lets bring the linden back up!

David thats the "player driven" economy we need, and such events could help replace dwell as a nessessary means of income. i highly suggest you make it so, and in fact i am willing to help make it happen (gets off his butt) IM me in-game i got land thats sitting idle with your name on it!

interesting discussion - valid points. Obviously supply and demand drive the value of goods. I am relieved to hear that LL is going to keep the % of L$ proportional to user base so runaway inflation does not hit.

Fundamentally, though, users need to decide if they are consumers or producers or both. If you just want to be a consumer, don't expect a welfare system to fund your enjoyment. You can either use RL$ to pay for consumption or try to get a job in SL. If you are willing to use some of your RL$ to pay for a beer after work, and you are getting more enjoyment out of SL, why not spend it on SL? However, LL will need to be careful here, because getting people to change pocket money spending habits is tough.

Wiggles, you may not be selling products, but you claim you are providing a service (i.e. helping people have fun). If you can get people to pay you for that, I say great. I regularly say thank you to someone by "tipping" them, just like in RL. Obviously we don't want SL to become a purely mercenary society, but think about the parallels to RL. We don't pay our friends, but we do pay for a movie, or a standup comic, or tip a waiter. The question is, can SL members accelerate the formation of societal habits (like tipping) fast enough to create a positive, fun, healthy environment. The stipend helps kickstart this.

- - -
As to the pricing discussion, pricing decisions are always difficult. You don't want to leave money on the table by charging too little, nor do you want to turn away sales by charging too much. High prices also invite competitors and put market share at risk. You need to decide what your business goals are and form your strategy accordingly. But remember that just as we've been talking about scarcity value for L$, scarcity value for your creative products count for a lot too. If you expect a fad, price cheap and sell a lot but don't expect it to last.

- - -
The economics of producing in SL are similar to the old software model -- big upfront cost, but your incremental cost-per-unit-sold is quite low. So you invest upfront, hope for the best, and amortize cost-of-goods across all units sold to decide if you made a profit.

Software entrepreneurs see returns because of 1. cash flows if revenues exceed costs of sales and doing business; and/or 2. the value of the "equity" increases. You only see returns on your equity if you can sell your business (either on a public market or to another entity/person).

As SL's virtual economy matures, we may start seeing the natural formation of venture capitalists and investment clubs, who will review business plans, examine the creative credentials of the submitters, and put up seed capital. For this to work, investors will (as stated above) need to either get returns from cash flow or sale of a business.

I need to ponder on whether this can happen without LL creating a form of incorporation and ownership management systems. In RL, this is done through law.


pardon my random musings... intriguing thread folks...
-- Forseti

The people talking about getting rid of dwell are onto something. No mainlander's should get dwell. The dwell pool should get larger and be given ONLY to private island owners. Stipends should be eliminated.


Then, if you want some $L's you can get a job with someone who owns an island, or buy it on GOM.

That would fix everything. I promise.

wow you started good but got a lil off track let me help you out

stipends are nessessary for landless, and new players, also those who dont have time to get a job in their GAME.

but dwell need be replaced EVERYWHERE not only mainland, mainland and private sims should be treated more equal, i pay more for my mainland sim then any private yet i get less abilities is that fair?

dwell should be replaced by charging admission, simple =-)

I imagine that this is in LL's plan. Dwell is useful -- maybe even necessary -- to kickstart the system and incent people to create events that users enjoy. Eventually, however, this MUST switch to a pay-for-use model. There will always be free events (like Simon Garfinkel playing in Central Park) but people should be prepared to pay for consumption.

That is the intended purpose of Dwell I believe, an incentive to get people to create events people will enjoy.....

here is the problem -> Dwell can be farmed, there are a few threads kicking around here that show that. So Dwell is no longer representative of enjoyable events / locations.

Pouring good money after bad and encouraging lag is all that's truly accomplished.



DAMN YOU! Now I must get a beer =D

mmmmm Belikin

I had an idea a while back about simply allowing people to "opt out" of dwell.

Basically, if you'd opt out, your land would receive no dwell or dwell payments; but your avatar would also not GENERATE dwell for any one.

Regards,

-Flip

I have been trying to think of some ideas that would bring people to a venue other than the raffles that are currently used. If raffles are the main reason people go to a venue then a cover charge is pretty much not going to happen, but if you can provide something that you cant easily go someowhere else for, than you could charge for that. The theatre idea is a good one.

As far as money sinks go in other game economies, most of the sinks are npc type vendors that are required in some way and the money is removed from the economy.

In Everquest anything sold to a vendor was sold at a considerably lower price and anything bought at a higher price.

In SWG you had maintanence fees on housing, factories and mining facilities and decay on items that eventually took those items out of the economy.

In City of Heroes you bought things that were one time use and there was no crafting or foraging to bring in things.

All of these you could earn money from killing things and doing missions, which is how the money came into the system.

In Sl there is no monster to kill or mission to run to bring money in, so there needs to be some form of income. The stipend and rate bonuses are the main forms of money influx. I dont even know what kind of money is earned for dwell or if there are any other incomes.

Money outflow in SL is only from uploading images and animations as far as I know, other than that it is just changing hands. Some people have taken a lot of money out of the system, ie. Ige, who is sitting on 10mil. L? Some are hoarding it I suppose, but it seems useless to do that and probably flows into the market more than likely.

The problem is that with rates and stipend there is more money flowing into the economy than flowing out. But you cant take away stipends at the very least, because then everyone would be required to have a job and I bet that many people would just leave the game, since at that point it became a job, which I already have one of those and cant depend on my skill at creating things to pay my rent and bills with L that I earn here which isnt even real money.

What needs to happen is to find things that take money out of the economy, isnt something that is linked to creating or designing, since those already have sinks, but wont drain all of a newbs money to the point that they cant buy goods or services.

What has been discussed as money sinks? Has a fee for teleporting been discussed? I probably teleport 10 or so times a day 7 days a week, so thats approximately 70 time a week I teleport around the world. If each teleport cost me a buck that's 70L$ a week for one person removed from the economy. Multiply that times the a number of people playing each week ( I have no idea what that is) and that is a considerable amount of money. With this it wont be effecting content creators and making their business harder and wont disallow newbs from learning how to do content creation and isnt an absolute MUST since you can fly everywhere if you dont want to pay.

Another might be taking taxes from raffle winnings in these raffles. There are so many raffles going on each day and TONs of money just changes hands this way, never actually leaving the community. If even a small amount was taken from the winnings eventually that would be a considerable amount also. What should the winner of free money care that a few L was taken when he didnt really do anything for it?

I'm not full of ideas at the moment and these may have already been discussed, but I must say that I dont believe the income people recieve for playing the game should be removed otherwise everyone will be required to work. The ones that actually do work should just make more money and the ones that just play, should continue to get their pittance otherwise many will leave.

format c: /u

or

mkfs /dev/hd* /dev/sd*

That'll fix it all and make this dwell issue a better place... Ug...

of course now that I have started drinking......

Another way to get the linden up would involve lube and pornography....

Oh, I thought were talking about game money, not the developers.

Started already? Lucky girl. Bring on the astroglide!

I'm typing this with one hand!@!!

Every GAME has an amount of work you do to get money. Most of them involve long sessions of double clicking. And most GAME's don't hand out money to players each week. You only get it if you sit around double clicking on monsters.



Private sim's are already getting more features than people who own a full sim on the mainland in terms of admin controls. And, people in adjacent sims looking into your sim will cause you lag. Private islands can't lag from that. Private islands also have a non-refundable fee associated with them. You can sell your SIM, and recoup ALL your costs. I can't sell my sim when I get bored. I have to get $ from dwell. So I do agree things need to be made more equal, but the only way that can be done is to force mainlanders into working for private island owners.



I look forward to the day when content in SL is interesting enough to charge $ on top of the SL signup fee.

Im typing this with someone else's hands

-Surreal

There are no monsters to click on in this game, so what do you suggest we do to get money? Hanging out and getting rates is the equivalent to clicking monsters...Hell you even pay to do it in this game. In monster clicking games, part of the social aspect is getting together to click monsters. In this one it is going to clubs and clicking each other.

Can I borrow one of yours? I'm such a bad one-handed typer

I do not beleive dwell has a significant effect on the value of the $L at all.
The idea of raising inworld prices of merchandise is a marginal fix as it removes no $L from the economy. Also competition will undercut you as we see on GOM.
As I see it the 3 biggest factors that can bring the $L up are:
1) Increased rate of growth.
2) Increased land value. (the only "limited" resource)
3) More money sinks. (A few weeks of $L only land auctions would be a HUGE help)

People are not going to run to GOM for any significant $L purchase for inworld goods. They may pick up $10-30 USD worth on occasion, but I couldn't see much more than that.
Perhaps as the content develops there may be something worthwhile to spend alot of $USD on, but I really can't imagine what that would be.

Turn on your sig. I pay people $1000 to host an event. Of course, the lower the $L crashes the more I'll have to pay right...

Where do you think all those $'s for sale on GOM come from? The money fairy?

ok as I drink more my cognitive powers are going bye bye, yet I will continue to post....

Why? because it's funny.

even while I go AFK my forum Zombie will sit and effortlessly click the refresh button for me to see if there is something new....

OH! I never told you about the forum zombies, just like trolls, except their limbs dont grow back, also available in the 5 standard colors!

Stop by CRAZEEEEE Ferran's Used Zombie Lot and get one today, soon available in random teleport offering varieties, need to get a crowd to your land for D$W$E$L$L$? Well just set up a zombie and they will spam everyone online regardless if they know them or not and offer TP's to EVERYONE!

Since this requires higher brain function than both the Dwell Zombie and the Escort Zombie, a higher octane version of "brain Kibble" is reccomended. That's right, this Kibble harvested from some of the great minds of the world! Accept no substitutes Brain Kibble (tm) does not use bovine substitutes... Nay, only the finest human ingredients grey matter has to offer.

So what exactly is involved in hosting an event for you?

I think that charging covers is a great way to improve the economy. But the current dwell system makes it impossible to compete that way when others are giving away entertainment and living off of dwell.

I look at dweel as a form of welfare, and I think it is time for welfare reform.

ZOMBIES SCHWAN!!!!!!! Zombies.

I was wondering why it was free to get in everywhere. Do they really make that much off of dwell?