Either Philip's account got hacked - or dwell is gone.

What do you mean? Contests?

coco

Hell yeah on both points.

Originally Posted by Jeanette Hailey
Now...I don't know about you guys, but I make that much in sales in about 2 weeks (give or take, I do have bad days). To me, the traffic incentive is pocket change that negates an upload charge or two. Overall it is not going to make or break me. Even considering that some places (the really big ones) have about 10x the traffic we do, it still doesn't cover the operating costs. Trust me, I know what it takes to run a club

Originally posted by Enabran
Brilliant, brilliant post. Couldn't have said it better.

Remember, though, that you're refuting the ravings of people who know as much about business as the Trojan army knew about advanced aerodynamic theory. It's a lost cause -- there will be screechings and ramblings for months. But life will continue as normal and hopefully improve significantly as 9% of the currency pool is shaved off while camping chairs no longer blight the grid.

They're pissed because their cheese has been moved, and that's fine. Just enjoy the good news. Congrats on your solid business, btw!

------

Though I can see a lot of various advantages to getting rid of traffic, it doesn't negate the fact that it skews the society even more toward one for physical content creators mainly.

What you are not taking into consideration is the fact that not every entertainment place is wanting to make items and sell them, or offer spots for other content creators, just in order to provide the entertainment.

Yet they can't very well charge for drinks, can they?

And as I've said before, it is psychologically difficult to charge people for entertainment in a game. In any case, it is a mistake to assume that this is no problem to entertainers because they should all be able and willing to create and sell physical content, such as houses or clothes, or go into the shop rental service, in order to do what they really wanted to do in the first place - provide entertainment.

Cutting traffic doesn't hurt content creators much, if any, since it generally doesn't take long to shop (except for textures), but it is a big hit on the entertainment people, and on those who provide, like someone said earlier, atmospheric public gathering places.

coco

Awesome! Which means you and your ilk have nothing further to bitch about.

Yep it isn't but as much as people whine about it SL competes in the same field as all other forms of online entertainment for your dollar.

It is also worth noting that MMORPGs and SL shares common economic principles such as money sinks, etc to maintain the economy. MMORPGs have their own unofficial currency exchange system weither the company producing the games like it or not. They are both social online games. In the case of SL players can generate content and sell that content between players while in MMORPGs the producer of the game provides content that is carefully metered out sold fellow players.

And as people keep mentioning "SL takes money to run", no duh. I'm quite curious to see what LL's conversion rates are for people converting from basic to premium and generating direct revenue for LL. Inflation in a currency isn't fatal but it is if you are competing against your own playerbase for money because stipends, land costs, etc from the premium account have less value then what can be purchsed from other players. That was a gamble made when they started the currency exchange system. This is a correction.

EDIT: Wanted to add this but then the forums went down, doh. Anyway I'm speculating here, feel free to correct me, I'd honestly love to see any public figures on this.

Lindens... What about all those promisses you made to Sim owners that they would get dwell?

Me and my ilk?

What ilk would that be?

coco

Sssshhhh... don't interfere with their attempt to categorize everyone with a few simple, easy to remember labels.

I dont remember being promised dwell... wtf?

I stay as far away form FFRC as possible, myself. I try to support content my own way...

My friends were...

i avoid the FFRC too, maby when they start working with content providers and just not event hosting ill change that opinion

I run a free social gathering place for people to come and enjoy. We don't have vendors or a a mall, just a nice relaxing beach and house for people to meet friends, kick their feet up, or have a good time.

We rent the land and it costs us about $30 US to keep it running. Thankfully we make about 200-250L a day on traffic, which is just enough to cover the rent.

Taking away traffic payments will cause places like my own, and countless others who exist for non-profit reasons, to close. The ones that don't close will turn into malls. There has to be some other way to stabalize the economy, doing this will hurt SL to great lengths.

umm ok... They must be special, but I have never seen LL promise dwell to anyone ...

I bet they where fic. Magnum allways seemed a bit shady to me.

This is a no-brainer decision.

LL is a company.
L$ have monetary value.
They give away real money every week.

Sorry, but I don't know if that is the basis for a sound business plan.

As for the people upset, I'll let you in on a little secret. The fact that poor people can't afford to buy shit is not new. Poor people are notoriously short on cash. That doesn't mean someone should pay them to play a game.

I welcome the change and I would also pay for quality content. I would sponsor quality content.

The economically clueless.



Labels are easiest when they're true.

Ooh, also! You said a magic word!

Well, I figure it this way. They - the Lindens - want for people who make physical content, like me, to make a steady income from it, rather than losing some of that income to runaway inflation (or just worrisome inflation).

As for those who don't make physical content, I don't think they count much as far as the Lindens are concerned.

coco

heh i hope your customers arnt listening

I mean, naturally, that the Lindens don't count them for much. In fact, I'll go back and edit that to make it crystally clear.

coco

Ok, I used "they" to avoid trying to figure out what gender the poster was. Sorry, I'll resort to the equally ugly he/she/shemale/it next time. *shrug*

In other news I wonder if the constant downtime lately really effects content producers financially these days.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. The L$ by itself has zero value to Linden Lab, so they might be giving us what can be considered real money because another resident will buy it from us, but it's not costing them anything to give it to us and they can't get that real money from it themselves anyway. It only has any kind of value because people are willing to buy it with USD in order to buy stuff in Second Life. Linden Lab takes a cut of that exchange, so in that way you might argue that it does have value for them because higher exchange rates means a better cut, maybe. I'm no expert, but I wonder whether there's an appreciable difference for them in giving us less money that gets exchanged at a higher value or giving us more money that gets exchanged at a lower value.

That being said, I'm cautiously optimistic about the end of Dwell. I can see some unexpected fallout potential, but overall I'm anticipating positives.

However, I'm really not convinced that this is THE END OF CAMPING CHAIRS YAY like a lot of people are. Camping chairs will probably dry up a bit, in locations where they're there only for the traffic (like stores and such, unless the owner doesn't mind subsidizing them for popularity), but the casinos that lure people into camping and gambling with the promise of better camping payout will probably continue on. Only time will tell I guess.

sorry if this has been said already, but I don't have the time to read all the pages...time to go feed my baby.

Am I right in assuming that the money balls, free slots, starter amounts in all the *ingo games, prize money, camping chairs, dance pads, etc. that are offered at events is made through dwell/traffic payments? Is it also correct that a lot of this money used to come from event sponsoring from $L?

Yes the end to camping chairs/dance pads is a good thing. BUT where will event hosts get prize money? without prize money what incentive will people have to go to events? though without dwell/traffic payments what incentive will land owners have to host events, why would someone buy $L just to give it away at an event? Sure it will be great for the "economy" but SL is going to become a very boring place soon with no events.

the idea is to be self sustaining, you use free slots not to increase your dwell payment, but in the hopes that ppl will rember how much fun they had @ casino X and come back for the ppl and the fun...
i know quite a few that have been doing this since before i was around and they just keep getting bigger and more popular

I was wondering when someone would bring this fact up. It seems to me an attempt to drive exchange rates higher by creating more demand thus making them a bit more profits. Good for them, but sucks for those who buy $L via Lindex. I see it merely as another way to further monetize the game for LL's and put more money in their pockets.