:: POLL :: Selling Islands/Accounts on Ebay GOOD OR BAD?

I am betting he walked into the meeting and said, "This holiday season, I have some interesting marketing ideas... Something... Wilder."

I don't see what the big deal is. Let them auction an island off on ebay. Big deal!

If someone wants to pay that much money, then so be it.

It doesn't affect anyone else in game, so why all the bitching and whining?

He's eating popcorn at 4 in the morning?

Yeah, well, you know. Things are always happening on so many different levels.

I guess that's one problem with an open forum, because everyone is coming in on a different level or different perspective. We all start talking past each other and it gets frustrating because we think each other is stupid, when in fact, we just happen to know different things.

For that rate I could probably rent a real private island in the Virgin or Hawii chain.

I'd then claim it as my own country with, like, actual rules and enforcement.

The difference is that for the PE sale, that space port bio dome etc deal had a TON of income making potential, their client side software WORKS, all the time. and people dump tons of moey into PE because its basically Las Vegas in a video game.

who ever bought that bit of virtual PE real estate will likely realise 10 times his investment in the first year or so as other players rent his condos, use his bio domes for hunting (paying hunting taxes) etc
I do not think an SL Island can compete on the same scale as a PE 'island'

hell I just sold off my tier because since the 1.7 update performance has been so bad, caching issues have not been resolved, I keep getting told to file bug reports but I do not think they get read, we get ripply water (which most cant or wont enable) instead of having things fixed so the asset server doesnt lose your inventory and the program caches properly.

Interesting. I wonder if they'll bid out and pay residents the US$ for the development time. That'd be cool. 120 hours at $50 an hour... let's say LL takes $10 off the top... $40 an hour to build in SL? Not bad.

As for others - Wilder Linden is a European Linden, not an alt, who has met with several residents, IIRC... and Linden Lab is a company looking at interesting new ways to develop a revenue stream. A lot of the comments on here sound like sour grapes when they may, in fact, be testing the waters to pass sim-size development along to residents.

But why should I allow these ideas to get in the way of perfectly good paranoia?

Regards,

-Flip

Well said, Flipper.

It seems that the 10,000 USD price is aimed less at your average resident, but at an outside business with no knowledge of SL building etc. looking to get itself a foothold in the SL world.

If an existing RL online store was able to pay to have an island rented, buildings erected to their specifications and a L/USD payment system set up without any technical knowledge of SL needed, it could bring in some much-needed cash for Linden Lab and some variety into the virtual world!

This was my thinking as well. What a good way for an organization who was thinking about a pilot project in virtual worlds to get started. I speak to many organizations who are interested in starting a virtual worlds project but have no idea where to begin.

This is what I thought as well.

I don't really care one way or the other, but whenever this stuff pops up I always have a vague sense that LL is doing something shady. Now, I don't really think so here, but they surely must realize that having confused and upset people with no solid information disseminating this information to the general populace only fuels the feeling that LL is doing something odd.

Additionally, after a number of questions and concerns get posted and the LL forum response is "email me if you have any questions ", I become even more suspicious.

This has been constructed in such a way as to basically lock out any resident run enterprise from offering such a 'hold hands' development service in SL. With a buy now price of $10,000 and a chargeable value of over $13,000 it kind of puts any similar resident run initiative at a considerable disadvantage from the start.

What are other people's thoughts on this 'devaluing' if indeed it is aimed at getting business who want a foot-hold in virtual worlds into SL? Doesn't this automatically stifle the community leveraging itself and attracting such projects?

I've seen on another thread that Wilder has said that LL themselves will not be doing the development, in which case it would further be interesting (in view of my thoughts above) to find out how they do intend to farm this out (ie. through what process - bids, invites etc.) and how much of the $6000 they would be paying to those who did the design and building work. It will be very interesting to see that figure as it will show us how much LL actually value the time and skills they commission from people for projects.

I was wondering the same thing.

Actually I play PE as well and no, a player didn't sell the Island or the Space Station. Both things were created and sold by MindArk, the makers of the game .

Although theres a kind of real estate market between players, most of the estates are sold by the Mindark. The guy who bought the island last year I believe is now in profit and doing well. The US$100,000 purchase of the space station should be interesting to watch as it supposedly has a number of revenue channels including advertising and streaming media that the owner can sell.

A bit skeptical that it can generate the revenue but I shall watch nevertheless

Through eBay? ROFL!

I see, that's the new venue for b2b sales is it? Scammer's Paradise?

*wanders off shaking head sadly*

I stand corrected on the origin of the island in question.

I did try playing PE but the bloody awful movement controls defeated me utterly.

I just asked the seller if he'd accept several nights of passion - even providing my own poseballs. Do you think it will work?

I think that is a company perk already. I am still waiting to hear from them about this mysterious development. I think they are most interested in developig attention from new prospects and not current SL clients.

Congratulations on winning the auction...

I hear the developer in question is Bedazzle or Foxy Xevious.

their only island in fact (the other being PE's original island). But they achieved great publicity: to someone not playing PE, it sounds lots of such islands exist and are routinely sold for big money.

That would be awesome if it turned out that way, and I sincerely hope that they do actually put a good deal or most of the $6000 into the hands of the people who actually develop the build on this island.

Awww!! *HUGS*

Hi Logan -

The winner of the auction will be the one to select who does the in-world consulting and development for the entire $6K.

If the auction has a winner I will make sure the developer community is notified and can express interest in taking the job.

Wilder Linden

You heard wrong. Please have some class and don't spread silly rumors about other people and groups in the forums.

You know it would of been really easy for LL to have nipped all this conjecture in the bud if they'd informed the residents about it at the same time as getting the eBay listing up. I mean, if they're going to offer the development out then it would seem to be in their interests to have informed the community with an announcement of what could be in the pipeline. Instead it took somebody to stumble upon it and all the conjecture to roll on before a Linden actually said anything concrete.

Sometimes I wished LL would get some class.