What causes SL's high dropout rate?

For reference and study control purposes, it might be good to know this:




What causes RL's high drop-out rate?


Technical Failure ("I can't get around, and I lost my stuff!"

Technical Limits ("My body looks way out of date!"

Newbie Experience ("I'm alone on an isolated island.."

Bad Value of Shelter ("US$650 a month for this!?"

Social Mischance ("Nobody would talk to me"

Nature of Creation ("It's pointless if you're not a graphic artist"

Nature of Economy ("I have to spend real money for real things?"

Nature of RL ("I bought a hot tub and am just meant to sit in it?"



Just saying...

...has anyone done an RL 'exit note' survey?

Macabre, but might be insightful... grin

This is a good point, and one I think we tend to forget.

Because we're used to it, because nothing shocks us, etc. And the more these immature people try to shock us, the less shocking it is, somehow; not sure why it works that way, but it does!

But to the rest of the world, there are huge bunches of people - the majority, actually - who prefer not to be surrounded by, for example, the kind of billboards seen on the thread about the ad farms.

Most people just don't want to run around in a porn-filled environment, and if they do want to, there are certainly better ones to run around in. Most aren't crazy about naked guys with big attachments approaching them, either, and most don't enjoy getting orbited or caged.

So they come in and see all this junk that we sort of take for granted and look past - really, it's amazing the retention is as high as it is.

coco

I did! I started through the "tutorial", found it silly & left. Never had a problem with learning about SL or how to use the interface.

Personally, I'm dropping out because Trout refuses to acknowledge my PMs. It's all his fault.

Ahhh! False accusations! Framery! Unfair allegations! There's only one PM I haven't answered and it's because my phone in RL has been ringing off the hook all afternoon. I'm getting to it. I've been injured emotionally. My good name has been...has been...well, I'd already destroyed my good name, so there really isn't much left to damage there. But if I had a GOOD reputation, I'd be mortified.

Excuses, excuses.

Among the many reasons I've heard from people I know in RL that have tried and given up on Second Life, (paraphrased somewhat for clarity):

- I don't know what I'm supposed to do in SL.

- It looks amateurish. I have more fun in 'other games'.

- I can't compete with talented/experienced residents so why bother.

- It's too complicated. What are camera controls? All I use is mouselook, but it's really awkward.

- All I saw were a bunch of naked newbies and rude people so I figured it wasn't a place I would fit in.

- I don't have time for something that requires this much invested effort.

- I don't log on every day, and I got fed up with having to download a new client every single time I thought it might be fun to login.

- It's hard to connect with people, there are too many and I never seem to see the same people more than once.

Oooo! Ooooo!!! I know the answer!!! The look on my dad's face when I mentioned something on the Internet gave it away!


Answer (according to my 60+yr old parents)-

The internet is just a passing fad!!!




We're also talking about 2 people who dont even know how to use an ATM or a cell phone.

I've written about this before...

/327/9e/225292/1.html#post1772488

I have to be quick and I can't read the rest of the thread until later. I just wanted to note that I entered (the second time, a few hours after the first time) through CSI:NY, which has a lot of that "quest" or "storyline" and even "leveling" (moving up the ranks). I saw the potential, but left to explore, and promptly found myself spending my whole first day in Second Life exploring 40+ creators hunting for Valentine's Day treasure boxes (which was both tiring and fun, and really helped set me up).

So, there are ways to use Second Life in a "gaming" way.

Oh, and I haven't left yet because I just started. Maybe I'll leave tomorrow ("sleep well, for tomorrow I may kill you", I probably have the quote wrong, but it is very similar to what I wrote).

There was no self to stand up for. She didn't agree with your opinion.She was not attacking you personally, is the point. She and many others state a contrary opinion. It isn't a swipe at YOU, Michael Bigwig, it's disagreement with your views. If you can't stand having your views challenged, even IF they are right, don't post them. An Internet Veteran such as yourself should know that.

The first time I joined, I entered through Avatar Island. It had a bunch of pictures on the wall. Just sitting there. If I hadn't been a "gamer" (and that was a long time ago), the pictures would have done anything for me. Heck, they didn't do anything for me (gaming really helped, gaming in the Doom, Civilization II and even earlier games on PC; Need for Speed and others on the stand-alone consoles). Also felt "cheated" when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to have a real life picture used as whatever it is they said they were going to use it for (or at least it might have been but it cost maybe more than the maximum number of lindens to be bought).

After I lost the password to that one I was annoyed, but decided to try again a few hours later. I'd recommend CSI:NY as an entry point for new people.

I like Ben & Jerry's ice cream but I have no idea how I'd eat ice cream in world, so didn't even think of trying that one.

Yeah - serious gamer here as well. Heck, I got my start in Kings Quest! A gaming background helped a lot with figuring out controls, but not with getting used to the social aspect of things, and certainly not with the creativity and figuring out what to do. You don't have to be terribly creative for gaming. You also are trained to go where you're supposed to and have activities handed to you. In SL, you have to make all that happen for yourself. People have a really hard time with that concept and for a lot of gamers, it just isn't for them. They want defined challenges, whether its a quest in an MMO or a battle in a FPS. That's cool, and that doesn't mean there's something wrong with them, but they just aren't cut out for SL. I think that accounts for a lot of the drop-out rate.

I wonder what the actual drop-out rate is. They have to have some sort of retention goal. I can't imagine it's terribly high, so what qualifies as a high drop-out rate?

I just spoke to a newbie and he said he wouldn't be staying in SL for long..
Then he said:

"In 2nd Life I just seem to get banned from every strange land I enter.
And why are there so many rulz here?
And why does everything cost money - including your dick.

Kiinda fucked."





haha

Kings Quest?

You N00b!!

Ha! =) Good point. The drop-out rate isn't an entirely undesirable thing.

The gambling ban and VAT tax took a lot out of SL. People don't spend lindens like they use to or tip like they use to (in clubs to hosts and DJs). Not enough Men's clothes.

The most common question in OI is not about technical things, it is about SL itself. So many new people are clueless what it is all about! Some think they start a "game" now, and sadly, the OI setup resembles a game with its funny quests and tasks. So they think "woah what a lousy boring game this is", and never come back. Some ven ask "where is the next level/stage", "what do you NEED to do to complete this" and so on. A lot of people find SL "boring" and "useless", because they think OI equals SL...

IMHO the OI process fails to explain to the new user what SL is all about. I guess most of the new arrivals never log back in after they completed a few OI tasks, being clueless and frustrated, unless they know someone on SL already or have someone them tell "no that's not all, there is much more", give them an interesting LM and let them TP off. You cannot even search or map things on your own on OI.

It would be interesting to know what the return rate is for the alternative OIs. I think if a newbie is thrown into the "real world" immediatly the experience might be richer.

You make a good point. OI would be terribly confusing for those expecting SL to be a "game" and not understanding that it is a community but at the same time, there are ways they can satisfy the gamer in them. I haven't done any RP, but perhaps those that have will correct me if my assumption in wrong, don't RP sims kind of act as a game? Do the Lindens place any mentors on OI to answer questions?

There is no point in create new contents when 90% of the lands have 0 traffic..

If you expect a game you will be terribly dissappointed. It's not so hard to explain what SL is, just compare it with the web, enhanced with a social feature and much more. But it doesn't say anything like that on the OIs.



There are many games inside SL, as there are on the web.



No, we place ourselves.

It's a bit odd, polling a lot of people who DO use something to find out why other people DON'T use it - how am I supposed to know? Perhaps the short answer is "because they're not like me"

The Lindens do run a follow-up questionnaire to inactive users, as I found out when my alt was offline for a while, but they didn't have a box for "I am online all the time, just not with this av", so I suspect their information is a bit screwed!

How about Leather Goddesses of Phobos on a green screen? I had to learn DOS, because Windows hadn't been invented.

I'd sort of like to go back and play Kings Quest again. Those old Sierra Online games were fun.

But I think this is rather unfair to the newbie helpers who are trying to help these people out. Why does it have to be the case that they didn't understand what SL was about? How do you know that they didn't completely understand what SL was about, and just didn't like it? What _can_ a helper tell them there is to do with their hot tub?



Not really - most of them are chat areas, like the rest of SL, except that the chat is in-character. Some use scripted combat simulators too, but those generally don't satisfy pure gamers.

Sorry to sound so dimwitted here, but is there a group of people that create alts and stay in OI to answer questions? That is what I am thinking by this comment? If there is, I think that's great and I would love to be a part of it and if not, it would be a great idea to start something like that since OI doesn't give a lot information to people entering, it just teaches the fundamentals, but like you said, it doesn't clarify what SL is or is not to alleviate some assumptions or to lend some guidance.