Archive for the ‘developers’ Category

Today, an email went out to those registered at IMVUSale.com to the tune of this…

Our apologies, as much as we are working on sales we still have over 70 million credits stacked up, even higher than last month.

Imvu’s printing too much money again, giving away free credits for quizzes, contests and running sales with lower prices than us resellers do. Yet they still fail to shut down at least 12 fraud websites that are currently SELLING stolen credits at 30-38 per 100k. We really can’t do much about it until they stop this none-sense. Buying price is lowered to $39 per 100k, hope you understand the difficulty we are facing, hopefully the holiday season will bring some light.

Resellers are teaming up on protesting imvu’s recent financial decisions already, it should take some effect.

Sadly, I fear that a lot of resellers will soon face the same problems. Actually, my own credit partner DevCredits.com has already felt some pinching in the last six months or so as we frantically try to sell credits to whomever we possible can so that Tidy can continue to purchase credits from us at the rate of $46/100k. It’s been hard.

IMVU has been really pushing sales on their credits thus undercutting the resellers with ease. After all, IMVU can produce all the credits they want and sell them at whatever price they choose. And the more they do this, the less developers are paid. Need I direct you back to my post about the decline of IMVU and potential earnings?

I don’t need to say much more than what the email from IMVUSale has covered. Sad, sad day for developers.

Let’s discuss the future of IMVU… shall we? I know so many of you are eager for a place where you can discuss this topic and say what you really feel without moderators looming over you and cleaning up behind you. So here is your chance to use my personal space as your own.

As a pro developer who uses IMVU as a major source of income, it’s only natural that I hope and pray that IMVU as a company succeeds in the way I believe it should – meaning IMVU makes money as well as provides me with the tools and opportunities required for me to continue profiting from my work. Unfortunately, the last year has shown me a steady decline.

I’ve made a lot of excuses for this – the economy, the summer slowdown, more developers and competition, my lack of desire to create, file sales, etc. I’m sure any one of these and mostly likely a combination is to blame. That said, I just don’t think these things alone are enough to cause the horrendous decline in sales that I have experienced.

Sure, I’m willing to admit that I haven’t worked as hard and a lot of people view me in a different light now because of this website. I get it. But it’s not really even about me – it’s about all of us. How many of you are experiencing a decline so great that you wonder if it’s time to move on… pack your e-bags and take your talent elsewhere? Some days, I feel that way and I’m noticing that more and more IMVUers are migrating to other virtual worlds [not just Second Life although that is the major one].

How much money are we all really making these days? Whoever thinks pro developers are “rich” is sadly mistaken. Remember those days when earning 60-100k in a 24 hour span was a good day? Okay I realize not all of you reading this have experienced that – especially if you’re fairly new to our community. But believe me… some of us used to make that kind of money. I’m sure some still do, but there isn’t a developer that I know personally that is making that kind of money any more – sadly myself included.

IMVU is slowly turning into a monopoly of sorts. The big name brands are taking over and IMVU is quickly taking larger slices of the pie. All of the “sales” they are running for their credits and outright knocking the value of our credits lower with each campaign they run – it’s killing the developing community. Sure, it’s good for the buyers but think about how much you make from a product on average. We’ll say 150 credit profit. In order to make just $5 you would have to make about 10,870 credits (or about 72 sales). That’s a lot of sales to make a measly 5 bucks. But we pro developers used to get that – easy. We used to easily make upwards of 100k or more in a day meaning making $40-$50 for a days work on IMVU was likely.

That used to be $16,426 give or take per year! That’s a full time job getting paid more than the minimum wage in America. Not bad for a job you can do in your favorite pajamas while sipping coffee.

Except now we’re making more like 15-20k per day. That’s what I’m making and while I’m ashamed to say it, I think it’s only right that I be honest. I know a lot of you are making that too because we’ve discussed it. So we’re making more like $10 per day maximum. And now? We’re talking more in the ball park of $3,650 per year. That’s grossly disturbing to me. That means we’re making only about 4.5% of what we were making a year ago. Yes.. can you believe it? That much change in just a year!

Who is IMVU fooling? They suggest sales are up “across the board”… but for who!? More developers of course equals more money to IMVU in the long run, but if everyone were really making more sales, we’d all see an incline in profit and we’re not.

Do these numbers scare you? They should. They scare the hell out of me. They aren’t exact numbers but the ballpark figures are very much real. How do yours compare? I hope you all are doing a hell of a lot better than I am. In order to put food on the table, I have no choice but to continue to sell files thus sadly contributing to apart of the problem. I sell ad space here to help pay for my hosting space. I make a buck where I can. It’s the only way to survive on an IMVU income.

What are your thoughts?

• How much are you making these days? (you don’t need to give a precise answer… I realize that information is very private for some).
• Have you seen a decrease in sales and profit in the last year?
• How much of a decrease have you seen?
• Are you seeking out other online opportunities such as Second Life or another virtual world?
• Has your decline in sales meant that you needed to acquire a job outside of our community?

I’d love for you all to take time to discuss this. I will be moderating comments as usual but I will not edit nor delete your commentary unless I find it to be overly vulgar or potentially harmful to yourself or my website. While I believe heavily in free speech and that this is my website and we can pretty much do whatever we want – I cannot guarantee the safety of your account. IMVU has rights too. So please use caution.

Let’s cut the red tape on this one, shall we? It now costs $19.99 to remove the “Guest_” from your name. Ridiculous? You bet it is. We saw the cost of the Name Change Token (NCT) go up last month from $6.00 to $12.99!

Here is a list of the current prices:

Name Registration: $19.99
Name Change Token: $12.99
Age Verification: $15.99
VIP Club: $6.99 / per month.

I should mention that the VIP club costs 99 cents for first time VIP club registrants and it includes the name registration. So even if you aren’t eligible for the 99 cent special, it’s still a heck of a lot cheaper to get the VIP for one month and then cancel your subscription. Of course now that I’m said that, IMVU will undoubtedly change it.

Get in on a discussion about this HERE or feel free to leave a comment on this blog.