Guess Who Bought 10 of 15 Sims in the Last Four Days

I am curious to know what you would consider better training than having 'played' SL and been a major content provider? Why would a 'trained labor force' (which is, after all, made up of individuals) be faster and more professional than our current individual content providers?

There isnt much in SL building that is SL-specific, professional artists should have no trouble adjusting - we already have some here, though they dont work 8h a day on it.
There is also the hard fact that there is strength in numbers, and a focused team of motivated professionals with a good manager will beat any of the silly amateur projects we have today.
The only thing preventing a decent game being made with SL today is the sheer amount of resources required (land, and content development).
Imagine if you had 20 sims and a team of 50 people, all of them as good or better than Jimmy Thomson and CrystalShard Foo, you could turn Chinatown/UnrealL into a full-blown, commercial quality FPS game.

One man's exploitation is another man's business opportunity, yes, of course. But thats how it works, isn't it. If the rewards were high enough to attract me in in the hope of joining the exploitation, I would add to the competition, reduce the margins a little, so it was less exploititive than before. But if the margins were still too high, someone else would be attracted in, until finally there was no exploitation at all, and the market would have found the right price.

But there is one issue here that distorts all discussion, and rarely gets mentioned. Which is highly relevant to the question of fairness to purchasers, both of land, content, and services.

It is the cost the various providers attach to their own labor. My guess is that there is almost no-one who sets her prices on the basis of a calculation giving a real-world value to the time spent in developing the product, in providing the service.

Everyone costs their time at a sort of "But I'm enjoying it" level which they would never dream of accepting in the real world. How long this can continue as SL grows and develops I don't know, but since (the other side of the coin) we would be mad to pay fully RW prices for handfuls of pixels usable only here, this is currently essential to SL's survival. But it does also insulate us from any RW intrusions or business take-overs by those who would see no fun factor at all, except possibly, as Anshe has suggested, assault from those originating in jurisdictions where the acceptable RW rates of pay are down near what to us is this "But I'm playing" level.

There may be some providers making real world hourly rates for their effort, but my guess is that its very, very few. Maybe it only happens where the work is so tedious, and perhaps risky, that the fun factor is significantly diminished. Like buying, subdividing, riskily holding, and hopefully selling land ? Which is perhaps why people think the markups are too high in comparison to other things - the other things come at a more provider-subsidised play price.

Am I wrong about this ?

One man's exploitation is another man's business opportunity, yes, of course. But thats how it works, isn't it. If the rewards were high enough to attract me in in the hope of joining the exploitation, I would add to the competition, reduce the margins a little, so it was less exploititive than before. But if the margins were still too high, someone else would be attracted in, until finally there was no exploitation at all, and the market would have found the right price.

But there is one issue here that distorts all discussion, and rarely gets mentioned. Which is highly relevant to the question of fairness to purchasers, both of land, content, and services.

It is the cost the various providers attach to their own labor. My guess is that there is almost no-one who sets her prices on the basis of a calculation giving a real-world value to the time spent in developing the product, in providing the service.

Everyone costs their time at a sort of "But I'm enjoying it" level which they would never dream of accepting in the real world. How long this can continue as SL grows and develops I don't know, but since (the other side of the coin) we would be mad to pay fully RW prices for handfuls of pixels usable only here, this is currently essential to SL's survival. But it does also insulate us from any RW intrusions or business take-overs by those who would see no fun factor at all, except possibly, as Anshe has suggested, assault from those originating in jurisdictions where the acceptable RW rates of pay are down near what to us is this "But I'm playing" level.

There may be some providers making real world hourly rates for their effort, but my guess is that its very, very few. Maybe it only happens where the work is so tedious, and perhaps risky, that the fun factor is significantly diminished. Like buying, subdividing, riskily holding, and hopefully selling land ? Which is perhaps why people think the markups are too high in comparison to other things - the other things come at a more provider-subsidised play price. Being more intrinsically rewarding and fun to provide.

Am I wrong about this ?

On the "only auctioning whole sims" issue. At first I was highly incensed about this, believing as do some here that this was a significant loss of opportunity to the non-baron, contributing to exploitation and a price hike.

But Philip answered the outcry by posting statistics on how many little people had actually chosen to participate in the auctions in the previous three months. Not win. Just participate. The number was tiny. It shut me up - for people who wanted it so badly, we simply did not use it enough.

And remember, in the same move, LL effectively capped the sim price at close to U$1000. A little variability for higher quality ones, but you can have a bog-standard one for exactly U$1000 any time you want. An unheard-of reduction. Previously they regularly went to U$1400, U$1600, occasionally up near U$2000.

And no land baron can stop you getting one at U$1000, because there is now an umlimited supply.

So LL have already responded to our objections to land barons expoitation. They have capped the price, made it impossible for them to squeeze any other buyer out, and the prices in-world really have dropped as a result. The only thing they have taken from us is something we simply did not use enough for them to bother with the effort of supplying it.

The one big issue remaining in baronry is the level of tier discount. And thats a difficult one which can be viewed two ways, and it is. In several other threads.

anshe has a point operating within the boundries of the system and profiting off it is leagal but if anshe starts charging 10k for 512 then the linden might intervene but as of right now land is still affordable all you can hope for is a moderate to highly diverse market.

Yes, I have. I don't understand the unwillingness to see the big picture benefits which the success of any individual person participating in the development of this place brings to the survival of SL overall. Developers and entrepeneurs in all areas are absolutely necessary to making this place vital and complete. I appreciate the contributions of all the various factions: content creators, scriptors, event hosts, and, yes, even land developers. I think it's great that the opportunity exists to invest time and effort and earn some cash, whether it be enough to offset or cover your costs all the way to paying for some RL expenses including but not limited to gas, a home remodeling project, extended family in China, and even a penchant for prime rib & sushi.

Anshe could have dumped the mainland in favor of Dreamland but I'm guessing that she understands that the health of the mainland grid is the basis of everyone's success. Had the land barons not been around these past few months to carry the tier for all the vacant parcels, it would have severely hampered LL's progress. When the going got tough, it seemed like a lot of people retreated to the better performance of their own private islands or simply tiered down and went off to play WOW.

If you are surprised, Mt R, it must be because you misunderstand the nature of these slightly strange auctions.

In reality, sims are available in unlimited supply at a fixed price of US$1000 each, so on that basis, no sim need ever receive more than one bid. If someone bids against you, abandon it and just go get another one.

This bidding element is little more than a sort of frill. For sims that are more desirable than a bog-standard one. Telehub. Pretty terrain. Unusually large amount of useable land.

For these special sims there may indeed be a bit of competition, because reselling may raise a bit more cash than usual. Hence the need for a small competitive component in the price.

But if you want a bog-standard one, it's fixed price. US$1000.

It's this price cap, previously non-existent, that has pulled the land prices down. That and the new unlimited supply. Whereas previously LL rationed their availability, adjusting it to try to keep prices roughly constant. This control they have (surprisingly to me) abandoned.

So you see, musicteacher, a very small number of bids and little competition is exactly what you would expect. You don't need to push and shove for loaves of bread if they are freely available everywhere at a fixed price, and if anyone puts their hand on one, you just take the one next to it. Though you might get a small altercation over the odd one with lots of raisins.

Its an strange setup, and hardly surprising if not everyone understands it.

Sorry, should be more clear. Dissing the business savvy of content developers.

I have spent a long time analyzing what makes sense in SL, and content developing is the only thing that is protected by LindenLabs, to the point where he'd sacrifice others .. such as GOM and SLExchange / SLB.

As for land, well, what can I say.

"Professional content houses" may come into to SL, sure, but by the time they do and the time it makes sense, >we< will be the professional content houses.

I mean.. where do you think EA or any of these companies came from? Quite often it was a group of smart people starting out on something leading edge like SL.

Is the idea that having four AVs could get you a 2048 plot for NO tier correct?

A premium account allows 512 m2 of land at no tier.

Times four = 2048

However, the premium accounts cost $9.95 a month. At that rate, the cost is about the same as paying tier.

The thing is, 3D modeling and animation is absolutely nothing new, there are already heaps of people doing it a lot better than any of us, and they can come in at any time.
You're right, there is nothing stopping you or me from scraping some money together and hiring *them*, but as soon as someone with a budget of millions sniffs a profit, they can allocate a team of 50 people to recreate whatever you have up for sale in 3 months, then they'll go walmart on you and flood the grid with super cheap content, professionally marketed, until you've either given up or become comparatively unknown. Then they'll start raising prices

I can only wonder and play in the sandboxes.

That's not the way software businesses work. They aquire, they don't re-invent.

Why spend all those millions of dollars on figuring out all over again what the bugs are and the subtleties of SL? Why not just aquire the people and the products with the experience and go from there?

Re-inventing is fraught with danger.

The only threat to us is that SL doesn't grow.

I haven't read through this entire thread, but this topic simply supports my theory.
LL needs to stop auctioning land off to rich people.
Doing so is pointless, and unfair to the SL commumity.

I would prefer for new sims to be reserved for first land.
Otherwise, split sims up ino first lands, and auction each 512 lot off. All the player would have to do is walk up to the land, and enter thier bid for it.

Whatever the case, the bottom line is this: There is no reason for Linden Labs to be auctioning off entire sims to rich people.

First land is not how much land costs. If there was no first land, and no residents selling land, you would likely pay around US$7.81 minimum for every 512meter2 land that Linden Labs sold you. Linden Labs is selling "rich people" land for US$7.81/ 512 meter2 minimum in the auctions. What makes you think that if they split the land up into smaller peices they are going to sell you land for the first land price of about US$1.80. Linden Labs would lose a gigantic chunck of their income. What do companies do when they lose giant chunks of their income. They charge higher fees. Sure, if land cost US$1.80 that would make you happy, but woud you want your teir cost to double?

This is why Linden Labs auctions land to anyone. They auction it to make money. If the land buyers aren't going to pay the money, you are going to have to pay the money in some other way shape of form such as in teir fees.

not nessesarly (i can't spell worth a damned) on top of getting the "free" 512 on each account, putting the tier into a group you get a bonus, and even on top of that, your getting 500L a week as a stipend, which by current standards is about 2 US. So if you figure you get 2US of lindens each week and there is usually 4 pay periods in a month, that right there is 8US. so, it pretty much balances out to free land.

from what i have heard and seen of AC this is all she does, its her rl job. this is not game to her its how she makes rl money. Not that that really makes any difference, but i do agree it ruins the "gameplay" for alot of other people

The fact that we had a yahoo did not prevent 10 other businesses from reinventing search engines
I was also perfectly happy with ICQ, but most people now use MSN.
When someone else has already spent millions in R&D it becomes trivial to reinvent or even improve upon existing products.Buying out Anshe would be a lot more expensive than just hiring a few people in India. Been to GOM recently? Or should I say Lindex?
Heck, ever hear of CHINA? They make all their money cloning existing products at half the price
Besides, as someone who spent quite a lot of time figuring things out I can assure you that these days there is no need to figure out anything, you can just read the forums, wiki, etc.

are you bored, Eggy? You're necroposting and answering necroposts. Surely we can come up with some new drahma if the forums are that shite? It doesn't take much to get this crowd riled up!

Kritter, ever since you left SL, I have no one to cyber with. Nobody else has ever called me an oeuf with such tender loving care.
And yeah sometimes I get bored, and then I IM you on MSN or Yahoo, and then you don't reply cuz you're busy cybering Willow

Sadly, there was no first land for me, so I ended up buying land, and it bugs me that people can still come in with different alts, buy up all the first lands, then sell them at higher prices, making it hard to get for the average joe to buy. and it is just too sickening how it is almost just like whats going on in the real world house market, especialy here in California.

If somebody is really the cuthroat evil land-baron as some of you say she is, then let me throw this idea to you all:

BOYCOTT!!

If you really feel strongly about her actions, then why not organise a boycott and educate people about her? That would surely stop her ways.

I'm still new and learning about this whole metaverse economy and such, so I don't have an opinion about this yet.

We are not allowed to say bad things about other residents.

I try to educate people about land issues, but I can't be specific on the practices of others when I do so.

Unfortunately, a boycott of AC (one where you did not somehow contribute to her financial gain any any way), would essentially require not playing sl.