How do you price your creations?

Actually, many people receive a "stipend" every week for nothing more than logging in. Therefore, there is technically more and more L$ being added every week on top of event bonuses.

Anyhow, I like what everyone has contributed so far. I think I may be nearing a better idea of what we're trading when we hand over our L$ for in-game objects and the psychology behind the transaction... which is important to the sociology of the situation and the overall economy in general!

When I create a new object in SL... a new couch or a new shirt or what have you.... I can never actually touch it. I can see it and others can too. Some may agree it's a wonderful creation. The value of it though... is there any value to it? The cost of production is merely my time and creative energies.. my ideas as well as my skill in creating them in some scope of consensual reality. What am I valuing when I price my ideas?

I think it's similar to any piece of art. You can't really "use" a painting but you look at it, enjoy it, gain status from owning it if it's cool or made by someone cool. When you make something in SL and price it you're pricing that enjoyment and associated prestige, not some practical functionality.

Wow.. good thread, both the pricing info and economic musings. My 2c on both topics:

I don't think you should be making anything in SL unless you're enjoying the actual creative act. The economy is so depressed compared to RL that you're always better off converting US$ to L$ rather then trying to generate value in world.

I've just started playing SL, and the ability to create things is one of the major hooks for me. I'd be making stuff like this anyways, but wouldn't be able to play with my toys and dolls in the same way in RL.

I've started selling avatars a little (at Second Life Anime Cosply << shameless plug). Pricing was a really hard question because there were so many different factors:

1) My upload costs - even with previews textures look different mapped onto avatars and clothing and non-square prims. Any given texture probablly took at least two uploads at 10$L each.

2) What would I pay for it? Well as a newb I'm real poor, but obviously most people have more money. Subscriber's weekly stipends are twice what I start with so that's no good guide... How about the price it for in US$ ? Consider an average set of clothing being sold for 250$L - that's a measly $1!

3) What is the competition charging? Well I think my products have a lot of attention to detail that maybe worth more, but I still have to be in the ballpark.

4) My time - how many hours did I spend? What's my time worth? Quite a bit even if I think back to the days when I was getting paid to do the same kind of thing (paint textures and edit 3D characters) with more flexible easier tools. But then again, I'm playing a game. I'm choosing to do this rather than doing it for money... or am I playing for money that I'll use for my real fun activities in SL?

Finally I decided I just want to make back my upload costs and start saving toward maybe renting some land. I priced the two Avatars that took a lot of work higher than average for the store, and even then I feel that what's included and the quality of the work should command a higher price. Of course I've only made a bare handful of sales and only of the cheaper one so far so we'll see! ^_^;; Thankfully I'm only making avatars and clothes I want to use myself.

As for larger economic theory...

In any economy ideas, and virtual efforts have long created "value", that's why we have things like copyrights and patents!

SL is no different.

But in SL we see something that's just starting to happen in the real world on an even larger scale.

People have so much leisure time and are so well paid and have such a high standard of living (in RL) that they start to do the kinds of work as a hobby that in the past other people did as a living. This tends to be mostly creative pursuits - the biggest one being photography, but also fonts and even open source software falls into this catagory. As a result the value of this type of object falls because there are folks willing to do a semi-pro job for 1/10th the price of a pro - or often times free!

I personally dislike this trend because it puts a lot of artists, photographers, webdesigners and one/two man programming outfits out of buisness!

The same thing happens here in SL - only worse because all our time in SL is leisure time from RL!

Just remember, your 250L$ average outfit is actually worth only $1. Don't you feel like the effort you put into it should return more than $1? Minimumn wage in this country is $7 - as a texture mapper in the games industry I was paid more than that! Also consider that for every outfit you make the whole world becomes more compelling and more attractive to newbies. That's good for the Lindens, and it could be good for you, depending on how much you think your efforts are worth!

I believe all creators should raise their prices as their experience and quality and brand appeal grows. A really pro-item of clothing with perfect texture mapping and original design should fetch a lot more than what I see them selling for! It helps everybody to have in game value be more reflective of real world value because it encourages more high quality creation in the game. Concievably someday someone could make a living simply creating vritual items!

Finally the needs of newbies can be met by new designers, our older works, and specially designed "simple" or "basic" newbie items!

haha, don't I know it. As a freelance animator I'm constantly having to bid against the CEO's cousin's gardner's son who has a copy of lightwave and agrees to do the job for $500 instead of the $20000 I'd charge. Then, of course, they do a crap job and that CEO is unlikely to go for animation again any time soon. It's becoming a big problem in the animation industry.

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True, but the difference here is you can make a product once and keep selling it over and over again. Some items you'll never see much return on, but others you might sell hundreds of. You had it right in the first place though... you have to do stuff in SL because you enjoy it, not because you hope to profit. You definitely can profit though. My sales in SL cover my land tier fees, my cable bill, and a few other things every month. It can definitely be rewarding, but even if I wasn't turning a profit I'd still be here doing this stuff because I like doing it.

Jesus... $20000 is what my mom makes in 4 years.

Yuki... for you, I would make a lot more than just a sandwich... I am a rather decent cook you know
And if you're on a diet, low-cal vegan food is a specialty of mine. Say NO to fast food and sandwiches!

Sure Az, just bug LL to give us some friggin structured data types and a UI toolkit first.

What's scary is how across the board it is. I know two brothers who used to make a living doing small games on the shareware model who have been forced to find jobs with big companies and a friend of mine just lost a website contract she bid on because someone related to the client bid literally $1000 for the whole site!



That's not new or different here in SL at all! Two examples:

1 - Standardized mass production has lowered the cost of many products to the point where it's nearly free. For example clothing and textiles have such a low cost of manufactre and distribution that they are practically free. 30 years agos countries where there were starving naked children in the streets now have starving children in 5 year out of date Nikes. The low cost of clothing has effectively ended world clothlessness (hunger on the other hand requires a product that is much more expensive to produce transport and store). Most of the value in the clothing we wear today is completely "idea" value, which is why the same t-shirt with a fashionable logo demands ten times the price as a plain one - yet in two years both will be found at the dollar store bargain bin.

2 - The above examples still have *some* cost of manufacturing although it's a pittance. But software, especially software that is electronically distributed, is exactly the same. Zero manufacturing cost, but still development, testing, sales and marketing costs to cover. With the popularity of iTunes and the Apple music store you can add digital music to the same catagory.

SL creations (because the creators keep the rights in RL) have real value that can be exachanged with RL. My current perspective is that they are undervalued - which is bad for both the creators and the Lindens and ultimately to the new players.

Look at it this way, SL is a developing (virtual) nation. It has tremendous natural resources in it's customization and scripting abilities. But the population and government doesn't have the skills and manpower to exploit them fully. Right now the government banks on low immigration costs to get people in, but in the long term they need groups and individuals to start developing specific "industries" (games, clothes, objects, organizations, etc...) in a way that is competative with a potential citizen's other options (AIM, BBSs, Pro MMORPGs).

Chip, what you say about covering your expenses gives me hope that the economy is not too depressed (and hope for my business), but I wonder how many people are in your position? And if even then it's worth it compared to the sales and production effort you put in?

The economy ebbs and flows, but we're still in a transitional period in SL and there's still a lot of resistance to the links to RL money. Some of it is understandable (like the problem with land speculators) but the rest of it is just like the early days of the internet when it went from being a free for all to also supporting commercial enterprises. A lot of people thought it was the end of the world, and it's been similar in SL. People who came here from There are much more comfortable with the idea of paying for content ala carte, while many of the SL'ers that have been here since the beginning lean more towards an open source model. They both have their place.

For me, it would still be worth it without the ability to make a real profit. I started my SL business long before it was possible to convert L$ to USD. In my real life art the best compliment I usually get is to not hear back from a client until the next time they need something done. I have to take my reward from the pleasure of the process, not from pats on the back. In SL I actually get to experience other people enjoying my creations, and that alone is worth the trouble for me. I always envied musicians the immediacy of their craft and the way they get to connect to their audience and get immediate feedback. SL give artists a chance to experience a bit of that, and for that reason above all others, I love it.