Theory of Community Burnout

Oh, I agree that I look like a dick (to put a -- chortle -- finer point on it). I'm just worn out with this particular person. I don't know how much more of the same thing can be said. Yumi won't be convinced, no matter how emphatic the encouragement is. The cause is lost, I think, so I'm not taking any energy to be kind and avuncular about it. What's the point?

This isn't a private conversation. Others are reading. You know, the majority I wrote about it my first post? Most people don't want to hang out with, listen to, or agree with a dick (or a bitch). Taking away from your intelligence with your presentation is as counterproductive as not marketing a skill or talent. How did you get that job you worked so hard for? I'm sure you didn't show up looking like a loser even though all that matters is what's inside your head, not the clothes you wear. Isn't that right? The whole package counts, Enabran.

Yep.

When you're right, you're right. Fair enough.

There is never any saturation for stuff. Markets do get glutted, but there is never saturation in terms of "everyone already has one." Of course everyone already has one! Now they want a better one, or a different one, or one in another color!

It has been said that there are only 7 stories to be told in the world. (Or something like that.) Yet there are never enough movies, enough books, enough TV shows, or enough games, to the point where we might as well stop making them.

And there is never such a quintessential movie that people get discouraged and stop making more movies.

Here's how I figure it works, Yumi:

You just start. You start with what appeals to you - whatever that is. Anything. You start it. You make it. You finish it. You put it somewhere. Ta da. Move on to next thing.

It is my belief that art contains its own direction, and has its own life, as it were. You whittle at the block of wood until the sculpture that was always in it straining to get out finally gets out.

In other words, if I am building a house, that house is going to have its own requirements and demands, that emanate from its own personality, a personality which grows with each prim, and its demands grow as it (not you) knows more what it wants to be.

It is my job to listen to those requirements and hear them, and give the piece what it demands. You have to let the creations be what they want to be, and sometimes it is hard to listen and find out what that is.

Kind of like trying to figure out what a cat is trying to tell you, lol.

That's one reason why it is a mistake to try to plot everything ahead of time, either in a work of art's final form, or in what will happen after you make it. Or in trying to figure out all the things that might go wrong with your creation or your business.

Because you actually have NO IDEA how others are going to respond to your piece. You have no idea what they are going to say to you that leads you to your next piece, or even to a business deal. You have no idea what ideas others are going to spark in you, or what ideas the piece will spark in you. Or how one piece, or portion of a piece, will lead to another. You have no way of knowing when you take your first step what your eleventh step will be.

It is only at the end of the day, when you look back on your business, your career, and your art - that you can explain how and why you made what you did when you did. And if you don't explain it, a biographer might come along and do it for you.

But the biographer doesn't know how your story is going to turn out, either, until it already has.

So just do that first thing that takes your fancy, whether its building an item, starting a service, or whatever else you think you might like. All else follows from that. To stand at the start line and worry yourself to death about what obstacles will come up, or what mistakes you might make, or whether anyone will ever buy it or care, etc., is to paralyze yourself.

There is always room for more talent and more visions and more varieties of the same essential seven stories, both in game and irl. That means there is always room for you, and whatever talent you possess - and everybody possesses talent, of their own unique variety.

Don't look at the others and get discouraged. There will always be others; use them for inspiration rather than discouragement.

When I was young and first got to NYC I thought, "Wow, I'm at the top now!" That's when I discovered there IS no top - there is ALWAYS someone better than you, more this and more that and more the other than you. But - that's okay, because there is also no other YOU. And there is always room for more talent, and talent's infinite variety of manifestations, comprised of the best of all our unique talents, is a good thing, not a bad one.

coco

A side comment that some may find... amusing.


Within 90 days, I accidentally created an SL business that generates more income than the average man in China. How much more, I decline to say.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html


I spent far more effort creating a level 58 Silver Ranger Light Elf in Lineage2.

Beautiful post, Coco.

You want to earn money, Yumi? You want to be successful? There are many people out there who would LOVE to have a private scripting tutor, and would gladly pay for regular lessons. I'm one of them and I know several others. Open your very own scripting school. There is a NEED for one.

I'm not talking about a scripting "event". Those kinds of classes either are unattended, or attended by people who want to show of their work while the poor teacher is trying to go through the basics.

OR make scripted objects that are easy to use for DUMB PEOPLE LIKE ME. In 1.5 years of my SL life I have found ONE scripted object that I can actually use. Yes, I'm dumb. I'm terribly mentally challenged when it comes to scripting. I want to learn, but haven't found someone willing to teach me on a regular basis; first the basics, give me homework, then teach another concept, give homework.....I'm serious, you can make a career out of it .

No, I'm not trying to learn to script so I can make items to sell. I am trying to learn how to script so I can USE the items I bought! I want to learn this, and I'm willing to pay for it!

(Anyone out there willing to teach an old dog some new tricks????).

I have to ditto ravi's post.

I would pay good $L for some REAL scripting classes. I mean from step one. I've been to a few that were supposed to be "beginner scripting classes" and they seem to actually be closer to intermediate, as the instructors usually assume some level of abilty on the part of the students.

Now, back to the topic of the thread - I used to search for reasons for my shortcomings in life quote a lot. I got pretty good at it, and I think that through convincing myself, I was then able to convince others (because I seemed so sure of what I was saying) that I was somehow depraved because "it's all been done". Thing is, after a while, people listened to me less, and believed me less. It took some tough love from friends and family to finally get me to snap out of it and for me to accept that I control my destiny, and not anybody else, what they've done, what they are doing, or what they might do.

SL is, in some respects, a mirror of RL. If everyone bought into the "it's all been done, therefore I am doomed to fail, and anyone else in my generation is too" theory, the human race would have failed long ago.

How many improvements have there been in history on simple, everyday items? Millions.

How many new inventions are there every year? Millions.

One might say, "But, it's different in SL.", and they would be right. We can just make stuff out of thin air. We don't have to buy cloth, metals and plastics, etc., to make our things, we don't have to hire contract manufacturers. It's easier in here to be successful.

It would be MUCH tougher, in RL, to set myself up making a line of clothing (albeit small) or a land business, like I have in SL. It is much tougher in RL to get started in business, so I praise SL, not condemn is as doomed to failure, and an inhospitable to newcomers meat grinder.

Perspective is everything.

I've come to a realisation about something.



Clearly, we often disagree with this or that other person in forums about something - but I wonder how we sound.

Yeah, I'm all for people getting ahead through skills, effort and all that.

But I'm a bit surprised at the tone of discussion on what is ultimately a difference in philosophy.

Yumi thinks differently than many of us do - does it matter to the point of making a fuss? I think - not really.

Is this how forum drama begins?

I guess it goes back to perspective.

Yumi has been putting forth this notion for months, and has gone to great lengths to convince us, even representing her opinions as absolutes, after a relatively short time in SL.

Who is making the fuss? Depends on perspective.


How many lights do you see?

Many thanks for everyone's replies (there's so many different things going on in this thread now it's difficult for me to marshal a response)

First of all, I didn't really want to wind up having a conversation about my personal situation. I do believe that community burnout or exhaustion of opportunity is a problem in SL: it might not be as bad a problem right now as I believe it is, true, but I think arguing that there will always be open opportunities in SL forevermore is not quite reasonable either. Amongst other things, it would mean that it would be impossible for anyone to ever create an item good enough to permanently win a market, which is a pretty heavy restriction on them.

Secondly, the "enjoy the journey, not the reward" argument. It's very commonly said but I think things aren't quite as cut-and-tried as that - if it was, people who enjoy making their items would give them away. If you make money in SL, then you can use the money to add extra ways by which you can enjoy yourself. The more money you make, the better value SL becomes, in terms of being able to create and do more stuff in-game for less real-world money outlay. So even if you're just enjoying the journey, it's a lot more enjoyable if you can earn your gas money along the way instead of knowing that you're paying for every mile. Several times I've asked someone who owns an island if they would enjoy SL just as much if they didn't own one. Without exception they all answered yes, but then when I asked why they were paying US$195 a month for nothing (since that would mean the island wasn't adding anything to their enjoyment) they quickly corrected themselves.

"Everyone starts with one item" - yes, current winners may have started with one item, but they did that ages ago and have multiple items right now, which is what a newcomer's got to compete against.

"Scripting is a highly saught-after talent" - it can be. The problem is.. well, it comes down to that whole "enjoying the journey" line again and the halfway point. It's not a very enjoyable "journey" to have to spend SL time writing programs according to other people's orders. And then someone will pull the "enjoying the journey" argument again and say "well, if you want to enjoy it don't expect a reward" when again, it's not like that; it's fuzzy between the two. However, ugly items, even sophisticated ones, typically don't sell, and builders know that when setting their prices or their willingness to cooperate. I've seen several people say "I try to be fair to my scripters.." ... well, how generous of you! It might seem nice, but when was the last time you spoke of "being fair to your artists?"

Want a living example? Who made the siegeBot? Easy answer. But, how many names are you thinking of? One or two? If the answer's "one" then.. well, Enabran didn't write the script, and the siegeBot wouldn't be too interesting without the script, but you've still just thought of one name when asked who made it. Yes, the scripter's credited in the notecard that comes with it, but it apparantly hasn't had much effect, since you still thought of just one name. I'm still going to do a few more custom scripts, if only to pass the Elite hazing and get a funky chair, but that's something I want to get out of rather than deeper into.

And as for scripting classes, I've actually run a couple of them, but didn't get the impression that many people would actually be prepared to pay for them, nor for tuition (since most classes are free - and to be frank, just join the Scripters group and there are loads of people there who're very happy to help, I know since they've helped me enough times!). Still think it'd be nice to have an Ivory Tower (or maybe a Dark Tower? ) of Script somewhere.

Hi Yumi Chan,

Play SL to get away from my RL problems. Not really creative and money not a problem for me. In RL am an Accountant which is BORING beyond all knowing. Residents would commit sucide to get away from my RL babble. Which will spare the gentle readers.

Think SL will not "burnout" but change with time and new residents. The technology will continue to improve and allow real interaction between alvatars and perhaps people as well. At this time cybersex is BORING beyond words though not quite as bad as my rl work. Cyber clubs have too much LAG and in some ways like their rl counterpart except that their is no physical danger.

I like to fly around on my Tarn "Umi Chan" and meet new and different people from around the world. Oh am not a Gor person. Gor people who try to "collar" me will be sliced in two by my sword.

Hope you find your way in RL and SL, have a Very Happy New Year!

Ditto, I loved that post, Cocoanut - I could not have said it better myself.

There WILL always be open opportunities in SL forevermore, just as there will always be open opportunities irl forever more, and for all the same reasons - attrition, new fads, etc. The real world always needs artists, craftsmen, mathemeticians, entertainers, etc. - and always will. And so will SL.

I think you are comparing SL now with SL at its birth, which is kind of like comparing what we have irl now with what we have irl in 1682 or something. Or say 1956 - and half of those people are still alive.

In the real world, technology, art - everything - changes over the ages, such that we are not working with the same tools and knowledge as we did a millenea ago. But that doesn't mean no one who wasn't in there for the whole development can ever do anything.

That's kind of like saying, "Well, everything has already been invented that can be invented, and every style and design has already been done to everyone's complete satiation." Not true.

Or, it might be like saying, "Well, medicine is so complicated now compared to what it was in 1682, I could never learn it, and besides, all the best physicians are so old and already have established practices."

Give me an example of something in SL that could be done in the beginning that can't be done now.


"Permanently win the market" - this changes the entire discussion we are having:

. First off, the goodness or lack of goodness of an item does not correlate directly with whether or not it "wins the market." Marketing of the item, fame and reputation of the owner are but two factors that affect that a lot. Demand is another factor that can't ever be predicted.

. The term "good enough" is so subjective as not to correlate with "winning the market" either. There is a matter of taste. What is "good enough" or even "fabulous" for, say Jauani, may be completely undesirable to many players, while what he considers "substandard," "mediocre," or "worthless" may in fact delight many buyers. (Thank God.)

. Nobody EVER "permanently wins" any market. It may seem as if they do. In other words, yes, they may maintain a large market share for a very, very long time - maybe the life of the game. But they have not "won" the market in the sense that there can be no other winners. There are numerous "winners" of any given market. Moreover, exactly what market share each holds in SL cannot even be known to us! Unlike the rw, where we know that the market leaders are Coke and Pepsi, with a number of other "winners" in the same soft drink market, we can't even be sure who the Coke and Pepsi are here.

. There is zero heavy restriction on anyone. You might as well take the same outlook toward the real world: With Angelina Jolie around, why even try being an actress? Well, because . . . Angelina Jolie doesn't suit all tastes, doesn't sell all tickets, and will not be around forever.

. If, on the other hand, your goal is to BE Angelie Jolie, then you might as well forget it. You might as well decide that she has "won the market" (cause she has, of being Angelina) and not even try.

This would be in reference to my post, I guess. It's just true - everyone does start with one item. NOT everyone did it ages ago. Yes, the longer you are around, the more items you will have. But everyone began as a newcomer, competing against these items, unless you count only those very beginning beta players.

In essence, you are saying - if we can't go back to beta RIGHT NOW - it's hopeless and unfair to everyone else. That just isn't the way it is. For just one reason, half those beta players you would have been competing against then are GONE now.

-------

If you don't want to be a scripter, don't be. I intended to be an entertainer. I looked around at what would actually be profitable, and picked out content creating. Within that, I naturally gravitated toward houses, furniture, and accessories. I decided I didn't want to create content only so I could eventually afford to be an entertainer. I kind of am more single-minded than that. So I got into building, learned it, and have been happy ever since, PLUS made the people who buy my items happy.

Making money from items - good, yes. Creating them - good, of course. Making your customers (or audience, in the case of an entertainer) happy and satisfied - priceless.

As a writer or dancer, the concept of "audience of one" has always been my philosophy. After all, you do only speak to one mind at a time, dance to one person at a time - therefore no need to have stage fright. It's ALWAYS an audience of one. Of many ones. So what you are creating to win is that ONE person. Make that one person happy. That is a more important win than "winning the market." If you thrill one person, you have already won.

Naturally, we want to thrill more than one, we want to be TERRIFIC. But you can't be terrific, I believe, unless you are always serving that market of one, always speaking to that audience of one, whoever it may be. Make that one happy, and you are well on your way.

If you don't want to be a scripter AND there is absolutely nothing else that appeals to you, then, well . . . there is nothing for you to do here.

If your goal is simply and only to "win the market," then that is a very different game, and one which is virtually unwinnable except by fluke, and then only temporarily, regardless of how long "temporary" may be. A lasting career and successful career, though - that, anyone can have, both in SL and irl.

-----

I don't believe community burnout or exhaustion of opportunity in SL is any sort of a problem at all, precisely because so many new players are coming in. If there were nobody here but content creators (and that could one day happen), and we got sick of selling to each other, then that might be a problem. Otherwise, most burnout is individual, and any exhaustion of opportunity is primarily in the jaded eye of the beholder rather than in reality.

Yumi, I have faith in you that you WILL succeed at what you finally choose to do. You have that drive and motivation, and will probably bury me and half the rest of us, lol.

coco

P.S. Ty, Chip and Cristiano!

Some of those things, yes. Others, no. The real world always needs craftsmen because it doesn't have infinite reproduction of everything and as such needs people to carry that forward. But I'm sure you know that creative types, in the real world, get a much worse deal now that they used to and that is only likely to get worse over time because there's already enough music/books/films/etc in the world for everyone to read/see a different one every day of their lives. Changes of fashion can easily be blocked by preventing the new fashions ever becoming visible.



It's not obviously false. But even if it is false, inventions are getting harder and harder to get to market, even if they are promising. The bandwidth of the market and customer's willingness to shop around are limited, and real world companies are already realising they don't need to sell new inventions because they can just buy up all the retail sites and billboards and make them invisible. You can name any number of inventions that never made it to stores because the companies basically said to the inventor "give it to us for free, or if you don't we won't sell it and we know there's no way you'll ever sell it otherwise".



Making a site that collects pictures from SL, or a mobile phone network. Ok, you can do these, but chances are that nobody would, because the level of enjoyment delivered by needing to compete with the existing megasupplier would be to low for anyone to do it except as a drudge. So if you're playing SL for the journey, then no, you can't do either of these.



Sure. But equally, we can't assume that there will never be a Coke or Pepsi on SL. And moreover, since this is all being done for "enjoyment" after all, it's going to be a lot less enjoyable to get into a soft drink market when there's a Coke or Pepsi even if you do have some small chance of establishing a foothold.



Not quite. Not every single theme that exists in SL has always existed, and when a new theme starts up, the market for items that fit with it is a lot more open - that's what I was talking about with "get in at the start of new communities". It does apply to SL as a whole, but to a lesser degree because there's so much variance.



I don't really like the implication that, if I don't want to write scripts to custom order for people, then I don't want to be a scripter. You would not say that someone wasn't a builder because they wanted to build their own things, rather than taking custom orders from people for things to build. Which is just another example of how scripters are misrepresented.



Adding new players doesn't necessarily create new opportunities - all those new players might have all their demand already satisfied by objects that already exist. And the nature of SL is such that they tend to get funneled towards the existing leaders, simply because they want to start doing they stuff they want to do right now and those leaders are the most apparant source of means by which they can do that. And, as I say, the scripting aspect does affect this: there's easily over 100 different dresses in SL but I don't think you'll find a scripted item that has 100 different variants available - there's a reason why not!

So... make something noone else has... if theres such a shortage of ideas - why do I have 2 100 page notebooks full of things I probably won't ever get around to doing?

Good old Albert said : Imagination is more important than knowledge.

I think I agree with that.

Theres no shortage of things that haven't been done - I guess it just takes a lil imagination, creativity, and an unwillingness to write things off as 'impossible' until you've tried.

As to the theory in general... hmmm. I'd have to say 'bollocks'.

What I find fascinating is how the original question, which was about community burnout, turned into a debate about invention, scripting and personal posting styles.

Are SL efforts to create communities ... in which multiple people work together for some common interest or objective ... doomed by the individual eagerness to "create" and "invent"? and of some's desire/need/goal to make it pay?

And what does the absence of discussion of community in a thread about it say about our ability to listen and respond, instead of to lecture and debate?

Well, I was busy having a nice intellectual conversation, is what I was doing. And if I ever get my brain together enough to digest what Yumi has said in the post above, I'll be back into it.

I work with communities, until they die of apathy or drama, but my individual eagerness to create and invent and my own desires/needs/goals never die and don't need anyone else's cooperation to get anywhere.

coco

(nod) But that was the original point: that when a community is essentially compete, and/or things have gotten to the point through incremental work over time that they're too sophisticated for people to enjoy rebuilding from scratch, is it doomed to fall apart because each of the individuals in the community no longer has a fun creative outlet within it?

Do you seriously think that SL is complete? Has the current set of content creators already created everything that is worthwhile? Are we at the point, where the only thing left, is for new content creators to reverse engineer what has already been created?

You have pressed this issue across multiple threads - what is your solution to it?

Well, they can't enjoy rebuilding from scratch. That train done left. But that doesn't mean all the fun and opportunity is over, and certainly not that the community/world is no longer full of fun and creative outlets. (I'll be getting around to commenting on your last post, too, as soon as I get my mind together. Which could be tomorrow at this rate, lol.)

coco

No, I don't think SL as a whole is complete. But I think that certain communities/themes within it are complete, and that the nature of these will change substantially as a result.

Sorry - that indicates that you've misunderstood what I was saying. If there's an existing product of a particular type, then in order to make a competitor to it, someone would have to improve it - and the first step in that will be to rebuild the existing product from scratch (or from whatever parts they can get that are freely available and freely resellable). They can rebuild areas from scratch as well, of course, since they can grab themselves some land and build a new area that's based on an existing one. The problem is that many of these areas/products have developed incrementally over a long period of time as a result of incremental community interaction, and that's a far more "enjoyable journey" for their creator that what their competitor faces, which is having to race development up to meet the standard of the existing items before getting any response or participation at all.

OK, now back to this.

Yes, the main thing I was thinking of, not only when I read this, but when I read your earlier posts, is how the whole real world is this way, too. I used to wish I was a writer a couple of hundred years ago, when there were fewer writers, fewer educated people, and fewer PEOPLE. In a small world, it was easier to make a splash, and to get known.

However, the real world exponentially grew. Now we have lots of writers, and lots of educated people.

But we also have lots MORE people who want to read things!

Kind of like television. Days were when everybody had three channels: NBC, CBS, and ABC. That was just a whole lot of entertainment, and our country had this entertainment in common. The whole country watched Lucy give birth to Little Ricky (while irl, Lucy was in the hospital giving birth to Desi, Jr.)

It was a small town world then. Now it's not. Now we have zillions of stations and TV shows appealing to zillions of different niche markets. It's unusual to put on a TV show that graps the consciousness of the entire nation. (And even when it does, like "Survivor," more people are not watching it than are; it's just that they have all at least heard it exists.)

So we have a much larger and more splintered world, with a billion choices for everything. Yet - we also have more people to consume these things, so it works out.

Overall, I think the proportions remain the same. Just as many writers proportionate to the population are able to be writers, and to make the same sort of living from it (adjusting for inflation and different eras) as they ever did, and even gaining the same degree of fame for it as they ever did.


I'm not really sure where you are coming from on this paragraph, or in the earlier one, where you stated that creative types have a much worse time or that fashions can be "blocked." What country are you from? There may be forces at play there that aren't in the U.S. Because I just don't understand this business about inventions never making it to stores . . . ?

First off, yes, there are a lot more outlets, say, for creative endeavors, such as books, tv shows, etc. - but all those outlets are jobs that must be filled by people. So you could just as easily say that there are far MORE opportunities in television, and in books, etc., than were ever before.

If you invent something good, you will be able to market it, and it will sell. Nobody stopped the Roomba people from getting anywhere with Roomba. And nobody is stopping any of the other useful inventions, either - or advances, such as those in new technological toys that come along constantly, rendering the older versions instantly obsolete. Now THERE'S extra opportunity for you, when last years computer or cell phone is no longer good enough, lol.


Well, but you CAN do both of those. I think the reason why people don't is less because someone is already big in it, than a lack of inspiration for doing something when you see it has already been well done. People generally want to do something when they think it hasn't been done well enough yet. I think, anyway. And anyway, if SL got big enough, there would be more people than just Cristiano, and whoever else, doing their photo sites.


I don't think so. If that were true, nobody would ever bother making another soft drink. But people do, all the time, because they want to do it their way. And when others agree they like their way, then they get a foothold, and then we get root beer. And the root beer does establish a foothold - a following - and easily. It doesn't have to be coke or pepsi to be a success in its own right.

Well, I guess I'm just not following you. There was Spitooney, and now there is Four Seasons, and there's really no reason we couldn't have both, assuming Spitooney still existed.

A new theme opening up - let's say it was Tinies. For a time there, the whole field of Tiny merchandise was brand new. But that doesn't mean you only had a certain window of opportunity for it. You can still start making Tiny things now, and still sell them.

And even IF some big wheel is already in place cornering some particular market, who's to say you couldn't do it better? So I guess I just don't get this.

Well, I was misunderstanding you, cause I thought you were saying you didn't want to be a scripter. I guess I don't understand why you can't just BE a scripter, then.

No they won't - they never do! Nobody already has their demand satisfied by things that already exists! Everybody always wants the latest and greatest! Somebody like Jennifer Anniston or Paris Hilton has to discover some relatively obscure handbag maker and all of a sudden everyone has to have one of those! People NEVER stop wanting new stuff, more stuff, and different stuff.

Well, as I said, I don't know scripting and I don't know anything about scripting. But if you can't make more than a few variations on scripting, then yes, I would say it is limited.

But I don't think it is. I can think of dozens of things I wish I could script (or have scripted), including having an ironing animation to go along with my ironing board. So surely there are as many possible scripting jobs as there are items in the world, am I right? Then there's my laundry hamper I never got to open, windows I would like to do things, and just oodles of stuff I would have my things do if I could, so I am almost CERTAIN there is no limit on the number of things that can be scripted.

coco