people who rely on stipend recipients for business

You keep repeating this, Musuko, and you seem to be missing the underlying point:

It's is indeed not essential for anyone to obtain L$.

However, without them, SL feels highly limited.

Having only the L$ that you paid US$ for also feels highly limited.

As was pointed out above people who play SL do not play it in order to feel highly limited.

If they stop playing, they will not be buying L$ for US$, and will not be helping the economy.

It is therefore in the interests of SL to find out a way to remove that limited feeling from consumers while at once ensuring that creators still get rewarded for their work.

Stipends (as a whole) will never be eliminated. They must exist to offset the sinks. Keeps things flowin'.

I think LL made a bit of a mistake eliminating stipends from new basic accounts. Should have limited them instead and then only as an interim action. I think the premium account should be eliminated and the tier structure adjisted to take up the monetary slack while (by making the tiers finer grained) making it easier to own more land without having to make such great strides in cost. Then reinstate a flexible stipend that replaces what's been lost to sinks plus however much the pool needs to keep up with SL's growth.

I think this would do much to stabilize the exchange market, and put everyone on an even footig. Your consumer-only player would have the option to spend RL money nor not as suited thier wishes.

uh. Tanget there, sorry.

Too bad we're just players with time to waste on forums, not Linden staff *sigh* (p.s. yours is pretty much my opinion/idea, too)

That's fine.. but my question, since I starting being involved in this whole debate thing, is how can we increase the number of people who wish to spend RL money?

I don't think that trying to "force" them is the answer.

It's not forcing, it's just giving them the option to either spend RL$, or learn how to be creative and build things on their own (as I had to when I was completely broke). You don't need money to build things or to enjoy the game. At the same time, you're also giving them the option to make some money themselves off of their creation; money that, hopefully, will still be worth something. It costs $0l to learn to script and build, and $0l to interract with others and have fun. It does cost time and money to actually build and script good quality things, and people who spend the time to do that should expect to be compensated if they want to be. Or at least expect that the possibility/option is available to them.

As it's impossible to force anyone ... well, I'd sure like it if folks would stop mentioning it. It obfuscates.

Two fold:
1. Get active with encouraging the idea. Right now there's some confusion about how SL works and folk expect that paying SL should grant access to all content just like one would expect with other MMORPGs. Encourage folks to see the LindeX as power in thier hands to shape the world by encouraging the stuff they like. Make sure new folk understand that content is made by other folks pioneering a new(ish) business frontier. Is neato that they have that opportunity, too.

2. LL gets snappy about getting group tools together that makes it far simpler to work in teams. The big, interesting, engaging activities require more than single developers are likely to manage.

A finer grained tier system would also encourage larger attractions.

"However, without them, SL feels highly limited."

That's life. If you want the gravy, you have to pay for it.

How about the government gives everyone in real life a million, squillion dollars/pounds/yen/euros, without us having to work for it, and then we can all get everything we want, and the world will be great! Yay!

Second Life is a game run by a BUSINESS, not a charity. The money behind stipdends comes OUT OF LINDENLABS' POCKET. Second Life is a service that LindenLabs provide for you, and YOU are meant to pay THEM for it, not the other way around.

Why should Lindenlabs pay for you to play?

Musuko.

That's life. But SL has to be better than life, else there is no point in customers playing.



It's not about not paying, it's about freedom - free-as-in-freedom type freedom. The standard MMO model of paying a regular monthly fee, but getting potential access to everything for that money, gives a considerably greater feeling of freedom than not technically having to pay anything but having to pay a little more every time you want to do something new. And again, they other MMO games seem to be able to reward their content creators within that model, too.

Now I'm not saying that SL ought to go to that model, but I am saying that SL is going to be in competition with places that do, for people who want that feeling of freedom and escapism. How is it going to compete?

Human nature being what it is, as long as there is a way to get something for "free" people will take advantage of it. That being said, I personally think the most sensible course of action is two-fold:

1) Grant new basic accounts $500 to spend at sign up and no further stipends.

2) Allocate a free parcel of land within sightlines of the Welcome Area for a freebie $1 store. There really is no need to ever spend one dime of RL money in SL. Everything you could possibly need to enjoy your time here exists in freebie form. There are enough textures for a new content creator to get started learning and even start a business using free textures.


Beyond that, I think that premium accounts should still get the $500 a week as an incentive towards adding to the LL bottom line. At the end of the day, the reality is that you have to pay for your upscale desires, either through a monthly fee to LL or buying at LindenX. You don't get cable for free and you certainly don't get HBO for free; you want free you take whatever the broadcase networks offer you.

SL offers plenty of entertainment for free and it really isn't in LL's best interest to subsidize players who are determined to not spend any RL money. A free basic account and a mountain of freebie content is plenty to allow a resident to determine whether or not they want to put any RL dollars into SL. Remember, you don't NEED anything here. You determine what you want and decide for yourself if that $2000L skin is worth a trip to LindenX. It is up to content creators to make stuff that is so inviting and desireable that customers are more than willing to figure out how to afford their wares.

In other MMORPGs, even if you pay them their $15us a month, you still have to work pretty hard to get access to all their content (raising levels, collecting gold, etc). You can also, of course, just buy access to those items with US$ on the black market, which is thankfully free here in SL. Seems to me the problem with SL is that there are simply not enough jobs available to let users work for the content they want to buy.

And I think SL has a fairly descent model for rwearding their content creators, too. I don't think that model is dead, or wrong, or is useless. I just see it as experiencing some major problems that will just keep getting worse and worse in the long run, and am hoing that it can get fixed some how. (p.s. I am using "i" instead of "we" because I don't want to presume to talk for others, although I'm sure everyone who's for cutting or reducing stippends feels the same way I do... except Jamie, who seems to think the economy is already completely dead.)

Yes. take a look around the 'net sometimes. There's hundreds and thousands of creations ('mods') for all sorts of online games, provided by 3rd party creators absolutely free of charge.

SL with its concept of allowing creators 'by default' earn someting is actually quite unique, if anything.

Re: the original question. You can like it or not, but for considerable group of people paying real money for virtual add-on toys made by some 3rd party rather than 'official' software developer is simply out of question. It's not a matter of quality of content in, it's a matter of their approach to the issue on the whole.

You are tacitly assuming that everyone can learn this, and it isn't true. Yes, there are some excellent classes around, but there's always a component they can't teach - and too many of them are technically focused. I have seen some marketing classes in SL but I don't recall seeing any on (for instance) composition, or architecture.

There is also the issue of the rising quality standard on the grid. As the experienced people get better, the worse the work of a new creator looks in comparison, which makes it harder for them to get into the market or to build something that they themselves would be satisfied with. Even Aimee Weber, the literal poster girl for SL designers, has stated in another thread I was involved in on the General forum that "[her] early stuff looked like a horse's ass.. but when [she] started horse's ass was the new black". ( /108/ab/70452/3.html#post732356 )



You aren't. The more the SL economy is tilted towards being based on RL money, the more the market will go the same way that the RL market does - towards groups of professionals with years of experience and established reputation. The "freedom" of others to create and earn L$ will be rendered meaningless. I have seen SL content creators post nasty fearful messages about what happens if "big businesses" come and dominate the SL market with salaried professionals and multi-million marketing budgets but the truth is that as those people's own businesses grow they can take up that position just as easily and have the same effect on others that they were so afraid of happening to them.



But they should understand that probably about half of their customers would love to be in that position themselves.

You are not supposed to "work hard" in MMOs. The process you describe (gaining levels, earning loot) is supposed to be the fun _itself_, the one you pay your monthly fee for.

The idea of "working hard" comes from idiots who think the game is all about repetitive 'grinding' i.e. doing over and over activities they don't actually enjoy, in the pursue of mythical endgame carrot that's somehow expected to be "fun" even though it's based on the very same mechanics they're grinding through without joy.

Sticky this please lol.

This is one for the ages

At an economic level this is irrelevant because raising levels and collecting gold doesn't make money for the developers or content creators. The only arguable way it does is by slowing down the rate at which people can access content, so they have to stay subscribed for longer to get it all, but that's just the same as the premium stipend on SL.

"Jobs" or "work" that don't create value or money don't have any effect. Giving people in SL grind-style "jobs" would not help the economy at all.



This is true, but just trying to push the problems over to the consumer side isn't necessarily going to fix it - the consumers might not stay around to recieve them.

An insightful post Yumi, and another reminder that there is so much more to this debate than the old "it's the economy stupid" line. We're dealing with complex paradoxes in the nature of both SL and the perceptions of its residents, whether consumers or creators.

Yeah, Musuko for president.

Apologies, I wasn't talking about learning to create content in order to make a buck. I was talking about learning to create content, for yourself, which you believe to be good enough for yourself, for the sake of being able to enjoy the game. I make my own clothing, my own houses, my own jewlery, furniture, scripts, avatar, etc. True, a lot of it sucks compared to what I can buy on the market, but it's good enough for me, I had fun building it, and it's enough to keep me in game. I don't expect everyone else to be the same as me, but my point is that you don't actually need $l to enjoy this game, and if you REALLY need it, it's always available, either through camping chairs/contests, investng in SL businesses, or through Lindex. Killing stippends won't kill the fun for people. Not everyone, anyway. Definitely not for me. I came here with $600+l a week stippend, even when I was a free account. I lost that stippend, and now get $50l a week (which I throw away). I still stick around and have fun. People who come here and get 0 stippends and 0 expectation of stppends should be able to do just fine as well. SL economy reflects life in many ways, including freebies. People do just fine running Linux, OpenOffice, and other freeware software in real life, too.

Either things change and consumers leave, or things stay where they are and contributors leave. Either way the game will suffer.
At this time I don't know whether getting rid of the $50l freebie stippend was enough to a reduction in the inflow of $L, so maybe the problem has already been remedied. But if it hasn't, and $L continues to decline the same way it has for the last two weeks, you either loose your stippends and leave, or you loose content and cool places to hang out and leave. Either way, you leave.

So was I. But the point is, even though you aren't having to "compete" in the market, the quality standard on the grid is still going to affect what you believe to be "good enough". If you make your own outfit to go to a party, others there will be wearing Simone, Preen, Pixeldolls, etc. If you build your own house on your First Land or your rental, it could wind up being in between a Cocoanut and a Damanios, with a Scorpio across the road.

Now there are probably some people who are so keen on self-expression that having their work or themselves stick out as obviously lower quality doesn't matter as long as it's theirs - but I'd venture there aren't that many. In fact I'd further venture that SL, which is at its heart a social game, isn't as appealing to those people as to those for whom fitting in with others is a higher priority. Especially when, at the very basic level, if your work doesn't get any attention from other people there's no point having it in SL as opposed to built in an art package and saved on your hard disk; and trying to pull people's attention away from a higher quality work to yours is not a very sociable act.

I mentioned this on the other thread: in my own case, essentially there is no point in me building a house because most of the people I know already own or have access to houses built by experienced content creators which are better than anything I could do. It would be rude for me to ask those people over to mine when there's an obviously better place available, and although I could probably work for 2 years or something to get the same level of experience, I'd be pretty lonely in the meantime and of course when I'd finished the other people would have 4 years experience.



The only reason why they run it is because in many cases it serves their needs as well or better than the commercial equivalent was. Everyone I've ever meet who ran Linux was running it because they valued its features, not because that way they didn't have to pay for their OS.

Amount of $ spent today on Lindex: 50 k
LL's share of that: ~1.5 k
Extrapolated over month: 45 k

Which means, it takes ~5 k of premium account members to bring LL more raw money, than they get from the whole currency market as it is now.

In other words, if LL is a "BUSINESS not a charity" then it'd make more financial sense for LL to become the only buyer/seller of L$ (as that'd mean getting 100% of money spent, rather than measly share) ... and it makes 0 sense for them to cut stipends from premium account, as this removes significant part of incentive for the users to pay LL for service that results in considerably higher part of their total revenue than the silly currency exchange does.

They aren't "paying you to play". They are directly selling currency to their premium members.

I guess this all boils down to the other problem of "cool people" or people who buy brand names just to show off, versus individualistic types who don't care if something has a name attached to it as long as it's practical. Guess, like in real life, the "cool" types will have to spend more money to buy their famous brandname stuff, while the ones who don't care will stick with plain builds and laugh as the "cools" trying to be posers

This isn't quite the same comparison.

If I'd been comparing (say) someone wearing (for example) Simone to someone wearing an outfit by a lesser-known designer which was nonetheless just as good, then it would be a relevant comparison.

But I wasn't. I was comparing someone wearing (for example) Simone to someone wearing an outfit they've made themselves. Unless they have a truly remarkable RL talent, they are not going to be able to design something that looks as good as someone with years of experience designing clothing in SL. And I doubt that many people would include "being the worst dressed at the party" as the list of experiences they'd like to have in their SL.

Um. wait, what? There are more than 5000 active premium accounts? I thought majority of the 200,000 accounts were freebies?

5000 out of 100.000 who logged in during the last month is just 5% and as such entirely reasonable number, i think. Even if it wasn't, cutting down their stipends only results in reduction of this number, and less revenue for LL.

And in order to balance out income from single premium account paying $10 a month, LL needs to collect their trade share from sales of ~100 k L$ ( 10$ / 3.5% * ~350 ) ... obviously, the premium accounts on long term payment plans generate less than that.

Anyone really believes that cutting L$2 k from someone's montly in-game income is going to make them buy L$ 50-100 k a month _more_, over what they're already buying?