Couldbe Yue

only if I can do a joint set up with Talwyn and have an open season on the critters..

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Ciaran Laval

Affiliate sales used to work so well for me that I found it easier than renting out stores and more profitable, it meant I had to do the work in terms of marketing and gave me more control as well as not having to advertise for renters and keep track of rentals. The model has died for me over the last year or so.

Couldbe Yue

My affiliate sales started to decline around the end of 2009/early 2010 and by the time Apez died they'd dropped from around 30+% of my turnover to around 5% and most of them were from my stores with my branding rather than the affiliates out in the wild. The only exceptions seemed to be the RP regions where it looks as if the visitors were supporting the sim by shopping.

It's one of the reasons I've never been in a hurry to replace them.

Jack Belvedere

Isn't there some site that tracks new residents and general SL economy too? I remember it being around here, I think. I notice there continues to be, in general less people around, everywhere, unless it's my imagination.

Naiki

Ultima Online, cracking game, MMO. In its early days, people hung out at RP towns, then Trammel came and they hung out at banks. Eventually converged onto Brit Bank. Then there was an event by Brit Bank, and people moved to Luna bank. Then Magincia got destroyed and rebuilt and people went to Magincia, but it was crap so they went back to Luna.

Ultima has maybe 15 useable towns and banks in safe areas (not including Fel). Imagine if the population moved about like that in a game the size of SL! With venues everywhere!...

Which is what I think is what happens.... Theres not less people 'Everywhere' (see my post a few posts up), they have just moved to different places. When Meeroos first came in the Meeroo sims were packed with people. Them people immigrated from somewhere. Now they have possibly emigrated to Cove Point Meeroo sim or elsewhere.

DoctorZen

The similarity only goes so far. SL is magnitudes of order larger than UO was. The last report gave us an estimated 30,000 sims (give or take a handful). Divide into that an average concurrence of 40-50k. Then throw in other factors like notorious server stability, 40-user soft caps on region capacity, growing web interface etc. etc. and yeah, SL becomes a pretty barren place on average.

Another factor of declining land rentals, one that was discussed at length here not long ago, was LL's waiving of the land set-up fee. A lot of people jumped on that opportunity, which left estate companies large and small reeling (not to mention the dread that they'll do it again in the future with no warning). On one hand, I can't fault LL for trying to boost their land income with new buyers. On the other, this hurt an economy that brings in the lion's share of their income. Time will tell if LL decides that giving that offer another go is worth the trouble.

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." — Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Aribeth Zelin

Well, its kind of comforting to know its not just me. I started my store/brand at the end of '09. Now, I wonder if I should look for a job creating for one of the bigger stores. I love making things, including the various shop designs, but I hate marketing. I've probably a sim's worth of things I could sell, if I'd just get around to actually the packaging and such. But when its the big stores and others having issues, then it means it maybe isn't just me and my marketing fail.

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Faerycat Designs In World -Marketplace 1- Marketplace 2

Naiki

*Shrugs* Theres a thousand factors for it in every MMO, but people shift from one place to another. Half of Guildwars looks like a barren place after each chapter got released. More so with every chapter. Half of Tyria was empty when Nightfall was released. Didn't mean there was less players. They were just migrating.

The population may be going up or down. But migration in MMO's happens all the time.

DoctorZen

But what I'm saying is, it's not a matter of migration in an MMO sense. Sure, you get some "hot spots" in SL that are Hip, Happening and Now. There's also plenty of places that are always at or near capacity. But the only real "migration" that happening in SL is isolationism: people logging in, never leaving their own land, taking care of everything that needs to be taken care of remotely, and logging out again. I don't see anything reversing that trend, especially when LL is improving on the things that make it more convenient.

Naiki

I understand what your saying, I just don't feel 'everyone' - 'everywhere' is going that route. In the same sense, although I feel migration is significant, not 'everyone' - 'everywhere' is migrating.

Edited to add migration bit

DoctorZen

I never said everyone or everywhere, now did I?

Naiki

Your post seemed to be in reply to me disagreeing with Jack that everywhere was quie.....

Ahh screw it... This conversation needs a roundabout...

Brenda Connolly

Add into the fact that it is the same way many people approach RL, everything is done from their computer or other device. They don't have to leave their house for much, if at all.

Couldbe Yue

Concurrency has dropped around 10k in the last 12 months (iirc, I'd have to check my figures but looking at the last month it seems to be low-mid 60k for peak which is well down on the 70+ it used to be).

Even at its peak, there was an average of less than 3 avs per region - now it's down to 2. If 15,999 of the 16k who sign up each day aren't staying (which seems likely) then most of that concurrency is most likely folk who have been around for a while and after a while people stop buying because they have everything they need. I can think of probably a dozen handicaps that the current set up puts in the way of people spending and another half dozen as to why people don't want to spend.

I don't think it's a complete dead duck but I think now it's more important than ever to market to the myriad of channels outside of search. I suppose the bottom line is whether you think the returns are there for the time needed to be invested.

I see flipping burgers in mcdonalds as an easier path to the same monetary goal. It's probably less aggravating too and with more chance of success and promotion to earn more. eek!!!!

Johnnytreadlightly Nightfire

Bold is mine and I very much agree that shoppers are picky about spending money. Some of that probably has to do with so much stuff available. Every few months, I'll catch a thread similar to this and people bring up some valid points about the economy, marketplace traffic, etc. I'm not saying I agree with everything said, but that doesn't make points any less valid. My own take is slightly different.

Competition to sell is growing for sure. A few years ago, you could buy a texture pack or two, make something nice, and expect it to sell ok. But the number of comparable products is almost exponentially growing. Factor in you can not only buy textures, but sculpt maps, and even now mesh packs to use in your creations (many including textures). Many for a few hundred L's or less. Many times it's cheaper to buy direct from the wholesaler than the merchant.

As for marketing, I've not really done it ever. The only classified I ever put out was done as a joke (I still have it btw and people actually find me through it?), I don't advertise in online magazines, product enhancements on marketplace were always negligible to me, I don't participate in hunts or sales, and I only rarely spam my own store group. I'd much rather put the energy into making something new. Traditional advertising just never seemed to pay off. All this is contrary to most advice I've recieved, but so far business keeps expanding through word of mouth alone.

All that said, if you enjoy making content you can hardly go wrong. SLU is probably one of the best routes to advertise if you're looking for results and can afford to. Keep making new and better things for a reasonable price, start small and only expand if your sales for a month can sustain it for 3. Plan ahead, and tier down if you have to, there's no shame in it. It's a business, but it's also supposed to be fun (not for everyone, but for most). It's very possible to both enjoy what you do and still be profitable.

Karen

I have downgraded my spending a lot the past year in SL after having some of my purchases deleted by LL ( I do not buy from a service that I cannot trust). I do not buy linden dollars very often and prefer to spend my money on RL items. When I was shopping I prefered the convenience of the SLmarketplace over wandering around a lagging sim waiting for things to rezz.

Void

actually I was referring to take downs of post containing links to other fora/blogs on SLF which had been an occasional problem since the first software changeover, but saw a rise late last year... I don't know if it's still in effect.

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Da5id Weatherwax

The slowdown in the RL economies around the world is most definitely having an impact on the economy on the grid - folks just dont have as much to spend and that means they aint spending it on $L and that means they aint buying our stuff so we cant afford to advertise it as much.

That's why "No Escape" is on hiatus right now.. There just wasnt enough income to maintain my inworld locations and my upload habit - which of course impacted my ability to create new stuff and so we progress around a vicious cycle.. When it comes back, though, I will definitely consider a SLU ad but it's gonna have to go on a page with a significantly higher than "PG" rating


PS: Ciaran, Brenda always behaves... Badly!

Little Lost Linden

I've noticed a pretty big spike in bot farms this year \ end of last, and the daily concurrency seems lower. We need Tyche or Anya to add bot scanning to their list of trackables. Also, Skyrim came out recently, made game of the year, and a lot of inworld talk has been about it so many have probably been tying up some of their free SL time with Skyrim qwests.

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Talwyn Mills

Well it looks like the decision is made, my second last renter just up and left (with no warning) and the last one is only a very small amount of space. Unless I can find anyone that wants 1/2 a sim (at least) within the next 3 days, I'll have to pack up and find a place somewhere else for a (very much smaller) store.

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Casey Pelous

I don't think that's possible to do directly - nothing readable by a viewer or script indicates an avatar is a bot, so far as I know.

To attempt it at all would require Voodoo Bot type guesswork.

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Little Lost Linden

It would be tricky. I thought there were 1 or 2 people (Anya \ Tyche) on this forum that knew how to do it, however, it was against their morals. I don't exactly understand that. To me, it's just another trackable statistic.

Someone a while back had mentioned something like tracking avatar movement per sim. Anything that stays in the exact same place for 30 days or longer, 24\7, most likely is a bot and avatar movement is a trackable item for scripts to monitor I was told.

But again, I don't have the exact specifics about this either. I was told it would cost too much money to hire someone to do it, so only some good scripter with a desire to know the real SL concurrency could pull it off. So far, no takers.

Rage

You are talking hundreds of hours per player. HUNDREDS OF HOURS! It's ok, my arse can take it.

Ciaran Laval

Yes it is, put it this way, I won't be posting a link to fantasy Faire 2012 over there, I'm not going through that cack again.

Ann Otoole

bots mean nothing unless someone has irrefraggable proof LL runs them to falsify concurrency. Until then just don't go where bots are and you won't eat the lag.