Results of the First Virtual World Economic Survey Are In...

[RyanSchultz]

The results of the first Virtual World Economic Situation Survey are in, and it looks like many Second Life merchants are struggling with sales:

Results of the First Virtual World Economic Situation Survey of Second Life Merchants

 

[Khamon]

VIRTUAL WORLD RECESSION1 oh Hamlet you are amusing. Logins are down five percent from this time last year. Today's concurrency is only 52,000 logs.

More than half the merchants are part time hobbiest playing shop for fun as much as money. That's to be expected on a role playing platform that primarily entertains. What percentage of SL users are merchants I wonder; SL provides a full time income to 42.3% of what percentage of the population?

Everything will be okay if we'll all give up our virtual shacks and move to Sansar. But I've said too much. That's next month's column.

 

[Amity Slade]

SL as a full-time job and primary source of income does not necessarily equate to earning at least a living wage.

I would also guess that the 124 responses to the survey are skewed toward merchants who are actively trying to do a high volume of sales. Part-time and less active merchants are probably less likely to take the time to respond to a survey.

Given what a Mickey Mouse™®© operation Second Life is, in terms of its economy and Marketplace, I have trouble believing there is any significant number of merchants making a living selling content in Second Life.

 

[Khamon]

I was quoting Philip Rosedale from SLCC two-thousand-and-something though he didn’t know Sansar so said the next phase.

His point was that we casual creator hobbiest fashionista user types would be pushed aside by real professionals using the platform in meaningful mainstream ways.

That possibility evaporated due to LL’s lack of professionalism and the resulting reality is that we casual creator hobbiest fashionista user types have settled into a comfortable stasis on the Grid.

edit: plarform is not a proper word