2008 has been an incredible year in Second Life. It’s been a peculiar year. In RL, we’ve been faced with a global financial crisis, economies on the brink of recession, slowdown in growth and there’s no doubt that it’s also had an affect right here in our virtual world too. Just as people are spending less in RL, so too are they in SL. Businesses have seen sharp declines in sales and many have gone bust here in Second Life, just as businesses are also facing in Real Life. Property and land has decreased in value also in SL similarly to how it has in RL and many have been faced with the dilemma of having to abandon their land in order to avoid continuing tier fees in the face of being unable to sell. It’s not all doom and gloom however, as many good positive things have happened.
In RL, we saw the election of President Elect Barack Obama, which instilled hope into millions of people not only in the United States, but also around the world. He may not be everybody’s favourite pick, but you cannot deny the mass of hope and optimism that his election has managed to muster. We have seen him choose controversial picks such as nominating former rival, Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State and in asking Republican Defence Secretary, Robert Gates to remain in his position. There is a lesson from this in RL that we can learn here in Second Life. It’s very easy to choose the easy and divisive option of being stubborn and acting in our own self interests. President Elect Obama has chosen to do exactly the opposite by taking the approach of acting in a United healing fashion.
Surely, all of us can take a similar approach here in Second Life during 2009 by healing old wounds, working together and by setting aside past difference to care for and protect the same communities that we all want to share in and love; the second life and GLBT communities. Can we do it? Yes we can! Now, let’s take a look at the 10 biggest moments of Second Life in 2008.
1. INV GOES DAILY
2008 saw big changes to INV this year. INV originally started out as INVogue Hommes Magazine in the Fall of 2007. This was an in world monthly magazine covering the very best gay lifestyle, fasion, arts and events in Second Life. The magazine immediately became a soaring success and has since made an indelible impression on the Second Life community. A group was also setup for VIPs to enjoy special events and receive special news notifications. InVogue Hommes went on to shortern its name to INV (pronounced Envy) this year and soon took its content to the web. A blog was setup, hence the birth of this very blog, INV Daily.
This month saw the final release of the in world magazine in an effort to keep up to date with the times and to deliver content on a more frequently updated basis. We now live in a 24/7 society. People are not prepared to wait a month to receive their news, gossip, lifestyle and fashion reviews; they want it daily. That’s why INV has avoided complacency by focusing on its 24/7 blog and lookout because 2009 will feature many new exciting projects and will be our biggest year yet, we guarantee INV will not only go from strength to strength, but it will be our biggest year yet! Fun on the fly as always.
2. DEVILinside’s DOWNFALL
2008 was not very kind to DEVILinside this year. During 2007, DEVILinside had arisen to such prominence that it was considered by most as Second Life’s very best gay danceclub. It had a fantastic array of DJs, a regularly opened club, good crowd, fantastic themes and everybody knew that this was the place to be. Then, Ayor Action introduced Luca Mielziner as a co-owner of the club and closed DEVILinside during Christmas last year to renovate the club. It is widely believed by many that Luca Mielziner was too young, immature and inexperienced to take on the full weight of the club at the time, which served to hinder the club’s future. Sadly, it all went downhill from there. Following the club’s re-launch and new look, many complained that the club was now too big and lacked less intimacy and the true feel of the old look of the club. Additionally, egos became a problem within the club’s management and those running the show became complacent. Also, the club, transferred its mall to a separate sim, which proved to be a catastrophic decision as less visited the mall and only came to visit the club. The Club’s old version forced visitors to walk through the mall to visit the club and many would as a result, often buy some items from the stores en route.
I joined the team last Summer as a DJ and managed to help boost the crowds. More DJ’s were leaving however because of the club’s new policy to stop paying DJs. Managers failed to turn up to support the DJs and the hugely popular Saturday themed events were cancelled. I recall having to work more shifts at the club as DJs were leaving in abundance and eventually I decided myself it was time to call it a day there when management failed to ever show up or help run the club in an orderly fashion. Quite, simply, the DJ’s were the only staff there in the end and all got little thanks for their continued hard work and support. The Club was eventually left with one DJ, Rocco Silverstar who only ever managed to pull a few visitors, thus forcing the club’s owners to face the reality that DEVILinside’s days were done. The Club left a huge vacuum in the gay club scene, which was eventually filled by Club High Energy, albeit that was short lived. There are many new clubs that have opened trying to take a share of the market, some short-lived, others still managing, but there hasn’t been that one booming club that has yet to fill the shoes of DEVILinside or High Energy. Will we see one rise to such prominence in 2009? I’m optimistic that we will and INV will be there to support.
3. Boots Beach Changes Hands
When I first arrived in SL over 2 years ago now, one of the very first places I was introduced to was Mission Beach or “Boots Beach” as it’s also commonly referred to. Back then, it was located in the popular provincetown area of gay sims. It was a cool meeting place where many gathered to chill out, meet new friends or just offload and let off steam with their gay buddies. Mission Beach relocated to the new gay continent to occupy its own sim. It’s a place that’s always avoided commercialization and doesn’t allow itself to be influenced by any single business or person. It is a beach for the people. It’s a place, people know they can go to relax without any drama, have lots of fun, see old and new friends and know they’re in a safe and comfortable environment.
The founders of Mission Beach were Shawn & Boots Mission and were and still are very well loved and respected to this very day for their many positive contributions that they have made to the gay community in Second Life. Shawn & Boots were never interested in creating a profit or making money from the place. They spent their own cash to fund the beach in all the time I’ve been in Second Life and I’m sure it was here much longer before I was even born into SL. Therefore, many of us were surprized to learn of an announcement a couple of months ago that Boots Beach was changing hands. People were shocked, surprized and somewhat sad that it was changing hands. To everybody’s relief however, several owners stepped in to save Mission Beach and keep it going and running as usual with very little change. The Mission boys still show up to see their old friends and enjoy partying at the beach when they can, but we are grateful as I’m sure the entire gay community is for Shawn and Boots contributions and to the new owners for keeping the beach open and long may it continue to be.
4. Yumbo Into Oblivion
Yumbo was the name attributed to a group of gay sims in the gay continent, closely situated nearby to Boots Beach and setup in 2007. Freddy Pimpernell owned and managed the Yumbo empire with his co-owners Othon Weiland and Tempete Bellman. I was close friends with all of the 3 boys and was asked to help manage the Mall and Clubs. Gradually over time, Yumbo expanded to multiple sims, a huge expansive mall, land for rent and sale including a number of clubs and entertainment complex. The name “Yumbo” was taken from the real life Yumbo gay complex in the Spanish owned gay resort of Playa del Ingles in Gran Canaria, located just off the north west coast of morocco. It is the number one gay destination for European vacationers. So Freddy and the boys built an exact replica of the RL Yumbo and I was assigned to the task of setting up the clubs and managing the entertainment on the sims.
Yumbo soon flourished and became a top attraction for visitors and shoppers. A whole new generation of DJs made their names at Yumbo and we regularly staged huge monthly mega events that were sponsored by INV and attracted over 100 party go-ers at any one time. Even the big names such as DEVILinside were raising their eyebrows at our success. Everybody had fun at Yumbo and the regular parties soon became a roaring success and the place to be. However, I soon became privately concerned with Freddy’s massive expansion of Yumbo and I shared this with friends at the time. The main owner, Freddy Pimpernell was continually buying additional sims, but doing so before his existing ones were breaking even let alone make a profit. The Yumbo schedule had become very demanding by Spring this year and after spending almost 6 months helping to build it into a success, I decided to call it a day. I gave a month’s notice and helped to train a new manager up to cover me. I did this out of friendship and loyalty to the boys.
Several months after I had departed Yumbo, Freddy Pimpernell owned 10 Yumbo sims and I watched and grew more concerned that he was getting out of his depth. Then suddenly, after going incognito, Freddy suddenly logged on one day and announced that he was broke and was subsequently leaving SL. Many land owners were left disappointed including his co-owners, Othon and Tempete who were left to pick up the pieces and to face the music and flack. I recall the day it happened, I went to comfort them and be there for them with another old friend who also had known them as long as I did and I cannot emphasize just how utterly devastated and let down both boys felt. They did everything in their power to salvage Yumbo, but Freddy was un-cooperative and had cut all ties with them. The Yumbo sims were eventually shut down and seized back by the lindens and many lost their hard earned cash. There is a simple economic lesson in this; don’t pretend to be somebody you are not and don’t buy additional sims or expand a business until you are legitimately in a position to do so. Freddy clearly had personal issues that got the better of him but as my Editor in Chief, Ammon and I both once discussed, Freddy was actually a nice guy and it’s a shame how Yumbo folded in the manner that it did. Freddy had problems like many do, but we hope he has or is overcoming them and we wish him a happy and healthy 2009.
5. Pride 2008 is a Huge Success!
Second Pride is an annual GLBT event in Second Life, which raises funds each Spring/Summer for a noble cause. This year’s benefactor was Nyaka School for Children Orphaned Due to HIV/AIDS and a staggering L$ 1,789,589 was raised. Many businesses, DJs and other entertainers all sponsored and voluntarily worked at the huge Pride event in order to help raise funds. This year’s was very personal to me as it was the very first Second Pride I have been involved in. I DJ’d back to back with Queen Edman and what an unbelievably red hot pumped crowd it was. I felt everybody’s energy and it was really good to devote some time to such an incredibly good cause. Second Pride returns next year in May and will be in aid of Amnesty International. It doesn’t matter what you do, how much you give or how much time you invest, every little helps for such a worthwhile cause and INV looks forward to supporting Second Pride in 2009! Yes!
6. Dawn of a New Viewer
2008 saw the introduction of the Windlight viewer be incorporated into the main Second Life client. Windlight is a codename for physically accurate atmospheric rendering and lighting. Basically, it provides for better looking clouds, water and pretty much all round crisper graphics. Previously, this could only be seen in the First Look Viewer which was released in 2007 and then a release Candidate client was introduced incorporating the Windlook features. Finally, all SL users were able to enjoy the new rich features and graphics of windlight in the main client as of April 2008 this year. As a result, the graphics are so much more vivid and now everybody can appreciate the realistic and more immersive environment that Windlight allows. Can you imagine having to go back to the old dour clouds and water that we once used to have to endure? (shudders)
7. Queen Edman becomes a DJ Superstar!
Queen Edman has been around on the DJ circuit for quite some time now. I first remember hearing him at Stone Rothschild’s old club, “Probe” last year. He could also be often seen DJing at the very popular Ironworks Club. On Sunday, September 21st, the biggest and most exciting DJ contest in Second Life took place at the hugely popular Club High Energy. Three Judges were assigned to adjudicate the contest in true American Idol/X Factor fashion including Ammon Pera and yours truly. A number of the very best DJs competed to win a lucrative DJ contract and a big cash prize. In the end it came down to Queen Edman and Lilandra Lancaster who were both on a dead heat. It came down to the Judges to decide one by one and Queen Edman ultimately prevailed. I remember the night clearly. The crowd were clearly behind Queen Edman and he played such a really cool set. He had everybody on their feet and totally pumped, I think if he hadn’t have won, there would have definitely been a riot. Queen Edman has since gone on to launch his own niteclub, Club Shampoo and is one of the very best veteran DJs out there, be sure to visit him at Club Shampoo for an awesome party night.
8. Birth of New Nightclubs
Following the demise of Second Life’s biggest and most notorious gay danceclub, DevilInside, a huge gap in the market was left to be filled. This year saw the birth of many new nightclubs, some more successful than others. These included but are not limited to the following: Tainted Boys, Buttons Night Club, Club High Energy, Blu Dance Club, Reds Night Club, Club Shampoo, Jake’s Club, Palms Dance Club and more recently, GAYSANDS. However, few have survived in what is a very competitive and demanding environment. It also happens to be the case that there is very little money or profit to be made in the club business. DJs, dancers and Hosts rely on tips to make money mostly nowadays and in the current economic climate, people are unable to tip as generously as they were able to this time last year. So how do club owners make money? They have the upfront costs of paying for tier fees, paying staff wages (although some choose not to) and in paying for club equipment, contest prize money and special attraction events. Some club owners will tell you that they are not in the business to make money, they do it out of passion. That perhaps may be true for some, however, even the most “self-proclaimed affluent” of club owners eventually buckle when the expenses spiral. I’ve seen it with my own eyes this year, but I won’t be mentioning names (we don’t want another chaotic row in the comments section)!
Speaking from personal experience, I can shed some light and offer the following advice to any new or existing club owners out there. While I was at Yumbo, I saw an owner who lived above his means purporting he had more money than he did. He declared himself broke and ended up leaving SL as a result. The first owner of Jakes Club (not mentioning his name to avoid a flurry of comments as every time we do, it sparks scorne at him) also lived above his means. He owned multiple sims at one point, but ended up having to sell his entire land and property because his costs proved to be too much. I had the insight prior to setting up Club High Energy, that DevilInside wasn’t making a profit and was even struggling to break even. Devilinside owned two sims, the club sim was making zero profit and its second sim (catering for a mall) quite frankly just dropped the ball in the end. Therefore, I decided to put good economics to use. I asked myself, is an entire sim or more than one sim really necessary? The answer was no as the overheads would of course, inevitably prove to be much higher. Hence I decided that a quarter of a normal full prim sim was enough and therefore, my partner and I decided to utilize the space we had resourcefully in combining a club and mall structured together in the same way that DevilInside used to have. Thus we setup a TP landing point on the sim so that all clubbers would have to walk through the mall en route to the club.
This was DEVILinside’s original idea and it worked. They should have stuck with it, but the lure of owning multiple sims and getting carried away in the moment led to a chaotic economic malfunction for them. The morale of this is that if you are wanting to setup a club and have it at least break even and pay for itself (as surely most right minded sane capitalist loving people aspire to do) then you need an adjoining mall that clearly connects to your club in some way. Remember that the club draws people, the mall draws money and hand in hand – they both compliment each other. So, by deciding not to buy more land than necessary and in creating an adjoining mall to High Energy, all of the mall revenue that we made covered the entire tier fees. Then we used our booksmart knowledge and sought a sponsor for our club and mall and made a staggering 12,000 linden monthly profit from that. I was always baffled as to why any other club owner wasn’t smart enough to do the same thing with their own clubs before we did it at Club High Energy. It’s not rocket science. So after breaking even to pay the tiers with our mall money, we were left with 12,000 lindens monthly profit. So all you club owners out there; you actually do have a chance at making a club profitable. It can be done and has been done. For those who claim they do a club out of passion and are not interested in making money whatsoever (yet those are the very people who often DJ pleading for tips); then I say carry on convincing yourself that you want to be Mother Theresa and have a nice time doing so! LOL
9. Openspace Sim Price Hikes
Yes this was the year when the Lindens managed to piss a whole hell of a lot of people off in taking a quick and hasty decision without consulting or thinking about the consequences of the decision’s impact and effect it would have on people. Earlier in the year, the Lindens decided to restructure their low prim sims and introduced the Openspace sim, which offered an increased number of prims on the sim to 3750 prims. The sims were to remain low usage and were offered for an initial layout cost of $250 with a $75 monthly tier fee. The uptake of Openspace sims was phenomenal, people couldn’t snap them up quickly enough. Finally, people were able to own their own sims at a lower cost than full normal sims with a generous 3750 prims. Soon after however, some decided to abuse the originally intended purpose of keeping the sims for low usage by setting up nightclubs and other business activities, which only served to increase server load and affected the neighboring Openspace sims around them. On many openspace sims, numbers as high as 30 to 40 were partying on nightclubs that had been setup on them.
The Lindens eventually made an announcement in the fall that it was to increase the price of Openspace sims by 66%. They declared that low usage was only ever the intended purpose for openspace sims, such as being able to setup your own home and using them to pass a few avatars through as “water-flowing sims.” To many, continuing to run an openspace sim with the new price hikes made it unfeasible and unviable. We have since seen a huge evaporation and exodus of Openspace sims and many have lost out financially as a result. Those who used Openspace sims for their genuine intended purpose have every right to feel aggrieved, but once again, it is the selfish minority who spoiled it for the majority by setting up nightclubs and acting in their own interests instead of reserving those commercial activities for normal full prim sims. The Openspace sim is already seemingly at the end of its short lived era as a result.
10. Colt Parx Speaks Out
The final biggest moment of the year ends on a positive note. Earlier this month, Colt Parx spoke out candidly in this month’s INV Magazine. He had the courage to speak out and reveal that he is also Island Projects, the owner of Animations Rising and he revealed why using alts should not always be marred with the negative stigma which many often attach with their usage. I must admit, when I first started out in Second Life, I was in the “let’s be sceptical about using alts” camp. This was because I, similarly to many others had seen and heard of how some people choose to setup alts to make a nuisance of themselves in order to harass, stalk and grief people. This is an abuse that still happens to this day, but the more experienced of us have learned how to detect potential troublesome avatars. Yes those new alts that have just been created and have empty profiles, few groups showing or who have new birthdates that are less than a month old, but suddenly show an amazing mass of knowledge of Second Life already, beyond the norm of what a conventional newb would know are all good key starting points. Also, those new avatars which show an unhealthily sudden interest or obsession into wanting to know everything about you; ala Spanish Inquisition style are also notable give-aways.
However, as Colt explained in his thought provoking article in this month’s INV Magazine; not all alts are used to cause harm to others. Some alts are useful for business owners in testing their new products and clothing designs for example. Some are also used to escape, hide or basically just get away from their existing main avatar. Colt described his reason very candidly and gave us an insight into his personal life and I admire him for doing so. He shared his personal journey with us and was frankly honest in doing so. Some knew or suspected that Colt was Island, but now the speculation has stopped. Furthermore, Colt made us pause for thought to remind us that the next time you hear somebody has setup an alt; it may not necessarily be to harm others as the stigma often presumes, but sometimes people have a genuinely good reason for doing so. One that sometimes requires our understanding.
On that note I would like to wish you all the every best for the year ahead. 2008 has had some big moments in our gay community on Second Life 2009 will also bring its memorable moments also. There were other key moments of 2008 that I considered including, but I opted to omit the more controversial ones. We all know what those are, but this is a time to look forward and be positive. Our online community in Second Life has been fractured at times by various events just as they are in Real Life. There are wars, disputes and indifference in Second Life just as much as there are in Real Life. I’ve always said SL can often imitate RL, but in the wise old words of our very own MTD and Ricken; I’m sure they won’t mind me saying that we should make peace and love, not war. If there’s any New Year’s resolution to be made, that should be the number one priority for all. Happy 2009 to all!
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