Lifestyles of the SL Rich and Famous
by prokofy on 16/04/07 at 8:31 pm
By Prokofy Neva, Community Affairs
I was so proud of our very own Second Life rich and famous appearing in the article published today in Business Week, Big Spenders of Second Life.
Every single person on the list deserves to be on there for their hard work and long hours in the risky business of Second Life. While some important leaders may be missing, I think there is likely to be a lot of consensus around this particular choice — which is defined by wealth and influence.
I’ve already written the letters section to alert BW to the fact that the picture they ran of the blinged-out gent to the left is not attributed — I guess it was just too tempting to swipe! It was actually taken by the Herald back in December 2004, and shows BallerMoMo King, a famous club owner and grid-grasher-about-town who I believe doesn’t exist anymore even on a new alt (maybe someone will have an update on this). He was evidently banned for various misdeeds, including nuking sims and evening eliciting the ire of Andrew Linden in the Herald comments. Ah, those were the days when the Lindens actually got indignant about griefing and grid-crashing, and didn’t actually sponsor it with open source programs! Sigh.
My quibble with this list — one I imagine others will share — is that it mixes those who made their fortunes in US dollars as metaversal sherpas for big corporations, outside of SL, with those who made their fortunes inworld. Of course a few on the list have done both.
And say, Philip Linden being on there — hey, no fair! I mean, put him in an article about entrepreneurs or something, but not people who have made their fortunes from Second Life! I don’t think SL is even profitable yet, is it? And while Philip once said he was confident he could make more money inside SL than outside it, well, that remains to be tested, no? Even at the girls’ resale yardsales, I don’t see Philip’s fairy-castle slot machine selling for much…And that party hat *never* moves, except as a self-replicating griefer object.
Sybley Hathor (Sybley Verbleck) and Reuben Millionsofus (Reuben nee Linden Steiger) surely belong on the list — but their fortunes are with and around SL, not from selling anything inside it. Maybe it doesn’t matter? Perhaps this distinction is eroding?
Barnesworth, who looks smashing, and for the first time is outing his RL name publicly (Adam Anders), is curiously (or maybe not) mentioned as only Sheep-bought talent, when he has designed for other metaversal development agencies. Of course, they all pay him a lot more than we do for his (pre)fabulous homes, but I think he probably does pretty well even with only his inworld sales. He’s the one member of the top 10 Rich and Famous of SL who makes coin both in and out of SL. And to think, we knew him years ago as Cornelius Vanderbilt, the mop-headed bowl-cut blonde-haired struggling Emperor of Alphaville in The Sims Online!
In fact, for any of our homegrown rich and famous, it’s hard to assess how much they really do make inside and around and outside of SL because they are all private persons or companies. We’ll have to take their word for it.
In any event, congratulations to the 10, which includes Anshe Chung, previously featured on the BW cover — we can all say we knew them when…and mourn the passing of the colourful MoMo.
Cocoanut Koala
Apr 16th, 2007
It’s also hard to tell if the figures cited are after expenses.
I’m sure there are many more who have made a pretty respectable sum on SL, but it is hard to find people or get them to talk about money. (It’s much harder to get people to talk about money than sex!)
I think Cornelius does do pretty well with his in-world sales. He spends like 30k on a classified ad, so he must!
And no – Philip shouldn’t have been on it.
coco
Artemis Fate
Apr 16th, 2007
I don’t think it’s unfair to include “sherpas” as you call them. All the work is done in world after all, the only thing that isn’t is the payments, because it’s so much easier to just bypass LindeX altogether than to pay someone 100,000L$ and have to wait for it to get sold on LindeX, then the (long) wait for the Lindens to transfer it to paypal, then another wait for it to get to the bank, when you could just transfer it right to paypal and cut the middleman.
I didn’t know Aimee made so much money, but I suppose it makes sense, since most of the consulting companies take a huge amount of money, then distribute it through a lot of workers, whereas as far as I know, Aimee is the only one working for her side of the business. Also I’m surprised Crucial Armitage is on that list, I didn’t think she was very major in terms of clothing, the clothes were okay and the prices were high.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 16th, 2007
Crucial also runs malls, so it seemed realistic to me.
I’m thinking even after expenses, these people probably still make a pretty decent living.
Once you have people working inworld for inworld rates on inworld builds but getting paid on PayPal just because it’s so annoying to have to hose everything through the Lindex, then it opens the question: why have a distinction between inworld and outworld?
I don’t like that it is eroding as a distinction, but I think it might be appropriate to acknowledge that it is eroding.
Time will tell whether this phenom of the sherpas can last. At some point, the big companies will wise up and realize they can either hire non-Americans for less (most of the people here are Americans) or use their own IT departments and get semi-employed Wal-Mart clerks and stay-at-home moms to do the grunt work of running the sims.
Then we’ll see whether they enter the world in any significant way, and begin to care about it, care about traffic, what they make from Lindens, how they deal with people within this world, etc.
It could take a completely different direction though, as people have been pointing out lately, they could completely remove the Linden as a concept, and close the Lindex, or completely dumb it down to something like the beads you get in your Club Med vacation package to buy stuff. They may have to do that when government regulatory agencies take more interest.
urizenus
Apr 16th, 2007
At least two of those screenshots are exclusive Herald shots. The BallerMoMo pic I took. Did Walker or somebody give permission to use those? It’s hard for me to imagine that he didn’t ask for attribution.
Artemis Fate
Apr 17th, 2007
“Crucial also runs malls, so it seemed realistic to me.”
Aaah didn’t know that.
“Once you have people working inworld for inworld rates on inworld builds but getting paid on PayPal just because it’s so annoying to have to hose everything through the Lindex, then it opens the question: why have a distinction between inworld and outworld?”
Well, all of the work is done in world, just the same as any other business, the only difference is how they’re paid, in SLExchange you can pay for items by paypal too. I don’t think that necessarily entails, just because the payment is outside the platform, that the whole job should be considered outside of it. But it is a recognization that SL is a platform not a game, and working there doesn’t necessarily mean getting paid there, with their money.
“Time will tell whether this phenom of the sherpas can last. At some point, the big companies will wise up and realize they can either hire non-Americans for less (most of the people here are Americans) or use their own IT departments and get semi-employed Wal-Mart clerks and stay-at-home moms to do the grunt work of running the sims.”
I don’t think that this corporate rush will last, so I’m happy to be able to make some money off of it while it lasts doing something I like. I’m not sure what’ll happen, I don’t know how well their advertising campaign is working, but I imagine that it’ll likely last as long as SL is in it’s 15 minutes of fame which may be over soon or it may be going for a while. I kinda doubt they’ll be getting their own employees, SL building/scripting is by no means something that someone can pick up in a quick orientation and few weeks of training. It’s too complex for people who don’t design, and too simple for professional designers they would have to learn to work with a system that has LOTS of limitations. And I gotta think that companies recognize that this SL thing might not last enough to hire their own professional personel to work in SL full time. Plus, compared to what people are probably getting paid for the same kind of work in a corporate setting, we’re not getting all that much money (at least I’m not)
Ian Betteridge
Apr 17th, 2007
Uri, if they didn’t give permission, call them up – they have no rights to use them without your permission, even if they’d attributed.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 17th, 2007
They aren’t attributed, and to my knowledge, they didn’t ask permission, but maybe Walker knows, he’s been traveling. They are shown on the Business Week site with no attribution.
marilyn murphy
Apr 17th, 2007
i looked. the one of stroker is attributed to the herald. the only one not attributed is the ballermomo by uri.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 17th, 2007
I believe they added that in later. They had said they would attribute them originally, it turns out, not sure what happened to BallerMoMo, but perhaps they can put it up.
urizenus
Apr 17th, 2007
In addition to the Stroker pic they also added attribution to the Herald for the pics of Aimee and Anshe, but yes, I’m waiting for them to include an attribution on the BallerMoMo pic.
And would it *kill* them to put in a link?
rumor has it
Apr 17th, 2007
Last I’ve heard of BallerMoMo and this was going back a year or so ago that he occasionally visited SecondLife after his final ban(s), my guess is that he no longer bothers with the game. I do see from time to time his brother Hellsing on, though rare. I’ve always questioned to myself more than once that there is a slight chance Hellsing and BallerMoMo are the same people, I can’t say for sure. And I honestly doubt they are real life brothers like they used to claim back in the day. JMO.
bluesapphire
Apr 17th, 2007
Seems all very wrong, a lot of people are missing from this list. IVM and RRR, to name but a few! Especially as they cite some of these agencies work, is this an american only list?
Prokofy Neva
Apr 17th, 2007
I always assumed Hellsing and BallerMoMo were the same person. They seemed like the same person.
I’ll never forget the crib Hellsing commissioned to be built in Windemere. My God, it was spectacular. All kinds of crenulated columns and ornaments and exotic furniture and antique desks with little drawers and carpeting. And then of course the master bedroom, the magnificent Bed, with amazing animations. Even the refrigerator had an animation that had this animation called something like “raid refrigerator for midnight snack” and it would have your avatar go into kind of a crouch and browsing mode, amazing.
I was lucky enough to get the grand tour. Sadly, pictures I took were lost in a computer crash, I still have a few on one of my alts. Windemere is one of those more valuable Hidden Lake sims with Linden-protected view, which was further protected at the time Hellsing reigned supreme because Blue Burke, another Rich and Famous SL land baron of yore you never see anymore, had his palace built directly across from it on the next sim. The architect Traxx Hathor had his sandbox in Windemere with building prototypes that always looked good, and he also built Hellsing’s mansion so the whole area looked great. All of it is gone now, I think turned into rental cottages and some of it is still for sale.
As for people missing from the list, I think probably this article wasn’t researched with any depth, but I think they weren’t trying to be strictly representative, they were using their gut on finding people they felt were rich, influential, flashy, cool, whatever.
Artemis Fate
Apr 17th, 2007
I’m still not entirely sure who BallerMoMo is, he looks like a silly e-thug.
Nixon Bomthrower
Apr 17th, 2007
Artemis, he’s not a thug, he’s just exercising his right to bear arms. In his case Polar Bear arms.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 17th, 2007
I find it hysterical that you can sit and call BallerMoMo a “silly e-thug,” Artemis, when you yourself are tricked out in Second Life as an erm….e-Amazon princess? Or? uh, something.
marilyn murphy
Apr 17th, 2007
hey, now!! i love artemis’ avatar.
Anonymous
Apr 17th, 2007
“I find it hysterical that you can sit and call BallerMoMo a “silly e-thug,” Artemis, when you yourself are tricked out in Second Life as an erm….e-Amazon princess? Or? uh, something.”
Assuming this is coming from a misunderstanding of terminology, e-Thugs are, in case you didn’t know, the people who idolize gangsta-rap culture and wear a shit load of bling, whatever clothes the latest big-time rapper is wearing, and lots of crappy rapper-idolized guns. Can honestly say i’ve not done much of any of that.