All Sticks, No Carrots

Nice idea!

It doesn't quite work, though. I understand that the old "L$ for ratings" system gave you extra L$ every week, so no matter how much more it cost to give a rating, eventually over time the reciever would make a profit.

Yay! Cute pictures posted on demand!

It has nothing to do with being established. I'm not enjoying myself any more than I was when I started just because I have more L. When I "built my dream", I had to pay for it a year and a half ago too, just like you would today. Why don't you become a premium member if you want a stipend? It's great to have residents on a basic account, but ultimately residents on premium memberships are the ones who will keep SL alive. I'm not sure how you can begrudge a company for just trying to keep it's head above water. There has to be dissadvantages for being on a basic account or people won't wnat to tier up at all. And if everyone is happy on a basic account, sl will go under because they don't have any revenue.

One thing no one has established:

What about carrot sticks?

I am on a premium account. I bought one early on because I was intriuged by SL and I wanted to support it. One thing that did surprise me was that a lot of the newer players I was meeting up with said I was "stupid" for having gone premium - "Why do that when you could just earn the money? Or maybe you can't...."

It seem that a number of the free basic members are playing SL as a MMORPG, where the aim is to get as much money - and especially land - as you can on your basic account, and upgrading to premium is "cheating". It would be far better to have worked on changing this culture. Taking away the stipend will just increase the "challenge" level, and denying new users the ability to upload anything is truly horrible. Also, for all we know it'll all get paid back in extra paid dwell to money trees..

No one is denying them the opportunity to tier up and have the advantage of being able to upload things. SL needs premium members in order to exist.

ditto

You're a fangirl?

yeah! *squeeeee*

Well, that's nice for those folks. I think there is help for them over here:

http://teens.secondlife.com

Well, they don't appear to be teenagers - although many seemed to be students.

But they've been filled with the publicity about making money. And some have the logic that earning the money to fund tier isn't a way of representing the flow of hosting costs, but a MMOG-style "challenge" to demonstrate your skill at making things.

Then they will learn different and adapt, or are not the type of people who would help SL succeed in the long run anyhow.

That explains a lot. 98% of the tards I met in my life I met when I was in an academic setting.

Happily, I was immune to this particular species of silliness -- I was in college when I started in SL and happily jumped on the premium train. Sure glad I did -- it made starting a business later on so much easier.

Any type of person can help SL succeed if they buy a premium account. I know nothing about business compared to some of the folks here, but I'm pretty sure sending away potential customers because you don't like their personalities isn't a good move, nor is hoping that they will adapt to the product.

A culture where, among newer users, those who buy premium accounts get insulted, is not going to encourage anyone.

I've even seen it on this forums. People love to show off with "see what I did, while still on my basic account!". Dropping the stipend will just mean that claims like this have even more kudos.

That's not necesarilly true. Not every customer is a good fit for every product.



I have never, ever seen this mentality, except with Cocoanut, and that was Cocoanut, because she couldn't convince her husband to let her spend the money or whatever.

I definitely think the cheapskate culture is an issue, even if not a huge one, but I'm not sure it commonly manifests itself in the ways you describe.

The solution will come when Second Life finally tips and they won't need to give away accounts anymore. All access will require payment of one form or another. That'll be an exciting time.

The type of people you were talking about in the post I responded to will never contribute to SL.

I'll stand by that statement.

Well, I can only say my observations. When I was a few weeks in and building stuff in sandboxes, if I happened to mention to anyone that I was on premium, the typical response was "Why?!"

The husband example is a good one, as I know at least a few other business owners who were worried about not making tier because "I told my husband/wife/parents that I would be self-sufficient in SL".

The thing is, I don't think it's a "cheapskate culture" - not to say that there isn't a cheapskate culture, but it's an "earning culture". I met several newbies who said that "someday they were sure they'd own a lot of land". "Um, well, you can own a lot of land by next week if that's what you want to do." "Yea, but I want to earn it".

Many of these people actually are learning to build and script, and often working hard on it and doing well; and they're not doing it with the intent to deprive LL of US$ - some of them even see it as a matter of "justice" that their permitted contribution should be proportional to their skills, which is pretty logical (if you can't make stuff well enough to make money, what's your land going to add to the grid?). To someone new to SL, the higher-end tier bills just to get to do work on the game look exactly like a punitive charge to penalise those who can't make the money by skill.

Well, I'm QUITE a bit mollified by realizing I had forgotten P2P. That was, overall, quite the nice carrot, with the exception of people who had bought telehub land, and the buy-back offer took some of the sting from that. Interesting questions you raise here, though.

1. The very first thing that sprang to my mind when I read your post was something I have thought from the beginning and never stopped thinking (though I have stopped talking about it): New players need something productive to do.

They just do. By productive, I mean a way to make some small amount of money, particularly since they generally can't make any through producing items for quite some time. Some way to start slow and build up. It keeps them engaged and busy. Gives them some reason to log on the next day.

My husband just got done writing a paper in which he said that one of the things he has learned as a teacher was that it was important that all students - both low- and high-achieving ones - need to be able to see a goal, and to see a way of achieving that goal.

It is harder now than it was when I joined to see a way to achieve one's goals, and it's discouraging enough without taking away basic stipends, and players now don't have the ratings bonuses, either. So that has left a vacuum. And you also need to be able to achieve something - even a little something - even before you formulate any firm goals, or even if you NEVER have any particular goals. You need a reason to log on every day or every weekend besides useless rubbernecking.

2. Try tweaking before removing, as another poster suggested. Just wiping out everything that is being "gamed" (i.e., done legitimately, but in a way not intended, or in a way that doesn't provide much true value) leaves a vacuuum, and I have to simply admire the enterprising residents who always, ALWAYS come up with a way to fill that vacuum and don't give a damn whether some people think it's classy or not.

Hell, I cheer them ON. Camping chairs, for example. Now you can try to pull the rug out from under that, too, forever and a day, but - there is a need for new players to get money, and where there is a need, other players will ALWAYS figure out a profitable way to provide it, whether one approves of their methods or not, because people are admirably ingenuous that way.

So I would make sure that there are always ways new players can make money, whether its ratings bonuses or something else, plus basic stipends, and then we would be less likely to end up with things like camping chairs. I would go farther and even INSTALL some positive way for players to make money besides scripting and building.

Short of that, I would come up with a version of group tools, but call it Business Structures, where there would be blanks a person could fill in for his various "employees," to get that going and working, and add some economic incentive for more established players to hire others.

But at least stop trying to quash ideas players themselves come up with for giving new players ways to make money, just because they aren't very classy or compelling. Camping chairs ARE the players making their own world, whether we or the Lindens like it or not.

3. Now about the entertainers, the Spitooney Islands, and all that. LL really does need to help ensure that some compelling content of that nature is always around, rather than making it harder for them to survive, as it has been doing of late.

Anything that makes life harder for the entertainment and service providers is bad for SL, because that's just a whole different bag from making and selling physical content successfully. Face it, we are virtual here, and that does make for very real differences. You can't charge for drinks, and no virtual amusement park is a real amusement park.

And yet no environment is compelling when it consists of little besides buying things, admiring things, and being social. (That was one of the problems with There.) And so MANY of the places that can't be charged for, and really aren't as good as the real deal, are the VERY things that are so exciting and/or charming and/or fascinating about SL.

But I believe I have copped to the Lindens' first effort to address this issue, and it isn't a bad one. It's the game opportunity announced in another thread. I didn't understand it altogether, but there is a sort of contest for games, after which the game gets to STAY on that land for six months. I'm certain this six-month part is being done so as to insure that there is still something fun to do in SL for at least that long.

However, it seems to be kind of messed up in the way the winners will be chosen by means of whoever's friends donate the most money to their game. On the other hand, it's kind of interesting, because the game makers themselves can set their own charges. (Overall, though, I'm pretty sure that winning spots can and will be bought, even with this little twist built in.)

So that's not outright giving away land or otherwise subsidizing favorite residents, and that's good. It's at least nicely murky. (To me, anyway, at this point.) My fear, though, is that ultimately it COULD become, "Yes, we need this entertainment, and no one will pay for it, and so we will choose those 'we feel' will do the best job at providing it, and who will provide the type of thing we would like to see, and let them do it, with our support." (While others who might do an even better job will have no way, unless they want to do it out of charity.) That I wouldn't like.

Nor have I closed my mind entirely to the fact that maybe history could set itself on its ear and people WILL pay to go to places like Spitooney, especially now that the game itself is free to play. But I would rather they had provided the more democratic built-in support like they once did (and unfortunately plan to do even less of in the future), of giving dwell, D.I., etc., simply - to those who attract the most residents. Let the unfortunate fads have their time in the sun. Stop trying to control it all.

And I sure don't want to see only state-subsidized, state-selected, and state-approved entertainment gain and hold sway, and it's looking like it's heading that way.

4. In any case, I fear this nut of trying to get people to pay for art museums and Backstage and whatnot just isn't going to work, not to mention the popular games that need cash prizes and are attractive to many players.

So maybe some sort of weighted traffic (and dwell) system would help, or otherwise have things competing only in their own categories. After all, one would not expect people to spend as much time at a museum or ice skating as they spend playing Slingo. Similarly, one would not expect a person to spend as much time shopping for furniture as they would partying at their favorite club hang-out. That might have helped the D.I. system as well.

And if places are popular because they put out camping chairs or provide other means for players to make money, then obviously that is what players WANT because it is what they NEED. It just seems to me like the Lindens are always fiddling with parameters - not to allow us to run our own world, but to try to make us run our own world in the way they want to see it run.

And they make those changes without putting in any equivalent of camping chairs (or ratings bonuses) to allow that need any other route. And if they take away the 10% bonus, then they will be removing the underpinnings of the entire real estate business as well, and again, without putting in anything that would help, or encourage people to provide fine real estate, and so we will have less of that, too.

5. Don't even think about getting rid of the stipends. Getting rid of basic players' stipends strikes me as going after a fly with a bulldozer, and they will lose more with such a move than will be gained. The idea that basic players don't help keep the game afloat is a fallacious one. Without basic players to buy our goods, content creators would have less incentive to create and sell them, and would tier down. Those revolving door players (which a great many of the basics are) help keep this whole shebang going, really, even though they may look like they're not doing anyone much good.

The fifty dollars basically primes the pump - gets them started buying, gets them wanting to buy more, gets them wanting to buy land to put what they've bought on, and gradually breaks down inhibitions toward buying Lindens.

As for premium stipends, I have never considered them to be a "payout" or "handout" or "welfare" in ANY way shape or form. That's part of what I pay my real-life money to the Lindens for each month. If they take away the premium members' stipends, then I will stop paying them money, and I figure lots of other players will, too.

6. Zoning is another thing I would like to see. A way for people to have some control over their environment.

Blumfield had me VERY excited, and I thought it was a wonderful marketing device. I was dismayed, though, to discover that not only was it not going to be zoned, as Brown and Boardman are, but even when the people there asked for it to be, they were flat-out told no. I would like to see all new Sims offered with zoning - categories as simple as residential, commercial, and mixed residential and commercial would help - and that may be what the Lindens are hoping to get going eventually with the group tools and covenants ideas.

Meanwhile, they could at least do something about widespread grid problems that come from people taking advantage of the total lack of zoning or any rhyme and reason to the mainland, and there is ample language in the TOS to do so.

7. As for the fun things like Burning Man, there was also the Winter Festival which was also enjoyable, and the best part was anyone who wanted to could take part in it, just like Burning Man. And the Hippo thing. I think we have a good history of that kind of thing, and they AREN'T cutting those things out. They are already doing well on those fun things, but of course if they think up more, that would just be more of a good thing.

To sum up, I don't believe they put more things in our hands when they simply take away things we used to be able to manipulate in order to survive and prosper, while putting in no new options or incentives or strategies. I view the things in my original list as additional hardships, while what we can do, what we can effect, changes not at all - it merely diminshes.

I'm willing to be proven wrong about any and all of it, because I obviously don't want bad things to happen, or we will all suffer and I then wouldn't be able to continue having fun with my own business.

I'm not willing to be told I know nothing and can have no opinion or feelings about how things are going because I'm not Alan Greenspan. Economics don't occur in a petri dish, and economic theory that doesn't take psychology into account is no economic understanding at all.

And I have little to no patience for off-the-cuff attempts at unflattering psychoanalysis of posters used as rebuttal for any of the real - and obvious - issues posters are addressing.

coco

Au contrare. Many of the people who do have that attitude, and succeeded with it, are the biggest contributors to SL. A lot of "name" creators I've spoken to have said they would not own all the land they do if not for their sales paying tier bills. That's basically the same attitude, but from the position of being successful, rather than the newbies position of not yet being successful but hoping to be in the future.

No, its not the same attitude at all, sorry. It lacks the "I must win teh game!!!111!" component.

Um, so what's the difference between wanting to be successful, and wanting to "win teh game"?

Success comes in many forms, lasts a long time, and requires a go-get-'em, hard-working attitude, for the most part.

Win teh game comes in limited forms, is short lived, and tends to try to avoid the hard work wherever possible.