New World Notes

1 in 10 Second Life Merchants Surveyed Earn USD $100,000+ a Year From Selling Virtual Goods

Here's another notable result from that survey of SL merchants we discussed on Tuesday: How much real life money they're making from Second Life content. While 42% of those surveyed say SL is "a full time job and main income source", this question above indicates just how much of that income they're typically earning.

While the majority are making USD $1000 or less (those selecting "1"), about a third of merchants are making between $1000 and $5000 a month (options 2-5). But the results on the other end of the spectrum are even more surprising:

Cassie's Clips: Important Etiquette Tips for SL Shoppers & Merchants

Among the reasons given for the apparent SL recession that we're currently in, is the high levels of drama and social strife among merchants and consumers. So NWN's Cassie Middles and some of her friends are here to lay down some basic principles of etiquette and best practices -- watch above. Guidelines include:

• Treat others how you wish to be treated
• Customers and designers are people too.
• Check merchants profiles and see who to contact [with questions]. "The designer might not answer because they have a person who would.
• Say Please and Thank You. "I cannot emphasize this enough."
• Please try to contact a designer first before writing a bad review. They might be very happy to help fix the issue [you're complaining about].
• Don't jump straight to anger. "Be polite, kind, and considerate. You'll get much better results than anger ever would."

Most of these principles, discerning readers might have noticed, are equally applicable to real life. Except when it comes to contacting an SL merchant, that's pretty unique and ridiculously counter-intuitive:

Virtual World Recession? Over One-Third of Second Life Content Creators Report Recent Sales Down 15-30% -- But Only 2% Are Creating Content for Sansar (Survey)

Here's the results of the survey I mentioned last week, and they're worth a close look. Key points are probably these:

• 39% of merchants say sales are down this month, compared to recent months -- this despite a typical upturn during the Holidays.
• 42% of those surveyed say SL is "a full time job and main income source" -- so this downturn is actually a threat to many of their real life livelihoods.
• Less than 2% are actively creating content for Sansar, while 37% have a wait and see attitude to Linden Lab's new platform -- and 52% say they'll remain merchants in Second Life "til the end of the world".

This downward trend reflects frequent reports from SL content creators I've received over the last few months. While SL private estates are still slowly growing, SL consumers seem to be buying less, overall. For instance, as Chic Aeon puts it in Comments:

November is looking very average (over the last year) for me. October was one of my lowest months for a long time. I can confirm that EACH and EVERY SL creator I talked to has noticed a sharp downturn (most from summer and continuing ; I had a very good summer - who knows why). Also events are really hurting -- pretty much across the board including the top ones. 

If there is a general downturn, what's the prime cause? According to Grid Survey, peak daily concurrency continues to slowly trend downwards, from about 55,000 in November 2017, to about 52,000 this November. That, and a waning of in-world events in general, which diminishes reasons for buying new virtual fashion (the major shopping category), is definitely a contributing factor.

SL merchants, of course, have a closer perspective on the problem -- here's some of the reasons for the downtown that they anonymously gave in the survey:

Second Life Grid Continues to Grow in Wake of Tier Discounts (But Slowly)

Likely missed by many during Thanksgiving week, here's the latest Second Life economic report from Tyche Shepherd, a top statistician for a major multinational whose quirky hobby is tracking the evolution of virtual world land ownership on Grid Survey.  (Follow her on Twitter here.) Continuing a trend noted last month, Second Life is still seeing positive (if tiny) growth of private SL sims, Linden Lab's top revenue source, a trend which started last July after tier discounts were announced:

Total number of Main Grid regions is now 23819 ( 16144 private estates & 7675 Linden owned). 32 new regions were added and 10 returned to the grid, with 40 regions removed (14 were renamed and 0 came and went since last report) Adult regions were up in number by 9 to 5932 (24.9% of the grid). While the number of general rated fell by 5 to 2934 (12.3%). Year to date net Private Estate growth stands at 38 regions (0.2% growth).

At this rate, it's likely that overall growth for Second Life private regions in 2018 will be net positive by a whisker. But as Tyche told me last month:

Cassie's Clips: Holiday Shopping Tips - Equal 10 & Lelutka Powder Pack

Just in time for the long US holiday weekend, NWN's Cassie Middles has some shopping tips from Equal 10 and Lelutka:

"Equal 10 is an event that caters to both genders, filled with stores of all types and opens on the 10th of each month."

And Lelutka? 

SL Merchants: Take This Pre-Holiday State of the Virtual Economy Survey

Note: Scroll down to take full survey

Click here or take this survey above if you're a virtual world merchant and want to share your perspective on the state of the Second Life economy, your place in it, and your thoughts on the economic potential of Sansar. (And please consider sharing with acquaintance merchants.) Deadline to take it, appropriately enough, is "Black Friday" this week. (I'll be posting the results on New World Notes next week.)

The survey was created by a long established Second Life merchant based in Japan who I'll call John Doe. And who tells me his performance in the virtual economy has taken a sharp, concerning turn in recent months:

Since Second Life is So Difficult to Use, Linden Lab Should Pay New Users to Learn How to Use It (Comment of the Week)

Minecraft's simple building interface

Great long comment from Will Clip, who's developed popular games for both Second Life users and for other platforms, responding to the point that understanding Second Life's complexity has become a kind of game in itself:

In my opinion Linden Lab could do so much more helping to ease the 1st steps for new users to improve the user retention rate.

I am a content provider in SL myself. Whenever I find some time to create something new I try to come at it with understanding that for most of the people facing something new, something they are not used to is scary and frustrating.

Creators goal should be to make 1st steps for people when they are trying the new product as easy and fun as possible. Good user interface experience makes distinction between a good and bad product.

Often to the point that even if the product looks better looking, most users will prefer to use the product that is easier to use because using something that is easy to operate is already rewarding by itself.

In my opinion Linden Lab should maybe employ or temporary hire an user interface specialists that would look at SL as a whole and come out with some pointers about how to make SL more easy to use. LL should use the new knowledge to organize content developers, give materials (invest, market) and provide new and better tools for content creation in Second Life.

Will says he's seeing similar complexity in Sansar. But unlike most other virtual worlds and social VR platform, Linden Lab has a key advantage. Which leads Will to propose a novel idea: Pay Linden Dollars to new users to learn how to use Second Life. As he writes:

Second Life's Open-Ended User Interface as an MMO is So Complicated, Mastering the UI is How to Level Up

Pictured: Cassie demonstrating Lelutka's Axis HUD for customizing highly detailed SL Avatar expressions

Great conversation about the difficulty of customizing Second Life avatars, which now include countless user-made systems (like the one above) built on top of the default system, with reader "Scott" making this point:

While I don't disagree that creating a beautiful avi can be complex and difficult for new users, I don't agree with the implication this is a problem for Second Life. I remember the difficulties and frustrations of learning how some of this works. I still don't understand all of it, but it was (and still is) enjoyable to learn. I get a sense of accomplishment. The subtleties of second life avi construction become an "inside joke" with others who have had the same struggles. Not only do you get a sense of accomplishment, but you get the feeling of becoming a member of the "club" who have leveled-up and made a kick-ass avi.

This is very true -- while Second Life is not a traditional MMO, the very complexity of its user-experience has turned avatar customization into a kind of leveling mechanic. (Which is not too different from many traditional MMOs where you can immediately identify veteran players by the special details and features of their avatar.)

Seen this way, buying customization options from other users becomes a short-cut for leveling up:

Creative User Hacks to Second Life Appearance Make Avatar Customization Incredibly Difficult for New Users (Comment of the Week)

Pictured: User-Made Mesh Head Heads-Up Display (reviewed by Cassie here)

Commenting on the appearance of professional makeover agencies in Second Life, reader "Pulsar" points out this is partly the outcome of innovation among the user community, as users came up with creative ways to improve avatar appearance options beyond what the default viewer offered:

And to think that once you could create your own hair style straight from the viewer sliders, as well as everything else (you still can, but it's outdated).

Creative users took advantage of each update and new feature to improve their avatar looks, sometimes even with hacks like the "invisiprim". Avatars became prettier and prettier, even incomparably better, but on the other hand fashion became more and more complex.

Instead of sliders, you had to edit your prim or sculpt attachments, then you had to use alpha layers, then merchants would sell their rigged mesh without setting the attachment point, so you have to carefully "add" it (or add to another attachment point) instead of "wearing" it, in order to not end up naked, just because you grabbed an ice cream. Then appliers, various HUDs, then you have a bunch of products from different brands and that aren't compatible with each other, as well as legacy content, so you have to know what's compatible with.

In other words, with every creative workaround the Second Life community added, avatars became more and more difficult to customize -- and became near impossible for new users:

Cassie's Clips: How to Unbox Items to Use in Second Life -- A Common User Interface Confusion Among New SL Shoppers

Here's NWN video correspondent Cassie Middles with a helpful and very necessary tutorial for unboxing items in Second Life. It's necessary, because even though fashion and virtual shopping is essential to the Second Life economy, Linden Lab has allowed its user interface for owning and using items to remain incredibly counter-intuitive and user-unfriendly. Which is not only hurting the economy, it's frustrating newer users. As Cassie points out, many bad reviews in the SL Marketplace are actually about this confusion with the user interface: