Ah Thursday, not just any Thursday, but the Thursday before the Easter Holiday weekend, where I can now put on my slippers, sit back, and not worry about my day job until Tuesday. This also means I’ll be blogging … unless Football Manager 2012 hooks me too much again. Hopefully I’ll talk about Kitely later but for now it’s the Second Life shoppers paradise that I’ll write about.
The rumour mill suggests that Linden Lab are looking for ways to get people shopping inworld again, not that people have stopped shopping inworld, but the rise of The Marketplace has caused concern for inworld ventures. I’ve spoken about this before, I am not a huge fan of The Marketplace but it’s here, it’s convenient, it works (usually, there have been glitches lately) but it undermines some key aspects of Second Life, such as store rentals and sales which help fund roleplaying sims, Arts sims, Club sims, social ventures, hangouts yadda yadda yadda. Personally I think the horse has bolted now, the time for some joined up thinking was months ago.
The Marketplace isn’t the only reason for concerns on the viability of social and arts ventures, Styles Of Edo have announced they are closing after five years of trading in Second Life. This is a Mens fashion store for those who aren’t familiar with the fashion scene. When I originally published this post, this paragraph suggested Styles Of Edo was closing due to not making enough sales to make tier, this is not the case and I apologise for any confusion, I have not spoken to anyone from Styles Of Edo and do not know why they have chosen to close, however there is a comment from Chrissy Ambrose in the comments of this post. Stores and Sims in Second Life close for a variety of reasons, new ones arise from the ashes and we carry on, times change, tastes change and culture changes.
Deja Letov posted in the official forums on their views on why getting shopping back inworld is a great idea, however again we’re back to inworld shopping not exactly being dead and my view that the horse has really bottled, we are too far into the bricks and mortar challenge here, the online shopping experience in an online world is now very appealing and yes there is something wrong with that picture because Second Life is a 3D virtual world and The Marketplace is a 2D Shopping site.
Shopping is a key factor of Second Life, well sales of goods are, because that’s what makes the wheels turn, what’s needed is not a return to inworld shopping, but more options on tier, lower tier and some dynamic thinking …. my dynamo is running lower, it may be fuelled later by beer. However, let’s get back to shopping … did I really just type that … anyway, shopping inworld can be a social experience, Second Life itself is a social experience, moving social experiences away from the inworld experience isn’t ideal. However some people find shopping malls inworld ugly, they’d rather see them replaced by more fun things to do and shop on The Marketplace, this sounds good in theory but then we get back to shops supporting communities by renting inworld spaces to allow those communities to have space for community projects.
Kitely has a different model, in Kitely you pay for your minutes spent inworld, I’ll talk more about Kitely in another post but the model is appealing for those who want land to build on but not so appealing for those who want to explore. Second Life is extremely appealing for those who want to explore and socialise but not so appealing for those who want to own a sim or two due to Second Life billing you on how much land you own, not how much time you spend on the land.
A quick comparison on options between the two shows that in Kitely you get two sims for USD$5 a month, 1200 free minutes and 300 Kitely Credits, so you could stay inworld for around twenty five hours a month.
Second Life on a yearly premium membership, so call it USD$6 a month, gives you 512M of land or a Linden Home but can stay logged in for a whole year if you choose. Pros and cons to both models.
There was a time when Linden Lab were putting out suggetions such as having an inworld store but paying commission instead of tier, this didn’t really get off the ground but we’re at the stage now where current land owners, those of us looking at Pathfinding, need a boost because as I’ve also said before, it’s all very well putting new features such as Pathfinding in to create NPC’s and more experiences, but Tier is too high, people aren’t going to spend USD$295 a month for people to play games on their sims in large numbers.
Tier needs to come down, it needs to come down to allow people breathing space to create those creative experiences that in turn attract new and old users alike to embrace Second Life. The Marketplace will continue to take a chunk of people out of owning Inworld land and onto the Marketplace and Merchants need to embrace The Marketplace, it has been the growth area over the last couple of years but there is a price to be paid for that, as there is in High Streets across the world as business has embraced the world wide web for selling to consumers. The Marketplace is here to stay.
Linden Lab shold be looking at the concept of per minute cloud based solutions as an alternative to always on sims, there are plenty of sims whereby they don’t need to be always on, they need to look at how they can bring tier costs down, give people tier holidays, increase other revenue streams via advertising and help keep the creativity and social aspects of Second Life thriving. Standing still is not an option here, Linden Lab need to get their thinking caps on to help their well intentioned new features prosper.
I think you’re right about the Pathfinding issue… sure, it’s a cool toy folks will want to tinker with and build experiences around, but with prices like these, who’s going to have the land to host it?
Oh. Wait.
The Labbies, of course.
Hey, maybe there will be a Month Of Pathfinding at the LEA… you know… because that’s free for the artsy-fartsies!
Huzzah! We’re saved!
-ls/cm
Absolutely, Pathfinding is a cool toy but the costs for development are prohibitive. The Labbies are indeed the only people who can really have six sims worth of pathfinding features without having to worry about the tier bill!
Ah the LEA, nice concept but my concern from the start was that those already embracing the arts would be forgotten about, I don’t begrude the LEA having those sims, after all it’s nice to see some space given to the arts but I do feel LL forgot the rest of the folk who were already supporting the arts, from displays, story telling, live music, DJ’s, it all seems to have been left where it was, in a land that’s expensive!
Hi just a comment on your mentioning Styles of edo closing as an example of the decline of inworld sales or failure to make tier.
This is certainly not the reason for the closure of this store, it being successful still in its core business of formal menswear.
The closure is more to do with personal issues and lack of time in RL and inclination to carry designing or providing customer service.
Once you stop enjoying something its time to give up, even if its still doing well.
Thanks for the comment, that was very an error on my part, I meant to use Styles of Edo as an example of store, rather than a roleplaying sim or art venture closing, I didn’t mean to imply it was due to dwindling sales, as I hadn’t spoken to anyone from Styles Of Edo I had no idea why it was closing and should have ensured that I didn’t make that implication. I will correct this.
Thanks Ciaran,
I know edo will appreicate the changes. He has always wanted to ensure that people know that his reasons for leaving were purely personal and not to do with any reduction in sales. Though Im sure with any long standing business and changes to the SL business environment over recent times, a lot of people who are not party to the people involved and who see its closure will wonder about the reasons and draw their own conclusions.
Thank you again Ciaran