How do you make an RP sim profitable?

Hi - I see how immersive some of these RP sims are, and how loyal their user bases are. They must be generating revenues then, yes? Sorry, I am very inexperienced when it comes to RP, but it seems like a business model worth investigating. Do they make money (aside from any land rentals)? If so, how?

Thanks!

i presume they have RP clothing lines, animations, etc. that are for sale in a shop somewhere.

The clothing lines don't even begin to make up for tier costs and maintence fees. Most of it is via donations of those who use the Sims, and straight out of the owners pockets. They don't profit from it at all.

Well it looks like "World Stock Exhange's Your real money RP" has kinda ground to a halt .. SO ..

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The next best bet would be to find a RP that required a lot of "STUFF"

Like if it was a sci-fi RP one where you could buy tons of gizmos for use in the RP.

Since you could sell that Stuff, it would make a good profit source.

If you aren't a creator, you could go into business with one (or several).

They pretty much do as other sims do. Some are profitable, some not. Land rentals and themed shops. The really successful ones probably started because of personal enjoyment and not for profits. For most, if they are able to cover tier, any extra is a bonus.

I highly double any of them are moneymakers.

The handful of RP Sims I visit are nowhere near a profit, they aren't there for that purpose. At best they may break even, but I'd say that's about it. I guess the best way , besides donations or charging group membership fees is to have shopping and maybe rental property tied into the RP.

well if you wanted to make money off of clothes - you'd need a RP sim where people couldn't use their normal "street clothes" in the RP

Thats Gor's Gimmick.

Most women don't wander mainstream SL dressed in revealing silk doilies

And most men don't go around dressed in leather that would get laughed out of a biker bar ..

SO .. the Gor people have to buy all new clothes for their RP. This was smart business-wise.

Nowadays Gor would be a bad choice because everyone and anyone sells stuff for Gor.

You'd want an RP world that could be popular that would still require its own STUFF a good sized chunk of they have to buy from you (and your partners)

I suspect though the only way to get people really buy it would be to set your partners up as competitors (a sort of semi-collusion) people like to believe there is choice.

For example for weapons - You wouldn't want to use the systems other weapons use. Since then they can bring their own. You'd want your own system, which you'd sell as "innovative, and superior" Of course. You could even license this technology to established weapons-makers so they could sell stuff for your RP so you make money.

You always need weapons, and armor, if you want to make money. People seem to love weapons and armor. It helps them in the 2nd rule of Roleplay












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2nd rule of Roleplay - Roleplayers love to brag about how great their characters are, even though they are made up. It is the Role-Playing version of "my daddy can beat up your daddy."

I run an RP sim and I have a mall there that pays about 2/3 of the island's class-5 tier. I finance the rest from my other business ventures. It's a labor of love, and I will be doing more money-losing sims soon. In fact I only got into SL business to begin with so I could pay for my free, public areas (and those of some friends).

I have friends and acquaintances who have their own RP sims and most indeed just cover tier (usually with malls or original related products), if they make any money at all. The ones that are actually profitable tend to be combat sims that have deals with weapons makers, or that make/sell their own.

Although not a RP note that Greenies got their marketing right, I'm sure that sales of their avatars goes some way to recouping the costs for that particular SIM, as well as L'Oreal

My experience is the same as what Wildefire says.

I can't even begin to tell the number of times I've had an 'RP' place ask me for help or a bailout (financial bailouts I don't do).

Weapons or an anchor store seem to do okay - for a while. Sometimes far more than okay - some places will make money hand over fist for a while. But eventually something newer or shinier comes along and the shiny fades fast.

I just read the other thread about the cornfield and it occurred to me that you could make a prison themed thread and get the Lindens to pay you to keep suspended residents.

Maybe there is hope for Felonhall after all......

Well I guess thats what my brainstorming is.

Most places pick a theme and then figure out how they can make money off it. The theme becomes potentially limiting - As Desmond and Wildfire pointed out.

I'm thinking the smarter way is to think up all the ways you can make money off RP, *then* try to find/make a theme that fits.

So how would you make money -

-Stuff / Gizmos needed for RP

-Clothes

-Weapons / armor

- Make a plan for all this stuff to become obsolete over time. SO you can sell *replacements*

-Make a plan for some items to "run out", shortages are a great way to increase how much you can sell.

-make attractive RP reasons for people to want live in the sim and sell limited rental space (which you keep scarce on purpose to drive up price)

In short hyper-consumerism. But you'd need the theme to hide the fact that you are in it to make money.

Charge a membership fee to RP there and limit access to members only. Sell guest passes for people who aren't members. It's a crazy aspect of SL culture that people go to enormous expense to provide cool places for people to play and then don't ask the people who play there to subsidize it.

While this makes good sense,

Those places that are free are also the competition, right?

Its almost as if anyone who wants to start charging for entertainment would have to have something everyone knew was better than the competition so that they could get away with charging.

I have this strange urge to create a Saved by the Bell / Bayside High sim... with me as ZM of course

Yep, I don't have any idea if such a plan would work or not since people are so reluctant to demand support from the RP'ers, but I hope some brave sim owners will start attempting to change the culture. I've long wanted to do a scifi RP sim, but I'm not rich enough to do it as a charity, and with the existing culture it may never happen, or be extremely short lived if it does.

With how Scretch turned out .. that really is messed up LOL


High school RP sounds like it would not make money

-No combat

-No gizmos

-Normal Clothes

-Potential violations of sexual ageplay rules

I wonder if you set it up to use all sorts of existing SL gear (clothes weapons and whatnot) you could try to do the reverse of the company store model I described earlier.

Say - "We charge a small fee because we DONT try and nickel and dime you on everything related to the RP"

He could do the college years to avoid the ageplay rules ;p

well yeah but college drama isn't HS drama.

People go from passing notes in class behind the professors back ...

To passing notes to the professor with their phone number on it ...

And going along with the membership model, we could charge people different recurring fees depending on what character they want to be. Obviously the status of an AC Slater would cost you a bit more than if you were Melvin Nerdly.

Have people rent lockers that take them to restricted access skyboxes.

Honestly, rentals are the only way you really hope to make any money and come close to breaking even.