Bad Timing or Bad Marketing?

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Tasia~

I have to fully agree with tasia on this. All the recent press release they point out the mass player owned buisnesses and how money can be made from this virtual game. The had a recent flash video contest to plug the social player exploring, partying, socializing and yet they wont support the players who make the game the very experience they need to keep the players playing.

Ive posted before Ive given advice warned of problems and nothing. People on forums shot down each one worried over the littlest thing instead of compromising a way to make it work for everyone if one thing was disliked it was shot down. I have been buying linden form players at 3.45-3.55 continuously for the past month helping out players who were paniced by the drop in linden dollars.

I emailed GOM telling them their new buy/sell structure was wrong it wasnt one to help the linden dollar grow. Yes good for the buyer they get the most for their buck but without the linden dollar being able to strenthen what did you expect linden labs to do watch it drop? On the other hand linden labs need to closely watch out the structure the buying and selling of linden. Dont get me wrong a huge ty to GOM for providing us with such a brillant buy/sell structure and for so long.

As for the players who provide the content the meat and potatos of this game they are severly overlooked. Bring in more programs and developers what about the ones you already have who have done so much. Each time a person or group get off the ground linden can throw ina curve ball to knock them right down. We are mice in a maze to them, we will always have the cheese waved in our face to taught us and yet never find it. When we are at our best we will be exploited for advertising and so more mice will come in and thus continue the cycle I have called the great circle of shhhhitake.

I have to bite my lip a lot because this was to come the moment linden announced they were planning to take control of the buying and selling of linden. Like all the other curve balls linden labs throws at me I hold my bat and swing away. I gather data, restructure, implement and re-evaluate. If your one who can see the window there is always a profit to be made in each panic

I again fully agree with Tasia speaking with her on many occasions trying to work out great opperunities for the players and linden lab to gain exposure.
Where we go from here? I hope you stocked up to wait out the storm cause they pack a punch.

I have to agree with the forum listed above.

I'm a Professional with day to day involvement with IT, IS and DBA administrators with a variety of styles of Companies. Ranging from Major Insurance, Hospital, City organizations to low level mom and pop style companies. They utilize Linux, Unix (HP, IBM, Solaris etc...) and various Micro-soft architectures.

The last thing I truly want to do myself is spend endless hours, creating and editing and scripting. I do enough of this daily, resolving real life problems, so I look to 2L as a really good way to relax and enjoy a wonderful world. I'll admit, it's a much better experience than that compared to T.S.O, but, where are the Avatar numbers needed to grow the game, when there isn't much on the Marketing aspect to get those "gamers" on-line and signed up.

I find taking the approach as a "standard user", enhances my experience and the need, and want to spend my real dollars to obtain the additional items and or experience what the game has to offer.

It's nice taking "down-time" as an Engineer when I do have the time to spend within the 2L realm.

Most IT, IS and DBA programmers love doing a variety of things to enhance their experiences with 2L and other VL realities, but to warrant the use of mostly programmers and script writers, I’ll have to admit that it doesn't create a sense of any type of individuality within the game; if the only folks that are using the game are Script writers, programmers and various styles of Administrators, depending on their level of involvement with the game and the Industry.
Then you’re looking at a very short lived life cycle of a game and we're all getting to see its life cycle falter, because of the lack of memberships, due to the lack of Marketing in the right aspect being directed towards on-line gamers.

A short lived world, when the only players involved are the Island owners and the script/programmers. I do realize there are Avi's within the game, which have extended their capabilities to have land and manage Islands, but not many I've met within the World, actually do this, who are standard "end-user" type people.

I've found that most users who spend large amounts of time, on-line for the experience of it all, have been folks who do not know much about what it takes to do the things within the game to create their own various "In-Game" marketable ideas or let alone do they even understand various aspects of the Internet.

They are not programmers, dba administrators, IT or IS professionals. These are the people who drive our market for future monetary growth. The impact isn't just localized with the game. The impact also affects the industry in other ways too.
It creates Jobs; it creates the desire for those who do not know about these types of involvements to want to learn on a higher level. That's not just game experience and what they can learn with the game it self, but; it also creates a need to open the doors to additional marketable ideas.
For example. Teaching, with not just Linden, but other companies out there, who offer courses (paid of course) to teach those who are just getting started with the 2L game, as well as use of the Internet and the various tools that it has to offer. (A supply and demand Market).

They create the need for additional hardware, software, marketing, security etc....which in turns, creates the revenue and need for real dollars to maintain the level of experience Linden has to offer, as well as other organizations that could potentially be tied in with Linden to create revenue growth for the betterment of both companies. Then again, read the articles about Linden and make up your own mind as to what the future holds for Linden and 2L.

I've seen my share of on-line gaming and have had the opportunity years ago to Beta Test an environment that I was not impressed by any level as to the experience that was offered. The fact that most of the users that were on-line were only programmers and writers.

No gamers were targeted by any means. Needless to say, the Beta testing revealed a very short lived software, that could have been something today, if only they had targeted the true gamers in the world, through their Marketing efforts and their ability to spend those Marketing dollars to obtain the style of user, required to allow this company to grow and be successful.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen and the organization lasted about 2 years.

I've read and experienced T.S.O and I'm amazed on the number of users involved with this particular gaming experience. There obviously is a drive with other industries to focus their wants and directions more towards a Standard Home user, and thus create the desire in the Market of on-line gaming, to draw standard gamers within the T.S.O environment, thus creating additional revenue to maintain their equipment and grow the experience that is offered by T.S.O (not to repeat myself- a supply and demand Market if you will, again).

The demand was to install additional servers to maintain the need to support the numerous amounts of users, logging in, creating a user name, and paying for the type of service they wanted. The Marketing created this supply and demand, thus allowing T.S.O to have the amount of end-users they have, with log-in capabilities.

These are the people who talk and tell, about the wonderful experience any game has to offer to the "standard end-users" who do not have an account. These users talk with family, friends, relatives, animals, inanimate objects on the obsession of the wonderment of any game and create a simple sense to others who do not have an account, the desire to want to spend their dollars for the account to create an Avatar and enjoy what Linden has created for folks to use.

Not to mention the ability to purchase additional Linden to use within the game to expound on their own experiences of making purchases, renting land, owning land and creating shops etc...It’s growth people.

I find that I've met many peeps within the game itself, who are script writers, programmers etc and its nice knowing some of the peeps in 2L who can teach, but within the same token, not everyone is going to be a programmer/writer or understand the things true scripters/writers understand.

Most script writers and programmers don't read the wall street Journal to get information as to what their world is doing and where it's going.

They get this from the Internet. Thus, why not advertise on the net, the way it should be done. How many people log in daily, in the world and how many people do you miss, due to not having the ads out there to draw them in.

I was brought in by a friend of mine and was reluctant, because I can not stand on-line gaming to any degree. After about 3 days of spending some time with 2L, I can't put it down. Thus, I advertise for 2L, by word of mouth and small things I do, being involved with the Internet and this market, to get friends and family to sign up, because I do enjoy what and how 2L was created.

I read enough in my world as it is, and as this market grows and changes dynamically with the gaming industry so should the creative ability of a good Marketer.

One who truly understand the Internet World and realizes that there is money to be made in tremendous amounts from the Internet, through good Marketing on the internet and various other means. You have to spend dollars to make dollars, any business person will see that, even if the costs are some times, minimal, it all has positive effect as to how a company will survive, as I'm sure we all already know this.

My son's don't play Halo, because they read it in a magazine or the local news paper. They play it, because they've heard about it, through different ways. While surfing the Net, talking with friends at home and school.

They see an add and it peeks their interest. Of course, it peaks my wallet, but- you can see my point is made. Some where in the tunes of about $400 us. dollars, just on one gaming console, one game and one controller.

A sale was made for the purchase of one Game, and the demand was created for additional games to be made, and thus you have your typical success story, of where a company, had great Marketing abilities with gamers and the ability to draw in the right type of crowd of people and since then, you can read about Microsoft's success story with Halo, and Halo II. Being one of the top games of the year, both in popularity and sales.

If Linden is trying to get new users involved, isn't it safe to say as opinion, that Linden has shot their self in the foot by giving away the memberships and not Marketing their on-line game to the standard gamers. Lord knows my kids have seen me play and desperately want to be part of this world. A few years growth, will allow that to happen. So what happens now, that Linden has opened up their gates and not charged a membership fee. Well, any simple person, reading articles etc... can see that it's taken away from Lindens ability to maintain any good level of user and monetary growth by giving away these memberships for free.

Where did the incentive go on the Marketing aspect, to get the user to sign up and pay the membership fee, to increase sales and revenue?

And, increase the growth of 2L, to be the top online virtual game of the year. Well, I don't see that happening

Where's the advertisement that attracts those users, from dating sites, yahoo chats, various other locations. Most of my involvement with this Industry requires that I utilize the internet, through searches etc for the things I need. And I sure didn't see any advertising to draw my attention in, as an on-line gamer. I wouldn't have signed up nor wasted my time, if it wasn't someone I know, who is a "typical" end-user who encouraged me to take a look. And I'm very happy he did!!!

Why not target those who do spend on average, 6 to 7 hours a day, who are and have the leisure to spend the time they do, enjoying what 2L has to offer.

I don't see how Linden can expect to grow an on-line gaming experience, with only programmers and script writers, when in reality, these folks have real lives and cannot be the only folks who commit their hard earned dollars to support something that obviously has a negative future, based on articles and Internet media, regarding the state of affairs that Linden obviously has overlooked.

It looks great on the books.

ex.. if I was selling a service and using only word of mouth or various written articles, that most of the people I deal with, would never subscribe too, nor read; how would I expect to get the market I need to be successful in my industry, if the only targets were programmers and writers and not home users, or on-line gamers.

I guess my answer would be, "It's just a matter of time before my company would be positioned into a non-existent life.

Riven~

You seriously need to discover the carriage return Tasia.

Aside from that though, I wish someone would explain to me why we need new users or why we need to keep growing. Growth for growths sake?

It seems to me that the recent rapid growth and all the economic crap that it brings are actually the death of this place. LL's service has gone to the dogs and everything is more expensive and less under our control. How is that a good thing?

Is there not enough profit in the current model?
Are they not meeting their financial obligations?
How would haveing twice the players really change that?

This makes no sense to me, whats wrong with small?

Tasia, I am honestly wanting to read your post. Is there a chance you would edit it and break it into about 3 paragraphs? My eyes get jumpy when I try to read too much text close together. Thanks if you can!

My eyes, MY EYES!!

Use paragraphs, dude..

I agree with you. I think unmanaged growth for growth's sake is a dangerous thing, especially with the limited resources that Linden Lab has, and their inability to ramp up as quickly as expected to meet demand. Overall, I think they have held up well, however, I think the amount of time running around putting fingers in holes to to keep the dam from breaking under the weight of new users has hindered the development of SL overall. Growth is needed - you have a natural progression of users staying for awhile. Also, more diverse users are needed - normally the first few waves of the user base on something like SL is going to be your more hardcore technical users and early adopters. Mass appeal is important - it helps to evolve the product and make it more useable.

If LL can find the right balance between development of the platform and growth of the user base, I think you will see a marked improvement in SL over time. If they continue on the same path they are now, well, I am sure someone can probably build an iceburg and a big boat to illustrate what will happen.

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BTW gamerzfix.com still buys and sells linden *hint cough* shameless plug

Actually, the tactic of presenting only in vertical markets and only as a platform where customers can create business and commerce that translates to $USD is not necessarily a bad thing.

The problem is, the misleading presentation wherein this is made to sound 'simple' along with the implication that this product is in any way 'ready for prime time'.

At best, Second Life is a first adopter product. That means the mainstream won't really be on board for another 5 - 8 years (if LL lasts that long).

Flooding freebie memberships is at once a sign of acknowledgement and a sign of desperation. Getting more residents only equates to profit if/when those residents invest in buying currency and/or content themselves.

More members will not automatically help things. Indeed, in most cases, it only means more load, especially when there is no clear-cut route to the economy outside of purchasing Lindens if you're a consumer and the cost of entry to be a creator is prohibitively steep (e.g., third part development tools if you intend to be serious).

If Linden Labs were serious about Second Life being a 'platform' they would already have things like Havok2 and the APIs out the door. Instead, they futz around with new UIs (which, while needed, are not going to usher in more content developers!!) and shirk the very things the development community here are telling them LOUD AND CLEAR are necessary to keep their interest alive.

And instead of marketing to the mainstream that is still 5 - 8 years from adoption, they'd be marketing to the geekset, presenting SL as a 'build your own fun' solution.

You'd think by now they would have figured out that the geeks are the ones who make things simpler for the mainstreamers. Traditionally they are the first adopters and if you can't keep them happy, you damn sure aren't going to keep 'Biff, Muffy, and Stu' shelling out the cash.

however you want to interpret LL's development priorities, the fact is that Second Life as a technical platform is not ready for prime time, so Philip shouldn't waste his marketing dollars yet.

Right now they are getting decent momentum through word of mouth, a few key conferences, and PR -- all relatively inexpensive -- which is bringing in early adopters. There's probably a big turnover rate (see Eboni's recent thread on what SL needs to keep people) but that's expected at this point in time.

it's early days, much as many wish the community, technology, and business opportunities were 2 years ahead

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There's always something to say, especially in this forum.

SL has usually gone the more "guerilla" tactics of advertisement... mentions in magazines, sponsoring talks, having talks themselves, going on TV, etc.

Normal marketing isn't going to work in a place like SL... where do you advertise?

You can't advertise on gaming sites, SL isn't a game.

You can't advertise in architecture circles, as it's not a mature CAD platform yet.

You can't advertise in development circles, because it's not a mature dev platform yet.

So... where?

What IS SL, then find people that would be interested in such a product.

SL has about a 40/60 women/men ratio, soemthing that's entirely strange for an online space; usually it's 20/80 or lower. Why is this, and how do they advertise to keep it that way?

Also, I don't think there's any lack of players wanting to play... 1000 users a day are coming in since the accounts were free; prior to that, 100 a day. It's been a steady growth curve.

The main bottleneck is accessibility; SL simply can't run on an eMachine, something that many people have. Also, Broadband isn't as widespread as the cable/DSL companies would like you to believe; I think at last count 50% of Americans had the option to go broadband? That narrows your market right there.

If SL could be running on a P3-500 with dialup, you'd have around 4-5 million users, easy.

LF

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What Happened to Tasia's post!!??, and why are they gone. Makes an Avatar go hmmmmmmmmmm...
what's happened here. how ironic...












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Tasia~[/QUOTE]

I may not read the same articles that some of the others in this thread have, but what I've come across about SL in doesn't mention any part of SL translating into a way to Make USD. Whether LL wants to believe it or not, all the write ups I've come across have labled SL a game, not as a second job, or way to make extra cash. I'm also one of the few that will consider word-of-mouth as marketing; though it's slow and isn't going to target any specific group of people; the scriptors, gamers, architects, etc. are winding up here by chance.

i won't qoute what I saw in Computer games cause at this point in time I don't have the issue around me, but then again it wasn't memorable enough. SL does have mention in the Oct. 2005 Playboy on page 80 ( yes some of us do actually read it, don't ask who the picts are, lol).

--cut-- "Second Life (linden Lab, Mac, PC) lets you create a virtual person, then live life online with thousands of other peoples's creations. Open-ended tools let users make nearly anything---from homes that minic the effects of schizophrenia to schools of autonamous fish and theaters that stream real - world indie fims." --cut-- Brian Crescente

that is the complete mention on SL; no USD possibilities, no what kind of open ended tools, and not really something I expect to even attract the average Playboy user since I'm sure the adult content aspect was considered undesirable(my opinion, of course).

Now here is where I have my problem with not doing at least minimal marketing to target specific groups; if we don't target scripters, we retard the growth potential of improving the langauge; the same can be said about the poor state of having to conduct business by hand when there is a group that could be used to track money, and even the building aspect. Word of mouth leads to people bringing in friends, which may or may not beable to help improve the state of things, most of the complaints you see on the forums are end user or "player" complaints. That is a sign of growth, and helps from reaching a plateau with no improvement.

i don't think this is a simple black and white issue, I think some marketing is necessary to keep the world growing for the good of all. The world in old enough to get a little targeted to who we need in the system to improve it, yet not old enough to go all out and spend every marketing dime put aside. and for those who say you can't market this as a "whatever", it depends on why you signed on in the first place, because I know many people that only come on to be a scripter, and I know more that only come on to be builders and decorators, and I know a lot more than both put together log on everyday to play a game.

We need to stop trying to classify it as one or the other, and start realizing that we want everyone one of those types of people on the grid... and for those who wonder, I came in as a gamer, and like scripting and building enough to stay, so I do beleive that all three parts I find attractive about SL should be marketed.

why are Tasia's post all going away!!!!!!!!.....wtf.....