Second Life Blogs | Pixel Scoop | Virtual Worlds News

I was trawling the web a short while ago for Second Life related articles and news stories. I’m sad like that, you see. But anyway, seeing that there was nothing massively groundbreaking happening today, I went back for interest’s sake and looked at older articles. And what astonishes me is the sheer amount of press and publicity in the past two years all geared towards the idea that because so many big real life corporations have failed in Second Life, SL is therefore shit. Ok, so it’s often worded a little differently but the point remains the same.

What a load of bullshit.

These huge corporations who go into world throwing ludicrous amounts of money at more sims than they need, paying over the odds for amateur sim designers and then complaining that it didn’t work out for them after investing however much money are taking entirely the wrong approach. This is not the same as real life. The rules are different. In real life, would you ever find one single man with very little money able to set up a car plant and manufacture vehicles to compete with the likes of Nissan? No. In Second Life, anyone with some scripting and building knowledge can make a car and when they’ve built one, they can copy it as many times as they like with a click! They can sell as many of them as people will buy with no reliability on resources, employment or running costs. In real life, it would be hideously unlikely that, for example, a fashion design student would release a line of clothing and have it become as sought after as the relseases of Versace or Armani. In Second Life, a talented Photoshopper with an eye for what looks good can easily set up their own clothing store.

And therein lies the source of the problem. The corporations coming into Second Life have no understanding of the community within. This is a world created by its residents and its active inhabitants are fiercely proud of their content. It isn’t possible to just bring in a big flashy company name, announce your arrival and have everyone flock to your islands and worship you. No. It simply does not work that way.

For a start, why are these companies coming in? Do they even know? It is unlikely, I would imagine, given how irrelevant the sums of money would be to such large businesses, that they come here solely to retail virtual versions of their products. I would therefore assume that it’s for brand awareness, some form of publicity stunt or, my favourite…. because everyone else is doing it. I really fail to see the objectives of many of the corporations coming into game and have to wonder whether they even have them! Surely entering a venture without a plan, intention or aim is always going to end badly.

For those coming into world for brand awareness, the focus should be on building up a presence. Give people a reason to visit your island. And for Heaven’s sake, think outside the box! This is Second Life!!! Don’t give me a frikkin T-Shirt with your logo on! Give me a pair of wings that turn me into a rocket and launch me a trillion miles into the sky! Who, in Second Life, is going to go out of their way to visit a boring corporate sim for a bloody free shirt? Nobody. Come on, people! Let’s have some imagination.

The other issue is the real life marketing gurus who come into Second Life, hired by these corporations and who think that everything they learnt in Marketing 101 at their posh university will stand them in perfect stead in virtual worlds. And that doesn’t work either. Tear up the text books! In a community where 30% of the active residents are creating and selling content, your competition in tougher and your audience arguably more reluctant. Ok, so marketers are vital, yes. BUT… not as vital as the knowledge and understanding of those who have been actively taking part in the Second Life community and who have, by trial, error and sheer volume of time, learnt what works, what doesn’t and what never will.

So, Mr. Corporation, let’s put your toys back in your pushchair and stop whining about how crappy Second Life is because you were incapable of working it to your advantage. The platform is not perfect. Then again what is? But Second Life has everything a company would ever need to be able to completely immerse a person in a product, service or idea without that person even leaving their computer. But it won’t happen automatically just because you have a big brand name. There’s enough monopolising of markets by big brand companies in real life already. The SL audience is not as easy to win over! And personally, I like it that way.