs, MM, dumpster dives, etc. and the various associated groups.  I find it interesting that many of the groups want your MM business for their group members but won't allow you to post your new products nor promote them.  The trend I see is most of these groups promote the MM stuff for FREE.    I know one of the original thoughts is MM promotes traffic and sales does it really?  While I have an MM I don't promote it so have no clue if it really works.

What really concerns me, we as merchants, are cutting our own throats.  So, if you are a resident, new or old, you slap these boards...say 10-15 a day for a week...you have a whole new wardrobe for FREE.  Now, if you can get all these FREE items...and we are not talking mediocre items here....why in the world would you want to spend real money and BUY something when you can get it for free?  Or, you can join a group and get their group gift for free then drop the group?

I can't tell you how many times people in the various groups make it known they are not going to spend one dime of their own money when they can get anything they want for free.  I am NOT saying that all group members or customers are like that...I am just saying if you can get it for free that is where they are going to go.  Isn't  part of the problem our customers have the attitude give it to me for free and our attitude  has been sure here you go...can I give you something else so you will come back and bring your friends so my traffic count is high...maybe I will entice a paying customer in?

I have even heard in these groups, "Oh did you hear such and such is closing.  What a shame, they always have nice stuff on their MMs."  Folks have no clue that shops close cause they can't survive.  Something needs to be done and quickly if anyone wishes to stay in business.I don't know what it is but lets stop giving away what we work so hard to make

_end of rant

 

 

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