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It says second life is free...
Zamin
Member Posts: 36
in Second Life
It says secong life is free but no one i dont think notices that please help me i neeeeed to know.
Comments
Ok thanks.
In all actuality, you must pay $9.95 to get a lifetime membership. That membership grants you unlimited use of the world, but you can't own land and you only get a 50L stipend every week.
If you become a premium member for $9.95 a month, you get a small plot of land (512 acres) and a 500L per week stipend.
The basic account is free, but that doesn't allow you to own land. There are public sandboxes where you can still build and create items, and even sell those items to other players for more income than the basic stipend.
You can also rent land from other users, and thus "avoid" paying for "owning" land.
"I'm not building a game. I'm building a new country."
-- Philip "Linden" Rosedale, interview to Wired, 2004-05-08
"Controlled", lol he was one of the investors, yes, but you should check what Pierre Omidyar is doing these days with his money at his site. You'll be surprised in what he's using his money from (hint: mostly non-profits, and small companies who are using technology in unbelievable ways).
Sure, SL is as free to use as, say, the World-Wide Web. This means you can join it for free, and there are literally dozens of thousands of freebies free stuff that others have created and give away. Thus, it's similar to the concept that you can get Internet Explorer or Mozilla for free to join the World-Wide Web, and get free space to host your Web site, or even several Javascripts for free, etc.
However, yes, there are a few costs:
1) Connection costs
SL is a bandwidth hog, unless you set Preferences properly. It's not unusual to be continuously receiving a stream of objects & textures that'll take 100 Kbps or more, over the period you're logged in. If you have free Internet access, or unlimited traffic, this is not important. But beware if you have limits, it's very easy to hit 5 or 6 GBytes per month by being connected 3-4 hours per day.
2) "Land" costs. "Land" is an abstract concept that relates to 3D content hosting. This means that while you can build whatever you wish on "public building sites" (known as "sandboxes"), these are wiped out twice a day (you can keep copies of your objects all the time, no worries!). Bigmilk already explained that concept very well! And renting is always a choice.
3) There is around 10 Terabytes of total content in Second Life objects (from houses to jewelry, though furniture, vehicles, weapons; you name it, someone probably did it), animations, sounds, textures (pictures), clothes & skins. These are millions and millions of unique items, thousands being created every day. Now although quite a few are for free, the vast majority is for sale in Second Life. However, you're not paying Linden Lab for the content you're paying the other users! You get a "weekly stipend" if you log in at least once and have a free, basic account. It won't be much the price of a pair of pants or a new T-shirt, perhaps but it'll be something. With that you can buy content from other users like yourself, using the in-world currency, the Linden Dollar (L$). Renting land from other users is also done using Linden dollars, so you won't be paying US dollars for that.
Now what can you do if you don't wish to wait for several week's stipends to be able to buy a house or a car or a special outfit? Well, the hard way is to earn your (virtual) money, by getting a job, becoming a freelance, or create some content of your own and sell it. The easy way is using the money exchange. There are several (one of them is run by the company itself, but there are many alternatives), and they will exchange your US dollars for Linden dollars, and also the other way round. Yes, that means that you can earn money from your "Second Life job". For an increasing number, Second Life is their primary job (earning from US$1000-4000 per month...) although most users will highly likely make much less, eventually enough to pay for their susbscription and their Internet connection (a realistic achievement).
Buying or selling money is not necessary for your enjoyment, however. Most people work out successful business models that allow them to grow and expand their business, while not spending a single US dollar. Others don't care about "business" or "working in a virtual world" or aren't talented enough to sell creative content. In that case, the easiest way out is to spend a few US$ here and there. 1 US $ will get you L$ 260 half of the weekly stipend of a Premium account (who pay an average of US 8 monthly, depending on their payment plan, for the privilege of the higher stipend and the ability of owning land). That way you can have all the fun for a very low price, and completely ignore Second Life's growing in-world economy, if you don't wish to bother with that
The choice is basically yours, most (over 80%) of the users never pay a single US$ to Linden Lab, and have stayed around Second Life for several years without needing to spend anything.
So, Pierre Omidyar's investment in Second Life has basically nothing to do with either "control" or the way Second Life's economy works. Have no worries, Pierre did a good investment but it's a long-term one, he knows he won't get his money back in a couple of months Second Life's profitable, of course, or Linden Lab wouldn't be running the servers for hosting it and increasing their development team and releasing a new version every two weeks or so, but it won't make any investor filthy rich in a short time.
Again, you have to take the Internet as an example. Most of the things done on the Web are for free. Of course, if you want to go beyond having a free email address at Gmail or Yahoo or MSN, and half a dozen web pages, you have to pay for your own server (virtual or not). The amount you spend to enjoy the Web is your choice it can be zero, or quite a bit, depending on what you wish to do.
Second Life is just like that a 3D WWW. With nicer graphics and an astonishing atmosphere, beyond the feeling that it was all done by the users
"I'm not building a game. I'm building a new country."
-- Philip "Linden" Rosedale, interview to Wired, 2004-05-08
SL is not a scam. I have invested 0$ in it and made probably over a 100 or 200 real world $ in in-game goods. I could sell all my stuff and it would be worth real money.
The easiest way for making money in SL is virtual prostitution. Club owners like Looli of Barbie make over 20.000 real world dollars per year.
However SL lacks a lot in interface. The game controls are abominable and most of the world looks designed by chimpansees. Plus the game is often unbearably shortminded american. Whereas games like WoW are overrun by zitfaced adolescents, a lot of gamers in SL are bored desperate single mom 35+ housewives who like a little safe eroticism (and maybe a few $) on the side.
It is free, but they use the credit card as part of the confirming that you are old enough to consent. It is a flawed system, but unlioke other online games there is actual adult content in areas and they are not responsible for keeping you out of those areas if you say you are an adult.
In most areas you have to be of the legal age to sign a contract in order to get a credit card, but again it is flawed as you can get onw younger with a parent's co-sign or such.
I agree with a poster earlier in a thread "a parent's way of saying no without saying no". But, really if you aren't old enough to get a credit card or check card on your own then there is a lot of things you probably shouldn't have access to in SL.
It is free, but they use the credit card as part of the confirming that you are old enough to consent. It is a flawed system, but unlioke other online games there is actual adult content in areas and they are not responsible for keeping you out of those areas if you say you are an adult.
In most areas you have to be of the legal age to sign a contract in order to get a credit card, but again it is flawed as you can get onw younger with a parent's co-sign or such.
I agree with a poster earlier in a thread "a parent's way of saying no without saying no". But, really if you aren't old enough to get a credit card or check card on your own then there is a lot of things you probably shouldn't have access to in SL.
ok first off the quote up top its not controlled by the inventory of EBAY i should come find you for saying that he is an investor for it if you actually bothered reading the article you got the info from =P. Its run by the guy that invented most of the stuff for real networks and helped with alot of internet broadcasting stuff. Philip Rosedale. it is free to sign up for your first account totally free you jsut get a cut down stipend and cant own land which all in all isnt that major if you find a job or make some content and rent some land. Sure underage kids are gunna come in but if we arnt aware of it its really none of our business that they are underage or not. If you know someone is its a bit different hehe. SL has both PG area and MATURE area's Pg area's are non adult oriented but are still kept on adult grid its more places for people to relax and less sought after most times =P. While SL has monthly fee's alot of places (club i co own for instance) pay out $L to people for events etc.
Frankly most people's worries about signing up with credit etc is a bit out there in second life as most of the community reports those that are found to be underage (most kids are dumb enough to say their age lol) but aside from that its nothing kids 13+ prolly havent seen regardless unless they live a pretty sheltered life!
Actually, the Teen Grid, for under-18-year-olds, keeps growing and has around 10,000 users these days. It looks that they're dwarved by the adult grid, though, with 20 times as many users.
It's hard to capture the attention spam of most teenagers. Give them a tool to become creative... and sadly most of them will turn it to destructive uses. And the "TV generation" are consumers of entertainment. The whole concept of a platform where you produce your own entertainment is alien to many!
Thus the appeal of Second Life is not for "everybody". If you expect to "get free entertainment" buy a TV or a computer game
Second Life is not for you.
Average age on the "adult grid", unlike many platforms, is also much higher around 30 or so. Compare that to most games (except for The Sims series... or strategic games like the Age of Empires/Civilization series), where the average user age is among 15-25, peaking around 17-20. It is not surprising; Second Life is demanding as an entertainment platform where you have to do everything by yourself.
A definition of "becoming a mature adult" includes the ability to do things on your own, and being able to accept your responsabilities and consequences of your acts. Many, of course, grow up to 50 or 60 and haven't still reached that stage! Those that are unable to understand these simple aspects after all, they are the very same that rule our "real life" will never enjoy Second Life much. They will only roam the grid in search of free, self-satisfying entertainment, and willing to have it without accepting its consequences. This, I think, is one of the reasons why there are only around 2,000 people joining every day and not many more.
"I'm not building a game. I'm building a new country."
-- Philip "Linden" Rosedale, interview to Wired, 2004-05-08