dang, over on Hypergrid Business a thread’s comments became all about making money with virtual worlds and the inevitable Second Life versus OpenSim matchup
anything involving money always gets people riled up and toss in a little whom is better than whom on top of that and you have a topic that everyone can chime in on (or write a blog post about!) =p
firstly, who is better? Second Life or OpenSim?
i don’t know how fair that is to ask – Second Life is a service and OpenSim is a server software. but . . . you and i know what is meant by asking and there is only one answer (but tons of rationalisation)
do you want to know which one is better?
well, OpenSim of course! hmm, well it’s better for our current project and our project could not work in Second Life. it’s also better for Sim-on-a-Stick which isn’t possible with SL (boo) =p
BUT . . . that answer is only true for me and subQuark. it’s also true, with different reasons or rationale, for Ilan and Oren of Kitely and for thousands of people that have regions on OSgrid – in other words, only you can say which is better and you will be correct
on the other hand, Second Life is better for Anshe Chung and better for most people trying to do what i failed at – a private estate business, but it’s not the only solution. InWorldz uses OpenSim and i certainly hope that Tranq and the others running it are making a living with it
there others that also run commercial grids with OpenSim, so there must be some level of success for them too. success is a highly personal thing though – i think that 15,000 downloads of Sim-on-a-Stick is success but a capitalist would not agree
the question of “which one is better” is a function of what you do with it
back to the first part – making money with virtual worlds
it’s easy to think the only way to make big money with virtual worlds is via the “land business” because Second Life defined that and has success stories of a few people that have (one of the commenters’ on that first link says they pass $400,000 USD to LL on a yearly basis! dang, it took me 20 to 40 hours a week to do $36,000 a year!)
apart from the land business, you can be a content creator – clothes, hair, skins, cars, homes, naughty pose balls, etc
content creation, from a commercial aspect, is still somewhat iffy with OpenSim – or at least the perception of its viability, but that is changing and should eventually be on par to a presence inSL (there we go comparing again). however, there are several factors affecting that – including virtual world currency
the currency factor is one which i think has been screwed up by Linden Lab and/or by the culture created within SL. it is really odd to me that a service where a sim costs $1000 to setup and then $295 a month also has people selling their work for pennies!
the early content creators must not have come from a professional online freelance model because selling something that took you four hours to build for a dollar is daft! i don’t buy the volume argument because we are not talking quantities anywhere near a rock star selling songs on iTunes! (this is a pet peeve of mine)
perhaps, with time, OpenSim content creators will shift and charge prices more along the norm. maybe not like TurboSquid pricing where you can buy an unrigged female model for $499 USD but certainly a few dollars for an OpenSim model is far too cheap!
good objects are worth a fair price and with the ability to run an entire grid for far less with OpenSim than SL, paying for nice content should be acceptable (imho)
the land business and content creation are only two ways to monetize the virtual world. events and conferences are another and something like Virtualis gains little advantage from being inSL (except for content to create their sims). the attendees of Virtualis conferences (about $7000 USD for an average event, at least a few years ago) are typically corporate people and not residents, so they wouldn’t know the difference (or care)
so far, all the above money ideas are the same as set by the Second Life paradigm
there are some monetary endeavors that are not possible by using Second Life such as the tourism work of 3DCOLAB or even work like the SoaS Art Catalogue or perhaps Enclave Harbour (hopefully!) =)
i don’t think we have seen all of the ways in which OpenSim can be used to generate revenue and breaking free from natural comparisons with Second Life will continue to require thinking outside the prim =)
seriously, i think my freebie (bottom) looks better than the TS model! maybe not $80 but what about $10-20 for a full copy one?
Ener –
The final cost of an item is not related to how much work or money it took to make it, but is almost completely dependent on the distribution system used.
For example, many iPhone apps are free, or 99 cents, even though they take a lot of work to create. Broadcast television shows are free, even though they cost millions to produce.
Packaged software costs more. And software sold by sales teams to corporate customers can cost in the hundreds of thousands.
A designer dress straight off the runway can run a few thousand bucks. A knock-off can cost a few hundred. Wait a few months and a similar look will show up in WalMart for $29.99.
In virtual worlds, if you’re selling custom content to large corporate customers, you can charge a lot. If you’re selling commodity content to end users, you’ll be lucky if you can charge anything at all, since there will always be someone out there giving the same thing away for free — just for fun, or as a freebie used to promote their more fashionable, newer products, or as an end-of-seasons giveaway.
In between the two, I think there will be a market for selling stuff to grid owners. Folks setting up commercial grids will need proprietary content to attract users, content that isn’t available anywhere else. Sure, a school or a company just using OpenSim for meetings can put up a Linda Kellie freebie store and be perfectly happy, but if you’re expecting to make money from your grid, you need to have something special and unique.
In particular, role playing games will need a lot of custom content, and will have to pay for it.
I don’t believe the high-end TurboSquid 3D models are being sold to end consumers — they’re probably being bought by business users such as architects, 3D designers, and game creators.
Maria Korolov
3 Oct 12 at 12:39 pm
hmm, i see your point but also disagree with parts of it. in my rl day job, the company has a set rate of $1,350 per 6 hour day for anything i do – that’s my billable rate. now sometimes taht gets discounted by sales
in my freelance work for HTML5 and media (used to be Flash, but that’s dead now) i have a range in my hourly rate between $75 – 120
time is a commodity that expires – i can’t ever bill for hours i did not work last week
i see my work as being influenced by my talent, efficiency, and customer satisfaction, and time as a fixed part of that. like food items for a restaurant – the rule of thumb is that you take the cost of the food items and multiply by three to get your cost per plate
in subQuark’s fledgling publishing world, i have learned that books are priced not by author or topic but by their page count. JK Rowling does not get to charge more for her books and like virtually every print author in the world, she gets around 10% the cover cost of the book. the difference between her and some indie author isn’t in the royalty (those are the same) but in the volume (and JK’s volume also means she’ll have more marketing dollars spent on her)
as for free apps and TV – programmers are paid and actors are paid and those salaries are based on the value of those products – ie, advert dollars and for TV, licensing fees to networks and providers
the $29 Wal-Mart dress comes at a high-human cost called slavery. all of us in the US are guilty of some level of global slavery
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
all of this to say that there is a fair price for virtual world content and the idea that all content, and especially high-quality content should be free or next to it, isn’t favourable to the future of virtual worlds, imo (this is now a rhetorical rant, not a direct response to you Maria)
Enclave Harbour’s content won’t be available for free anytime in the near future and why should it be?
it costs $160 a month for our server, it’s taken me real time to build things and maintain the server – at some point, something has to generate revenue
and that TS skid steerer model i featured was crap! i’d be embarrassed if i made that in Blender! =p
Ener Hax
3 Oct 12 at 1:25 pm
Ener, one of these days we are going to have to have a talk about the word ‘slavery’. There many many reasons I don’t want to have the conversation in public, not the least of which is that Caucasians get so riled up over this African Americans POV LOL
That being said …
I vote for OpenSim … I have a marketplace on SL and I make a little bit of money, but for someone not trying to get rich off of virtual worlds … it was the stress and aggravation and the (dare I say it) freedom that OpenSim gives me.
In real live I am an Indie Author. I do it all myself, just about. Which means I have a staff of one and a volunteer staff of about 2. Maybe more if you count fans who read and email me to correct editing mistakes.
Now for the consumer, I would think that OpenSim would have Second Life beat half to death. Free uploads in most of the closed grids (don’t get me started on my resentment of closed grids) SHOULD keep costs down. At least what it would cost to upload textures and whatnot. After that, you look at what your time is worth. And that … can get sticky.
OK, I completely lost my train of thought .. it just wandered off that-a-way …. so I’m gonna stop and go back to figguring out how to get more memory to what I want to do LOL
Crystal Brewton
3 Oct 12 at 1:41 pm
lol, i just went down THAT road . . .
and you can always express your perspective Crystal, i honour that even if we may disagree
only by facing things we disagree about can we move forward in the world, imo =)
Ener Hax
3 Oct 12 at 1:52 pm
For my purposes, Inworldz is better :o) Their platform isn’t Opensim anymore but it still has much in common with it, and I think this is a good thing.
That said, there ultimately is no “better” platform, virtual world, or virtual technology. I’ve always stood behind all virtual environments regardless of technology, the space being “open” or “closed”, size, limits, whatever. We’re all working in the same metaverse, that’s the whole point.
I have personally provided a lot in the way of scripting, help, encouragement, money, and time to grids, users, and aspiring content creators over the years, in both open and closed grids, with both free and priced ends in mind. There is room for both, plenty of room, and both ends of this economic spectrum are necessary. However, we must in the end be willing to work together. Do local supermarkets get mad and meet in the local church parking lot to yell, curse, and scream at the churchgoers for giving away their fresh vegetables every week? That would be absurd. No, in many cases the local market gives foodstuff TO the church to augment the church supplies and reduce their own waste.
Yes, I create and sell content, sometimes at low prices and sometimes at premium prices – it depends on the content/service. I also give a lot of content away as well as help others create scripts or create scripts for free with the understanding that they may or may not charge for the finished product. The point is that the content gets out there and if it is content I sell, I put a lot of effort into that – after the sale. I spend a good deal of time with those who pay for my content or services in virtual worlds, just as I do with those who patronize my content and services offline. I see no difference between the two spaces, nor the content and services I provide in those spaces.
Open grids are not necessarily in it just for something to do. Closed grids are not necessarily in it just for the money. There is a middle ground and it has room for all purposes and intents, and there are many reasons to choose “open” or “closed” that have absolutely nothing to do with monetization. There is a huge group of people who simply do not get this and have nothing but hate in their hearts for anyone who disagrees with them. This is bad for the metaverse community in general.
Sorry for the rant, but this issue is argued and argued and the argument will never end until the two ends agree to meet in the middle.
ELQ
3 Oct 12 at 3:41 pm
not a rant at all ELQ! it’s nice to hear someone’s position on this and you speak from one of experience!
this is a real pearl of wisdom and insight:
“Open grids are not necessarily in it just for something to do. Closed grids are not necessarily in it just for the money.”
that’s a huge beauty of OpenSim – choices and freedom
now for me, i very much like the idea of going to the church (or synagogue) parking lot and screaming about vegetables! =D
Ener Hax
3 Oct 12 at 3:46 pm
I noticed Ener LOL .. lemme go reread that post. Been screwing around with my virtual memory and its giving me a headache LOL
Crystal Brewton
3 Oct 12 at 4:28 pm
memory and headaches! they go hand in hand
you sound pretty techie Crystal (more so than me, but that’s not saying much)
good luck! =)
Ener Hax
4 Oct 12 at 12:02 pm