Second Life, and Making Money from it

[Stuart]

For those of you that don't know, there are a vast number of ways of making real money in the virtual world of Second Life.

Rather than me explaining it to you, you really need to have a look at the website, and maybe download and try it. It is 100% free to start with. You can choose to pay money into it, once you've seen what it has to offer.

Second Life: Your World. Your Imagination.

Don't get me wrong, there is no real Get rich quick scheme here, you still have to work pretty hard for many weeks to see a good result, mainly because it takes a long time to get used to the environment, interface, and business models involved. But the real beauty of Second Life is that there are many opportunities for "build once, sell forever". (That's going to become my catchphrase, I can see it).

The bottom line with Second Life is that it allows you to make money from your creative side. The 3D modeller is really easy for anyone to use so if you have ANY experience in designing clothing, furniture, jewellery, buildings, or you just have an artistic side to you, you may find that Second Life is a really enjoyable pasttime for you. It really is about enjoying the experience, the money is a byproduct. The more you put into it, the more you get out.

You can also transfer other skills into the game, such as event organisation, scripting, DJing, or even just talking dirty. Yes, there is a massive sex industry in Second Life, well, come on, it is just an evolution of the web itself, what did you expect?

For those of you who can't understand how or why a virtual world can pull in real cash, check out the figures on the main website. It might be a pyramid scheme in essence, but I would say it does offer some true value to the bottom of the pyramid. I have personally made several very good friends through Second Life and would fully recommend it as a way of meeting people. A woman buying a beautiful virtual dress is going to be just as effective as buying a real one, and for the same reasons. As well as the bottom rung, many businesses that run in Second Life need other people to help their business run, for example a furniture designer may hire a scripter to make their piece of furniture do something, and an animator will also be involved to ensure when someone sits on the furniture their character will look as if they are "lounging".

My Experiences

I played Second Life for many months and investigated many of the money making opportunities. I went to real life meetings with people who play the game, and met a lot of very talented people who make their entire livings from this game. (There were professional animators, artists, and even writers!)

I had a casino, a sex club, and I traded "real estate". Then I started building. I made money from every one of these ventures.

The real estate was a good way of doubling my money overnight, as I could see what was cheap and managed to sell it for more by doing nothing simply because the prices varied so much for no apparent reason...so I wouldn't say this was a particularly stable method, but if you mess about with 50 quid you should be able to make a good profit within a week.

The club and casino require a bit more research. The casino just consisted of free machines I managed to find by doing a search for "freebies" and I had to buy the land, but people just came. The land was 512sqm for about US$30 but when you've finished with it you can just sell it off anyway, you're unlikely to lose anything unless some idiot decides to build walls all around it. It took about 2 weeks to make that $30 back, but that will depend on your advertising, and Second Life has strict rules about advertising casinos now so this is harder than it used to be. However, if you're happy to leave the $30 investment in there, you can just leave it to earn cash while you sleep!

The sex club involved buying a bed which had sexual animations programmed into it for about US$20 (again, it was a one-off sale so I can sell this again in a "Yard Sale" to make my money back). I then built a "sky box", a secret room in the sky, where I put the bed. I then bought a teleporter which charged people to teleport to this secret room. It was an attraction just like the casino, only easier to advertise and got "noobs" in their droves.

These exercises bored me, despite being profitable, so eventually I became an actual Second Life Builder. I don't know if it's just me, but I found it extremely easy and very satisfying creatively, so I became a "Builder for Hire". I also did a bit of scripting too, but then I've always been pretty good at programming and that kind of thing so it may or may not be for you.

I had to offer my services for free to start with in order to prove myself but it didn't take long to get working on some big jobs. It really helps if you chat to people, make friends, and join Groups. As in real life, social interaction is a great business boost.

Now I have a shop in a store that I pay nothing to rent because I helped build the store! And in that store I sell hoverboards that I built. Another "build once, sell forever" opportunity! I hope to add more stuff to the store when I get a bit more time to build stuff.

[2BFree]

I have never known there was so many ways to make money from Second Life. I have played the game before, but it consisted mainly of flying around, riding scooters around town and bumping in to people.

I have heard you need to buy your own real estate to really be able to appreciate the game. Now I can see why, the real estate you buy in Second Life can eventually turn in to a real online asset. Very cool! I am a little worried about trying this and buying my own land and having some joker come along and wall it off. What then, do you have to fly to get there?

Anyway, thanks for the very eye opening and detailed explanation of how to make money with Second Life.I'm sure a lot of people learned something they didn't know before.

[Matthew Sherborne]

Hi Stuart, thank you for the very in-depth look at the Second Life platform and it's ability to make money for its visitors. Great stuff, it's amazing just how many things you can accomplish in that virtual world over there. I like the idea of building something once and selling it forever. Would be interesting to find out just how much all of the created items are fetching in real un-virtual dollars.



Second Life looks like a good place to interact with others and perfect your skills at mingling. I would say overall it sounds like an excellent place for people with an interest in becoming artists, designers and coders to meet and collaborate.

I have to say that making money on Second Life has been debated and kicked around for some time. Now I've recently heard that the owner of Second Life has redefined what it means to have ownership of Second Life real estate. According to the creator of Second Life, Linden Labs you need to pay a monthly fee to be able to own land based on a tiered level. The more land you want to hold the higher the price. With individual islands going for in excess of $1500 plus a monthly fee. I've heard there is a dispute with the issue of land ownership which has resulted in the Bragg v. Linden lawsuit.

Second Life in itself is fun, even if you just want to fly or scoot around. I've played the game and have found it quite interesting. However the jury is still out whether or not the time and money invested in the site could actually produce a meaningful amount of profit. Except of course, for Linden himself.

[Stuart]

Oh you can make a big profit in SL. It becomes apparent pretty fast that people will pay for virtual stuff. How could that possibly not be profitable lol!!

Scripting is definately the best paid job, but being a creative builder is certainly a big payer too. I met a woman (in real life) who makes flowers. She is now famous in second life because of the indiviuality of her flowers. People buy them for their clubs and houses. She earns a full living from it.

I also met someone who copies 3D models from other games and sells them. I'm not sure about the copyright ramifications of that but he makes a living from that too.

There are lots of other ways to make money of course, being an "escort", a DJ, an event organiser, or work for a club "welcoming people". There is also a thing called "camping". You basically get paid (a very small amount) for sitting in a chair, or cleaning the floor (you don't physically have to do anything). The purpose of this is that your presence is classed as traffic for the land owner, and that puts them higher up in searches. You need to find a bot though that stops you going afk.

My personal conclusion is that the best way to earn money is creating stuff, (just like RL ;-)) building things that nobody else has, using your own imagination and style. If you can script it, mega bonus, but if not you can just hire a scripter and pay him half the profit on sales of that item. Also some items dont need scripting (like buildings).

LAND

You don't HAVE to own land, in fact I'd recommend renting a shop instead. They're pretty cheap (about £3+ a week) You don't have to worry about generating traffic because that is then done by the mall owner, also you don't have to pay the land owners monthly fee. On the other hand if you own land you can resell it for the same or more so the only cost is the monthly fee to Linden. It really depends on what you want.

[NoTrouble]

Who would have guessed Second Life was so involved. Stuart, you should create a Second Life ebook to teach people how to make money from the site.

I would say from the looks of things it could be quite lucrative. Just the best was to buy and that might increase in value part of it would get a lot of people interested.

I could see chapters like, how to mingle with the people on Second Life. How to get the most money fr your creations. How to get people to populate your land or get more people "camping" on your property.

You could even title it,"How to make a living from Second Life The Game!"

[Matthew Sherborne]

Here's an introduction to the Second Life Virtual Game. The person on this videos got a voice that sounds like it comes from another planet

If you would like to start creating your own items, here's a video on how to build items on Second Life.

[NoTrouble]

Who would have thought it was so easy to get paid in Second Life. I'm looking all over now for ways to make money from the site.

Heres a cool slideshow detailing how much a designer charges for her creations on second life. Check it out at Wired --- Slideshow: Making a Living in Second Life

She makes 215 Linden dollars for each sale, or the equivalent of $1.21. I guess it would add up though

[smithspeakstruth]

Originally Posted by Matthew Sherborne

Here's an introduction to the Second Life Virtual Game. The person on this videos got a voice that sounds like it comes from another planet

If you would like to start creating your own items, here's a video on how to build items on Second Life.

Thanks for the video to learn how to build the items. I haven't tried SL till now, but sounds interesting and fun. Let me find sometime for this.