Charging more for Copy/NoTrans over Trans/No Copy animations.

this is from the june 2009 stats published here: http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy-data.php

Total with a positive income = 66787 (this includes everyone - from gamblers through to land barons to content creators)

earnings (before costs)

>10usd = 36732
10-50usd = 18901

Total = 55633
i.e. around 80% of those with a positive cash flow make less than 50usd before tier/subscriptions/advertising/upload costs.

50-100 usd = 3858

So, the total number of accounts earning under 100 usd = 59491

This takes it up to around 90% and don't forget that a homestead or 1/2 sim costs around this.

Food for thought hmmm?

OK, thanks Couldbe - I ran across your blog the other day, and was very impressed, by the way. Great Marketing.



I don't ever look at those statistics - they mean nothing to me. I guess I'm in the other 10% and have never been accused of greed. In almost a year, have never had someone tell me that an item was overpriced.....yet still make a profit.

I want to make sure that new business owners or old business owners do not get the impression that they have to give their items away in order to please the community and to please customers. Customers also appreciate a "thank you" for the purchase, they appreciate new products, they appreciate some conveniences such as buying in bulk at a discount, and such as custom orders.

There have been a few times when someone specifically asked about a business policy, and they were kind enough to ask it privately of me, so that I could explain it.....and they seemed perfectly fine with the explanation. Meaning that you can discuss it directly with the consumers, without worrying about flack, and that you can be firm about fair policies, without having to fold for someone. People understand.



I've found that they expect much more. And that "cheap" is not at the top of their list.



I want to reward content creators as well. I don't get out often enough any more to shop....but if I can share a tip or two to someone who is not making a profit yet.....that's my way of doing it. Some days I do that here...and today, I think that stressing that you don't have to fold in your business practices, to accommodate one or two vocal people in order to stay in business, is one of those ways. (I did that a tad sarcastically)



I don't want that to happen to you or others either. I'm surprised to hear you say that. I took one look at your blog, and thought "now there is someone who is knocking it out and up to date".....not saying that you're not, based on what you just said....but you should be making a profit with skills and attention to detail as your blog suggests.

And NO ONE should be embarrassed to make a profit, or feel that it is not acceptable by community standards.

The business i was talking about has an average of 3,000 sales a day, according to the owner. Which translates to a few thousand USD per day. Which is pretty mind boggling for SL, and an accomplishment most of us can only dream about. For that, a certain amount of respect is warranted.

This happened to us with our Furniture scripting engine. So we had to work up a system that allowed us by notecard to reference the animation with the funky name, and then give it a new name in the menu displayed to the user. Definitely a pain in the butt, and i still do not know what purpose there is to making an animation "no mod".

It's rare for me to be horrified by a derailment/bitch fight, but for fuck's sake, ladies.

As far as the original question and discussion, I pretty much believe in a seller's right to charge whatever they want for their wares. Let the market dictate, supply and demand, etc, etc. If I think the price is fair for the item, or I want it bad enough, I pay. If not I move on. Since in most cases we are talking pennies to a dollar or two, I don't get too upset about it.

/just smiling at your tag line

I would have asked the creator to change the name - if someone asked me politely and explained the problem, I would do that. I'm not a scriptor and I don't realise the significance of these things. If a customer pointed out a general problem to me, I could change my naming convention, ot just do it as a one-off. At least I'd _know_ the name had been changed and so could identify the animation easily.

Oh - and thank you Brenda - please stand by to referee here.

/mops brow

Thanks

I believe in treating this as a business and that means being aware of current market conditions.


They do but that has never stopped people expressing public opinions in the past and won't stop them in future.


Then you're at odds with LL policies and the brave new world I'm afraid. Their current policy (as can been seen through the changes made to Xstreet SL and documented in the Blog) is for content creators to make cheap or free items. Both of which are bad for creators of quality content. I pointed this out to a couple of Lindens and they appear not to understand this, certainly they're not deviating from the policy and if you look at the stats you'll see the only net growth in income over the last few months is for those in the under 50usd range - every other range is shrinking.

Then perhaps being a little clearer on your objectives may help. Most business owners learn pretty quickly to listen to the customer and then do what is best for their business. Any business owner that panics and listens to the last voice they hear is in trouble in the long term.

Don't worry, I'm well and truly in the top 10%.
I'm also not afraid to close some of my other brands down when I need to. I closed another one on the weekend because it no longer covers costs. It's a shame as I really liked the things I sold in that shop but it just wasn't pulling it's weight - if people don't want those items then it's a waste of my time having them out and with all the adult content stuff going on down the last 5 months I just haven't had the resources to dedicate to that particular brand - C'est la vie. There is now a little less diversity on the grid.

There will come a time when I can no longer devote the time and energy to this brand and then it will go into decline or when the adult content separation finally gets locked in my market shrinks to a few new kinky souls and my lovely repeat customers. That's the way of the world in here.

I remember looking at the website for one of the well known animation shops in here and was surprised at how cheap the prices they charged were considering they are a professional rl animation business with all the rl wages and costs associated with that.

For SL the amount of money is mind boggling but when you consider they have things like maya or other software licences/mocap suits/rl wages/overheads etc etc and the sheer time it takes to make them and the number of animations produced it still doesn't always guarantee profitability in the short term.

Sounds like these guys have their business plan just right though and animations is certainly one of the main areas where there's still decent money to be made once you've got your name out there.

eta - i just did a quick calc on the median price of the animations @ 3000 sales per day - that's over 4k usd per day.. I really am going to have to join this animation lark.. mindboggling

Agree with you.....but after seeing some of the "statistics" for online users that were presented during the traffic bot debates.....I think Anya is the reality-check statistic keeper......I'm no longer trusting of accuracy in the numbers being reported....although, I suppose that if they were going to fudge, they would do it in a different direction - lol.

Also, from chatting with a few business owners this year, it's clear that they do some rather large custom orders that are not reflected in those statistics, and when I had another business, almost half of my larger orders were not reflected in those statistics.



I understand that. I've battled the freebie concept since Day One. I bought into it for a good number of months, and it did help build the business....but then I started battling against myself over it. I wanted to break free from it, and still working on that. It's not easy.



True.



Awesome You deserve to be - I can see that in the time you took with developing your blog.



It does take time and energy. I've not been able to get that point across many days. I didn't have to be interrupted by the shift to Zindra, but I do have an empathy for those business owners who are going to take a hit in daily operations/sales because of the move. I hope you all get settled soon, and back to business as usual.

while we're on animation annoyances.... not listing the priority, and/or making them all 4... gah. (the few I make get their setting listed in the description, for my own sanity)

@ Qie:
yes, with the caveats for limited run.... offering business packs of large numbers of -c+t would also be workable

@ Deira:
scripting convention re animations abound, you probably won't be able to satisfy everyones needs regardless of what convention you use, it may be worth it to bite the bullet and allow mod, then redirect any questions about unknown names to your store, by type (stands, walks, dances, sits, etc) but it'll depend on what your customer base. too often a customer will see permissions that don't work for them, and go elsewhere without a word, so it's hard to count silent failures, whereas customers IMing to find something that's been renamed is obviously not silent... it's hard to weigh the trouble of the known vs the potential sales of the unknown.

@ General:
3:1 bitching to topic ratio means I quit the thread... it might help some of you to A) realize that opinions and details to support/explain those opinions are personal, and you don't have to agree... B) Feeding trolls just encourages them to hang out more, and C) ignore = teh awesome... have fun

Ditto



Definitely THIS !!!

and one more thing..

if you are an animator and want to sell mega packs to content creators either create a mlp so they can see the animation position or (and this is much preferable - trust me) is to create a contact sheet with the animation names underneath a pic of the position.

Do that and you'll have a solid customer base.

My friend did. Unfortunately, there seems to have been a language problem.. the animator was Japanese and didn't seem to understand what my friend was asking for.

If addressing this:



.....places me in the "bitch" category.....so be it.

it may not put you in the bitch category but it's putting you pretty squarely in troll.

I've been called a troll before, for expressing an opinion. But I've seen it done to others as well, so I don't take it personally.

Good. Perhaps eventually you'll learn that picking at a sore point to resurrect hostility never goes down well.

$35,000 USD for a top of the line MoCap system, so i am told.

I think there is still room for animators using MoCap to make dances and other realistic animations.

I have also seen a MoCap system made from ping pong balls. I was told that there were some limitations as far as data transfer speeds, or something - it was over my head.

Now if only you could put together a business plan and convince a bank to give you the money - or mortgage a property if you own any, and you will be in business!

If the person putting the animations in the product are the end-user or a reseller rather than the scripter (which is so common that I'd almost say it's the usual situation), then that's a complete non-starter.

What, they're no longer defaulting to showing the most expensive items at the top of the results? Calloh callah, oh frabjous day! Do you have a link?

That's an impressive revenue - but how much of it translates into real profit is another matter.

I think the business in question has branched out into video games and other media - it could be that their SL stream is actually subsidised by the other areas, for all we know. They are not a plc, so they don't have to publish accounts - but they should be VAT registered, so their pricing probably has to refelect this.

If I had the skills I'd certainly consider it.. don't forget that you also need a software licence and maya runs to around US$6245 (plus the time taken to actually get to grips with the beast)

for couples anims it's easier if you do both together so really it's two suits (or one with a lot of jigging around trying to make them match as you record each separate animation with your blow up doll or suitable substitute ) then there's the wages of the dancers etc etc.. still it looks like a bit of a nice little earner.

It was a legitimate question on business practices. Is pricing more important than behavior?

It's a sore point for me, as well. Particularly the way the nuances of "discussion" work here.

I'm very disappointed that it seems to be acceptable. I'll assume that from lack of comment on it, that it's perfectly acceptable, or that commenting on it, would place someone in the "bitch" category, so they just remain silent.

I'm learning the "nuances"...... Slowly, and with reservations.

It takes about 2 years to become proficient with Maya - if you want to employ someone with the skills.....

Yes, the start-up costs are very high and getting a bank loan is not easy in the current economic climate. Maybe Des has capital to invest?

.....just thinking aloud.