xstreet undercutting

"Risk your future"???.......erm tell that to the millions of workers being made redundant from their RL jobs worldwide.! There are no guarantees with RL employment or RL businesses going bust (e.g Ford, Lehmann Brothers) as there are guarantees that you can make a steady (lower) income from SL.

Actually my point is that there is no RL analogy to SL. LL's own market data shows that is suffers in comparison to what people can make in RL.

LL's market data shows this...
The segment of the population they represent are those who have the affluence already to own a computer, to have a highspeed internet connection or access to one on a regular basis. They are computer savvy enough to make it through the learning curve required to run SL... What percentage of the world population do you think we just eliminated with the basic requirements to even take part in SL?

Now based on the people most likely to be able to access SL, what do you figure the percentage of that population that accesses SL, is already making over 5000usd a month. My argument is that of the people playing SL.. a far greater percentage of them are making 5000USD a month in RL than that .1% that are making it in SL. My guess, is if you looked at the RL income of people playing SL, and then just said, okay, what do the top .1% of SL players make in RL? Just to give you a starting point, according to wikipedia, those making 250,000 or more in the US are 1.5% of the entire population (not just those affluent enough to play SL to begin with).

in the US.. 39% of the population earns >57.5-60K a year. In SL .1%.

What percentage of the population of the world lost their jobs? Ford actually did not go bust, for is actually doing much better now, they even declined government assistance.

And yes, risk you future.. if you get laid off in RL (at least in the US) you receive unemployment benefits while you look for a new job. How many employees for failed SL ventures receive government assistance when they loose their SL job?

Yes, but the argument is that SL is an "industry".. now if you bought a computer to play a game, fine, you are playing your game.. if someone is joining SL with the sole interest of being part of the SL industry, then those costs are not nonsense, they are business expenses that must be taken into account and levied against their income. Especially if SL is their only source of income. Yes?

Apples and oranges......you're comparing data for U.S which has one of the highest salary bases in the World......yet SL is a worldwide platform with around 35% of its players residing in the U.S (last time I checked)

Its not even about making 5000 USD profit a month.....even if you're making only 500 USD net profit, that can be a nice little earner for a family living in Sao Paulo. It might be enough to pay the rent and buy the food! Someone making 300 USD profit and living in Thailand might consider it a lot. Someone always use to low income employment....might consider a 1000 USD net profit as being significant.

I would like to know the number of RL professionals earning 100 K USD that are full time residents in SL......bet that percentage is also like 0.1%

I thought nearly 10% of the U.S were unemployed!

http://www.forecasts.org/unemploy.htm......for any of those 10% even 200-300 USD income from SL would be welcome, I'm sure!

Yes you can claim them as expenses against a SL business...but in reality its not an additional cost. If i wasn't in SL....i'd be incurring similar costs doing other things on my PC. In fact i quite often run other programs in the background whilst having SL open.

And of that 10%, how many can afford a computer meeting SL's requirement, high speed internet, what skills do they have that are marketable in SL? Just because you can log into SL does not mean you automatically will develop the talent to make that kind of money.

Are you going to guarantee everyone who puts for the effort in SL will make 200-300 a month? I would more quickly guarantee that 99% of those who try, will fail. Where I would guarantee that 90% who went out looking for any kind of work at all, would find a job that pays three times that amount.

I guess i'm saying is that if you have good all round talent and a desire to match......even in these tough market conditions you can still be reasonably successful in SL.
You don't have the high entry costs, you don't require an awesome CV (Resume), you don't need need high educational qualifications....anything is possible. It's not easy...but it's very do-able.

Okay that is you. But you can not say that you represent the computer ownership model for the entire world. If the claim as stated is that SL can provide a revenue stream for people who currently do not have one, then the cost of participating in SL must be weighed against their possible income.

How did the U.S reach that 10% mark? ......many had good professions, many had good jobs, many had good homes, many had computers and internet connections already, many are already computer literate. It is was you make of it.....everything in SL can be learned, just like i did......and continue do so.


SL is not replacement for RL work, but can provide meaningful income to many. What is meaningful?....well it could be just 200 USD....it might be a 1k......or maybe 3k. It's different for every household. It could be additional spending money for housewives, .....what about those that can't work in RL due to disabilities?.....I'm sure a few hundred bucks would be welcomed.

We can agree on that yep. If you can do 3d modeling/animation/graphic design/program management/programming (seems those are the biggest income generators) to begin with, yes you can port those skills into SL and make an income (albeit I still argue significantly lower) in SL quicker than trying to find the same type of work in RL. But truthfully, if I was doing my animations as a real job and not just as playtime.. there is no way in hades that I would work for 5000usd a month for what I make to sell in SL.. more like 10000usd a month with full medical and a funded pension.

But not the entire 10%. Not everyone who lost their jobs in the most recent recession was a computer animator or wrote stock analyzation scripts for wall street. Most people who lost their jobs were waitresses, telemarketers, manual laborers.. a vast majority were those lower skilled jobs. Individuals that are at a disadvantage to begin with when trying to even join SL, let alone try to make an income in it. I stick with my estimate of 99% failure rate for them in an SL enconomy, compared to a 90% success rate making more money in the RL economy.

EDIT TAG.. hehehe.....

okay to catch your update... I'm not arguing that SL business is a waste. And yes I make what I consider a significant income.. for me significant means that SL pays for itself. That's my expectation and I'm happy with it. I've owned land, I've bought everything that catches my fancy.. I've blown through a lot of Lindens.. and not a single one of them were real money after my first couple of months in world. What I argue against are people stating that it is feasible to attempt to make a RL income in SL. It's not. Only a microscopic percentage of SL residents make a living wage from SL. And to present SL as an option to someone who is at their ropes end as an option is just cruel. If you need money, RL is still the best place to make a real wage.

If you can get those jobs....they're not ten to a penny even in RL! My SL partner use to work with Pixar

Of course most will fail, in fact the majority of SL'ers are consumers. They're using it for fun.....to RP or play happy families or to try and meet someone or whatever.

My RL profession did not really help me in SL other than business acumen & marketing (well not even marketing as RL marketing doesn't equate to SL marketing).....i had to learn about content creation from scratch. I never needed to know about graphic design in my working career. I use to script MIRC programs to be used in IRC channels for fun...but that's completely different scripting language to LSL. I have Poser 7...although i haven't yet learnt how to use it.....but if i need to, I will do. If I can learn it, then anyone with average intelligence can do likewise.

Biggest SL earners (net profit) are the large Estate Barons.....there's a Shoe maker (I presume Stilletto Moody) and a Events organiser that belong to top half dozen SL earners.
Robin Linden was interviewed shortly after she left SL....and that's what she disclosed.

But don't undervalue the preparation that scripting had given you. You learned to understand computer operations, even to the point of understanding how the computer "thinks". My mom has had a computer for a decade now, she is still clueless. If I set her up in a SL business and came back in a year, it would look exactly the same as the day I set it up. She loves computers, but she doesn't understand computers.

Oh, for animating.. I use Poser6, I tried Poser7 but for some reason Poser6 just works better for SL animating in my opinion. If you get frustrated with 7, try 6, it may make a difference for you too. oh-oh, and turn off Inverse Kinetics when you don't actually need to lock a foot or a hand in a specific place. And definately have it turned off when you export to BVH. IK makes a mess if you leave it turned on for building the entire animation. Best to turn it on for body part you want to lock in place, make your movement, then turn it back off immediately. Also don't make the mistake of making your final frame an exact duplicate of your initial frame, it will cause a 'pause' in the animation as the duplicate frames play.. best to make your 2nd movement frame the duplicate for the last frame so there will still be slight movement at the loop point.

*looks around, then at Rene*...

Umm.. I think we hijacked the thread. oops.

Okay we should probably take a break now before they come after us with torches and pitchforks.

Was fun debating with you

---well one last question.. is Robin's interview online anywhere?

Thanks for the Poser tips Patasha

I'll copy and paste what you have written, so when i finally get round to tackling Poser 7 i'll refer to your useful tips.

Yes it was very civil too....its good to get all types of opinions, i have my opinions....they might be correct, they might not.....there's stuff you wrote that i'm in agreement with too. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle!






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Yes, Robin's interview i read in couple of locations....if you google it you should find it. It was from the 1st half of the year....shortly after she left SL.

Okies.. hit me up inworld with IM if you have any questions.. I'm sure my tips sound better in my head than how they will actually play out, so don't hesitate if I said something that turns out to be completely stupid advice when you try to do it.

How is that different from any other business, other than that the entry costs and operating costs in SL are a lot lower than in most other markets?

If anything, it is safer to try in SL. If you do not succeed, you have not lost as much as if you are trying in RL. This is not to say anyone should give up their proverbial day job, but there is nothing wrong with developing SL product in your spare time.

It is an entertainment industry... the best analogy I can think of is music. If you are a musician starting out, you play for the enjoyment for the first few years or more. Most will not make it regardless of musical talent since there is also marketing and a lot of luck.

But that doesn't mean that there is no reason to try. The reality is that people do make it, and in the meanwhile if you have any sales (or audience) at all, you are still entertaining others, and that brings some satisfaction.

But the computer is still a captial asset, not an operating cost, and if you don't make it in SL, you will still have the computer. It does not magically blow up simply because the business failed.

And that computer is useful. It can still help the person find a job outside of SL if their SL business failed. Really, though, how many people are going to be well enough off that they can afford to quit their regular job in favour of attempting to make an income in SL who do not already have a computer?

Just an FYI.... something is only worth what another is willing to pay for it. Please don't take that wrong.

I sell my stuff for the same price in SLX (I'll always call it SLX), as I do in the store.

I'm hearing rumors of lindens charging for listings now.... if this happens, you won't have to worry about my low-priced items being in SLX, and my Lindens won't be there anymore either, and I won't shop there. I wasn't happy when SL took over SLX, because I figured that some where down the line, we'd have to pay for it. I already pay a % from the little bit that I sell.

Maybe this is the wrong thread for this, but heck I couldn't find the right one, and I needed to vent.

Maybe they are just under 5yr. old Bri.



Am I the only person who finds it odd that a 'newb' account posts such a "timely" topic only to poof into thin air?

Its a conspiracy I tells ya, DATA COLLECTION!!!!!