In Second Life, how are you doing financially?

Just a forum poll, take it for what it's worth.

We can all add the appropriate salt grainage, without spilling it in everyone else's coffee. Or, maybe we can't. But whatever.

I am far less concerned with the commentary than the general trend.

Doing well enough, I have enough to play my games within the game itself, host free events, and buy clothes and outfits.. Basically enough to enjoy my second life like I want

Well I joined on February 2nd and since then have used Lindens to pay for a 1 year membership ($72), pay a monthly $8 tier and bought land. I've currently got a good chunk of linden in my account and my business isn't even open yet

This may prove to be interesting.

It's a completely off-the-cuff way to measure the economy, more along the lines of things like "there's a lot of rush-hour traffic when times are good" or "women show a lot more leg when the economy is booming" (hemlines).

How does our economy look, individually, to the man on the street?

Maybe we'll see.

For some strange reason, dollar amount of sales from what I make are the same even though the Lindex has been falling. So I'm selling more items than I was last month but making the same in rl dollar amount. I'm not sure whether or not I should be glad or worried.

I just started selling stuff a week ago, and with only a few items for sale the trend so far is I will cover account fees and my $15 tier costs.

So I'll gradually add more stuff as I prepare it for sale, And I expect to move from "Even" to "Good" in a few months. "Good" is covering my tier and having a nice bit of spending money. "Great" would be making enough to buy some hi-tech toy I don't really need and boast to all my friend I bought it with money from SL why they lament about another 6 hour instance run in WoW ruined bya n00b warlock, or complain that over a 73 hour 600 person operation in EVE online they got an entire 4 minutes of combat.


p.s.: Buy my stuff!

About as well as I do in real.

just out of curiosity.. given that your business isnt open yet, what did you do to earn the lindens, if it isnt too rude to ask? and what line is your business?

My SL finances are as they were two years ago; I have all the L$ I need to aquire the things I desire in-game.

Then again, I don't desire much (except Desmond Shang tulips and I already got the three I wanted), so I tend to donate them to philanthropic or artistic in-game organizations. I suppose this makes me rather "old school" as I started SL when L$ had value only in-game and my perspective has not changed.

Making enough to keep me in shoes

I make enough to buy in-game items when I need them, but paying account or tier is beyond reasonable hope.

Considering the current fashion trends on Caledon, I wouldn't trust the latter metric.

I don't do anything to earn money in SL. But my alt is a furry goth gorean age play escort and doing fine.

Isn't she a vampire land-baron too?

What is the point of working hard and investing money in SL when it can be taken away so easy? Our property can be taken without "due procss" of the law.

I think a lot of people have learned a lesson over the last few days. If I want to earn money, will work in RL where the fruits of my labor have some protections. SL is for fun only! Oh I have purchased my last Linden, what a laugh!!

Taken me a while to find a formula that works, but my business interests are just about breaking even now. I still have lots of room to expand, so prospects look good.

Fate Gardens pays for itself and my account. It's only allowed to own as much land as it can afford. More than expected, it's very nearly paid me back everything I'd invested in Second Life between November of 2003 and the first woohoo profitability month of February, 2005.

Amazing doesn't describe my awe of a 3D online environment that I can play with as a self-supporting hobby. If the value of the Linden falls considerably, I'll simply have to scale back the tier. When I find myself staring at a hole in the floor, there's always the simple basic existance. Hopefully by then, we'll be able to build our own worlds by linking privately hosted servers across the Internet.

Wah, interesting answers.

Seems that the economic weight is strongly behind "good times" on the poll so far.



Who would have expected that?


How does this reconcile with the zeitgeist we find in the average forum thread?

I do slightly better than break even; I tend to increase my tier only as fast as SL income pays for it plus premium. I've been too busy to tend to business lately, so I'll do better when RL settles down a bit.

I think economic activities in SL fall into two broad categories. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive : some people engage in both. And they may not exaust the possibilities (services, e.g. escorts, event planners, etc. probably fall into a third category).

First, there are people who come with already acquired human capital (e.g., scripting abilities, photoshop experience, etc.), who then invest their own labor in developing some kind of product which they sell.

Second, there are people who come with money, who invest that money to buy land, which they then rent or sell.

Neither route is morally better or worse than the other, and either route can lead to prosperity or destitution, depending on skill and luck.

But, in the current situation in SL, with thousands of new people joining and thousands of land parcels being made available and with the value of the Linden rising with respect to the dollar, I believe conditions favor the "human capitalists" described in my first category, and disourage the "monetary capitalists" described in the second.

I count myself in the first category, and my own little business is prospering. The rise in sales volume has more than made up for the fewer dollars I get for my Linden when I trade some for dollars to pay for my tier.

My guess is that the bulk of the complainers fall into the second category, although I do know there are some in that category who are doing just fine.

Not badly at all. Financially, my mate and I are doing far better than we expected. We purchased our first island a few months ago, and just completed purchasing the second. The first island is basically paying for itself, via the mall and casino on the land, and the second island will be used for all residential leasing. Goal is to have it be self sufficient in the next 2 months.

Considering we started in late July of last year, I'd say we've done pretty well. But then, we're not out for a huge profit. We're perfectly content with breaking even, even if we have to pay some out of pocket to cover land tier.

My situation is a little more on two sided.

I bought a total of $70US in Lindens my first month (November). I've not bought a Linden since. My businesses are doing well and my sales levels are quite healthy. So in that sense, business is good.

But - there's always a but. I'm paying out a lotta money in Classified ads to maintain the same 1st page position I had before pay-for-rankings. I also pay my rent for my businesses in Lindens, and my rent has gone up 20% to keep pace with the drop in US$ value.

Therefore, while my sales are consistantly good to very good, my profit margin is a lot narrower than it was before our little economic dip. In L$ terms, I'm "better off than I was four years ago" but in US$ terms, very much not the case.

And I'm pretty crabby about it too.

I've got a decent half-on, half-off deal going on in SL that works pretty well for me.

Spend a quarter working on my next big product, then relax for a bit making tweaks and fixes and collecting the cash, then back to the grind for a quarter, and so on. Gives me time to take a break from SL and come back with fresh ideas. Since I work on new product while existing product is still in demand, I keep decent cashflow year-round, though nothing beats the first month of selling a brand new toy.

I've got a decent half-on, half-off deal going on in SL that works pretty well for me.

Spend a quarter working on my next big product, then relax for a bit making tweaks and fixes and collecting the cash, then back to the grind for a quarter, and so on. Gives me time to take a break from SL and come back with fresh ideas. Since I work on new product while existing product is still in demand, I keep decent cashflow year-round, though nothing beats the first month of selling a brand new toy.

I make bugger all money and spend a huge amount each month. People seem to like my toys but they don't give me any money for them.

I know ways to make more L$ but I don't find the process interesting enough.