"Make real money"?

Wasn't there a huge section on the front page telling people they could make RL money playing SL?
It could just be that I am very absent minded but it seems to be gone.
Conspiracy theory: a little bird told me El Presidente was disillusioned with the whole money thing and wanted to see more indepent creativity instead of this whole copycat culture.
In summary, Phil woke up one day and thought to himself "$$$ sigh "

IMHO, greed has ruined a lot of online games (experiments?). One thing that's drawn me to SL is the fact that I've yet to see one single account for sale on Ebay. I'm here for socializing and creativity, period. I could give a shit less for the L$'s, I've got what I need already, and am working toward learning to build the things I don't have, but will need eventually.

i think $$$ shouldnt be pushed as a playing argument

Maybe there were legal ramifications and this is a safer option?

<<<Rolls eyes....Please...n walks back out of thread

Ditto!

perhaps it wasn't waking up to a money sigh, but waking up to the realization that real businesses need a real platform with real client customization tools and a real programming language that accesses real persistent storage. if philip has indeed stopped oogling over his experimental toy economy and has set his sights on developing software that can be marketed as a useful tool for people who work in the real economy, he just might make back all those millions he originally poured into the project.

still chanting: be the host be the host be the host

there are thousands of people out here with real needs that will pay real money to license software that will meet those needs. i understand that we also need a virtual world with streaming music and dance animations. i don't understand why ll has to limit their vision to catering to such a limited group. business professionals with budgets and educators with federal grant money need this type of software too.

You are such a joker, heh.

Maybe the tide of prim detrius sluicing over the new sims was enough....we may never know...

My guess would be that, if such a statement were removed from the web site, it has to do more with legal ramifications; it may also have to do with the support issues that Khamon noted. I think Philip is still fairly invested in SL as a mode for people to make real money playing in SL.

Anyone who has any doubts about this issue should have listened to the radio interview Philip did with a WoW radio station last week. After some initial chat, the interviewer asked him, point blank, "So in Second Life, you can make money playing an online game?" and Philip replied in the affirmative. He also emphasized that the existing economic structure of SL is particularly suited to and integrated into the SL culture (as opposed to "leveling" MMOG's where selling items can be construed as unfair). This interview did not suggest to me that Philip has changed his stance on the whole "$$$ " issue in the slightest.

Philip talked in the video-taped interview for the State of Play conference very ecstatically about the "entrepreneurial culture" he has fostered in SL, that players want to buy, sell, trade.

Yet there is SO MUCH that mitigates against this free entrepreneurial culture in SL:

On the Linden side:

-- no in-game efficient way to freely post classified ads and sales events the way you can post educational events, club dances, or games. There is a decided bias in favor of educational and entertainment as distinct from commercial, in part in response to the vocal anti-commercial lobbyists (see below)

--problems in group functions, including the inability to protect group project leaders who assume investment costs from treacherous officers and renegade members

-- control over land supply and lack of transparency about land statistics (how many new accounts by new-land and in what time period they resell it and how many premium accounts there are and what the average ownership parcel size is, etc. etc. -- it's all viewed as "proprietary".

-- celebration of the feted inner core -- well I'll spare you the rehearsal here but it has to do with subsidizing the content baron and creator class at the expense of consumer rights

-- unneveness in delivery of service, i.e. low FPS problem, etc.

On the player side:

-- terribly hostile attitude toward capitalism, commercialism, entrepreneurial spirit, etc. (except for a sub-set of geeky entrepreneurship of geeky products that seem to fit a New Age aesthetic like the theories of "Bimboes in Paradise".

-- old-world, conservative attitudes about craftsmenship and sales and hatred of mass culture, mass production, consumer rights, consumer demands, i.e. refusal to countenance re-sale of a produced object, refusal to allow modifications, etc.

-- stinginess and suspiciousness -- reluctance to spend even $5 more on accounts or even $10 on GOM to enhance both personal and collective experience in the game



What Khamon said.

its plenty possible to make money in SL without bein a greedy bastard... its just a shame so few people care enough to try (not bein a greedy bastard that is, obviously there are PLENTY of people tryin to make money)

there doesn't exist the ability to build a fortune out of involvement in sl. fate gardens essentially pays for itself and that's all i really hope for. as sales increase and level off, i'll tier up. i'm more than happy to put the money earned back into the world to support the system. when sales start steadily paring down, i'll tier down.

in all fairness, i believe that philip truly wondered if some new economic attitudes and structure would evolve around a virtual environment. it was a fascinating idea in the beginning but obviously has not, and will not pan into anything realistic.

we have the same types of merchants (careful planners, get-quick-richers, take advantagers) and the same type of consumers (shoppers, as neededs, givemes) inworld as we do out. now is the time to reverse the view from newfangled virtual economic ideas influencing the real world to real world using software as a productive tool in existing markets.

it does require the ability to think backward after accepting that the original premise was false. those are both hard to do if pride is more important than success. all we can do is watch and see.

i know people who do come out okay... i slightly more than break even with my part of luskwood, others have helped subsidize mortgages, or make car payments RL etc.. SL is gettin to be big enough that the top producers can get more RL effects than just a profound lack of sleep hehe...

there is a definate market segment for high quality items at decent, but not cheap, prices... our success with whole avatar vendors, or frans' success with seburos etc (stuff in the $3-6 segment rl cost wise... the 'lexuses/infinities' of sl kind of, stuff thats not riduculously expensive, but that not everyone would be able to afford) goes to show that

It's a bit buried, but if you click on "More Info" under "Account Registration" there is a "Make Money" tab that has the flashy title, "Did you ever think you'd be able to make REAL money in a VIRTUAL WORLD?"

Khamon and Prokofy have some very good points.

People spend billions of dollars annually in the US alone on video games, movies, and educational products and services. Not everyone has tons of money to throw around, but most people have some discretionary income and/or money budgeted for services like education or investment.

I think the question of, and debate over, whether SL is or should be "just a game" vs. "a platform for the extension of RL" is one of the most substantial questions to be sorted out. When there is a culture of moral outrage against RL encroaching on people's virtual lives, it makes for a prickly climate for many types of entrepreneurial development.

One particularly controversial issue relates to RL sponsorship and advertising in SL. This would be one way to fund certain types of events or projects: it is how television and print media make a large percentage of their revenue from.

Especially if it were easier to click from SL to web sites, or view web content in-world, something like Google's AdWords/AdSense could be employed just as they are on many web sites.

Of course, there can be an aesthetic problem with tacky hypercommercilism, and that is one of the things that feeds controversy over ads. It's very understandable that people don't want to be spammed with irrelevant messages of any kind. But at the same time, people need better tools to find information, products, services, or events that they _are_ interested in. The limits on SL's events listing system are a great example of the problem in that area. Some kind of ebay or froogle style marketplace would be one way to go with that.

By that you mean people who actually make things instead of just try and skim off the top by gaming the system? *chuckle*

Dang Chip I have shown such restraint all day not replying to all that drivel but now after your post I am having to clean Pepsi off my monitor ....Thanx..

Shadow

LOL i actually spit coffee on my shirt.... you owe me the laundry bill chip

Damn... how am i going to get hot tea (1 cream, 2 sugars) out of my keyboard!! Damn you Chip.

You people and your drinking problems!

i'm glad to wake up and see that this got derailed. i was afraid we might let a serious discussion ensue.

I was a good boy in this thread yesterday I kept my mouth or Keys shut..

Now, now. Play nice, and buy my L$

Agreed Khamon.


As it is now, SL is just kinda floundering between being this-n-that, something for everyone, a vague hodgepodge of come in and be creative, and oh, make some money too, and...what...??...you want us (LL) to do what? Oh but we not this, we're can't do that, cause we that and this...

You know what I mean....

No, actually I have no idea what you mean. You used to be one of LL's biggest cheerleaders until you got burned by SLE which really had nothing whatsoever to do with LL or SL itself. You can't expect them to babysit contractual disputes between residents. They're here to provide infrastructure. The rest is up to us. SLE seems to have done quite well with the current tools despite the regrettable parting of ways between you and Apo, so what's really your beef? Having ill will towards LL because of it seems misguided and unfair to me. I love ya Merwan but you seem a bit off the rails.



I'm not sure exactly what you mean either, Khamon. Most of what you wrote seems to me to be unsupported supposition that I wouldn't exactly call constructive. Are you sure you aren't projecting? Care to explain what you mean by "will not pan into anything realistic"? I don't believe the economy was ever intended to do anything but fascilitate the buying and selling of game content. I can't imagine SL being a very useful tool for real world commerce any time soon, if ever. The biggest problem I see isn't with LL or the tools we're provided, it's these kinds of pessimistic attitudes and people wanting SL to be something I'm not sure it was ever intended to be, or at least isn't quite ready to be yet

The biggest (and in no way unsolvable) problems I see...

Culture - People bring their expectations with them from other MMOGs. We have a lot of ex-TSO people expecting SL to be the same kind of artificial skinner box that provides them with artificial game mechanics that allow them to get the cheese and earn real world money. The L$, since it is tied directly to USD, is for all intents and purposes real money. It wouldn't make sense for LL to create artifical skilling and reward it with real money. SL depends on real world skills and that's a disappointment to people who come in expecting a gravy train that anyone can ride. As a result we now have people resenting content creators which to me is akin to biting the hand that entertains you.

Land resale - It's a damn shame that virtual real estate has gotten most of the press. It has never been and will never be anything more than a pyramid scheme where any profit extracted is at the expense of someone left holding the bag. It attracted people who aren't getting rich from their "investments" and as a result pollute the world with misguided vitriol about SL not being "fair." It was never meant to be fair. It's not TSO.

Tools - we're lacking infrastructure to grow truly large ventures. In some ways this is good though. It keeps competition very healthy. We're not in any danger of having the SL equivelant of Walmart destroying all the myriad botique operations that are flourishing.

Generally speaking I think the biggest thing holding SL and its economy back is lack of imagination and understanding among the playerbase. People come in with the expectation of finding fame and fortune through game mechanics alone. When they find out that this expectation is misguided and that only those people with relevant real world skills are going to have profitable ventures they get bitter. They don't want to spend money beyond their initial $9.95 and feel like they shouldn't have to. They feel they should be provided artificial mechanisms to compete with those who do have relevant skills. It's easy to understand that frustration. They came here expecting SL to be a game when it clearly is not. In that respect SL is too far ahead of its time and the average user has a dificult time divorcing themselves from traditional MMORPG expectations and truly grasping and embracing SL for what it is... an ala carte buffet of game content. Everyone wants to either be a chef or eat for free.



Amen

Use to be? I still lead cheers for the home team Chip. LoL

Never excepted them to babysit my difficulties - which they didn't do - but the LL lack of internal communication was not helpful regarding several issues I've attempted to deal with them about, even prior to SLEx.

ILL will towards LL? Not really - I just feel they are in need of a stronger management team.

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