Why is SL work so undervalued?

sooner or later, multi-nationals will pay to have their brands advertised, and services interfaced with on virtual land, it will happen, and all of us who have land now and moderate to advanced building skills will profit.

With bandwidth increases and server technology the odds are that the future of the internet itself will be a multi-verse of sims connected with portals (aol sim, yahoo sim) and will probably look like the city in Bladerunner, only without the lag such a crowded sim would give today.

I believe there many ways to view SL, for some its strictly a game were they come to chat, have fun buying clothes, toys etc they budget x amount of dollars to buy in game money and usually are not wanting to work to earn SL money.

For another group its an opportunity to play at being a model a shop or club owner their goal is to have fun make some game money and enjoy the rewards of their work as a "game".

There is also a group that feels buying a $10 basic account should entitle them to everything free & often complain about prices. This is the most unrealistic of the groups as its my view that the $10 basic is really a way to check out the game without a huge initial outlay.

You then have some of those who start learning new skills such as photoshop, scripting and writing which in real world they may not initially have had the interest or time to pursue that in a formal educational enviroment. You then have people who do come to SL with these skillls and have or are working professionaly as graphic artists, programmers etc...

It is here that lays some of the conflicts in pricing and what you expect from the game. If some one wants to grow as a writer and have game money then I can see were Chris's writing job is some that can be very appealing to some, If you have a proffesional writer who enjoys the game and its a 10 min job for some game money great, however if they are looking at it as a way to generate real income then you need to evaluate time and volume and see what are the best options available.

You also need to look at is this a custom one of job or one the will result in volume purchases.

I saw in another post someone complain about spending $75k for 2 custom skins well that works out to about $300 US which is not unreasonable is actually a good deal as was pointed out for professional work and the time involved, the artist will not be able to generate additional income from multiple sales.

For those wishing to make a real world tpe of income they will need to devote a large percentage of time to SL far more then you would in a r/l job for less income. There are some situations were this is acceptable trade off and for some its not.

Ultimately it comes down to what each indivdual is willing to accept, the amount of work they are willing to do and their personal situation.

I thought that was a beez farm Nolan...

Apiary? Or in the context of these forums; "Ape-iary"?

I just love pickled beets, especially when they are so inexpensive due the exploitation of migrant workers form the Arcturus system. Plus, they are a great source of sugar!

I am from the Borscht Belt! Someday we will have the technology to mine the Borscht Belt, and we will need lots of slaves!

Bash the Borscht! Bash the Borscht!

I'm heavily involved in paper RPGs. There's a lot of very good writers, artists, etc in the industry that take a fraction of what they might normally get simply because, hey, they're gamers. Having people play with YOUR stuff is a bit of a charge, y'know?

Similarly, Second Life is a hobby for most people. It may be real work, but it's presumably being done because you find it fun; thus you do it for less than you do your actual job, where someone is probably telling you what to do and how to do it.

There's the additional effect that everyone on Second Life is "virtual"; if Linden Labs goes belly-up, your "valuable" Second Life creations become useless for the most part. (Or perhaps just "less useful", in the case of things like textures.) People are only willing to pay so much when they aren't getting something tangible in the deal.

That's a pity. I was hoping it would sound like a broad parody of your elitism. After all, you were the one who called regular people whores.

Yes, SLH pays crap, eh? But when you think that I type endless reams for free often, getting that $1000 for just typing seems pretty sweet. I have no indentured-labour contract, it's just a gig, paid per piece.

Beet farm? I'm not going to even "go there".

Aww, come off it. It's a bubble. It's just the groovay thing that some professors and some kids have found to give them an excuse to play video games but look important. It's not that widespread.

And the government used to pay people to take LSD. That doesn't mean it's of benefit to the public LOL.

It's a toy. Still.



I don't know why we need to get all breathless about this. Those objects message too much actually, you know? They over do it. And...so they run on their own server? But...do they work well? No. Check out the FPS on these babies (ctr-shift-1). Watch how they lag, shift, crash.

Distributed supercomputer? Let me be able to log on and stay on for more than an hour (along with thousands of others with this experience) and then we'll talk.

I will continue to make custom things for people dirt-cheap, when I'm not busy working on my own incredible and/or stupid gadgets, or teaching them how to do it themselves for free. Why? Because it's fun. And I will not apologize for having fun.

Sorry, Eggy, but the economy can go bite itself. RL economies are already stupid and complicated enough. I would have been happy with log cabins, bartering, and growing vast fields of hemp.

Hmmm, I used to take this attitude in TSO. I used to think it was silly that people got all bent out of shape over the issue of whether buffets should charge or not. There were always people screaming about those who were "ruining the economy," especially thought who bought on ebay.

The difference with SL is that the money cashes out for free. So it seems to be higher stakes. And just growing hemp, well, for those paying a lot of money and trying to protect the value of their investment, it seems stupid.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I think it's great if people charge admission to a quality event -- someone's got to foot the bill sometimes. But I prefer informal stuff, because it keeps us human. Robots can follow the rules. It takes a human to give a self-directed donation and that sorta stuff. *shrug*

Lordy! I'm just kidding about that. I'd grow vast fields of vegetables. My hemp crop wouldn't need to be nearly that large, unless I was using it to make textiles or whatnot. But leather and cotton make fine clothing too.

I live in an area where I have the option of moving to the "country" with relative ease in case my dream of a "simple life" is ready for harvest. I actually know someone who lives like this, and he seems pretty happy. No SL, but... meh. Life is full of many fun things to do even without sewers and AC mains.

I know what you mean about wishing things were a bit more simple. I'm sort of fond of running water, electricity, and flushing toliets though. Speaking of hemp... it makes such beautiful fabrics.. (all other varieties and their uses aside. )

You have the right attitude though IMO. Enjoy what you're doing, or don't do it. If everyone could apply that attitude to as many parts of their lives as possible it would be a different world.

I have a real job, paid with real money. This is what actually allows me to make content in SL as a hobby. As long as i sell the content for prices not considered anywhere near what i make in my RL job, i can consider this a hobby.
As soon as i start asking RL prices, i'll have to assume SL is a RL job, with all the responsibilities a RL job brings. And it would stop being a hobby.

The reason i still stick a price tag on stuff, is to fulfill the SL fantasy of running some kind of (slightly successful) independent company. Something that I don't do IRL (just a normal wage slave
Although it seems harder and harder to keep up the illusion it's 'just a fantasy' with the recent shifts in SL economy and consumerism. Not because the money i make in SL is making a big dent in my wallet, but because the overall expectancy of SL citizens has become more RL consumer like, it seems.

I so want this. I hate that the Lindens roll out so much land. I understand why but I'd rather have 1/5 of the sims and have absolute overcrowding. It would be great. Increased griefing, frayed nerves, dogs and cats living together. Well, maybe someday.

Wow, did you miss the target. But thanks for playing. And thanks for the elitist comment. I've so been waiting to be labeled one. Although, I must admit I had hoped it would have been from someone with a clue as to what one really is.

Ouch. You forgot to tack a smiley on the end.

this is the best expression i've ever seen to answer this question. i charge undervalued (based on the time it takes to make the textures) rates for my plants because fate gardens is a hobby-based "business" that only needs to support itself. i hope it makes enough to support a sim one day. but if it doesn't, that'll be okay. i'll maintain what tier i can with what money it makes and be happy with that.

i do consider that i have to build new products regularly and keep an eye on my email for customer support issues. but i hardly treat it like a real job. i don't even treat it like a part time job. and that's okay because my customers don't expect instantaneous magically professional results either. they're generally happy that i've gotten back to them in a day or so and am willing to answer their questions and replace, or fix, items for them.

in summary, people who are working full time in sl, typically do charge prices that provide the kind of income they need. they also provide an array of customized services and short order support. the rest of us do this for fun and enjoy ourselves. we don't charge professional prices, even for professional work, because we're not willing to submit ourselves to that kind of responsibility.

I personally think someone needs to log out and get a breath of fresh air.

I have to stop and wonder if there are any of us earning RL wages for all the effort we put into forum comments??? I assume that if we were all getting $20 an hour to comment here, a great deal of cash would be changing hands.

Of course, then again, wages are paid to workers, not supplies. As suppliers, we are paid based on the value of our commodity, not by the hours devoted to our endeavor.

And, unfortunately, manure sells rather cheaply, and is sold by the ton.

Bruno, I like your posts. You have some good insights and you do stimulate discussion. So, please do not take the following as any kind of flame. It is not meant as such:

That said, you denegrate (all (by generalization)) Web-writing as "...stupid little blurbs on some other website(.)" By extension and lack of any qualifiers, you are implying (whether you mean to or not) that *all* websites are insignificant (because if they were significant, at least some of the writing on them could be significant, too).

So as not to appear to be kicking an argument while it's down, I'll stop here.

hahahahahaha, I never noticed that before!

Hmm... this might have ALOT to do with it. Who actually reads all of this boy's posts?

DNA

I'm not suggesting that this is what *is* happening in SL. But it probably will.

Websites like RentACoder are an indication of how things might go. I haven't gone there in quite a while, but it used to be regular for people to want a website like E-bay developed for US$500.

The analogy is that the game is Pinnochio -- a game -- and that it is "trying to become a real boy" -- trying to become...a virtual world? a metaverse? A WWW of games? Whatever a "real boy" is as distinct from "Pinocchio".

If that was intended as a slam on Prok, it was a misreading of the literary analogy. And a lot of people read them because they spend hours and miles of type responding to them.

Yes, indeed, this is very, very well said.

The problem is a clash in cultures, however. Some people are in it as a game and have adjusted their expectations accordingly, so they dn't expect tip-top manufacturing and customer-service and RL labour because they don't pay RL costs.

But others enter it as an immersive world they expect to be a replicate of the best features of RL without any of its harsh, nasty features.

I find that people have impossible expectations for customer service in my game business. They think a mere rental entitles them to endless questions and rants about why the game doesn't work, etc. People have a lot of pent-up frustration from RL dissatisfaction with tech support and help desks, and they bring it all into the game and slam you with it LOL. It's an interesting sociological study. I find people will IM me in alarm when their game is crashing or the sim is crashing when all I've done is rent them 1024 meters of pixel on a server. However, I try to be more responsive and try to take on their concerns, and try to go to the Lindens with them.

I find it frustrating sometimes when people taking RL money out of the game -- and big sums of it -- and I mean *out of the game into their RL pockets* (not some grand statement on monetary/currency policies), that they can turn around and say "oops, time to go to math class" or "oops, my wife is calling me for dinner". But then, I sometimes have to say "whoops, can't pay you now, have to pick up the kids at school" LOL.