Why LCO is doomed to fail
Crystal balls are totally overrated, and as regular readers of this blog will know, I much prefer to work off sweeping generalisations and half-ass drawn conclusions. But my gut just tells me that Legend City Online (LCO) is simply not going to succeed.
I’m going to do what tech geeks would do in this situation and compare the circumstances to Microsoft. Tech geeks can compare anything to Microsoft - from the remains of last night’s dinner to their last social encounter with a girl.
Microsoft Office is the world leader in computer document creation, and pretty much anyone who’s used a computer, will have come across applications such as Word and Excel. There are products which have tried to take the monopoly from Microsoft, but have failed. Sun Microsystem’s StarOffice suite was an epic fail which basically copied everything Microsoft Office did, but at a cheaper price.
The thing is, people don’t like change. Second Life has the market share and LCO is basically the “StarOffice” here. Yes, LCO offers you more prims on sims, a much lower tier and has avatars already made up. Yes it emphasises protection for designers, and it has cross platform connectivity with Second Life to transfer created content over.
But at the end of the day, it looks and feels exactly like Second Life. And the vast majority of SL users will see little appeal in moving over to this new grid. What would the point be when all their inventory is on SL? Additionally, there’s the lack of trust.. who is Legend City Online? Who is it owned by and what do we know about them? Their website is awfully basic, which doesn’t paint the greatest corporate image.. how do we know that it won’t be a “Here today, gone tomorrow” case? Despite all the flaws with Linden Lab, we’re pretty certain that they’re not going to be disappearing any time soon.
Then there’s the support.. LCO is a lot cheaper than Second Life, so does this mean that support and governance of sims won’t be as good?
But the main thing which bugs me about LCO is that they’re taking their customer base directly from Second Life, rather than concentrating to carving out their own market share. In business, trying to take someone else’s customers is a risky strategy, and I don’t think LCO offers enough to attract people to their grid.
My thinking is that this fad will die away soon, as SL users go over to LCO, have a look around and decide it’s not for them, and return to Second Life. Because at the end of the day, Second Life is what we know, and it’s going to take something a bit special to change that.
Image credit: Liqueur Lollypop, used under a Creative Commons License.
I have an avatar in LCO, Ana Lollypop, and manage to login once even though I tried several times to get in. I know that to get my SL name I must find a kiosk but when I open search, all I see is SL stuff…
I am still very curious to explore LCO but I will probably give up because that grid doesn’t allow logins.
Oooh interesting development and one I wouldn’t have been aware of if not for your post. I’d also gone completely off LCO before I clicked the link because of your post - good analysis.
I’m in no hurry to find a new Second Life, I love the one I already have. If all my closest friends left Second Life I’d still stay there to meet more people (in the blind hope of meeting more awesome people like them, suspect that would be hard though). But if they all left to specifically go to another virtual world I’d go there instead. It’s always been about the people for me.
It will be interesting to see how much the Lindens take notice of this new world trying to fix some of their “errors” (like the issue of protecting designers). If they’re smart they’ll adapt and take more notice of the ground-swell of grumpiness.
So we need an OpenOffice for the Virtual Worlds?
Great analysis, definetly food for thought. Geez from the sounds of things I thought I was the only one having a few misgivings from the start. Believe me I’d love to see them grow and swallow up the LL corporate bull, but they’ll have to change a lot of their strategies.
Thanks!
Really interesting analysis, Prad. As you i can’t know what will happen and i may agree with you basically with your view but… you made the perfect comparation, LL is like Microsoft… with all the bad stuff included.
What made some people, like me, not use Microsoft products is Microsoft itself and its policies, the bad quality of some of their products and the PR and customer service they are practicing. A lot of people uses Mozilla, or OpenOffice, or Chrome, or iTunes… and this people is not only using this products because they are good, in a lot of cases is also becuase they are not from Microsoft.
One of the main attractives of LOC or OpenLife or any of those grids is that are not Linden Lab owned, and that is what may impulse some residents to join them, specially after the last PR mistakes.
I’m not meaning i will change to LOC or any of those “alternative” grids right now, i’m not meaning either i will stay in LL grid forever, i’m just saying the growing of those “other grids” will depend not only on their liability or in their performance, will depend also on Linden Lab relationship with their customers, the residents.
I’m also on SL for the people, as long as my friends are on SL, so will I be! If everyone decides to move over to another grid, then I’ll consider giving it a try, but up til then I’m very happy where I am
I want to chime in as a former team member who was never paid for any of the work done for them as well as an estate manager who has invested over 1500 into them while they are in “alpha”.
Here is why you should stay away and these are quotes from emails.
I as an investor in the company inquired of the host where there servers are what there terms of service was to make sure that my money was not going to dissappear one day because they violated the hosting terms of service. Here are excerpts from the following emails.This was for a license i bought to sale land not the land itself.
this was for me asking the hosting company about TOS which they took as a complaint because they wherent aware of what was being hosted.
i happily sent her my paypal invoices.
Nov. 13, 2008 Payment To The Reflex Company Completed Details
-$90.00 USD $0.00 USD -$90.00 USD
Oct. 14, 2008 Payment To The Reflex Company Completed Details
-$315.00 USD $0.00 USD -$315.00 USD
Sep. 29, 2008 Payment To The Reflex Company Completed Details
-$405.00 USD $0.00 USD -$405.00 USD
Sep. 17, 2008 Payment To The Reflex Company Completed Details
-$1.00 USD $0.00 USD -$1.00 USD
Aug. 28, 2008 Payment To Xumeo Completed Details -$695.00 USD
$0.00 USD -$695.00 USD
I also sent her 2 invoice of the work i did for her. Not only did she cancel them she told me she had no intentions of paying me until i give her my code that she didnt pay for as proof. I offered her screenshots. and to go via a third party she then threatened to suit me again. This is what she does shes a lawyer and then further said
i have so much more conversations, logs, promises in chats, She cares nothing about us as customers. I can point u to several other customers who asked questions like why did u delete all the stuff off my sim only to get cursed out.
The truth will come out and i’ll be happy to provide anyone this information. If you try and go against her she will threaten to suit you. And ban your account with all your money. There is a going to be a suit filed against her so please dont put money into them as u can see they dont consider you an investment they’ll easily delete your money at there whim and property. Its a damn shame really.
go to there website thereflexcompany there contact info is blank there terms of service blank. no address nothing.
just to note ask any opensim developer there prims cannot hold that many prims the original number that came from was an experiment that ibm did and it was only with prims no scripts nothing else. there effective limit is pretty much that of sl. Dont take my word for it go to opensim and look it up. its all based off that software. Do to some amazing work from one of the main devs Melanie its working alot better than centralgrid but its far from SL and even tho she has put a tremndous amount of work into getting it write its still alpha logins are buggy account registration is flakey i have had so many people not able to login including myself.sims crash regularly. but they want that money you are paying to test for them. They call it pioneering but its really there attempting to build an empire off others backs. I am a game developer. And I have had successful worlds that i have ran and any gamer knows u dont pay for beta testing they pay you or its free. Lala uses the beta/alpha clause so that they can continue to have a horribly buggy system and you pay them. Think your really protected from with your content. Lala makes the case as often as she cans that anything u put on her servers belongs to her. She tries to make it sound pretty but the legalize gets in there and your effectively giving her rights to any money you have invested and objects u bring in world. especially should u make her upset.Case in point: this is from a consultant(Rhonan Morrisy for vgrid another virtual world
and lalas response to that was to agree
SMDH does anyone else see what is wrong with this picture? This some person we dont even know? who clearly will delete our hard work and block our accounts as they say “At anytime for any reason” and ontop of that crappy service and a broken grid. No thanks. Thats why i left the team poorly managed and they are decieving people. Its not fair and i wont be apart of it. Please use wisdom. In dealing with them thank you.
I can be contacted at docwes1@gmail.com if anymore info is needed. I would encourage you to ask some of the people who have left legend city online what there reasons was you’ll find a common theme. And like the typical fanboys of any company you’ll find some diehards but the truth is not far or hard to find. Thanks for your time everyone.
Docwes
Well, I can say for me and my family, we have bought sims in LC, and are seeing more and more of the big SL builders and designers heading into this strange new world. It is becoming more stable every day,we are not having ear the problems with logging in as we did even a week ago, and we are having fun. It may not be as big as SL, but that’s OK too, less lag. Yay!! It’s great for people who want to be in at the beginning. We’re forced to try our hand at building, makes for great houses, lol! We’re loving it, and are still in SL too…no reason you can’t enjoy both, we sure do!
I think the Open Space thing will be the straw that pushed the camel into another grid. I never heard LCO before yesterday but I’m willing to give it a solid try. Linden Labs I think has made the fatal mistake of hitting it’s premium consumers, the ones who pay money into Second Life where it hurts most. A 67 percent price hike is not only unreasonable and for many unaffordable, but I’ve already had half a dozen people I know personally affected directly as their beautiful builds disappear as OS fall off the face of SL. Both pocket book and trust have taken a significant hit for many. I don’t own an open space, but I do own a regular island and I was right about to make a lot of new purchases in SL for the Christmas season (os for my love, another island for affordable island land for friends, multiple premiums for christmas gifts…) — purchases I won’t make now because Linden Labs could at anytime hike any land tier up unreasonable amounts SIXTY SEVEN PERCENT and basically destroy reasonable affordability.
Island owners already pay 50 percent more than Main Land Owners, 300 vs 200 dollars for the same amount of space/prims, so more increases of that magnitude during a global economic squeeze coupled with questionable ethical conduct (what LL did get people to buy OS, selling them hand over fist, THEN hiking things up 67 percent in a matter of months)makes any money put into Linden Labs a less sound investment. And Second Life is a serious investment, one of your time, energy, and personal resources. When a business plays fast and loose with those investments, people tend to take their time and money elsewhere.
Bliss
A strong reason against LCO: They are banning child avatars without regard to activity (”It is strictly prohibited to portray a child or child avie in the matrix of Legend City Online in any way shape or form – use of such will be seen as a direct violation of our terms and your account will be terminated.”).
Nobody is supporting sexual ageplay. This must be prosecuted everywhere. But what’s the harm in roleplaying a child in a non-adult way?
I am not a child in SL, but due to this blanket ban which smacks of bigotry, I, for one, will not join LCO on principle. Also, I know several well-known SL residents who will not do so either.
I hope very much that LCO does succeed. What LL has right now is a monopoly. LCO offers competition. Competition is very healthy and can only benefit consumers like us. The Microsoft analogy fits perfectly here. And as others have commented already, it is not a one-or-other choice. My feeling is that many people going forward will start to explore alternative grids like LCO but while retaining their Second Life presence. In time, the service we receive from LL, LCO and others and the cost of that service will dictate where we invest our time and money going forward. Existing collaborative efforts by developers will allow interoperability between grids in the future; allowing a single avatar and its inventory to seamlessly move from grid to grid. Products like Second Inventory are just starting to show us a glimpse of the potential of that interoperability but also some of the stumbling blocks. Unfortunately those stumbling blocks are mainly psychological rather than technical - people feel threatened by change! Ultimately, I think LL’s future rests on their willingness to embrace competition. Let’s hope they are here for a very long time to come.
[...] metaversally speaking: Why LCO is doomed to fail [...]
[...] until a group of people started digging a little further. DocWes Legend, who used to work for LCO, left a long comment on this blog detailing allegations about the way LCO was being run. The owner of LCO were invited to make a statement in response, but they have not answered. This, [...]
[...] until a group of people started digging a little further. DocWes Legend, who used to work for LCO, left a long comment on this blog detailing allegations about the way LCO was being run. The owner of LCO were invited to make a statement in response, but they have not answered. This, [...]
While I endorse competition I can’t see how using Opensim (which is in Alpha stage right now), throw a web page together, will have any impact on the virtual worlds market.
I can run Opensim on my own PC, with more control over the virtual world myself. And when Opensim has matured I suspect it will be easier to install, and get running for Joe six pack too.
I’m rather sure you will be able to teleport to/from Second Life to Opensim worlds, so personally I won’t bother signing up for LOC. Seems I can visit them through my Second Life account anyway in the future (but LOC probably will blok that?)
And just as I was pointing out you will can run your own metaverse this showed up “Linden Lab: standalone servers soon”: http://www.metaversejournal.com/2008/11/29/standalone-servers-soo/
“The 2009 beta of a standalone Second Life grid - this, like the OpenSim platform, will allow users to run their own grid. Expect to hear more on the beta program in the very near future.”
“The standalone servers will provide a great opportunity for Australians in addition to current offerings like Openlife. Once further work is done on being able to move between grids, Australia may actually have a higher performance option than currently exists.
Well if you check the first SL Website in the wayback machine…..
http://web.archive.org/web/20030203084809/secondlife.com/login/splash.php
You would never think: “Hey this is great! This is going to succeed”. Then they got some people to work on the graphics and the website then got a lot better.
Also in 2003/2004 SL was really buggy more buggy than the actual open simulators.
The open simulator project is evolving and I noticed very good changes. I hope that at least only one of all these open grids succeed.
[...] former employee DocWes Legend called out LCO’s management for failure to pay him for the work he’d done …, and insisted that their practices outlined in their Terms of Service were dubious and that users [...]
I have to nearly agree - this analysis applies to all alterante grids: why should people who do not intend to become land owners switch over from SL? There is nothing really better for people who do not intend to become sellers and there are a couple of things that are worse. Most importantly a lack of other people. Who wants to stay in a virtual world that is only inhabitated by shops and land sellers and nothing more?
On the other hand not becoming a success does not necessarily mean “failure”. The Microsoft metaphor applies: OSX or Linux do not share the same success as Windows but they are not failures either. Alternate grids can become niche-solutions for certain groups of people. But even for that they need to communicate better their respective advantages for exactly those groups.
Unless alternate grids do more to motivate a switchover than just provide less for less money I agree that they will fail.
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