Virtual Worlds – Page 161

February 13, 2014

The Importance Of Being Social

In my last post I discussed how The Elder Scrolls Online pricing model isn’t too expensive, but it faces a challenge in terms of longevity. However some experiences thrive with similar or more expensive pricing models, namely World Of Warcraft and Second Life. Both of these platforms thrive because they are both examples of where the people are and you should not underestimate the power of people power.

When people get bored of their latest MMO, or when World Of Warcraft releases an expansion pack, people go back to WoW. People go back there because there are people there, real people, although they may be dressed in funny gear on your monitor. One of the complaints you hear about MMO’s is that there aren’t enough people there, however that’s generally not the case in WoW. There are less people at different times of day, but there are people.

Second Life has the same claim, people visit Inworldz or Kitely or other virtual worlds and report back that there was hardly anybody there. However there are people in Second Life, plenty of them, although every sim is not packed to the rafters, there are people around. This of course isn’t to suggest that there is nobody in Inworldz or Kitely, there clearly are and many people have fun on those platforms, I’m a fan of both of them, but there simply aren’t as many people as you find in Second Life.

This social aspect is extremely important for the longevity of a product because people who are engaged, invest more time, energy and money in their avatars, be they in games or virtual worlds and this investment leads to people feeling at home in those places. People may roam, they may visit other worlds, but there’s no place like home. So this socially driven investment in many ways binds people’s avatars to their favourite virtual world and of course, the more the merrier.

This sort of social investment is not something that companies can buy. However it does prove that cost is not the only factor when it comes to deciding where to venture online. If price were the only factor Second Life would be as dead as a dodo and the other similar style virtual worlds would be where it’s at. Getting people to move on is a challenge, the human factor seems to be underestimated at times, possibly because people outside the virtual just see pixels. They don’t appreciate the social investment.

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February 13, 2014February 13, 2014

The Elder Scrolls Online Isn’t Too Expensive, But The Subscription Only Model Is Creaking

I’m going to break this down into a couple of posts, this post is more about The Elder Scrolls Online and their pricing model, I’ll follow up with a related post that is more about Second Life later. There has been a bit of a hoo ha about the pricing model of The Elder Scrolls Online. The standard digital edition is £49.99 and the Digital Imperial edition is £69.99, the prices vary depending upon your local currency. These prices include 30 days of game play, but if you want to play after that it’s £8.99 a month. If people shop around they can get the game cheaper.

The pricing model has led to Paul Tassi of Forbes Predicting The Biggest Video Game Disaster Of 2014: The Elder Scrolls Online and also suggesting that The Elder Scrolls Online Should Choose Between $60 Up Front Or $15 A Month. Those prices are in US Dollars of course, my prices earlier are in GBP, but you should get the gist. I have to say that I disagree with Paul, 2014 is likely to be a very good year for Elder Scrolls Online, especially as it isn’t released until April. Their problems are far more likely to come in 2015.

Let’s get one thing straight, this pricing model is not outrageously expensive. The upfront price for the game is a little on the high side but the monthly subscription is not that bad. As many people point out, it works out to about 30 pence a day in the UK or 50 cents a day if you’re in the USA. People argue that a night out at the cinema can be more expensive, a visit to a bar more expensive, buying pizza far more expensive. The problem is, the people making these points are actually exemplifying why the pay when you want model is better than the subscription model.

If it really was 30 pence a day and you only played for 10 days that month, that would be a cost of £3.00, not £8.99. In the US it would USD$5.00 not USD$14.99. If you didn’t play at all that month, for whatever reason, you’d pay nothing. This model may actually work, it’s along the lines of something I’ve suggested Second Life do with tier in so much as a sim that’s only open weekends only pays for that weekend usage, rather than the flat monthly tier.

However they are using a flat subscription fee model, although as I said, the model itself isn’t expensive in general. The problem for this sort of pricing model is that there are loads of competitors offering a less expensive experience these days and that’s one of the deciding factors people use in whether to engage, although it’s far from the only factor.

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February 12, 2014

Enter Sandbox – Take My Hand, We’re Off To Never Never Land

It seems very likely that the freedom people have to create local regions or islands within Second Life with different forms of governance will result in many different utopian ‘experiments’. This is something that will be fascinating to watch, and may even inform decisions about the real world.

Philip Rosedale 13th April 2006 – INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP ROSEDALE, SECOND LIFE

In my opinion the solution is focusing a lot more on letting players make and be content for each other. Battlegrounds are an excellent example of an Evergreen style of content where it’s the players themselves that actually create the content. Auction houses are another example. So are things like storytelling tools in SWG.. or the brilliant music system in LOTRO. Building systems into the games that let the players interact with each other in new and unique ways gives us the ability to watch as the players do stuff we never anticipated. We’ll see a lot more creativity in action if the players are at the center of it. Imagine an MMORPG of a massive city.. and the Rogue’s guild is entirely run by players. Where the city has an entire political system that is populated by players who were elected by the playerbase.

John Smedley 11th February 2014 – The Sandbox MMO

I’ve opened with the above quotes to demonstrate firstly that eight years is not as long in technology circles as many think. Secondly it’s to emphasise that sandbox concepts are spreading and are going to create virtual worlds galore. John Smedley is the president of Sony Online Entertainment and in the blog post I’ve linked, makes excellent points about the power and potential of a sandbox MMO. Sony Online Entertainment are really starting to impress me lately, Everquest Next Landmark will allow user created content.

They are also dipping their toes into the water of allowing players to sell content. They are bringing together some of most wonderful concepts of Second Life in a more controlled environment, but they also recognise the beauty of such an environment.

So why is it that when we see talk of sandboxes and user generated content, the media shy away from talking of the ultimate sandbox that Second Life is? Why is it left to people such as Draxtor Despres to highlight the many wonderful use cases of Second Life via The Drax Files? Part of the problem of course is the mainstream media who don’t want to talk about the brilliant sandbox that Second Life is when they can create seedy headlines instead. This is why people don’t realise there are Orcs in Second Life!

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February 12, 2014

LindeX Trading Limits Changed?

LindeX trading limits appear to have changed, without announcement, this month. Back in January someone on the official forum asked why one of their accounts had limit of buying USD$30 whereas the other account had a limit of USD$2,500.

However as things stand today, there is no USD$2,500 level, it’s USD$2,000. These limits are for residents rather than business owner accounts. The same USD$2,000 limit also applies to how much one can sell in a 30 day period.

This appears to be another unannounced change by Linden Lab and one has to wonder why Linden Lab are quietly going around changing policies without seeming to want to tell anyone.

I don’t know if any of the other limits have changed, but where this could be problematic is if someone has been selling around USD$2,500 a month worth of Linden Dollars and now finds themselves limited to USD$2,000 without any notification or worse, if they’ve been dropped down from the business owner trading limits.

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February 11, 2014February 11, 2014

Linden Lab Provide Tax & Account Documentation FAQ’s

I’ve previously blogged about the confusion regarding Linden Lab’s requests to users regarding tax and account information. A big part of the confusion came from people being sent requests for information that they had never been previously asked for by Linden Lab and wondering what it was all about and what exactly they needed to do.

Yesterday Linden Lab posted an updated blog post about the issues, but more importantly that blog post includes links to two very useful FAQ’s:

Linden Lab Official:Required Tax Documentation FAQ

Linden Lab Official:Required Account Documentation FAQ

As you can see there are two links, this is because people can be asked for additional information for different reasons. The tax documentation is a requirement via the IRS and as explained in Linden Lab’s original blog post, will be sent when people reach certain transaction thresholds via processing credit and sales on the LindeX. Linden Lab are required to file a 1099K for US residents who make more than 200 transactions and those transactions in total are above USD$20,000.

If you’re not a US resident then LL are not required to file a 1099K on your behalf, but if you’re getting the tax documentation request it probably means you’ve crossed the US resident threshold and they require the documentation to explain why they didn’t file a 1099K on your behalf. They need to know you’re not a US resident.

One important point to note is that if you have several Second Life accounts, their combined activities are counted. There are more important points to note, merchants should familiarise themselves with these requirements as one day, you may need to provided information to Linden Lab.

Another important point to note is that the 1099K Linden Lab file is not the same one Paypal will file. There is going to be some double reporting, I’m not at all sure what people will have to do in these circumstances but I’m sure the IRS will be able to help.

Whilst looking into this issue I discovered this was a standard threshold on services such as Paypal and Steam too, so this is something that has been on the cards. The difference was that Paypal and Steam provided a lot more information on this matter, so it’s good to see Linden Lab providing a lot more information now.

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