Make money like in IMVU

Well I used to play in IMVU, until I heard from a friend about Secondlife and I was hooked. Well For all of you who dont know what IMVU is, its a chat program similar to Secondlife except when you chat your stationary and you have to jump around to different spots on furniture in order to move. That was the bad part about IMVU. But you had an avatar and you could dress them up and socialize with others which was ok until I discovered secondlife I could actually walk around.

But, what was good about IMVU was that you could have different ways of earning credits (money in IMVU), and not spend a dime. What is was is they had a new products page in their shopping catalog and you would earn money daily by visiting. Another way was a game called freespin, wherein you make up to 500 credits if you line up the symbols on the slot machine, but it wasn't gambling because you could only do it daily as well. Also you could earn money by subscribing to their facebook account.

Now my point to this whole ramble is why doesn't Secondlife have some method of earning money like that. Why does the Secondlife economy only work on money we pay into it, with IMVU that money I mentioned above wasn't given by other residents it was given by the IMVU creators.

I honestly believe many people give up on secondlife because you cannot make any money if you have no credit card or some method of buying money and the jobs within do not pay out even minimum wage. I think that if the Lindins actually gave us other methods to make money out of their pockets (yes I realize secondlife thrives on the money we put into it), then maybe more people would stay and actually eventually put their own money into it. People don't get the full glory of secondlife because they quit when they see it is really hard.

Anyway I am done ranting, what do you think?

Could you cash out the imvu credits for RL currency?
Could you use RL cash to buy credits?

If you say no to either of these, then that is your answer. (Especially the first one).

In SL we can cash out the L's for RL currency. Why would LL want to make it easy for people to make real money?

Actually you could and also at start up of IMVU you got i think 1500 credits to get yourself started.

I got a few thousand Linden Dollars a couple of times, and still get 300 Linden Dollars from Linden Labs on a weekly basis.
And I can cash out these Linden dollars as well. Not on some shady website of which I'll never know if it will hack me or not, but right here on the second life website itself.

Yes but you are premium right..so you get a stipend of 300 no?

I used IMVU for ages and i never had an issue buying credits, they had their own site which was very very reliable to buy them, but i didn't need to because i could earn them just as easy.

I think you should go back to IMVU.

Pep (Really. )

Get laid Pep, you really do have a negative attitude and it reflects poorly on your personality

You asked a stupid question . . .

Pep ( . . . so I answered it honestly. )

The only question that is stupid is the one not asked.

That saying obviously loses something in translation.

Pep ("How many ducks make three?"

There is so much free content available -- quality free content -- that nobody reall NEEDS money in SL. And therefore, if not being able to make any money, without putting out some effort or buying it, is what is causing people to leave, then my personal opinion is 'good riddance'. If they are not satisfied with the current freebies and do not want to put real money into SL, then they can put in effort and learn a skill that will allow them to sell something.

In the beginning LL used somewhat similar methods, they used to pay like 500L$ for people to run events, if the events got a certain number of people, many clubs used to use that pay their way.

LL also used to pay a daily amount of L$ for parcel traffic, if your club had a high daily traffic count, looking at my 2005 history I used to get about 150L$ a day for the traffic on my shop at that time, a club at the time would have had a LOT higher traffic count so they must have got a lot more per day(the gaming of traffic via camp chairs etc caused an end to this I think).

Many old players will also remember when ratings upped your stipend, and even free accounts got 50L$ per week, it used to be the custom to rate everyone within range to help improve their weekly L$, I think in about 2007 LL upped the price of rating from 1 to 25L$ to kill that avenue, then removed rating altogether.

I think these methods were all used to get SL off the ground, I dont know much about IMVU but I imagine its different to SL in the way that SL has always worked with a view to the money being exchangeable with RL, and giving it out too freely would effect its value, once SL's popularity was assured these things were removed to prevent that

Yes, those options also exist in SL, except they are not given by LL, but they are given by other residents for fulfilling a (for them) useful function.

People get paid for a host of 'jobs' in SL. Just a few examples:
- modeling both for photos and standing inside a shop
- hosting events
- helping customers at shops (often on provision basis)
and many many more...

The pay is basically based on amount of effort and skill required. (Low skill jobs like standing on a pose stand require huge amounts of time for little money. While a highly skilled scripter or builder can ask for 1000's of L$ per hour.) Remember that RL skills also translate to SL. If you're good at organizing and managing, then you can even find a job doing that (like managing a live music artist or club for instance.)

There is no real 'job market' in SL, so often it's not that easy to find one of these jobs. But if you ask around a bit, especially with friends who have one of these jobs, you should be able to find one.

Good luck jobhunting

Hmmm.... I think I bought L$ once looooooong ago. $L2000 cost me around $7 at the time.

Thats less than the cost for 1 month of Warcraft. Or maybe a #4 at McDonald's if you Super Size it?

It is much more expensive for someone say from another country to buy lindins, they have to use the exchange rate and sometimes it favours you sometimes it is almost 20 dollars more just for the same amount of lindins...such a ripoff.

This.

When I first heard about SL, then subsequently joined, I had no idea whatsoever about the "economy" in SL. I joined simply to role play in a 3D environment.

When I began seeing nicer clothes, hair, skin, etc. than what I began with I began purchasing lindens, at first just $10.00 USD which lasted a long time. I played EQ for years and first had to purchase the game (which at the time was about $35.00 USD or so) and then continue purchasing each expansion if I wanted additional content PLUS pay $15.00 USD/mo. just to play. The money earned within game stayed in game to purchase in-game items. No cashing out for real money.

Thousands of people play EQ, SWG, WOW, and games that operate on a similar pricing structure from all over the world.

The way SL operates with its economy sets it apart on that factor alone.

I think you've got material for a poll there.

.

It is interesting that Anshe has now relegated Second Life to second place on her website, with IMVU taking over at #01, and Entropia still at #03.

http://www.anshex.com/

In order to plan any kind of business and make money in any VW, you need:

a) An economy
b) A way to get your RL money in and out
c) No market-tampering by the platform owners

SL have screwed up on (c) three times in my own personal experience and lost my trust forever (should have learnt the first two times, I know).

Rock

Now, if only IMVU players could make money like in SL, that would be something.

There are some roleplay places which allow things to be bought in roleplay dollars. So no money in no money out.

You do get goods though so I guess if you sold those in SL at large, it could be money out. If they are transferable.

I think the original post missed out something important..

In IMVU there are two kinds of money, "credits" and "predits". "Predits" are what you get from the freespin games, etc. Predits can be used just like credits to buy things, and as a creator you can't choose which you get. But predits received by a creator can't be cashed out; they can only be used to get dev tokens, the IMVU equivalent of paying upload fees.

It makes the market for creators rather harsher but helps to bring new users into the world. It's a tradeoff, I think, and creators would be really angry if it were introduced to SL at this late stage.

I'm with LittleMe and Czari: FREEBIES

If you honestly can't find hundreds of thousands of freebies in SL, Dove, you're doing something wrong. You need to do more than sit on a poseball and chat. Go out and find stuff.

Not only semi-literate but completely ignorant of currency markets? Well, it's not surprising, but maybe you could get a job as a banker in the US.

Pep (And you are *still* claiming to be English? PMSLMAO )