I am hardcore believer that in the very near future VR together with AR and AI will be the next revolution on how we will do everything.
But the main question is, at our current state of things what kind of business models do you think are possible for 'creators' in Sansar apart from selling your assets in the store ?
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Gindipple web cam girls! oh wait that's SL
programming for someome, landscaping in collab mode, texturing someone's mesh, rigging an avatar, handling a music stream, hosting an event, game master, teaching
but paying someone right now isn't all that possible, so might have to use paypal for that
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Cube Republic Rapid prototyping, architectural environments for new builds, educational builds,training simulations, crime scene recreations, etc.
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CYBERDAN Do you think with the list you mentioned one can make a real fulltime living or create a sustainable business ? I don't know if there is a market for it yet. Just brainstorming ...
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CYBERDAN One possibility I see is to attract the Oculus store and SteamVR user market by developing a better business model ...
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Cube Republic I used to work for a company that did this in second life,working with the liked of: military, MIT, etc. So yes, but I'd say it's a while until we see Sansar being able to support these scenarios as it's not finished. On the other hand, for example a medical team wanting a training simulation for VR may try some other proprietary system that's able to support such an endeavor already.
In the future it may be possible to make money from Sansar apart from selling content. You could charge folks to use your experience, for example a role play environment. Or you could build something a akin to a luxury estate in Second Life and charge folk to be tenants.
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JackTheRipper "Or you could build something akin to a luxury estate in Second Life and charge folk to be tenants."
I like the idea of this but is it really feasible? Would folk really pay to own or rent something in VR?
I've never used SL but over the years I've heard the stories of people buying islands and making money from renting bits of it out.
Did this happen? or was it an urban legend?
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Cube Republic Yes folk do, there's a few developed estates that rent beach lots etc. Then there's loads of land barons subletting plots on regions. The difference is though, land isn't an expensive commodity in Sanar, so prospective environments would need to offer some extra value such as community and entertainment. I guess sansar is idea for role play if it's to be compared to second life. But then again friends I have who do this in SL don't charge anyone to play on their regions!
As far as the marketing goes, Sansar has always been punted as 'the wordpress of VR', however VR requires a headset and we're still more or less in the early adopter stage of this technology. So there may be ways to make money as of yet unthought of.
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CagedDolly JackTheRipper this was not urban legend it actually happened along with cam girls and we made alot of money i havent ever been a builder but i do bring lots of cool things to the table what i think you could do to make money here also is to hire the builders as we did in sl to make your beautiful spots they can partner up with you or u can just pay a price to have your stuff like right now i have a spot i want to do called The Cadillac Lounge but here is sit with no club stuff and ill need it to be rockabilly so in this vast new land do i wait patiently for rockabilly stuff or do i commission someone anyways i have yet to commit got my name got my ideas lets see what happens
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Andrew Lawrence The problem right now is that you can't really collaborate with anyone right now, unless you give them complete access to your account.
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CagedDolly @ Andrew Lawrence I see well that just bites I guess I will either have to learn to build quick or wait till I can participate term with someone
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Charmarley Nightfire well there's going to be a big enough market for everyone who wants it. Even so, I would still rather not post a direct link here.
(remove the x's)
XVRMXADA
they are the front runners right now
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Charmarley Nightfire actually possibly ignore the last post. Think they just have a nice site, can only find work with Cisco recently...bit naughty using all those logos because I don't think they've delivered virtual reality projects for those brands
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COCA Yven @Cyberdan
Ehm
I am sorry to notify to You that the VR and AR has already taken place few years ago, and while You think it is destined to boom for gaming, I am sorry to disappoint You by saying that VR and AI are more professional oriented for professional applications, like military architecture engineering etcetc.
A lot of people have been led to believe that VR is the next big thing, but overall VR was a big deal among consumers simply because Nvidia had to promote its new pascal architecture to gamers as even gaming in 4k was already possible with previous generation graphics...
Now this year AI became the next big thing because again Nvidia has to sell their new VOLTA DGX deep learning solutions...only because they are aware that amd with tons of pcie lanes in their new zen cpus can support many graphics cards in a small for and much cheaper solution that running 5 tesla cards in a 100 thousand dollar machine..especially next year with NEW generation Mother boards with PCIe 4.0 that basically puts an end to SLI and allows users to use in DX12 on windows 10 any brand graphics card and as many as the mother board can host working as one OR all of the same make for non DX12.....in fw words you can by very cheap graphics cards and stack them at less cost that EG a titan pascal and still obliterate it in performance at much less cost.
There have been already tons of VR titles on steam that sold, but they will never sell as much as other traditional games, even if the cost of the headsets will be zero and given out for free...Im sorry this is just how it is and this is what well documented market researches show.
The NEXT TRUE BIG THING IN GAMING in 2018 is photorealism and this will be the trend for the next 15 years,,, to the point that You will not be able to tell the difference between reality and virtuality,,,,,, also expect Hollywood celebrities by 2025 to be left in just a handful and completely replaced by 3d characters that will become very famous ...so even the Academy Awards Oscars will have to be reformed on day soon.
Im sorry but VR is already a thing of the past.
As for business models for Sansar, given the poor graphics quality and poor Physics with the weak featured all in one builder Viewer solution adopted by Linden Lab , I would recommend 2.5D games or scroll 2d 3d games.if ever they will allow cam coding and settings one day (eg constrained tracking and so on).
I would not opt for anything dealing outdoor environments as the graphics quality is simply not good enough compared to other game engines nor sophisticated enough..
Keep it simple as possible as i suspect that on Sansar there will be tons of restrictions just s in Second Life.
You have heard too many times You cannot do this or You cannot do that on Sl, well You will unfortunately notice that one day people will be saying You cannot do this or You cannot do that on Sansar as well.
If Linden Lab released Sansar as an Open Beta this means that it is basically fully featured and in debug phaze, so You cannot expect so much more to be released. so y best advice is stick with what is possible now and see if You can build something worth playing on with it.
It is a very good platform for beginners who can do simple things in little time and work alone but its nowhere convenient for advanced CG artists or coders that want to work in a group even if it was of two individuals,if You want to compare it to Unity or Unreal engine or even Cry engine, if You want to do complex stuff with VFX intros outros story telling acting and so on You are better off with those tools.
However for a business model, You cannot make any at this moment as You do not know how u ca bill nor how u can keep client data or if u can have a data base at all...lets say You make a game where you need the progress of the client saved,,,,,You cant do this now....lets say You want to introduce Your own play game currency, You cant do this, or even points, You cannot constrain the cam nor set it, You cannot map the keyboard which is a MUST for any game..there is tons of stuff You cannot do, but the first one that matters is HOW DO YOU GET PAYED and HOW DO PEOPLE PAY YOU, then comes al the rest.
If You are a Lone wolf with some good idea, I would maybe recommend to make Your game IN SL for the time being as it is a much faster workflow and You have way more advanced possibilities than Sansar at this moment for anything, also SL is coming with animesh so all the FBX animations u import here will work on SL as well just with a different workflow and method( You will need to rig).
If Your texture material work will be good enough You will be able to have just as good graphics without GI in SL even with limited classical map workflow...SL lights are also way more advanced than Sansars from a certain aspect as, if You now how to master them.
Keep in mind that working on Sansar to create something eg You making 3d stuff and a partner making scripts can be a technical nightmare and whatever you want to test can take ages.
These are things I would deeply consider before making anything for Sansar if business is Your idea...if you not doing all alone consider that it is unlikely that any other as partner will be willing to spend time in working on anything like this...even if they would be enthusiastic in the beginning, by the first week it is likely that they will just call you and tell You they quit, even if You was working on the same computer in the same office.
These are the headaches and limitations You get when a viewer is also the builder and is made on SL like concept with the limitation that a lot of things wont work in edit mode..so You are developing on a much slower platform than old sweet SL.
So if You want to think businesses models first thnk..DO I work alone, if the answer is yes then the next step is, how am i gonna get payed? when You have that answer then You can think of something simple to offer.
Just note that simple does not necessarily mean ugly, some of the simplest things can look awesome and be very successful.
Here is a couple of games that set the Graphics standard for 2017.
So for 2018 You can expect these to be the minimum standards for most titles while others will be way more advanced and so on exponentially year on year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5uj7UKAsh0&t=316s
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Charmarley Nightfire Yes data is the super big one. BEing able to record and deliver tangible result is key. The really high end graphics piece isn't really relevant for business applications. Obviously building a brand presence in VR, testing candidates, or running networking events in VR won't need that level of graphics. It's the VR that's engaging any numbers at events because it's 'new tech'. (I mean numbers of non gamers)
Really big projects won't get through anyway. Marketers, internal comms, trainers need a 'plug in' bite size to support and improve campaign results. Sansar could be good for this I think, or other platforms if they offer a better fit for a brief. And if they have a bigger budget, chat to the unity team out back!
So when it comes to being payed...it's back to the digital agency model.
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COCA Yven Well yeah it is always the same old story, this is not enough that is not good, that other is a mistery, and the future is such and such ......
BUT lets be frank when CCP Games crowd funded EVE Valkyrie there was an earthquake on all social media and You tube channels and among the gaming community... what was the numbers 20 million dollars?! 40 million?! people paying 1000 dollars for beta space ships?!
Now Linden Lab another giant located in the middle of silicon valley launched Sansar Beta....I dont see people buying 1000 dollars space ships, nor 300 dollars ones...but yeah there is an avatar editor same as EVE Online on Sansar.
We cannot really knwo what Sansar can really be good for, I am speculating and guessing Myself, fact remains that before endeavoring in investing time on it doing anything I would seriously think about it thrice if business is Your thing.
At the current stage there is not one single game on Sansar that attracts enough people for it to need to instance.
If I remember correctly from old data and market research I had 15 years ago, when i set up a start up for a online http game, you need around 200 clients logged on at all times for any game to have a good base to grow and become successful...and even if You think about it carefully and You have used Second life in the past , You will maybe remember that some simulators that could host 100 clients in the past often sent you a message when you wanted to teleport to them that the region was too full.. in that period such simulators if they could host 200 clients or 300 they would have certainly filled them up, those where teh days that Second life was exploding, making the news and many made their academic end thesys about it and virtual worlds is serious triple A universities in all continents.
So until We do not see at least 200 clients logged on at all times on a single experience, I doubt that Sansar will have any appealing business opportunities...yes it can be a great tool for people to come and enjoy learning to build and be creative, but from a business point of view for content creators ...uhm most, sadly, turned up their nose on it and will look into Sansar 2/3 years from now maybe.
Crazily I think SL will re-boom big time because of Animesh, this is a massive game changer and I expect entertainment and embellishment to increase exponentially and with it a very big SL renaissance attracting millions more users, I estimate 8 million from its release until 5 years after that of course if Linden Lab will keep on developing it for NPC and later on Sever upgrades with much more frequent client to server response, I think currently it is twice per second or something along that line I hope for at least 30 times per second in the future, so to allow bigger faster and more complex computation loads on the servers. i think it is inevitable that with Animesh and NPC You will want to code more and more on them and in order to have a fluid client experience and NPC capabilities, You will need to run more scripts and have them trigger, respond, compute, listen, execute much much faster or at least especially with imperceptible latency
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Charmarley Nightfire ok I don't have time to give a very detailed response...spent most of it reading yours! (thanks for your insight)
However, I really think it's important to differentiate the audiences here:
Gamers - effectively that's us. We're playing sansar and building stuff, buying internal purchases from the store, they'll have a very strong engagement strategy of dropping in more functionality over time to keep people wanting/using new tools. Effectively it's a real time strategy game like clash of clans or Fifa mobile with an incredibly different skin.
Mass audience - you're right, this is ages away. The best chance of making money here is products in the store 'ready' for hopefully more users than second life and even then it's a toss up between the platforms. Like you say sansar may not have the functionality to attract the gamers and if they miss this audience (unlike with SL) they could get in trouble.
Business professionals - this is where you are entirely wrong sorry. If there were just 10 business owners in a place at anytime and long list of corps would like to engage with them. I used to be advertising and engagement manager of the UK's most active online community of businesses. Only really a couple of hundreds users online at any one time, but over a million page impressions. Anyway I monetised this site to 40k per month around 10 years ago and some of the large brands I sold to are still on there! So new channels to engage with a 'targeted' business audience...won't need the numbers or the graphics...it's about connections.
It is also worth bearing in mind that there is a grey area between gammers and simply tech savvy people of the younger generation. LLoyds had such strong results from their recent VR graduate recruitment programme, because the technology attracted these younger tech excited candidates.
Just like the whole 'youtuber' revolution. It started with Stampy doing Minecraft didn't it? But it's right across all industries. I think this shows it's not about the gaming that attracts this younger generation, it's the technology that's delivering their entertainment, youtube in this case.
I think google will bring out a VR tab next to youtube and you'll wish you investment time building stuff!
Anyway Coca. You obviously really know your stuff, I didn't understand half of your responses! Neither did the mrs (Head of Learning for one the largest Telcos in the world)
There's also 10k on the table in the creator contest. Even with the limitations, surely you would clean up?
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Charmarley Nightfire just to add. I believe Sansar will do lots of things well and be a fighting force in the platform battle. However, offering business services as mentioned will involve building EVERYWHERE due to differences in accessibility and functionality.
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CYBERDAN I think the main UVP of Sansar could be focusing on being the WordPress of VR.
And I am sure if they could make experiences accessible via the web without the need of client installation this would even greatly reduce friction and increase dramatically customer acquisition rate.
Compared to most closed ecosystems such as Oculus store, SteamVR etc., the turnover in deploying a VR experience or app in Sansar is quite fast and very flexible. I don't need to worry about building for this or that platform. Don't need to worry about plugins, dll, jar or manifest files etc., All VR headsets would be supported automatically and I could deploy my experience or app without all the waiting and the bureaucratic hurdles of getting approved and listed in one of those ecosystems.VR experiences would be accessible to everyone directly via the web. Like any business you would be at the mercy of your product quality and marketing skills.
In regards to the VR business, I would say we VR enthusiasts should create the market. As Steve Jobs said "because customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.’”
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COCA Yven Hi Cyberdan
You say that You are sure that ''if they could make'' experiences available via the web without the client installation would be a great thing..(please note what I emphasized between brackets)
I totally agree, but then Linden Lab would lose play money currency conversion*(Sandex) which is one of the major sources of income.
And on the other hand pros would jump in immediately because then You would be investing into creating content that cannot be cannibalized by the retailer....( EG if U make a game for sansar , and the client needs to install the viewer, it is inevitable that the same client You attracted on Sansar to pay to play with Your product, will have to use time to learn about sandex, and by that get lost in the atlas and eventually go play some other game for which You will not get any profit, but have spend money in Marketing and advertisement)
BUT
This doesnt matter
What matters is that, is:
What see on Sansar Forums and sentiment, sentences, like, ''if they did that or this'' , ''I believe that one day'', ''In the future things will be better, give it time'', ''if they could make''!!
It is always about belief, hope if Linden Lab ''if they could make'' this or that.
As this is a business thread , We unfortunately need to see things crudely, without bias and objectively...at current state Sansar is what You see is what You get.
While there will be certainly new features and even some cool ones, this is basically it.....it is build , it is done and sadly You will never see a Game of thrones Dragon look like one in the movies, spit fire like in the movies and have a rider whos blood and skin will remotely look like in the movies, nor Princess Leia looking real standing in front of You, or even a Minion jumping around You that can be believable in VR.
But You will start to see more and more of this year on year from now in games, movies architecture, car show rooms etc etc.
Having a VR platform that cannot be capable of immersing the client to the point that He cannot tell what is ''real or virtual'', defeats the purpose of making that particular VR platform in the first place.
Please do note that VR has been almost 70 year ongoing process, and You might want to refer to wikipedia to see what the goal of VR is about, which is not about wearing a Headset but it is about having an interface that can allow the user not to tell the difference between reality from virtuality...for what it matters tomorrow morning an Israeli Biogenetic engineer might come out with a pill that can allow Your brain to connect to a computer and voila' there You go You will have total VR, with all senses being stimulated including smell and Mark Zukerberg will get another heart attack after the one he got by losing so much money on Rift.
So yeah, if We want to say ''if they could make'' all the time, the You can allow Me to say, that they will indeed make a special VR pill one day.
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Galen "But the main question is, at our current state of things what kind of business models do you think are possible for 'creators' in Sansar apart from selling your assets in the store?"
This is a huge open question. You should familiarize yourself with Second Life, which has quite a few thriving industries. And quite a few people earn a living or at least a second income there. It's nothing quite like real life industries, owing to the design choices LL made early on and along the way.
It would be easier to answer what kinds of business models are possible in Sansar right now. The answer is: very few. Nobody is making a living selling stuff in the store right now. The audience is too small and those that are here now are more inclined to create than to buy. That will change eventually.
You can make money by doing custom work on commission. I believe LL paid outside design groups to create its early demo experiences. I think that within a year's time, there will start to be other organizations that will likely spend tens of thousands of dollars to commission custom experiences.
LL has announced that they will support admission fees for experiences. Once they do, expect to see theme parks and events with small fees at first. If the platform scales well enough for hundreds or thousands of people to enjoy scheduled events at once, this could become very lucrative.
I have pitched the idea of a supply-chain concept in the form of royalties. It sounds like LL is working on it. The basic idea is that if you buy something from the store, you can resell it as part of bigger creations of yours, but you have to pay royalties back to the original creator. Whoever you sell your thing to could do exactly the same, but again must pay royalties back to you and to the original creator you bought a part from. And so on. If they actually do this, then being a pure creator in a vast supply chain could become quite lucrative, unlike now in SL. For example, you might make a script that gets used in a car radio that gets used in a car that gets used in an auto race track system. For more, see this thread.
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COCA Yven Selling stuff on Maketplace or making an experience scene is NOT a business model for You , it is a business model for the service provider, in Our case Sansar owners..a business model is something a little more complex and elaborate.
You can take as an example casper vendor, that is a business model, You pay a fee in order to get a service that The platform is incapable of providing as a in build feature.
Or another business model can be if You are a real estate developer and have Your architect, You could in theory make 8 million dollar villas in 3d to see in a VR context, have eventual buyers of the project live the build in VR and then signing off the contract in Your office...that being Said Id rather do this with Vray or Iray in Maya with Houdini or even UE4 where I can get precise light information to the bulb manufacturer and light bulb properties, rather than importing this on Sansar, but that can be a possibility if Sansar was to become more advanced graphically one day.
Ebbe made an example of Ikea showcasing their product on Sansar and people buying these virtual assets, which makes little sense to Me, 1 because If Ikea ever wanted to do this they would certainly look for something with higher graphics fidelity, an two they could build their own platform in way less time than what it takes to build Sansar eg using Unreal engine and have Ikea client kids play making homes and furnishing them with their products every release year on year...but even then they certainly prefer that You take Your car drive to those Ikea malls that they spend millions of dollars a year to run, go in take the longest path to walk around and possibly go out after You have put Your hands in Your pocket and taken out Your wallet.
A business model has a structure, for which You offer a product or a service inside a particular ecosystem because it offers advantages or rewards to the client that delight him, and that same client is happy to pay for as there is no other better solution for him achieve the same result conveniently.
I think that the first most successful business model will be someone that will make a very good application like a steam shop app, so that people can list Sansar experiences in them by paying a fee ,with dedicated forums, shops, add ons, templates to make, texture 3d and scripting mods, as the in build Sansar atlas is very poor and will easily become chaotic..that same application can then also by getting the biggest traffic over the Atlas itself then have more income from campaigns, offerings, advertising. It is more specific, specialized and a great time saver for those who want to find good experiences and for those who want to promote good experiences
As You become bigger with a greater membership, then it is just a little step to become a big Indie game market launcher and make Your way up with a specific segment of the market that You dominate and focused it.
It a more or less 80 thousand dollar investment if You make for pc more if You will wanna make for other interfaces if Sansar will support them one day(smartphone, consolles)
A business model is NOT what is in Your experience or how cool it looks or how fun it is, You might just want to showcase jewelry or easter eggs an sell in Real life with positive cash flow and shipping., without asking a cent on Sansar.
Or You might want to make freebies that people must pay something a week to use..eg Airplanes pay 500 Sandex a week get and use all that You want just create an account and get the first week for free trial.
Business is business a job is a job, they are not the same thing.
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Galen Nice job redefining "business model". I think most of us go with Investopedia's defintion: "A business model is a company's plan for how it will generate revenues and make a profit. It explains what products or services the business plans to manufacture and market, and how it plans to do so, including what expenses it will incur."
For example, if someone creates a "mystery box" and offers it for sale at S$99,999, there is a clear and easily understood business model underlying it.
I think it's presumptuous to declare that Ikea could build a better VR platform than Sansar very quickly and that Ikea wouldn't want anything to do with a VR platform.
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Galen "Having a VR platform that cannot be capable of immersing the client to the point that He cannot tell what is 'real or virtual', defeats the purpose of making that particular VR platform in the first place."
Nonsense.
It should be obvious to anyone that playing a game on a 2D computer screen isn't the same as being in the real world. Yet video games have been doing very well for decades. Even ones that are far from looking realistic.
The purpose of VR technology is increased immersion, period. An ideal goal of VR is to erase the perceived distinction between reality and virtual reality, but that's not the only goal.
You might as well declare that so long as microwave ovens cannot deliver perfectly even heating and proper browning, they might as well not exist. And yet most US homes have one. Why? Because they do something useful, even if imperfectly.
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COCA Yven @Galen
ehm I can certify to You that investopedia article was not made by someone with any sort MBA, but by some charlatan looking to pitch subscribers on his facebook page
While I dont think it can be interesting to give lessons about how to set up a Start Up on this thread , a so called ''Entrepreneurial Business Model'' is is simple words what I wrote above for the profane, and in crude words
1 What is the Business Idea?
2 What are You going to offer?
3 How are You going to offer?
4 Who You want to offer Your product to?.
5 Why would people people buy Your service or product?
6 What is the market size You want to compete in?
7 It must have a solid and accurate detailed market analysis of that particular market segment, for which You must have extremely reliable and accurate data that You will be competitive or market maker in case of a new eg technology or service
8 It be S.M.A.R.T ?!*(specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time bound)
9 It must take into account a lot of detailed information and whatever is relevant to its possibility to have success and its threats to fail and eventual well measured exit strategies, always backed up with tangible and verified data.
Then after that You can look into the practical start up beginning from You can get into sources of financing.
and then into developing preventive balance sheets with cash flow forecasts for a 5 year period.
I have a few sitting here on My desk one of which the introductory Business model with its market analysts is just shy of 50 pages long related on manufacturing a SOC over IBM Fabs.
As for IKEA, they dont need to make a platform to showcase in VR, they can use tons of the already existing ones. Or simply a smart phone AR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYdhLvcXCbUapp
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stevenvaughan584 Sansar's main USP, in my opinion, should be focusing on being the WordPress of VR.And I'm sure that if they could make experiences accessible via the web without requiring client installation, they'd be able to reduce friction even more and dramatically increase customer acquisition rates.Sansar's turnover in deploying a VR experience or app is quite fast and very flexible, especially when compared to most closed ecosystems like the Oculus store, SteamVR, and so on.I don't have to worry about developing for a specific platform.I wouldn't have to worry about plugins, dlls, jars, or manifest files, etc., because all VR headsets would be automatically supported, and I could deploy my experience or app without having to wait for approval and listing in one of those ecosystems.Everyone would have direct access to virtual reality experiences via the internet.You'd be running a business, just like any other.
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