Full Perms and Other Grids.

It’s almost impossible to have a proper discussion on Twitter, in my opinion, or, maybe I am just too wordy to make it work. There is the possibility of stating a point of view, sharing a link or telling a joke, but that’s about it really.

So, I need to take time out in these pages to explore the subject of selling and buying goods full perm for people to take to other grids.

It started as a question by Chestnut yesterday where she asked me if I would sell stuff so that it could be taken to other grids. I replied that there wasn’t really a mechanism in place that permitted me to do that in a satisfactory manner. That is an incomplete answer, partly due to the 140 character limit imposed by Twitter. The full answer goes like this...

If it costs me $30,000 per annum to live and I manage to get online 1000 hours per year then, even if all my costs are met through my RL work, it is a delusion to think that making a product in VW’s is cheap for me. My overheads are, in an economic sense, in the order of 30$ per hour.

To say “well, SL is just a hobby anyway and no one makes any money out of it, so why bother..” is incorrect as an attitude. It is incorrect because it undermines the potential economic reality which VW’s could attain with time. It is like saying VW’s will always be a stupid game for losers and you don’t need to take the economy, and by inference it’s players, seriously.

The economics of production and sales do need to be modeled on a potentially viable basis or we are all just ‘playing’....(not that I have anything against play, but some people do use VW’s to pay some of their bills, or at least tier).

So.. if a product has hidden production costs in the shape of ISP, utilities, dentists bills...etc... then we have to think in the order of 10$ per hour (which is the legal minimum wage in the UK) to 30$ ... something in that range.

Now, if a tree takes 8 hours to make, including Blender, Gimp, and construction time, that means it has cost me 80 to 240US$ in real terms. If I ever want to turn this production into a business I should be looking to sell this tree for 3X (that’s a traditional business model) the cost of production.

I’m hammering away at this, because there seems to be a lack of understanding of the basic economics in an emotional frenzy of loss when people have to leave stuff behind in SL, almost blaming the creators for not making everything full perm.

So... my tree has to earn me somewhere between 240$ and 720$ in the course of the tree’s sales life. The Sales Life of a product could be many years, and, if I sell the tree for 1$ it will have to be in order for me to recoup my initial investment.

Asking someone to sell you a product full perms vastly shortens the Sales Life of the product. A full perm object can be in everyones SL invent, free, within 2 or 3 years... on a small grid...a month or a week.

So...my point?? Well, my point is that unless people are prepared to pay RL prices for full perm goods then they are being unreasonable.

I have been asked to build “the best night club in SL” but was turned down when I quoted 30$. I was asked to create an exclusive logo for “under 20$”... so there is without any doubt due cause for creators just to refuse point blank to sell things full perm. Many buyers are completely delusional on prices, and that is not their fault necessarily, as someone will build a night club for 29$ or a logo for 19$... but that doesn’t make it right.

I know someone who made exclusive commissioned T shirts, full perm for 50L.... but I don’t think that’s a good thing.

..so...when Jim Tarber says, in Twitter, that he won’t buy anything that’s not full perm, there is insufficient ink for me to respond fully.

There is, as yet, no possibility for me to sell something that can be used on all grids by a buyer without it being full perm. ...and full perm stuff gets handed out free, thereby destroying any Sales Life that product might have.

Now, I realise that this is not the final word on Inventory transfer, but I wanted just to start a discussion by presenting a creators point of view....

:))