Simple question-do you make money from SL

Do you make money from SL? If so, what business do you run? (Give as little or as much detail as you feel comfortable with). How much profit do you make from your business vs developer incentives of any kind?
If not, do you think you would make money if you bought more land or expanded generally? Do you think you will make money in the future as SL expands?
What do you think is the best way to make money in SL?

I calculate you need to make 11L per 512 sq m plot of land. Do you think is feasible? Please give your reasons.

Thanks in advance to all respondents.

I can pay my land fee. (16000sqm)
I work a lot in SL, and i don't earn more than a single US$ per "worked hour" in SL.




I buy and sell land, for fun and low profit.
I have no problem loosing money in SL. I can pay to play, like any game.



Actually, more land equal more loss. (And trading land is my buisness)
I'd need a full sim tier or more to make real profit. (the more land, the less fee/sqm)
And it's a lot of risk. Considering my RL income, i can't support a 190US$/month fee without beeing sure i'll recover 90% of this "monthly investment".
The real estate buisness in SL is not easy :
- Inflation is a problem (it mean more L$ to pay the monthy fee).
- the amount of land is virtually illimited.
- the ressource are illimited (a plywood cube cost absolutly nothing, a house is copyable at will)
- you don't actually NEED an house to live in SL (eating, sleeping, etc)
- LL can create or destroy as many sim they want in a single day without any warning. The market is hardly predictible.
- the amount of first land have an impact on the real estate economy.
- there is no "landscaping" regulation
- ...



it's higly dependent of the buisness you run. you don't need any land for 90% of the buisness in SL. Renting is the best thing to do, afaik.

I run a small business in SL, making and selling clothes, kneeling cushions and other stuff. At this time I have two mall locations plus an on-line store with SL-Boutique. I am a basic account user. I pay no tier, own no land, and thus far I have managed to exchange goods or services for my mall retail spaces, or have been able to pay my mall rental fees out of profits from my sales. My only income other than my store sales is my L$50 a week stipend, and about L$1 to L$3 per week in dwell payments, for belonging to the group that owns my sim.

My sales so far are enough cover my new product development costs, and they provide a small income for buying little luxuries within SL. But I have yet to make enough of a profit to take any cash back out of the game.

Considering what I paid into SL to initially set up my avatar, clothes, home and the like, I figure I have spent about $100 USD in the first three months, and have not recovered that 'loss'. But I have achieved a 'steady state' now, where I don't really need to input any more real money to continue enjoying SL.

Certainly I hope that I can increase my sales enough to make a tangible profit, and begin to recover some of the cash that I paid to start up in SL. For a merchant like me, the only way to to that is to get lots of visibility, and to have really good products, so lots and lots of people buy your stuff. But quite honestly, most 'work' in SL won't make even a fraction as much per hour as a real world minimum wage job. I suppose that for those with lots of real money to invest, land speculation and renting out land to others can make a tangible income. But I suspect that people who really make real money from what they do in SL are the exception, rather than the rule.

I think I would make more money if I could get my vendors into more locations, in high-traffic, low-lag malls. That would allow more people to see what I make, and to make purchases from me. But at this point, I don't have anywhere near enough merchandise available for sale to make it at all rational to buy land for my own larger store.

I have been in SL for almost a year. For most of that time I have had a store and sold products varying products/sales described below.

PRODUCTS / SALES:
Fine and/or erotic art - poor to low (erotic sells slightly better)
Torchs, decorative and houshold objects - low to moderate
Prefab houses - moderate to well depending on design
Body parts/male genitals - well
Vehicles/wagons - low

Prefab houses require a lot of land for model home displays, most dont sell well unless they are displayed so people can walk thru them. After 9 months or so my income has reached a level where SL income pays my land tier. I could have begun taking some profit out of the game these last several months (US$30-40/mo.) but chose instead to reinvest it in land to enlarge my store and model home display land.

I have not yet made back the $hundreds that I have invested in land purchases but expect I will do so during the next year, if I refrain from buying more land.

The few custom builds that my partner and I have done for other people have paid well compared to sales, producing significant L$ in a weeks time, but the time required was at a rate that was well below minimum wage. Its a good thing we like building stuff, we could have made more working at McDonalds.

Nevertheless, it was done in our spare/play time and helped pay for tier and buy new land.

- Do I make money from SL: Yes.

- Business: 19th century architecture and antiques.

- Profit from developer incentives of any kind: not one single $L.

- More money if I bought more land: no, and yes. See below.

- More money as SL expands: I would expect so.

- Best way to make money in SL: Heh! Ponzi scheme perhaps? No idea.

- $L 11 per 512m feasible: Every day? Hour? I don't understand the question.



With regard to the 'more land' question:

a) I hold 9568m; probably just half of that is necessary for my business and I'd net more income holding less of it. But I like trees and a country estate feel.

b) I'm starting a small, fiercely independent island nation quite soon. An entire sim, expanding to several, if it pleases the landed tenants. I might profit, should it prove to be popular. Hard to say yet.

I bought a premium membership for a whole year a little over a month ago, and bought my first land plot. I don't plan on buying any more land any time soon. Via fighting tournaments (competing in them and winning them) and my fully functional pirate ship business (I'm a pretty good builder and scripter, and have some experience in simple game design type stuff), I make a profit after rent for my several store locations. My goal, which at this point looks like it will be very simple to reach, is to pay off the cost of my Premium membership and everything else I do or buy in SL with money earned in SL (and maybe come out with a $100 US bonus or so by the end of the year). Granted, I spend vast amounts of time in SL and am quite addicted- even if I did make a profit of $100 US over the course of the next 6 months even, after all development costs and my own personal entertainment costs are paid for, that would equal less than $1 per hour I've put into the pirate ship business alone.

Hell no.

People keep telling me "you should sell that, you'd make loads" but that's not why I SL. I like to script, and I like to make SL more interesting for those who are in it, including myself, as much as I can. The moment when it starts becoming a chore and I start worrying "will this sell?" it stops becoming relaxation.

I program for a living - this is my downtime, when I don't have to worry about things not working and me getting into trouble. I make damn sure they *do* work but that's about personal pride, not money.

Also, capitalism is evil.

Yup. (real money, not linden bucks)


I whore myself out to people in need of very large and complex scripting projects.


I don't get developer's incentives, even though I'm actually a developer, which most DI recipients aren't.


I don't need land for what I do, clients supply their own simulators at no cost to me.


Hell yeah!


If you have to try, you never will. Stop caring about money. Be nice, be social, learn the tools, do your thing. People will come knocking down your door in droves after a while.


There is no such thing as a free lunch. You should expect to work as hard as you would at any RL job. Be the best at what you do, amass a portfolio and a reputation. SL isn't welfare, you will only make a lot of money if you can prove you deserve it.

Yes. I am the associate publisher of the M2.



Our DI and dwell income is a negligible part of our revenues.



Come up with an idea that no one else is doing (or doing well), and that people will like. Then do it. It's all very simple, really.



I don't understand what that last statement is supposed to mean. L$11? That's about US$0.04. What are you talking about?

P2

Do you make money from SL? Yes

If so, what business do you run? I design and sell gothic furniture and women’s fashion.

How much profit do you make from your business vs developer incentives of any kind? I have never received any developer incentive from the Lindens; all my incentive comes from seeing my items in world and then shareing it with the public.

Monetary profit? Oh yes, I use it to pay my membership fees, tier fees, and I have enough to keep my car filled with fuel and my coffee habit sated. But my real profit is in the enjoyment I gain from puttering around on my land making things, most of which I do not even bother selling.

…do you think you would make money if you bought more land or expanded generally? I can’t imagine making more money from having more land. But that might be shortsighted on my part.

Do you think you will make money in the future as SL expands? Yes of course.

What do you think is the best way to make money in SL? For me, I started out by making the outfit I always wanted in RL and tried to sell it. It is still my most consistent seller. Then I made the furniture I always wanted in RL, and again, it sells well enough to make me happy. SO my idea of the best way to make money in SL is to do what you love, get it out there and you are bound to find others who crave the same things as you.

Do you make money from SL? Some months yes, some months no.

If so, what business do you run? I am a Capitalist entrepreneur.

How much profit do you make from your business vs developer incentives of any kind?
Developer incentives are an insignificant portion of my revenues. Most of my income comes from Marketing and Distribution enhancements.

If not, do you think you would make money if you bought more land or expanded generally? No. I'm at the point that marginal revenue is less than marginal expense.

Do you think you will make money in the future as SL expands? I certainly hope so. There will always be a place for Capitalists like myself who are not afraid to tackle local opportunity.

What do you think is the best way to make money in SL? Land Management. But it takes a lot of capital to become a player in that market.

I don't make enough money yet to pay for playing SL. Recently I managed to make a few thousand L$ from real estate deals, but my group was used so the others in my group (including a couple people not my alts) could share in the windfall. (Possibly a mistake, but I needed to pay them back for helping me with the group when I only had two alts.)

I could probably make more money if I dealt exclusively in real estate, but not enough to cover the additional land tier I would need to run the business.

The best way to make money in SL is to sell as much good content as possible. Land deals are quicker, but not quite as good as you must be very, very savvy with knowing which plots to buy and when.

So instead, I suggest finding your niche as what you like making, and going with selling that. If you don't make money, you can at least have fun and help others to have fun with stuff you made.

My aim was to make my SL play revenue neutral because you would have to work your butt off and be a genius in SL to make any feasible RL per hour income.

And in reality it also doesn't make financial sense for instance if you have a RL job that pays $27500L+ per hour.

It took me 2-3 months to get myself to revenue neutral.

Land did not / does not work for me and I am not smart enough to make it anything but a ego boosting drain on funds.

Friends do far better numbers wise renting cheap space to sell their wares than me with land.

Sell something that meets a RL desire, hope or dream and you will make money. Sex / Porn is the obvious example but there are many others. As said in posts before, finding an unmet or under met niche in SL is a good place to start.

Also I found getting your advertising working better made a big difference to my sales.

Good luck.

LoL... if you're making $110 USD per hour, yeah, no crap it doesn't pay to try to make money on SL!!

Well ok, even so regardless of what you get paid in RL - I suppose my point is the same for people who earn $10US per hour too.

Few people would be earning more than $1US per hour in their SL business or employment.

The only thing running counter to that is that an SL business works a little like a vending machine and creates value without you being there constantly. It would still take a fair bit of time and sales to get money out vs hours in to go way over $1US per hour. *smile*

amen on the coffee

i wonder for what the thread initiator joined SL

you might need to examine your system. low tier like one sim is really easy to make a margin on. you can focus on high demand properties and flip them for profits just by having the eye to buy a junked out parcel, maybe a few adjacent ones, join them, refurbish them, and mark them up. it's much easier than when you sell high volume and must deal with a lot of crappy low margin land.

i don't. just having fun

You're right for 1 sim.
But 16ksqm cost A LOT more US$/sqm than a full region tier.