The Death of the In World economy.

My sales are just fine.

I haven't noticed a drop off at all.
I'm pretty consistantly making more than enough to cover my tier and buy whatever I want... not that I buy a lot, but when I DO go shopping, I don't have to hem and haw over the prices, which makes a change from RL! *grin*

Nobody will answer my question in this thread: Where do people get the impression that Second Life is some kind of free kiddy game like the Shockwave routines on cartoonnetwork.com?

Lewis, I was not quoting In-Game transactions. I was quoting Lindex volume. Ls changing hands in game does not show up on the Lindex.

Ok with this latest round of changes LL has sent to the world economy I'm starting to really ask myself WHY I'm maintaining 2 PREMIUM accounts to play this game?

Really, is it to be TAXED (TIER) more than what RENT would cost me for the same amount of land?

Maybe it's the small amount that LL now gives PREMIUM players?

Really, I'm seriously considering dropping back to a BASIC account, dropping my land and just working for LINDEN to cash out all the time Seems to be all the the lindens are interested in these days, with the modifications to the economy.

That and the rise in the number of UNVERIFIED accounts seems to have started a ARMS buy up. Who knows maybe in the next year Second Life will be more about the Guns and Blades in the game. Guess it's time to break down and become and ARMS dealer to make alot of money to cash out for US$$$

RANT off. Yes by the way this IS my basic account I posted this with... NOT my PREMIUM.

Hello,
I thought I'd just drop in and give my impression of what is happening to the economy on the Teen Grid. Unlike on the MG, TG residents often have trouble finding money to spend on SL and/or convincing their parents to let them do so. Thus, most TG residents are basics who can't easily buy L$. Messing with the stipends for basic accounts makes TG residents even poorer, and is bad for creaters, who can't make money selling to broke people. I did an informal survey, and out of every 10 people, maybe 6 or 7 were completley broke. I'd do forum survey, but there dosen't seem to be a TG-specific place for it.

I sure as heck don't think it's free. In fact it is about the most expensive 3D Chat program online. And simple facts, call it a game, call it a business, call it a platform I don't care WHAT you want to call it. It is just a glorified 3D interactive chat. My Live In and I worked it out once and for the same price as just a couple months here owning a small portion of land with an exptremely prohibitve prim count limit, we could have BOTH had a yearly account elsewhere and woned the largest in metaverse sim they had available. A YEAR of something a lot bigger than what we had for less than a few months here.

Now let's hit some more logic for you. A lot of you liek to say if you can aford a broadband connection you can aford to line YOUR pcokets buying your L's. There are more than a few pl here who actually need thier broadband and would have it regardless of having SL or not. And if you want to make them have to pay out money they need for thier connection why the hell should they stay around? can't log in without a broadband conection so if you can't pay for it what's the freakin use. USE YOUR BRAINS PPL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Linden labs has GOT to STOP caterring strictly to the interests of the upper one percent of thier population and start paying attnetion to exactly how BADLY thier in world financial decisions are ruining SL for the rest of us. Not one of you land barons or money mongers is gonna be able to support your behinds once no one buys your land and L's anymore because the vast majority of you never learned to manipulate a prim, you only manipulate ppl and a market that doesn't even exist.

I think SL is more than a glorified chat room! Someone (not sure who now) said it's half 3D chat room, half Lego and half Barbie; I think that's a pretty good description. And, just for the record, I *love* playing with Lego and Barbie dolls!

I don't know where Dmitri gets the idea that LL only cater to the richest one percent of customers; their actions don't fit that profile. From my perspective, it looks as if their economics advisor has spent a considerable amount of time analysing the inworld economy and made sensible recommendations which are now being implemented.

Pronouncing 'The Death of the Inworld Economy' on the back of this is hyperbole to the max! If I were in the Lindens' shoes I wouldn't pay much attention to these forums if that's the best that people can come up with. This change will be for the benefit of the SL economy in the long run and largely for the reasons Lawrence outlined at the Town Hall - pumping in fewer $L via stipends and more via the Lindex gives LL a subtler tool to manage the economy.

SL is great value for money in my opinion. I signed up for a year's account after a month of tootling around with a Basic account last September. I don't have a problem with buying $L off SLExchange or the Lindex when I need them either. As has been pointed out before, you can have a hell of a lot of fun in SL for free and even more for the price of a Starbucks coffee. I respect the fact that some people will never do this on principle, but then you have to do something else to make money if you want to spend it in the game. (I think this is the stance that Anshe took and look how she turned out )

What I think that some people are missing is that, as SL grows and goes mainstream, more mainstream people are going to join. Right now we have a very unusual (and interesting) user base with a high proportion of creative individuals and content creators. We're going to get more people who simply want to be content consumers coming in, and it is these consumers who are going to purchase $L off the Lindex from the start. It is their purchasing that will drive the inworld economy and expand it so that it can support more content creators. I think this is likely to benefit all of us.

I'm afraid I just don't see the downside here, never mind the apocalypse that some are predicting.

The 'economic adviser' disappeared after several months, having shown absolutely no understanding of SL whatsoever. There is now no economic advisor whatsoever, and the 'recommendations' being made, such as cutting stipends, damages the economy far, far more than it does good.

And who benefits from a higher demand for money? Linden Lab, by selling it, and those who milk SL to make a profit. Not your average player like me, that's for sure.

You don't think they cater for the richest 1%? What about the 10% tier discount for those who own a whole island? The fact that tier prices reduce proportionally the more land you own? Certainly there's only a tiny percentage of people with enough disposable income to shell out on an island (or more) whilst the rest of us make do with what we can.

SL is vastly overpriced for what it is, especially if you don't plan on milking it as a second income, and its high system specs also cause a problem for many users who are either unable to run it or have to use minimum settings to get in.

There is too much effort being put into adding shiny new features, and not enough on fixing problems and finding ways to make SL more accessible to people without high end computers.

If Linden Lab would just stop concentrating on the "economy" aspect and concentrate more on making the game fun and reliable, then far more people would benefit... but, sadly, the 1% you quote are the ones who pull the strings, and the rest of us don't matter one jot.

Lewis

Aaah, I didn't know their economics adviser had gone. Perhaps it had something to do with the warm welcome she got on these forums, who knows? FWIW I thought her analysis, presented in the Metaverse Messenger, made a lot of sense and is clearly informing Linden Labs' thinking right now. In any case, someone at LL clearly has a good understanding of the inworld economy and is making sensible recommendations, so that's okay.

But Lewis raises a couple of reasons for why LL might be catering for the top x percent which deserve a response. Lewis' analysis of the tier discounts that LL provides for people with larger land holdings reminds me of the analysis provided by the old Social Democratic Faction here on 'parasitic wealth extraction'. I've always had a problem with this analysis. While it's true that the discounts LL provides benefit those with more money, they have also allowed the development of a category of SL entrepreneur i.e. land developers (or land barons if you prefer). It seems to me that these entrepreneurs risk portions of their wealth in order to provide a service to other residents. Without the discounts that LL provides, they would either go out of business or have to charge higher rents. I can't see how either outcome really helps us in any way. It would also be kind of odd for a service provider not to provide a discount for those who purchase more of their product/service; seems to me this is normal business practice.

The discounts also enable community-oriented groups to collaborate on shared projects. A lot of the private sims are run that way, as is Neufreistadt, a democratic, self-governing community with its own government (we're in the middle of elections right now, see our website for more information, the link is in my signature line).

It is true that Linden Labs have set the world up in 'propertarian' way. See the transcript of the inworld Thinkers meeting on self-government in SL for more info on this. They could have set up the world on a different basis without an economy but they didn't. Personally, I think the fact that there is a functioning inworld economy (and that some people are making a RL income from their work in SL) is one of the more interesting things about SL. It would be a shame if we were to lose it. From that perspective, the changes the Lindens are suggesting (and they're fairly minor changes) are entirely welcome.

There is absolutely no economy in Second Life in a true sense because there is no "from here to there". In other words I cannot buy anything within this system that has any use at all in First Life. I cannot even download the textures this alt owns, having paid good real US dollars for them, let alone anything else.

In short the economy at best is a mirage, and viewed from some perspectives could be a con scheme.

I have to offer reluctant admiration towards Linden Labs who have come up with the best money making scheme I have ever seen in real life......create artificial Linden Dollars at zero cost and sell them to you all for real US dollars. That takes some beating and if you are all so stupid enough not to grasp that then I presume some of you will be more than willing to assist some poor hard done by Nigerians to transfer money out of their real life country too.

Now lets talk about land costs and tier. I own (for my own amusements) a private metaverse in Active Worlds. It is one square kilometre, which is about the equal of 16 regions/Sims here. My total annual cost for that was around £380 or say $700. In Second Life the equal to that land would be about $19,200 up front (assuming purchase from Linden Labs) and $3,120 per month. Say $56,640 vis-à-vis $700 in Active Worlds.

In addition I have access to many other separate universes, the largest of which is bigger than the real life California. Some universes are free access to build. I may allow building in my own world, and if I do certain people here may get a free invite.


Lets look at technology. I agree that the software behind Second Life is quite advanced, but then it has an equal in Active Worlds once you understand how the two systems differ.
And there are two very advanced features fully enabled in Active Worlds that are absolutely not available in Second Life, they are the ability to speak naturally to other avatars via IP telephone and most important of all complete integration with the outside web.

In other words I can program an object/prim to throw up any web page on either a click or by bumping/walking through it. Think about that one folks.... if say I wanted to run a legal real life casino I would simply sign up to an agency agreement with one of the Betting Exchanges or On-Line casinos, link into the relevant server and collect commission from turnover with no risk. Beats Linden Dollar casinos any day. And if I arrange for my world to be hosted by another FTP server outside the US it would be completely legal; unlike the current Linden Dollar casinos that are basically breaking US laws

So, universe owners can create their own worlds and control their economy, individual people can either own smaller lots of land, rent, or even build for free (with greater or lesser control over the VR environment dependent on any deal they make) and its an open environment where real life and virtual life meet and can gain advantage.

Finally the VR environment is actually better than Second Life. I can see for miles from the centre of my universe...the reason being Active Worlds enable you to have endless visible and accessible land or ocean, even if the build is limited by your universe size. I have far more control over my environment than even Estate/Private Island owners in Second Life even extending to gravity and VR weather

Just my own personal views of course.

Have you ever had a personal view that _wasn't_ a thinly-veiled advert for active worlds?

*checks posting history*

....thought not.

You are wrong.

My previous posts made it clear this Av was a previous alt. The previous main account is now closed after around a year. You should do your own resarch more dilligently old fruit.

An easy way to see how the economy is for one of those noob's with no money is to be one. I have not been playing the game for as long as some but as far as content creation, it isnt easy for those of us that arent programmer types.

There is no Big Nuby Bible to help "consumers" find places where they can get clothes for $0L, the help is there but its not entirely clear to people what this thing is and how to play it. (at first i considered putting money in the game to be like cheating because i didnt earn it the hard way, somewhat got over it)

Unlike RL you arent born to SL with parents that can show you the ropes and give you a place to open your boxes of stuff. When this game is new, its very new and strange and that is where people may choose that they dont want to pay any money, or leave their avie on a dancing pad all night which seems to be what some are doing these days.

Some areas are nearly always empty and I have noticed that the number of people online usually never tops about 8000, it is possible that the people who spend the most time in the game are the ones creating content and not a lot of time buying it. I only buy stuff that I know I cant make or that is so funny or intresting I must have it.

For those of you that are making real cash in the game I hope to do that also but......

Pretty soon its gonna be a world of high rollers and penny pinchers and people searching for the next buck, thats not fun, thats Wall Street!


I might make that Nuby Bible hehehe

They just gotta live and learn... They are grown ups behind the avatar, they should be able to apply common sense and figure things out.

aah, rich folks buy yachts regardless of the economy, RL...SL sales by the rich to the rich of luxury items hardly count. So while the Anshe's and such of SL are still buying the 'quality' goods (read overpriced and marketed) off each other, sales of normal priced goods are indeed falling.

And nice faling back on create date (like that matters with alts) in an attempt to bolster your point.

You make me so proud! With my World Domination Plan into full swing, I can see a big promotion for you.

I'll use my business as an example. For the first month or so my business was slow. Then it rather took off (notice my meters are paid for near full term?) and I was doing good here and fair on SLEX. Unfortunately, LL screwed the basics so they could bogusly inflate the membership numbers by eliminating the card requirement...I took a huge hit on sales. Just going over my records, around 25% ingame and 50% on SLEX. Now they are screwing new premiums....I can't WAIT to see how this damages my sales. My pre-stipend cut profits are starting to dwindle just maintaining what I have now....even other premiums and business owners are not buying as much or try to dicker prices since the cuts.

The SL economist is doing just what all economists do RL...protecting government (LL) and the monied individuals/organizations (the big content providers, linden traders, etc.) interests at the expense of the middle and lower economic classes. Sure, businesses established a year or even six months prior to King Phil catering to the upper classes ingame are not as affected...they have had time to work up loyal clientelle and name recognition PRE screwover...its the rest of us that got started a couple months before the economic tinkering that are taking the hit. I'd not mind it so much if King Phil had the anatomical parts to outright say 'its important we keep our currency traders and land barons happy, so this is gonna hurt the rest of you'....I'd take honesty to the usual 'its for your benefit too / trickle down' nonsense.

Its getting to the point for me that I may not be able to maintain my holdings if sales do not pick up (I have used the Lindex ONE time and will not use it again for personal ethical reasons). Unlike RL, they do NOT have a captive audience for food / shelter / basic necessities....and at some point, if enough folks like me close down shop and go back to being landless wanderers, who are the high-end merchants going to have to sell to?

Its just typical short-sighted capitalism, taking profits today at the expense of tomorrow.

Does anyone have any hard numbers on on the actual $L spent in SL and the trends. Both total amounts and and on a per account basis?

The live and learn thing may work for some in RL but SL is a game and people who come in and get the "tough luck" treatment dont stay, they log in probably 3 times and then they leave, they dont become customers or creators. There is no incentive to stay or upgrade.

Just like the first land feature that allows first time buyers get a slice of land at a low price gives someone an incentive to upgrade, starting someone one step lower is not a plus.

You see, that's just it... SL is not a game. It might look like a game, it might have some of the characteristics of a game, but it is definitely not a game.

The biggest indicator of this... what's the objective? How do you keep score? How can you win? You can't "play" Second Life.

I really wish people would recognize SL for what it is. This is a 3D virtual platform, heavily focusing on social interaction. Basically, unless you choose to play a game within SL, or create content, or sell content, you are in a 3D glorified chatroom.

This isn't a game in the classic sense, but 'game' is the closest match to what we have. People play in SL (far more than those who try it as a 'real' job) -- they play socially, eg: they Role-Play. probably at least half the women on the grid are played by men. MANY people act very different in SL than RL.

Social Interaction is the real heart of Second Life, not the economy.