make a living

can people make a living playing this game?

They can make a living developing a skill and selling goods.

what do u mean developing a skilla nd selling goods -- can u give me some examples so i might be able to learn and do these things

You can

i) Make stuff and sell (clothes, furniture, houses, etc.)
ii) Provide services to other residents (sing, manage events, whoring yourself)
iii) Custom build things (private homes and buildings)
iv) Buy and sell land
v) Script things (similar to programming)

Amongst other things

If you do not know what skills or goods are marketable in SL, no answers here will help you. You will only be able to develop said skills or goods after spending time in the game. Look around, explore, see what other peole are selling, take some classes. Maybe you will find a niche product or service that no one else provides.

The simple answer is yes, some people do make a living in the game, but not nearly as many people as a lot of the press makes it out to be.

If you're looking for a full-time employment kind of income, go get a minimum wage job in real life.

99% of the work done in SL pays less per hour of effort than an entry-level job in the real world doing menial labor will pay in any country that is sufficently developed technologically and economicly to offer Internet access to SL. If you're looking for an easy way to get rich, or even just to make your rent payment in RL, this is NOT the place to look.

It is possible to make enough money in SL to support yourself in RL, but doing so requires even more talent, effort and skill than a real world job. In general, most work in SL requires a high degree of artistic talent and skill, or it requires long hours and lots of effort, or it requires dumping a LOT or real money into the system with a really good business plan, in hopes of making a profit (land speculation and the like).

I reckon SL is like real life in that a few people can make it to the top and live comfortably in RL on the proceeds of SL, while hundreds of others struggle to make a few huindred Lindens.

I am considering hiring myself out as a photographic model and as a dancer at small events, in addition to being a maker of things and a dealer of land. All this keeps me from the dreaded moneychair / dancemat treadmill.

Sorry but I don`t necessarily agree with that Ceera.

You need to elaborate, don't just leave it at "nuh uh." Which part don't you agree with, and why don't you agree with it?

You can make money here in SL BUT the thing is you need to remember is that is may not come easy, for me, the number one goal is to have a good time and make some friends here and there. There isnt anything I enjoy more than climbing up in my workspace, crank up the music and either create a building or play with some scripts. If it so happens that some friends think its worth marketing, I do so, otherwise It off to Prim Heaven.

DO explore Second Life, DO play with things, try your hand at building, or scripting or just whatever you want to do, Become a DJ, a bouncer or manager other people. you are only limited by your imagination.

I DO agree with CM in that some things DO require an investment of time and resources for you to find your own niche.

DONT do stupid shit like selling freebies or stealing textures and/or items, your name will be mud and no one wants that

Good Luck
and Welcome to SL

You are not going to get rich sitting in camping chairs all day.

Earning money in SL is just like in RL, it takes time, effort and skills. You may already have these before you enter (for example a competent Photoshop artist may well be able to make quality clothing very early in their Second Lives) or you can learn the skills in-world (the unusual building tools have to be learnt in-world).

There are people in SL earning money, some of them earning a lot of money. But I am pretty sure those same people are working hard to do so.

The one and only aspect about making a living in SL that is different than making a living in RL is that in SL there are no production costs for a product. EVERYTHING else in SL & RL is the same when it comes to making a living.

Making a living in SL takes 40 plus hours a week to get started just as in RL. Starting a company in SL is the same as starting a RL one.... It takes time and energy, and money.
New people that look into the successful people in SL see a profitable business and it looks so easy. But they're overlooking all the time and intelligence and creativity it took to get to that point. Sure, in SL, once a company is successful the ball continues to roll and less effort is needed to still collect a residual income.... but if you're gonna try to make a living in SL, then commit to it just as you would in RL. SL is not 'easier'

Yeah, well theres no denying you do have to put time and effort into what you do.


It certaintly is not IMPOSSIBLE to make a living from second life, you do have to work at it and be good at what you do.

Many content creators invest hours upon hours on products.


But the thing is, atleast for me, its FUN. you are working for YOURSELF and you have your own rules.


From some of the OPs posts it sounds like hes wanting to get rich overnight; it took me about a year to make good money.


But for me it isnt a hassle and its not more work than my rl job was. infact, this is much easier than my rl job was.


But thats just me, im sure others have a different story.

I'll generally agree with Doubledown, except to point out that SL does have some production costs. Lower than RL, certainly, but very much real.

Good textures cost money to buy or upload. Good animations cost money to buy or upload. It costs money to buy land to rent to others or to set up a store on, or to buy sims to develop for a profitable business. DJ's have to pay for music streams... etc... You also have advertising expenses, store overhead for renting mall space or land...

So to initially create the products that you intend to profit from, you usually do have production costs. Scripting and service work (dancing and whoring) are about the only exceptions. And even dancers and hookers usually spend lots each month for clothes, skins, animations, and other stuff to make them more desirable.

To keep a store location open or to perform as a DJ, or to do anything that requires owning or renting land, you usually have ongoing overhead expenses.

Where SL differs dramaticly is that reproducing individual items has no materials costs, unless you're licensing no-copy animations for some of your content. I can design a dress, and it costs me nothing more to sell 1000 of them in a given month than it does to sell one of them. I don't have to pay for the fabric for 1000 dresses. I don't have to pay warehouse storage fees for products built but not yet sold, or transportation costs for shipping merchandise to stores. I usually don't even have to pay for staff to operate my stores (though some of the more successful merchants do have full-time sales staff).

But for any career in SL that you want to do more with than earn a little pocket change, you're going to have to put in just as much time and effort as a real career. You'll never get anywhere with no time and effort and no skills or talents. Camping chairs don't even pay you as much per hour as you're paying for electricity to keep your computer running while you sit there and try to get something for nothing, so in the long run, you LOSE money by camping, unless someone else is paying your electric bill and your high-speed net access bill.

I work in SL because I love creating things, and because the things I sell in SL support the expenses for my playtime in SL with my friends here. It's a lot more fun for me than holding down a second job in Real Life. But even with putting in 20 or more hours a week on SL, I consider myself to be doing good to cover my SL expenses and be able to take my family out to dinner once in a while with the 'profits'. There is no way I would quit my day job and try to make a career out of SL.

Exactly! But I just can't call it work if I'm having this much fun. It just seems....wrong somehow.

~Ari

Ceera, do consider that there are backwater countries that do have internet access, but have very low wages due to the exchange rate and cost of living.

Someone working in a McDonalds where I live earns around 3 USD an hour. A toll booth operator about 1.5 USD an hour. Someone in SL can earn that by not even being present inworld, selling a couple of avatar outfits at their shop WHILE working on their menial jobs.

lol Yeah it definitely has not become a task for me.

Dont get me wrong, when I do other things such as sim development it can be VERY stressful but it still beats working under someone.


As for my tattoo work- I LOVE doing it. Sometimes I dont make anything for weeks, but when I do make stuff i make a ton.





Im kind of wondering, Ceera- where do you get your figure of: "99% of the work done in SL pays less per hour of effort than an entry-level job in the real world doing menial labor will pay in any country that is sufficently developed technologically and economicly to offer Internet access to SL"

Im not trying to start an argument with you or say youre wrong, etc- I`m just curious.

I know there`s a stats page that shows how many residents withdrew a GOOD chunk of money that month, and i dont think it was 1% but I could be wrong...

And if so, well hmm I wonder how I got so lucky to be of the 1%.

Go to LL's Economic Statistics page:

http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

Any "business" that makes any money, even a dollar a month is listed as a "profitable business", heh.

Of those, before LL fees, only 160 people make $1000 to $2000 a month, the most revenue listed. They are the top earners.

The majority make $50 or less (over 9000). About 1500 make from $50-150 a month. 563 make $200-500. 263 make $500 - 1000.

In other words, only about 160 people make from $12,000 -24000 a year. Barely a living wage.

(note that these stats do not include those who deal in land, which takes an intitial investment of real money, for the most part)

Edit to add, and the majority of people making money in SL have to turn around and use it to pay tier and advertising costs. Especially the majority making $50 or less.

I feel ya! I go between making hair and clothes or a build depending on what moves me at the moment. It's so nice to not be stuck on one thing all of the time. Or I get some crazy idea and work on it for days! I forget that this is supposed to be *work*!

I have no idea about the profits of others, and my husband sells all of the $L for me or I just go shopping, so I've never even looked at the economics page...but those are interesting stats.

I wonder what the initial $L investment was, or how long it took for them to pull a profit.

~Ari

Oh wow that is a small amount of people.


But none the less it is not impossible to do it and I wouldnt outright tell smeone to forget about it.

I honestly wouldn't think that SL would be a wonderful place to make a living. As for me, I only care about earning enough so that I won't have to make any dollar/linden exchanges. My god, those are annoying.

No wonder LL keep messing up the commercial side of things if they don't even know the difference between revenue and profit...

Well its a risk, it can close down anytime, etc. Then again you could lose your Rl job anytime

I'm not entirely sure how much credence to give those stats - for one thing, they cut off at US$2,000/month mark - and I know several clothing designers who claim to pull in far above that amount. I've asked for clarification on this via Linden Answers (i.e. should this category be more acccurately titled "US$1,000 and more"?), but I only got a "Good Question! I'll find out more" reply, which was never followed up...

Secondly, the figures don't include land trades (a huge market!), and any contract work that was recompensed with real-world money outside of the L$ economy - and there's quite a lot of that going on now.

So, while it's true that only a very small proportion of the people working in SL make a "living wage" from it, that wage may not be as low as the economic stats page suggests