Yes, Many Top SL Fashion Brands Are Likely Outsourcing Content Creation to the Developing World

Deep discussion around last week's post about the oligopolies of Second Life raised a point from "SoManyPrims" that deserves a follow-up. Responding to the suggestion that many big SL brands are "using cheap mesh labor in India to do 80% of the work:", the reader asked:

Are there any supporting sources for the "cheap mesh labor in India" type comments? Not really aware of how the large brands operate but have always been curious and would like to learn more.

My friend is also convinced that none of the big designers spend any time in SL and have never been part of the community. Some of the negative sentiment seems to be exacerbated by lack of insight.

The second point is probably true for many major designers, who tend to not be less involved in Second Life as users, partly because they can no longer participate in-world without being swamped by customer requests/complaints. (It's difficult to even keep their alternate accounts anonymous.)

Far as the question about India, I don't know of any specific SL fashion brands doing this, but it's quite plausible. In fact, I'd be surprised if they weren't doing any outsourcing. After all, major content creators have been outsourcing Second Life work to the developing world for nearly 15 years:

Notably, with real estate baron Anshe Chung opening a studio in Wuhan, China to manage her properties in 2005/2006. During that same time frame, I wrote about a studio based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, doing Second Life content creation for a Hollywood effects company. Then there was Cao Fei's Second Life city, easily the most prominent SL-based art installation, which was mostly built by a studio in Cebu City, Philippines. Just to name three top-of-my-head examples.

So when we think about major Second Life fashion/mesh body brands, with tens of thousands of customers demanding frequent content updates and making virtual content purchases with extremely low profit margins, it would be economically disastrous not to outsource much or most mesh creation to the developing world. Because while, say, 5,000 Linden Dollars might look like a lot in the virtual world, there's only so many places in the real world where that counts as a living wage. 

Pictured: The view of Anshe's Wuhan office, from the Sidney Morning Herald.

Comments

[Minethere Always]

Linden Lab outsourced secondlie's creativity long ago folks!

[Pingpet]

You make a point but miss a lot of points. I think your original post last week was how does this play into creativity in Second Life? How does Ansche Chung and her land company have anything to do with being a creative “Designer” in Second Life? It’s a land company! Who cares if they outsource!

Of course many clothing “designers” use outsourced labor. But those people are in SL a lot and ARE in the community cause mostly they love the new Coco Chanel. But they don’t design. They are not even creators. They look in Pinterest and in the latest rags to find a blouse or a skirt and make a call to their outsourced mesh people. That is not designing and it’s definitely not creating. It’s Zara. If they meshed they could at least be called a creator! Gawd, half the time they can barely rig properly let alone design or create something.

Fine and go buy this eww. But jeebus stop feeding their egos like they actually sit for hours and sketch something creative to bring in world. They do nothing for creative in fashion. It’s very sad as there is so much potential in Second Life.

[Lina Pussycat]

The people that tend to outsource or use other stuff and aren't teams are generally people that make big packs for reseller type "full perm mesh" type things. Those tend to outsource or use stuff from diff websites.

A lot of the big brands aren't outsourcing, but do have a couple of few people doing the work that they always go to. One may do teztures and mesh while the other weight paints fits and does riggjng. I know a few of the top brands in fact do exactly that

[Pingpet]

Yes Lina and how is that designing or creating? It's only beings Zara. They have mesh and rigging peoples and take from fashion sites the new lines or what celebrity wear and copy it. I mean, omg, how many creators does take doing it for peeps to see the same ones doing Victoria's Secret angels. None of them are designers. They just love to be called that and be glory girls who act all pretty or street in real life stuff and could not sketch a sticks figure if asked. After they all copy someone else in real life they copy eachs other and fight and bickers that the other one is copying the other. SILLY. No design. No creative works. It's Zara.

[Tankgirl]

Complete nonsense. Most “big” sl brands are freelance solo artists working their asses off to keep their heads above water, completely unprotected against customers that can contact them at any time via ims, marketplace comments etc and that are completely sucked dry financially by the lindens. How about you stop these unfunded allocations against these defenseless artists over and over again Hamlet? It’s nasty.

[sirhc desantis]

Not convinced about this outsorcing claim without seeing any evidence - ie, numbers. I mean, its not like Apple who can shave off a couple of gazillion for the margin by using dodgy sweat factory labour is it? I spent a decade in the toy biz and one of our big products was a 'version' of those sit in kid cars. Yes, the motors and batteries came in by the container load (literally, daily) all the way from China but the rest? Was cheaper to do all the plastic injection etc in hoouse and this was in Quebec.

Without actual numbers, its hard to see this claim holding any water. (Taking something off Daz or the Squid would seem a cheaper option rather than faffing about with outsourcing. Just find a pet rigger..)

As for the design side - well, how do you think retail consumerism works? Manufacturers/retailers also get to see 'the rags' (and live too) of what will be the latest designs and take a gamble on what is going to be a seller - more lead time for sure as still have to get the rubbish made at an adequate margin but same in principle. Just in SL the turnaround is a lot shorter.

I would have asked 'where do you think your high street clobber comes from' bbut thats a wee bit old fashioned.

(Caveat - I probably could not name 20 'top fashion brands' in SL at knifepoint as it really is not my bag - just seems a bit of an unsustainable claim. Prove me wrong).

[fionalein]

Somebody needs to do the marketing. Not every creator has the skills, to mesh, rig, texture and market a product. It needs some social networking done to connect enough skills in most cases. Also those all those outsourced folks need to be payed. Consider the brand managers who outsource everything in the creation process some kind of investors/managers. I personally have no problem with this behaviour as long as they are honest about it.

[Candi]

Why aren't you giving examples/names or refer to(anonymous) trustworthy sources based on research? The only real example you give is an estate company (?) - totally off topic. It seems like you are only guessing based on hearsay and a vague profit calculation. I would say your article is far from finished, it gave me a tabloid kind of feeling instead of real information about the world of content creation in second life.

Beside that: (international) outsourcing is very common for many products we use every day.

[Taylor]

It's kinda weird to say that just because the workers in China, it's outsourcing.

Anshe Chung, who's Chinese, started a company in her own country and hired local employees. That's the literal opposite of outsourcing.

[Wagner James Au]

Anshe (Ailin Graef) Chung is originally from China but was a German citizen when she started up her studio in Wuhan.

[Gingir Ghoststar]

Wait, we're supposed to outsource the work? You mean to tell me I've been doing this wrong for years? I'm not supposed to have bought all my own programs, poured over weeks and months worth of tutorials learning to mesh, texture, rig, etc? I mean, I'm not a big-time designer but in my more active days I was bringing in a nice paycheck from SL selling full perm creations that I made, by hand. They were all atrocious in the beginning and have gotten better over time.