Quoted in InformationWeek
Hey, I must really be a Second Life journalist -- Information Week says so!
I've been blogging here for a month and a half, and reporting for Life4U and the Metaverse Messenger for only a couple weeks, but now I can really claim I'm established...
I've been blogging here for a month and a half, and reporting for Life4U and the Metaverse Messenger for only a couple weeks, but now I can really claim I'm established...
Some rights reserved..
No, don't get your hopes up, you are just a blogger, and not even a blogger with correct information.
Re: ""The casino folks are pulling out of SL, because they can't afford to maintain their holdings without income," wrote journalist and Second Life resident Shava Nerad on the Terra Nova blog Sunday. "They have their assets locked, apparently -- something that's been remarkably hard to substantiate."
This is largely untrue. While some casinos went out of business, they don't tend to be those who are the major players of SL, or even many smaller casinos. Major players just diversified, and smaller players reverted to rentals or dance clubs. Those with huge holdings had multiple types of income-generating projects anyway. Casinos were often integrated to malls/rentals/entertainment venues. It was an add-on for many.
The idea that there has been some huge swathe cut through the SL economy is a fanciful one, one that people who want a quick sound byte for RL media eager to take only a very superficial swab of SL can handle. The truth is far more complciated. The LindEx shows some dumps, and there will be big cashouts, but it isn't the doom one imagines.
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Perhaps you read something in the Information Week article you're ascribing to me?
But at any rate, it's interesting that you are saying this, this week, as one of my sources last week was your Second Rant podcast on Metaversed last week.
You said that one of the first things that happened was the concierge support lines lit up with people selling their sims and that you didn't see a lindex dump at first but then you were seeing signs...
Have you changed your mind or gotten better information since?
I have seen, for example, the WSE companies that were involved in gambling adjust. But I have interviewed many people who report the situation above, not just you -- and in many cases they are the very people anxious to sell out and leave SL.
These are "casino folks" - they are people who ran casinos and were not well diversified, or who gave over land cheap because they had enough income from their casino -- I've heard lots of different stories this week.
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Once again, I've quoted *your statement to Information Weekly* as follows, not anybody else's statement:
"The casino folks are pulling out of SL, because they can't afford to maintain their holdings without income," wrote journalist and Second Life resident Shava Nerad on the Terra Nova blog Sunday. "They have their assets locked, apparently -- something that's been remarkably hard to substantiate."
So there are two incorrect comments here. One, you are confusing *cashing out* with "pulling out".
No, I am not changing anything I said; you're not understanding what's at issue.
If the Concierge list lights up with people wishing to sell islands, that's just selling islands; it doesn't mean they are withdrawing from Second Life. In some cases, people have multiple sims. They may shed one, and keep going. They may take the proceeds from the sale especially of an old-tier $195 island, which are very very much in demand, and go into business doing something else.
Another point is about this concept of "they had their resources locked". If this means their land is unable to be sold and they are locked into the game, we don't see evidence of that -- at least not yet. Those unable to sell immediately simply convert to other things. And I see some were indeed able to do this, especially on mainland sims -- they simply changed to other revenue-generating activity. I was amazed at how fast neighbouring sims and parcels that I see on sims where I own land either sold or converted to other operations nearly overnight, as if they had planned for it -- or as if they were simply very adaptable in this harsh and competitive environment, which is the case.
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