Almost a month old in SL and i dont "get it"

...ok...maybe the title is a bit misleading and if this post is full of spelling errors it's because its 5:50 in the morning (im in scotland) my hands are freezing cold (the gas guys didnt come and repair the boiler) and i've spent the last 4 hours trying unsuccessfully to go into SL with my temp ISDN connection cause the cable company in their infinite wisdom decided to cut through their own fibre optic lines...but im getting a feww upgrade to 15mb down 2mb up...so i aint complaining...anyway, enough of my incessant obtusivness....

I've been on SL for almost a month, didn't really pay attention to SL over the past 4 years, i thought it was oneof those passing fads that would fizzle up and die, i was happy and content in the ever shrinking world of Star Trek PC games, happy with running my 10 year old website which gets hundreds of thousands of visitors a day.

Then i got i'll.

Won't bore ya with the details of the illness but suffice to say i am now going through chemo (light chemo, its not cancer) so i find myself laying in bed...bored...unable to get up and go to the main PC to play PC games so i thought i'd give SL a try and see what "all the fuss" was about.

Being a Star Trek fan first thing i done was to go to one of the Star trek based sandboxes, a small sandbox with a few Star Trek fans, they made me feel welcome, next thing i done was use paypal go get me some goodies, then i kinda snowballed from there...now i have my own 4000sqm land (skyboxed based) with a home and gardens that amount to just under 1200 prims.

Over the past month iv'e been to a LOT of places. Being a sci-fi geek....i mean...enthusiast the first thing i done was to grab a hold of one of Cheshyrs TARDIS ships (Doctor Who for folks who dont know what a Tardis is) and then grab a StarGate. Both of these items have one GREAT use...randomising portals. Ya look great when ya leave, swishing through a stargate or dematting via a tardis and ya look great when ya land on the new sim, a sim you have NO idea about, cause it...well...random.

I thought to myself "coool, all this land, it must be cheap". Then I started spening more time at a favourite haint of mine (Doctor Who Experience...Katrina) and once i got to know the owner of the sim we started talking about land. When he told me what he was paying for to use almost an entire sim i almost spat my coffee out. After going through land sales in the search and then going deeper into the costs of actually owning a fair size chunk of land larger than an 8000sqm going into the quarter sim, to thrid of a sim, to an entire sim the costs are MASSIVE!. I mean, ya could buy a decent second hand car in RL for the cost of a fairly large chunk of sim.

Over the past week i've been going back to random portals, going to more and more sims to see whats happening...and in about 80% of them, its not much. Basically its only me there, in a dead mall, a dead club, a dead residential area, a dead sandbox and it's not as if im there at the "wrong time for peak" since i work for a well known search engine company from hom i basically live on US CST so when im on SL its usually at "peak times"...yet most of the sims i come across are dead. And it isnt as if its a "one off thing" either. Nassau Shores is the region my house is in, a new club is opening up soon and when i look at the world view everyday to see the green dots theres always a few on nassau and the neighbouring sim, but the other sims in the general region? Dead...always...dead. No green dots, nothing, every single day.

The cost of leasing, cause lets face it folks you didnt buy it, your leasing the sim from SL itself, is HUGE...and most of the time when i hit one of these big sims, there is noone there, its a ghost town.

THATS what i dont get...what entices people to lay out over half a grand (500+ $) of real money to buy a chunk of a sim or even more cash when buying a full sim when having no guaruntee that the sim will be successful? In some cases im guessing those sims are as close to a 100% loss for the land leaser. Some other sims ive come across which have busy malls or busy telehubs or busy clubs may get some of their money back to cover teir costs and all that but they are still running at a loss.

Whats the big picture here? Is there something im missing? Is there a mystical Linden Fairy that runs around dropping sploders with 1 million lindens and it only gives the cash to the land owner?

I can't speak for sim owners, I'm happy with my 4000m. But I have some guesses. For some it is an expensive hobby. For some, I think, because it is perceived as a "game", they skip the things that make for a business success: hard work, skill, marketing, targeting a niche market, doing research, in short, providing something that residents actually want.

At least you have heat when you enter sl. Weather is fine here.

I don't know how much I've spent in SL in the 15 months I've been here, but I would guess it's £7-800 and it could be more. In that entire time, apart from my stipend and the odd sploder win all I've got back is L$1000 for the one thing I made and sold. Most of the money I've put into the game is gone, I rent so I can't even recover any of the costs of my land. And I just don't care.

I could have spent that money on other things, but frankly, they would have been equally unnecessary. I could have bought books or CDs or games or gone down the pub and drunk it all. It's my fun money, not the cash I need for bills or rent, and over time the way I spend that money changes. Maybe next year I'll do something completely different with it. But for now, the reason I pour money into SL is that it's fun, and more fun than the things I would otherwise do.

If I had the money I'd buy a sim tomorrow, or maybe a couple of sims, and it would be a success, because success in SL for me is not about money, it's about entertainment, and I can't think of anything I'd rather do for fun at the moment than have a sim or two to play with, to build on, to turn into my own little world. I'd love to do it, but the only way to pay for a sim right now would be credit, and then I'd have to make it pay and it wouldn't be fun anymore.

I think a lot of people get the impression that because it's possible to make money in SL, that's what you should try to do. Some people can do that and have fun doing it. But for me the beauty of SL is that it is what you want it to be, what you make it, and having fun is just as much a success as making money. It all depends on what you want from it.

Some sim owners can afford to not worry if their sim(s) aren't making a profit. It doesn't really matter to them. They just care about the experience visitors will have.

Other sim owners simply won't spend any effort or money to promote the sim or businesses, much less make the area appealing.

And some sims are group owned, whether it's Gorean, RP, Vampire, Goth, Medieval or riding unicycles. They may have a public/safe areas or not. There are a number you can't tp into unless you belong to that group.

I rather like exploring the unpopulated sims myself. I don't have to worry about someone crash landing on me if they lose their flight feather. Or having someone with poor flying skills smacking into walls or me.

Personally, I'd prefer an empty sim to look around in than a crowded one with huge lag. Then there are sims with big time lag issues that are often empty. There is a clothing store I've stopped going to because you can barely move when you're there at that sim. Since she's never moved her store anywhere else, I have to assume she owns the sim. Bad lag makes for empty sims too.

And let's us not forget that sims can crash, I've been in one when that happened. I unfortunately was also in one when it was griefed. Talk about a sim emptying out in record time!

All this comes down to for me is this, there are many possible reasons why sims are empty looking. It doesn't lessen my enjoyment of exploring at all. And maybe everyone is off to the great dance at the neighboring sim!

As another cancer survivor, I wish you well in your treatment. Just remember that I and many others will be cheering you on. Did you know there is a SL Cancer Survivors group? We have Survivors chat every Thursday at 4pm SLT and Sunday at Noon at the ACS Island sim, in the Hope Haven room. There is also a SL Caregivers group too with their own chats. ACS Island is a serene and quiet place to come, please feel free to visit.

You are right, you do not get it.

There is a big picture, it is all around you when you login, but you do not get it.

And as far as the 'business' aspect goes - SL reflects RL in that there are many places running in the red, but then there are a lot of places running in the black.

It is about entertainment, finding something or someone or some people in SL that you connect with, building, exploring, using your imagination, scripting, content creating for fun or profit, these are all things you can do in Second Life, and more.

It is Your World, Your Imagination. What is it worth to you?

Everything in life has a price, even in Second Life.

What price are you willing to pay is the question.

I spent my first 3 months in SL in the Linden sandboxes. Quite a range of different people there, it has its own culture, and free building. This experience was endlessly valuable for me. You don't need to own one bit of land to have fun in SL.

Right now, it seems that you are having a hard time find people and groups. The social part of SL has a steep learning curve and is one of my major gripes. However, as you meet new people your social network will expand out, and you will know of many places to go and people to meet.

The point of SL is rather simple: it is what you make it, much like life. You can spend you time building (and collaborating with others to build, which is very rewarding), RPing, simply chatting, exploring, partaking in or forming communities, discovering the music/club scene (and there are very good venues with live music and professional DJ's), and yes, even starting your own business.

I know how you feel. SL does take a while to "get," but once you begin to learn more about all of its complexities, it is incredibly rewarding. There is no other experience like it on the planet.

For some I suspect, it's a matter of creating something then not wanting to delete all our work & creation

I've pondered this for a while too. All these places and they're completely empty whenever I'm online. Why are people paying huge sums of money for land they never use?

My theories are

1) It's like gym membership. People buy land, stick down a house of a club and then totally forget about SL. They don't read their bank statements so they forget they're paying monthly fees. I know many plots that haven't changed or had traffic in over a year!

2) People stop paying their land fees but LL don't retake ownership of the land and resell it very quickly, if at all. The owner can't log in but the land still looks to be owned by them.

3) Oh look, another person has built another generic club/mall/hangout and it's empty because there's nothing special about it. It'll be there a month and then close. Only to be replaced by someone else trying the same thing. The land is turning over but still looks empty all the time.

4) There are people out there for whom hundreds of pounds a month isn't a lot of money to them. They're happy to own lots of land here just for the rare occasion when they log in.

They're my theories...anyone got any more?

At the moment, Second life looks like one big shopping centre....over saturated imo.
When i first joined SL, I spent the first 3 months exploring one sim after another.....i hope to get back to that sooner or later as there are many beautiful sims to visit.

We do it for love. Sometimes, our love does not return (in the form of the items the asset server ate for lunch). Sometimes, it won't return our calls (and leaves us waiting for the region handshake). Sometimes it is moody and throws things (it's Time Dilation, for example). It has a siren Voice and wear new Windlit clothes ... alluring us ... follow me, want me, love me ...

It'a all about immersion and making "solid" what exists hitherto only in the mind ...

Most of all it's about expression of what you consider worthwhile. For some that's endless Goatse and flying willies (though these people should heed very well that the real source of such consider you scum, not renegades, because you are playing Second Life you see).

Hope you get well soon. I'd recommend seeing a bit more of SL personally!

Hi Victor,

Sorry to hear about your illness, but always nice to hear from a fellow Scot. Unfortunately though I'm in England now for my sins..

As far as SL is concerned and what motivates people to spend RL money here, well to be honest you're not missing much and there's no real big picture.

Please note that this is just my opinion.. and I fully expect a blizzard of disagreement..

For the most part it's a hobby pure and simple. Think of someone who's obsessed with fishing, or train sets, or even travel and the amount of money a month they will plough into their hobby and that's pretty much where SL is.

To put it into context I own a wee RL software company and much like you popped into SL to see what all the fuss is about.

Despite all the people who say they make RL money in SL and that it's a "real" business environment... it really isn't. I don't deny that you can make cash in SL but compared with similar RL entrepreneurial activity (financial/creative/time investment) the ROI is extremely poor.

There is also the creative side of things, the building, designing and scripting that goes on. When you walk around there are some truly clever things to see and experience, again though I don't see that it actually counts for much.

Don't get me wrong.. the entry barriers in terms of training and acquiring a skill are less than RL, but the limitations far outweigh that. As an example.. what does it take to be an "architect" in SL or RL.. and what in the end can you create..?

As a more realistic example, I'm a RL programmer and I employ RL programmers. We've all been in and taken a look around SL and looked at the scripting language. every person has come out with the same conclusion.. why would you..? What would be the incentive to spend time and energy in SL scripting, when in RL you could create a "real" application/solution/web site that might actually do something in RL.

There are also the social and demographic factors which might motivate people to "live" in SL. You will meet a lot of people who are disenfranchised in RL for whatever reason.. or simply discontented. They come to SL to be who they can't be in RL.. which is obviously a much more complex situation than those for whom it's just a hobby.

This sounds like I'm not an SL fan. I am actually, it's fun and for many people it's more than fun... but rationalising it is a very hard thing to do.

Why do I stay? In my experience SL offers me the chance to meet and make friends with a huge and eclectic mix of people I'd never meet in RL.

What he said ^^^^^

I agree with Stephen.


Let me add something else.

I enjoy snowboarding. i don't get out as much as I used to due to RL obligations, but I still do it. And when I do, I see hundredss of people doing it also.

The tickets to ride the lift cost around $50-60 US for the day...thats $60 for "maybe" 6-7 hours of riding.
Which is the equivalent of about 16,000 lindens.

So why do I do it? Because its fun, and I like it. At the end of the day, i have nothing to show for my day of snowboarding (if I'm lucky anyways...hehe....I'm the maniac that goes off into the woods and I sometimes bounce off of trees...but thats another story)

My point is, people buy land and spend money in SL because thats what they like to do....just like any other hobby.

Some start businesses and do well because they found something in SL that they do well...or unique...and it s profitable. More power to them.

I for one, treat SL as an environment to enjoy....explore, meet, relish the sheer uniqueness and beauty of it. Some parts are much more beautiful then others...but you get my point. It is all created by individual people...with their individual perceptions.

I have enough land that tier is a comfortable cost that I can justify each month...and I'm happy with that.

If you trully want to "get" SL you have to either go buy an escort, or visit a popular strip club like the Crimson Gild Club for awhile. You have not trully played SL until you have done one of these things.

I have not truly played SL and by the sounds of it I never will. Sounds terribly TAME compared to my experience

QFT.

In one of the news pieces about SL, the reporter described us as one big Florida strip mall. Another writer (Prok, I think) put it more charitably when he called us "a nation of merchants".

There ARE lots of places in SL that aren't stores. But there are a lot more stores. Everyone is selling something, and a lot of it looks the same.

The reason for this is simple: People like SL, like to create. But there is, as the OP notes, a cost. A lot of people want to try to offset that cost, or maybe even make a little profit, by selling what they create. In fact, one could say that, just as in RL, coming out ahead IS the game, the whole point of this mad place.

The boring sameness comes about because many people aren't all that creative, but still would like to make a profit. They are the BIAB crowd, the resellers of others' creations. They come and go. The people who "win" SL, in this economic sense, are the ones who come up with original things...original and intriguing themes for sims, new and original hair and clothing designs, better animations, cool scripts.

The other way to "win" SL is to use it to have fun. To socialize, make friends, interact with people. The people who are playing the game this way are the customers of the first crowd.

Either approach to SL is fine. Some do both. And THAT'S the beauty of the place...it's unstructured. You can make of your Second Life what you will. "Your World, Your Imagination". Just like...well, just like life.

I bet you have some sexual related items however.

Well Victor, it's like smoking....ya just burn one down and move on to the next. LOL

No....really...it IS a hobby....anyone who is taking SL so seriously that they think they 'should' get a return on their SL investment...needs to go outside and breath some real air and maybe look a real human being in the eye from time to time.

I own land.....3 plots that amount to 12276 meters and I pay roughly $80 USD a month for the ability to 'goof off' in cyber land and exercise some of my creativity as it were. I enjoy it...and I have indeed met cool people along the way....but I don't sit around and gripe about how buggy SL is or how I'm putting all this $$$ into it and it's crashing on me....cause ya know what....It was my choice to throw money at it to begn with.

"Keep it in perspective" that's my motto. Most of the time I have no serious issues. I have a mega hard drive, lots of memory and speedy internet with a great graphics card....so I'm pretty content. As for finding people.....try searching 'events' since a lot of places hold scheduled events or live performances....you'll run in to people, trust me. My favorite sim is almost always full of folks sitting arounf the camp fire listening to ghost stories (October Country) and I know of a Blues club that is always packed (tho the owner sort of showed his true colors to me and I haven't been back cause I think he's a turd lol)

Anyway...I'm in for the exploration....perhaps one of those Dr. Who watchmacallits is what I need! (I love the new re-make of that show, but the original is of course classic!) and I'm always finding cool sims to explore.... for me it's not the social aspect...it's the fascination with the builds....entire sims....landscapes... real life recreations.... it just amazes the hell out of me what people produce with a few prims and some good texturing. *grin* And windlight is just beautiful too.

QFT

However, people LIKE boring sameness. I've made three places now, each of which was wow and coo and ... not used, unless I also as well as spending the dosh to buy the land, my time to make the place, went ahead and spent to promote. That's all very well when you are looking for profit not fun, but gets wearing when it's nothing but a money drain.

Meanwhile, people were hanging around in the same grotty places - it wasn't about personality or choice, just they knew people would be there because people were there.

I've given up now. I enjoyed making the venues and learned a lot by doing so. Making them helped me meet a bunch of very creative people and gave me the chance to get involved in some very cool stuff indeed.

I used to long to live on a beach - now half of SL is beach beach beach and it's all seeming very pedestrian compared to how it was, before so many islands were bought, i.e. no longer the exclusive and luxury that it was.

I look at it this way. I dump about $60/month into SL, including the tier fees I have to pay for my lot, which I will have the ability to resell. That's the price of a dinner out. For this I get about two hours a day of recreation from the privacy of my own RL home. I'm a parent, I can't be going out and about all the time. But I can enjoy this for what it is. Good company and good times.

I don't think you understood her comment.

Wow! You have been really active on SL - all that in just one month?

It took me about a month before I understood how lovely SL could be! And I still get amazed every now and then.

Don't give up. Make friends and enjoy socializing in another way, where nothing is impossible. Almost.

LOL - on that definition I haven't played SL either. I wonder what I have been doing for nearly 18 months now!

Seriously - I think there are those who do not "get" SL. I've had people ask "how do I play" - and I don't mean just jump on a pose ball context. Some people just like to be given clear game objectives and don't know what to do if they are not given any.

@Victor - wish you better and hope the heating gets fixed ok.

My first alt I created in 2003 because I heard we can create stuff here but I was clueless and distracted, dealing with physical illness issues myself and just to tired for numerous years until I made this account.
I am still clueless, but I can create now, I have few friends.
Land for me is a canvas and I wish I could afford bigger and bigger canvas but sadly I cannot.

BUT, i do know quite a few who own sims and who are making money off them. In fact who are earning their full time wage and no longer go to wor in RL any more.
I have also spent quite a bit of money in SL, but equally i have mnade some that has paid for my in-world shopping sprees etc. Ive made a good bit buying an selling land (i used to be a major land hog) and I have a store and am about to learn to build some more stuff. But I will never make what it takes to supplement RL nor would i want to really. I have a new venture, with my SL husband. if we can cover the tier on the land we bought to house the venture then happy days. For many though, the friendships they make and the fun outweighs the financial implications