Which creator would you miss the most?

1. On quality of content delivered by Anshe Chung.
The 'Dresden' sim a lot of people were so lyric about was developed by a little team called 'ACS'. Guess who those are. So don't underestimate the quality of the products.
Originality could be a factor, though IMHO, extremely original items aren't the best selling ones. Even in SL.
It's also the case that the ACS team is probably not 'busy' 24/7 with projects for RL companies. So in the spare time they're now being set to work on cheap content.

2. On being profitable.
The question is, is being directly profitable a concern?
As stated by Anshe herself, her intention is to primarily grow the SL population.
Anshe Chung/Dreamlands primary business in SL is rental/sales of private regions, not in content sales. Dropping population numbers and people spending the money on content instead of using it to pay rent is influencing her profit margins. By reducing the amount of budget (L$ or otherwise) spent on content, people can spend more to buy/rent land.

3. On the effect this will have on SL content creation.
It will not directly affect 'established names'. They usually have a built up customer base that will buy, despite the circumstances.
It will affect new content creators, people trying to start their business in 2007. But IMHO the chance for a new content creator to become profitable in SL in this day and age is almost impossible anyways, trying to bring something new to the huge availability of items out there, and trying to compete against the advertising/marketing budgets, years of experience, large portfolio of products, 'source base' material and established customer base the larger names have already acquired.

No, it isn't.

could also be that they are then selling the content which they were already paid full rate to create for a project, and didn't sell exclusive rights to. Happens.



I believe that land tier is the main problem. People don't want to pay it anymore, they get burned out on SL. It's expensive. And the situation isn't going to get better as more worlds come online to compete with SL. Land tier is not a factor in an IM chat such as IMVU. Way lower barriers to entry than for SL. I think she's wrong... I respect what she's done in SL, but she's off base in my opinion.



Disagree. I've brought in new people from the 3d communities this year and all of them are up and running with successful content businesses in SL. They're just not your "commonly remembered names" of SL, although they're pretty well known in other areas. Which is why I think some of you need to get out more, and well.. I guess that goes for Anshe too. There's a LOT of new cool folks making neat stuff in SL! Sometimes they are even giving it away for free!

Visit Barney Boomslang and florenze Kerensky's Show and Tell in the Yongnam sim - it's at 2pm today (in about an hour) ... and get a chance to see some names you don't know, making great cool stuff because its fun to do... that's what SL is all about.

There are laws on the books and international treaties forbidding this very action. Dumping and subsidies that allow a company to drive competition out of a market by selling goods far below the true cost to produce is a violation of law in most every jurisdiction in the world. While it may seem a boon to consumers in the short term it is devastaing to economies, innovation and reduces consumer choice.

Is she really doing that though? She's talking about margins, not about total cost. I think it's best to wait and see what she's really selling for. I don't think she's going to be selling at ten lindens, but keeping her margins around that. Well... if its margins, she's selling for much more than ten lindens

She's not getting a subsidy, so that's out. Financing from land sales - is she really turning a profit at land sales? The market is in downturn, and I think the future longterm in the rental market for SL is pretty dim, unless you're prepared to transition to being a colocation server farm.

Dumping - well, there's already a ton of people who sell for ten linden. Yadni has been around forever, and there's loads of pretty good stuff there, for free/cheap. I have rugs which are of lovely quality, for ten lindens - and my regular priced stuff is what sells

I think this is just fear of the sky falling, really.

Now this is where there is a little confusion because as you say she talks about margins, however I believe she did list her items in a L$10 section on SLX, which is where people are getting the impression that she wants to sell everything for L$10.

ah, I am going from the quote from Raymond, where the margin is 10-15 lindens. Which implies total cost is much more. Anyway, there's always been tons of free/cheap stuff in the 3d biz, just a quick rundown of the Renderosity freebies section will bring up tons of cool stuff for nothing.

Hasn't broken anyone's biz yet, not even Renderosity's store. Anshe isn't big enough to control the market.

But she sure thinks she is. Control maybe not...do some damage-yes.

I have never met Anshe or had any connections with her in SL or RL. I'd heard of her before I came to SL and had a huge respect for her accomplishments. Then, to learn more I went back and read many ofher posts here in the forums. If anyone wants to question why Anshe is not liked here, it's not jealousy IMO. Just read her posts. She is out of control and has an ego the size of Texas. Maybe I'm wrong but her words sure come across that way and I certainly have no plans to ever do business with her in any fashion.

Therein lies the big question: how much power does she have anymore? There was a time when she owned enough of the grid that when she said jump, LL said "how high?" I'm not sure that is the case any longer. By the end of September there will be over 10,000 islands owned in SL - just island sims. She only owns about 500 of those. How many people on the grid shop at SLX? How many use the classifieds? Just because someone has the financial resources to throw at a large scale business start up is no guarantee they are going to be successful.

Almost makes me wonder if this isn't her getting back at LL for their slash and burn efforts at devaluation of land over the past 5 months. That had to hurt. Maybe she decided that if LL can flood the market and destabilize prices then two can play that game?

/takes off tin foil hat

These are all on my transaction history alot too and also Nicky Ree and Simone and Solange...These are all superb creators and ones that I hope never go away because I would be lost and they deserve all what they get for what they create.

I don't agree with what ACS is doing for the same reason I don't agree with the premise of this thread.

Do you for one minute not think that these types of threads, where the "old school" repeatedly takes to the forums promoting and cheer leading the same long time designers, many simply because they have been long time friends, or because they have benefited from having started and gained a reputation way back when the world had a max "online now" of 2000, does not cause the same type of harm to the newer, and often times. better designers in SL?

I don't disagree that many of the designers mentioned in this thread are good because they most assuredly are. But many have certainly been surpassed in greatness by many of the newer gifted and talented creators to take up residency in SL the recent past. Yet for some reason, perhaps in an effort to belong or appear as if they will be known as a person of taste for continuing to cheerlead the same older designers, many of the regular posters on this forum continue to peddle the same ol' designers over and over again.

As I've already mentioned, I am not saying that these older designers do not deserve praise. Because many do. It is, however, also painfully obvious that many of our regular resident posters do not spend as much time in-world exploring and discovering other designers, as they do on the forums, because if they did they would find that there is a world of new gifted and talented creators in SL who, for whatever reason, are never given credit for their work on these forums. And in many instances, their work is at least on par, if not far superior, to the designers being constantly praised on these forums.

So that the question remains ...

How is the "old school" resident Anshe Chung any different for cheerleading and promoting her own line of creators and designers at the expense of these same ol' "old school" creators constantly praised in these forums, from the "old school" residents of these forums repeated pedling of the same "old school" designers in these forums at the constant expense of the newer talented and less heard of creators of Second Life?

Im not sure shes talking about Margins at all - She has the first of this stuff for sale NOW for 10L

Keep in mind there are no real Margin's in SL - Production costs and materials cost are Zero.

The costs are development cots and store fees. Which Anshe seems to be willing to underwrite.

Amen.

And honestly... I think it doesnt matter. Because most of the people doing buying in SL are using search in SL, and don't frequent forums, and don't really know who the oldtimers are, or aren't. And don't care. They buy what they like, and if they like it, they buy it. and that's it. Be they oldtimers or not.

Doesnt sound like Anshe's effort if sucessful will discriminate between old school designer or new.

not true.

your time costs money.

your computer costs money

your food to fuel you costs money

your electricity powering your computer costs money

your software costs money (provided you didn't steal it)

your internet connection costs money.

your camera to source your textures costs money (or buying hires sources costs money)

...

lots of stuff costs money. Production costs - the time it takes to learn how to use your tools - many people go to college or art school to learn that. Or take classes over the web, etc.

That also costs money, if you get professional training.

Oh, let me be clear. I'm not saying that new content creators aren't able to deliver the quality of existing 'big names'. Far from it. I only meant it's a lot harder nowadays to create a sucessful business as it was, say 2 years ago, because of there is a lot more competition out there.
For those people able to start up a successful business nowadays, i can only take my hat off for them. As they succeeded in an environment a lot more demanding than 'the old people' had to face.

And if SL was just about business, i would have quit 2 years ago Which is why, i don't really worry much about any of this kind of stuff that have people up with pitchforks and torches.
Sometimes it's a good thing to stop looking at the top right of your screen, and focus on what's happening in the center

ALL of these are development costs.

Not Production costs.

Once a product is developed the only "production" costs are maintaining the store.

I agree with this post

Further,

Why would this 10-15L plan affect old Designers more than new?

They are faced with the same concerns.

ah, I see, you call production costs the costs of keeping up your land, putting down the vendor delivery system and running classifieds... which would be the same as your webpage and delivery system on a 2d site. Classifieds are actually marketing, but anyway.

Ok... just a mixup of terms. I think of production and I think of development... for me same thing pretty much.

The point being, how are her efforts any different or less damaging ?

The only difference I can discern is that with ACS' efforts everyone is affected, whereas with the "old school" peddling and cheerleading only the newer designers were affected.

I'm not defending any particular opinion because some may argue that I go back far enough to be part of that "old school."

I am just calling it as I see it.

how is this different from people who sell over the web with any manner of other virtual goods... the internet as a whole is much bigger than SL. Yet net businesses get started all the time, many thrive... despite its huge size.

I don't think its over just because the community got bigger, I think some folks in the forums are just living in the past and not getting out enough... they've lost touch with the community at large. I don't see it as bad to see more people as creators and business people, the more people creating and buying and participating in the economy, the better it gets overall. It's a big world out there.

anyway, event almost over, need to pay more attention to screen again, tata for now!

So, people are comfortable and happy with the designers and shops they've shopped at for awhile which makes it harder for the new kids on the block to get started. SO WHAT? It's always been that way. Sounds like you are trying to change human behavior.

That is vastly different from what Anshe is proposing, which is a concerted effort on her part to control the market the way she believes it should be. Whether or not she'll be successful is debatable, but that kind of ego and behavior says a lot about the individual.

To me Production costs are what it takes to make the product. Development costs are what it costs to get the product ready to be produced.

Now generally you recoup your Development costs in the final Price of the item, Which in SL is hard to do becuase its hard to estimate your furture sales figures.

This is where it looks like the Difference is. Anshe seems to be willing to carry the Development cost, in order to keep prices way down.

Thus the market dump comparisons.

Wow this is taking off. Maybe im a bit ignorant about her plans, but I`m not worried one bit about this. "Going out of business"? sounds extreme.

Mr. Bracken, you are the one feeding that ego and thus empowering her.

Would you or anyone else give me, or you, the same attention if we came out with this plan. I am pretty comfortable you, or they, would not.

So why should she be treated any differently?

Are you afraid of her? Because I certainly am not.

For every action, there is a counter-reaction. And if you are a talented creator/designer/business person, you will adjust and find a way. I am pretty sure that any designer worth their weight is hardly concerned.

You are giving her way too much credit. She is probably laughing her butt off reading this.