Charging RL wages for SL work... discussion?

There will always be people making lower-priced goods and there will always be people buying them. Unless it's declared illegal.

coco

Yeah, unfortunately, the RL price is actually about 5$ / day - what you'd pay a Indian or Chinese artists.

SL at some point is going to be more integrated with the global market.

But - that'll be a good thing, for all of us.

I know, it's roller coaster of fear, excitement, fear, excitement, fear, but that's life! and secondlife.

In contrast alexa I offer Project Entropia, where people regulary pay RL type prices for virtual goods. Scarcity can drive a commodity to a higher price, there is no reason why scarcity cannot be engineered. Remmber as well that some pople are are going to makea lot more money in SL if RL wages become the norm. Those people witll be able to pay whatever for SL goods, because the hobby will be sustainable. they will buy few goods maybe. Or make thier own. But yes, as things stand now I see a serious influx of RL commercialism as being detrimental to SL. Its just very hard to make the content creaots see how interdependent they are with the casual game player, and how critical it is that methods be developed to retain them, and provide them with things to do. My guess is that the economic foundation of SL is not the content creation aspect, but it is the casual player dumping his or her influx of linden, bought on the market, with US Dollars onto the economy. These are the tringo/slingo/sexball players for who SL is advanced chat and paperdolls rolled up into one. My guess is the number of purchsed linden on an average monthly basis exceeds the number of earned linden. (Once again, I call for a serious economic study to be done, or if it has been done, for the data to be released).

It is my thought that increasing the native ability to spend slighty, will in the long run, increase economic participation in SL. Basically its the lays model-noone can have just one. If you give someone enough to buy one set of hair, they will likely buy three more with purchased linden. Now everyone bitches about inflation, and I see some infaltion as not only inevitable, but healthy.

This is why I so strongly advocate an increase in stipedn and subsidies for entertainment creators. It is also why I advocate including things that make game and entertainment development a priority on SL, like video capture and a superior physics engine.

Yep

Nope


Well, for example . . . a business that wanted an artist to design and sell all rights to a custom shirt under Work For Hire contract would pay that and more.

Prices for purchasing copies of avatar shirts and the like are not going to be figured the same way as they would be for RL shirts, because there's no cost for materials to make copies, no sweatshop workers making them (except over at Chip's place ), no shipping costs, etc. In SL, it's a shirt, but IRL it's not a shirt -- it's a copy of some graphic art.



This is already happening.

Yes, this is already happening.

LL is doling out the high paying jobs, you just need to get on their developer list.

I don't think that list is happening yet, is it, Blaze? In September, I received this response from Robin to my questions in the hotline:

"The information that was in David's response to Gaz is all that I have available at this point. The Developer Directory is part of a larger program for Developer's that his group is just starting to think about. I've forwarded your questions to them to consider as the plan comes together. I'd also encourage you to make suggestions directly by IMing David Linden in-world or posting your ideas in the discussion forums."

coco

However peope can and do pay $25.00 us dollars for copies of digital art they cannot redistribute. Just because you do not see doing it now, does not mean that others won't. I predict that at some point people may well pay 20 dollars plus for virtual shirts based on scarcity and market.

Its shocking to me that people pay 250 ud dollars for RL jeans, ther eis no way this price tag is reflective of the underlying costs. People will pay heavily for the brand lable.

My team has been charging RL wages for a few months now. Enough for me to quit my day job and start our SL consulting company up full time. I would never expect residents to pay our prices, but we take on jobs from outside companies looking to dabble in virtual worlds.

There is a lot of interest in Virtual Worlds right now, and SL provides a low cost alternative to building your own platform. Yes there is a developers list, but the real trick is getting out there, networking, and finding your own customers.

Check us out: Future Prototype

Quick question: are you on the developer list?

As for the rest..

You might want to do a link check on your website. Few broken links.

However, you do make a good point.

I think there is a huge value for someone to interface between the RL and the SL.

These people exist in SL .. they go to conferences, they speak, they do lots of cool things which gets them important contacts.

I think they could monetize that in an important way, and definitely, they'd probably get paid very well. It would also be a huge boon for the community and virtual worlds in general to have these well paid ambassadors.

Yes. I recommend anyone who has services to offer, to get listed. It's Free!

Thanks, for the link check... dunno how that slid in there. Damn 2D Internet.

change that to 5$ an hour and you're closer to the cost.

Sure, some people will.

I'm still waiting for pics of builds worth $30-$40 an hour??

Worth is subjective.

There are tonnes of builds that people have paid $30-40 per hour for.

show me them
what I really want to see is a builder to show what they expect $30-$40 an hour for...

Good question, Sensual.

coco

lordfly - you answered your own question: link

it depends on the skill of a builder. two builders might make the same thing, but one takes twice as long and so charges half the rate. but the cost of the two products would be similar.

it also depends on the business relationship. a contract worker will cost more than salaried artists. it also depends on who retains the intellectual property rights.

for your example: LL had a railroad station competition for which they paid 15k L$ to the winner. i took the risk to enter and budgeted 2 hours for my build. i ended up using 3 hrs.

3 hrs to design, build, create some custom textures, and apply textures. if you wanted something of this quality and scope as a one-off build (for exclusive use), i would charge you something like 30$ an hour (since it's a simple project) and deliver it to you the same day or the next day. of course i'm sure you could find someone cheaper if you didn't mind waiting a day or two or a week to take delivery. and that's fine.

Most often it's not so much an issue of what gets built, but how reliable the builder has proven to be, how likely it is that they're going to finish, how well they communicate, what they have done previously, what they might do for you in the future.

Sometimes it has little to do with the end result.