Is Dwell doomed?

Dwellnor, or his recently mutated self Trafficvs, is not pleased!

There've been some changes to Rizal too, recently... did you play the game where you run about and stomp little 2D army men?

Exactly.

Seems to me what has happened is two portions of the population have gotten together and created a synergistic way to solve both their problems: The penniless resident can earn money, while the resident providing the earnings can make their own profit to keep on providing their whole thing.

Thus keeping those places in the game.

coco

Because that part of the physical economy is what actually pays for a huge part of the activities that we engage in in real life. For one example, a significant part of the income for a movie theatre is not the tickets, it's the markup on the snacks. If we were avatars and didn't eat or could rez up snacks on demand, movie tickets would cost at least twice as much. For more upscale events the markup on refreshments is correspondingly higher, and "free" events (getting back to those) are paid for entirely by the franchises to vendors.

In SL none of that economic activity can exist, but people still want the things it pays for. Therefor you have "dwell".
It's not, it's a simulation of the people spending money.

Because Second Life is an optional activity that, as a whole, is entertainment. If your real life sucks, you can't decide not to live it this evening and to go do something else instead. You can with your Second Life.

It seems to me that creators and sellers of content and creators of builds and events should, ideally, be in a mutual growth cycle. Without things to do and places to meet, there's not much point having an av with lots of looks/gadgets/bling/toys/whatever, since there's nothing to do with it; and equally, there's not much point having places to meet and things to do if they aren't represented within the graphical 3D world and can't be interacted with in those terms, since that eliminates the point of SL.

But.. this hasn't worked. I'm thinking about why not, but nothing good enough to post yet

But the thing is, none of this activity earns any money for Linden Labs. If it doesn't earn money for LL, it's not viable over the long term. If freebie accounts sitting in chairs earns enough money from LL to allow them to pay LL for the sim, then LL is sitting there running the sim and supporting the owner and getting nothing for it.

If at the same time they're also providing a service for paying users, that's good, but that is what LL should be subsidising... and if you look at some of the hot-spots on the map where the whole sim is lagged just to provide CPU cycles for the camping hole you can see that the biggest winners from this system aren't doing anything but using Linden subsidies to pay for Linden hardware. And that is where the real problem in the economic system lives.

So are we back to the need for "killer content" -- things/activities so compelling that people will sign up and pay for premium accounts with RL currency just to get them? Because that seems to be the only way you're going to get large-scale infusions of cash into the system.

Hmmm. Feels like I've just stated the obvious, so I probably missed the whole point of this thread...

Well.. I'm not sure if this has been said before... but I do miss events that promote creativity, like.. I dunno.. building contests.

Back in the day I used to go to a lot of them, and they were kickass and had some NICE prizes and pretty cool DJs..

I think that instead of complaining about Dwell, we should try our best to develop events that are diverse, and promote creativity, therefore contributing positively to the community rather than complaining and just being stagnant.

Well, I'm not crazy about the lag part of it.

But there is quite a lot of benefit from having a huge number of residents - even if lots of them are just free basic members. You still want those free basic members. Because it ups the numbers, and the numbers are important - both in terms of convincing investors of SL that it is worth putting money in (both the backers and all of us), and in convincing potential players (and thus potential premium members) that this is an exciting, happening place to be.

Nobody likes to be in a dying game. Or even a stagnant one. Everyone likes to be in one that is going up, up, up!

We don't know how many players are basic and how many are premium. We do know that the Lindens (and we) want more premiums. But we may well be getting enough premiums out of those basics to make them more than worth it, even in strictly monetary short-term terms. I know one guy who got a free basic, rather reluctantly. Before long he was a premium. Then he had 1024 land. Then he bought land yet again. That scenario will happen more frequently when people can join without paying a dime.

I also know a guy who is still a basic, has been for nearly a year, and is perfectly happy, and plays often. (And then there's Torley, too, for an on-forum example.) But those are really kind of unique. I think most basics either leave, or play very little and irregularly, or else they go to premium. In the first instance, they aren't really around very much anyway, and in the second case, they start being paying members. I just really don't know many basic players who stay that way, compared to the numbers of premiums I know.

And whether they are around or not, those basic players create good pr vibes all around through the numbers. We need those numbers.

coco

The number is quite low - I vaguely recall it being close to about 10% premium. I personally disagree that the free accounts are a good idea - I have always thought they were a horrible idea. A free trial, yes, great idea. Permanently free? Nope - bad idea, and we are seeing the results of it. When you are on a free account you have nothing invested in the environment you are in, so you dont' really care. Also, it seems many free account members come to SL with an entitlement complex, which just makes matters worse.

I think they should add more value to the premium accounts - up the land amount to 1024m and double the stipend (and put some new sinks into the economy to help compensate). Numbers are only impressive if there is any meaning behind them - and the membership number here is not impressive because the conversion rate is so awful. You want impressive - 4.5 million members, each paying $14.95 a month (or more). Now that is impressive. Under 2,000 members paying 9.95 a month (plus a smaller percentage paying significantly more), eh, not impressive from any perspective.

Well, the numbers aren't impressive to me, or to you - but they are to other people.

As for premiums getting 1024 and double stipend, I would be all for that!

coco

I seriously doubt they are impressive to investors either. As far as drawing members, yeah, more members are always good certainly. SL needs to cross the 100k mark - it is a psychological barrier. The fact that it has taken almost 3 years to get there, and that we only got there now by giving away so many free accounts is kind of sad. I am not sure what that says about SL - except that maybe the concept will never be ready for mass appeal. I have thought a lot about it actually.

It is such a hard sell because it is not WoW, or TSO, or Everquest, or anything you can explain in one world or one sentence. It will be interesting to see what happens when the new social MMOs that are based around socializing and sex come out. Linden Lab continues to ignore SL's sexuality, much to its detriment. We are a horny, freaky bunch, and that drives a lot of what goes on in SL, for better or worse. If there is some other environment where people can get their virtual freak on in more compelling ways, SL better watch out. If LL wants to increase conversion rates, they need to increase interactivity in SL - and as much as that makes some people cringe, that includes making it easier to bump and grind virtually.

Interesting thoughts, Cristiano.

We will be hitting the 100k mark soon. I don't worry at all about that it has taken three or so years to get here. SL was VERY inaccessible three years ago, when many fewer people had cable or DSL. I couldn't get on it in beta because I didn't have cable.

What's more important is the curve, and the ascent of the SL curve is very impressive, even CONSIDERING the free accounts, I think.

coco

Oh yes the growth has been impressive to see. I don't think Linden Lab's resources are growing fast enough to handle the growth however, but hopefully that will change. I think what is most worrisome is the lack of people converting to premium. That is why you see so much scrambling of late to do things to make things easier. Hell, whatever it takes - SL has been too difficult to use for too long. The interface is still more 3d Studio Max than WoW, and that is a bad thing.

I am sure the frequent comparisons to WoW get annoying, but they have done so many things right. I don't think there is a single company in the online world space that is not taking a long hard look at how Blizzard is managing to bring in over $500,000,000 a year from one game - a game that appeals across an unbelievably broad spectrum of users. A big part of it is the experience is polished to perfection.

Linden Lab needs to throw out the entire UI of SL - it SUCKS BEYOND BELIEF AND IS NOT FIXABLE. They need to start from scratch, and make the UI programmable from the start so that the very smart user base can extend the interface even more (something that Blizzard was smart to do). Perhaps they also need to stop thinking of SL as only a platform, and start thinking how they can make it more fun, just from a technical standpoint. People often decry flashy features, but that is what helps to create the wow factor (and in turn, the WoW factor).

God, there is so much I have to say about this, I could write Prokofy length manifestos on the subject. I will simply add one more thing - dwell is fundamentally broken as a measure of popularity, and its days are numbered.

And the land ownership price has GOT to go down!! It's hard to do any kind of decent build on anything less than 2048 of land... and the 512 you get with a prem. account is just a joke.

No, I didn't say that.

I said, we need to have the dwell/grant/stipend/bonus/wakalix system encourage diversity and thus attract more paying users because, well, if you spend Lindens you do get to do more stuff... so you want to reward activity that's interesting to the kinds of people who spend money. How do you do that? You reward activities that attract that kind of customer, by biasing the rewards on the number of THOSE customers that get attracted.

No big "killer activity", just a change of focus over time.

Until the word gets out that the numbers are inflated by deadheads. That always hurts business.
I'm a paid Basic, and I rent 4096, and I get a much better deal from renting than I would from buying. The only reason to go premium would be for the extra stipend, and that's only a better deal than LindeX if I pay for a year.

And I know other people in the same situation. I don't know any of them who ever spent any time living on dwell bribes.

We need real numbers. We don't need a Payola scandal.

we've done allright, and we've done it utterly legit.

look for popular places, and look at just about *any* of them above us, mebbe all but one or two have FREE/MONEY/SEX/CLUB/MALL/TRINGO somewhere in their descriptions...

theres a couple of others, but i can say rather authoritatively, no gaming, no bs, you can earn roughly 10k 'dwell/traffic' a day if you don do any of the stupid crap... thats actual legit people logging in, having fun doing the occasional *REAL* event, or otherwise just hanging around and talking or building... i'd say the number of places that actually encourage that tho, instead of jus gaming the system, is somewhere around 10%, give or take

actually if SL holds to the projections it'll be larger than WOW in 2007... one thing about mmo's is they tend to launch huge, and then just begin a slow, and irreversable bleed of users as people get bored, or jump to a newer, even flashier one.

thats exactly *NOT* whats happened with SL, and also i believe eve has also managed to bust that curve, but its pretty damning, starting with ultima online, EVERY major mmo has followed the *EXACT* same pattern, the curve for UO is exactly the curve for EQ, is exactly the curve for AO is exactly the curve for TSO is exactly the curve for WOW, the scales are different game to game, but the actual userbase usage/retention pattern is basically exactly the same.

WOW launched big, great for them, its got just abit over half the active users now that it did a year ago though, and it'll have half again in december 2006

No, they are getting the tier for the sim. If it couldn't attract dwell, the owner might close the sim down and LL would no longer get that tier. Remember that LL do not have to pay for the L$ they give out as dwell, so if they give out L$ and have others cash them out and pay LL back, they're making a profit.



LL don't pay a cent to give out L$ subsidies. If they get US$ back, it's profit.

I do believe there is a problem with Premium membership, though. The basic deal seems to be that SL is divided into two groups: a) the people who are able to and want to build (or whatever) and can therefore make in-game income - including theoretically infinite income from finite effort - and, with some effort, live in a world that matches what they desire; b) the people who can't, and have to depend on stipend and buy L$ and live in a world that matches what other people feel like providing for them.

Speaking purely from my own experience: being in group b) isn't much fun, with the only fun being social interactions which can be done in IM. Being in group a) is the unique experience ("your world, your imagination" that LL want to provide. The problem is, if you're in group b), buying Premium won't get you into group a), and if you're in group a), you don't need Premium since you can earn L$ and rent (or be given!) land better than the First Land plot. Even the modified Premium (free house, no need to pay L$512 for the first land) doesn't get over that problem; they just get a prefab house that's the same as everyone else's (no chance for their own imagination) and equally makes Premium a worse deal for people in group a) since they can't even start to run a business off their land because of residential zoning.

This is compounded by the fact that the people in group b) often find themselves without any "goals" in SL, and therefore make their own goal: "Get lots of stuff without paying any money" of which campers are players and Anshe is the supreme champion (I have no idea if Anshe actually did buy any L$ when she was starting, but that's irrelevant, it's how she's presented in PR that's had that effect).

hmmm.. Someone could have said the same about your P2P proposal thoughts Magnum. But I don't think that is the case in either situation. I hear discussion on both topics all the time in world. Many many people do lurk on the forums, even if they do not post.

And dwell is *obviously* a big issue to many in world or else there would not be so many situations of acheiving it such as what others have posted as examples.

The Lindens are continuing to think of ways to improve or change the dwell system. They have started threads gathering ideas, and even stated that they do not really see the dwell system working the way they intended, but they are stuck right now due to lack of ideas on how to change/improve it.

I personally *do* think Dwell in its current form is doomed. What will replace it as a better system is for us to come up with and help the Lindens implement.

I don't think the daily $L payment is what people are discussing as much as they are the Developer's Incentive awards. The DI awards are paid in USD.
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I admit I still don't understand why LL would want to simulate this part of the economy. In regards to your example, I don't see the problem with the movie theater charging more for tickets instead of selling sugar water at inflated prices. If the issue is putting money into the SL economy, it seems like LL could increase my stipend as a premium subscriber. People can then buy it from me on Lindex if they are neither a premium subscriber nor making money by contributing to Second Life.

I do see the value for all of Second Life in having attractions that draw people to the world. The more the merrier. And I don't see a problem with free accounts, since they allow people a chance to participate in the economy. Unfortunately dwell rewards developers for the presence of avatars, not for the entertainment of human beings, and it doesn't seem to be working as intended. In the rest of the economy we've seen the power of the market to motivate developers. Look at clothes, skins, bling, vehicles, houses, gadgets, ROAM, SLExchange, etc. Sometimes people talk nostalgically about the days before the SL economy took off, but the truth is the quality of everything was much less and the grid was tiny. What the economy needs is the incentive to make things people will pay for.

But I was thinking about the distinction between "physical" needs like eating and the virtual needs of SL players, and I'm not sure there is much of one from an economic point of view. It's the functional role that consumption plays in the economy that matters. For instance, I would say that just about every SL player considers custom clothes for their avatar a necessity. So clothing generates constant economic activity in the same way that food does in RL. In RL you have farmers and eaters. In SL you have clothiers and clothes wearers. Really for just about every reason people want to be in SL, there are needs associated with that reason. If you want to build you need prims, if you want to socialize you need clothes, if you want to play you need toys, if you want to punish your sex slave you need a dungeon, etc.

Well, you've confused me no end. Probably because we somehow got to talking about two different things - dwell, and free accounts.

But - as for the "real numbers" we need, we aren't told the percentage of premiums, or the rate of premium conversion, but it is doubtless safe to say this:

We get more people converting to premiums from basics with the free accounts than we would without them.

Plus, I believe I've been told that only "active" basics get counted in that 90k. Ones who have signed on in the past 3 months, or something. Isn't that right? If so, these are ACTIVE players.

So I really don't understand what you mean by "payola scandal."

2. I also don't know what you mean by saying that neither you, nor a number of others you know, ever spent any time living on dwell bribes.

First off, I don't see how dwell is a "bribe." Second, I don't get what the point is of your telling me that you are a paid basic and see no reason to become premium.

I still live as I did as a basic - having "bought" land from Nexus Nash and paying him "tier" on it - as well as now having land for my shop, which I pay the Lindens tier on. So I really don't get it, about how "dwell bribes" have anything to do with any of this.

There are reasons to go premium - such as the one for me, which was having a shop which is entirely under my control. (And I did pay for the entire year.) Plus the $500 stipend. Psychologically, I would rather give Lindens more money, and support the Lindens, for this stipend, than give other players rl money for Lindens, and support them. It's less trouble, too. Even if there would be a savings of a few bucks over the course of a year, or even over the course of a month.

I think you are telling me that you consider it smarter to stay a basic, and that many (if not most) others will think so, too, and thus the number of premiums we get from free basics wouldn't be significant, and thus not worth having all the free basics around.

If so, I disagree. I don't think most people think like you, though I could be wrong. I think the psychology and lure of land is stronger than you think, and the psychology of being basic is overall not a plus.

3. In any case, MY psychology is boosted by those numbers going up! lol

I like the free accounts (they keep people from feeling entitled to actually being able to see the landscape or move around in it, for one thing). And I think dwell should stay.

4. Those who don't think dwell should stay seem to include many who don't profit from it. But as I've said before, those of us who make content, at least, don't need to profit from it.

Mainly, though, without dwell, the entertainment choices in the game will diminish even further. Is what I think.

coco

Brilliant. Totally, totally brilliant.

Just a couple of corrections:

1. I'm in group (a) yet I still felt a huge need to be premium.

2. The free house and 512 deal has NO zoning. They can do whatever they want with their free land in Blumfield.

coco