17th Aug 2009
A Secondlife doesnt pay
For three years, I have been very much into SecondLife.
A problem is that I really wanted to work in it. I wanted to be a good enough scripter / engineer to be worthy of real life pay in a virtual world.
Some are. Some do make a living in SL. But they seem to be few and far between.
I did write a piece recently about how I think OpenSim will win. I stick to that. I am not clear on how I will personally make much money in that area at this time, but I do think there is a clear comparison to the development efforts of Apache in the 1990’s.
My experience in SL has been that I could pick up a gig here and there and get paid in Lindens (but never very much), or that I could occasionally get a building gig that paid real money. It was never anything consistent that I could consider living off of. Most development in SL is done on a very slim budget, or simply for free as part of volunteer / community efforts.
As for my store, I give away my interactive objects for free, in part because it is a way of getting my portfolio out there. I get < $10 a week from donations.
So my conclusion is, I will pay attention to SL and OpenSim, but I am going to stop developing in them for the time being. It takes away too much time that I really need to spend doing RL work. I am certainly open to gigs that pay; I just dont see how I can count on that though. I see gatewaying to the web, and the trends of Google Wave and Augmented Reality, as being areas where there will be big opportunities. Some of that will map nicely into SL/OpenSim. They’re just not here yet on a big enough scale.
Kim and I will use our SL time to explore and attend events, and basically chill out together :)
