Archive for the ‘imvu’ Category

CEO Cary Jay just left a message on everyone’s home page with a link to the IMVU Blog. The post basically suggests that IMVU is now profitable while they used to lose money every month.

Are you serious? I don’t think they should publish information like that because it’s only too easy for me to rip apart.

So IMVU has been losing money until recently? Funny how they basically knocked out resellers, tortured their developing community and then did sale after sale on their ridiculously overpriced stuff and now they are making a profit. Sorry IMVU… While I’m happy to see you are finally making money you really need to think “At who’s expense am I profiting?” Let’s face it… once you’ve pissed everyone off with your high prices, poor ethics, inconsistencies and your inability to really connect and understand your community… you’re going to implode.

Sure, you’re making money now but that won’t last long. That blog post alone has my knickers in a twist. Start understanding that your community controls you. Those fancy sales and promotions look great on the surface, but they won’t for long. You’ve repeatedly beat down some of your most incredible and powerful community members expecting them not to strike back… Shame.

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.

As promised in my post about some big names leaving IMVU Moderating, here is the list of community members resigning their post as forum mods today.

• Kaffe
• MinhyrdinWindrose
• Badboy
• Ewe
• Mandie
• Shauncy
• Shira

Why are these people stepping down? I don’t exactly know and the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) prevents them and even me from discussing their reasonings. But you can wager that if that many people are leaving all on the same day, it’s not coincidence. Probably a group of people simply fed up over… whatever it is that’s going on.

Imagine how scary the Off Topic forums will be now. Yikes.

This information was given to me by a member of the community. It may or may not be 100% accurate. If it isn’t, my sincerest apologies. But since it was given to me by a reputable and long-standing member of the community, I can consciously accept it as truth.

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.

Finally, some real information regarding this “Pets Mode” we were told was coming but received no information about.

Pets Mode can be found in version 419.16 which you can download here. I thought it might be nice to take pictures of the setup from my point of view to help users reading this, understand what to do [I see some people in the forums having a little trouble]. Please click the images to see them larger.

	Step 1: I opened IMVU and the first thing I see is the new Pets Mode button [it even has a big, read NEW tag on it]. Click this and it should open the new tab.
	Step 2: The Pets Mode tab opens and you should see a selection of 3 puppies [hey IMVU, where are the cats?]. Supposedly they will be adding more soon. I think they should have covered a decent base of animals to choose from before adding this feature. Anyways, you should see the pet selection and a little card explaining what Pets Mode is about.
	Step 3: Select a pet by clicking the circle ticker box below one of the pets. You can then choose a name and write a short bio about your pet. I chose to name mine Sparky! Click on the “Name my pet” button.
	Step 4: You are led to a new page within the tab that shows you your new pet. It gives you a mood meter of sorts and options to play with your puppy or give him treats. Clicking the “Play with me” button earns you a laughable whopping 15 credits. You can press this button every 2 hours.
	Step 5: On this same page, there is the option to give your pet a treat. This costs zero credits the first time. We want our pet to be happy like the page says I guess, so let’s give Sparky a treat! Click on the “Give me a treat button”. Apparently, doing this makes your animal literally fly around in an obnoxious way for a long time. You can give your pet a treat again anytime you want for 30 credits.

And now, for my commentary. You knew it was coming, didn’t you?

Frankly, I think Pets Mode is a waste of time. If I want to take care of an animal, I’ll go take care of my own… or I’ll go play NeoPets or something. I can see how this could potentially earn you a little money if you really, really stuck to it [and have no life]. Otherwise, it seems like a waste of time and maybe even a potential credit sink since it costs 30 credits to give the pet a treat if you don’t wait the allotted time of 2 hours between giving them.

It’s also full of nice bugs – namely the fact that this feature is also supposed to appear in our Widget Card as a special tab so people can see our pets. Actually, this kind of irritates me. We were told under no uncertain terms that IMVU didn’t want to ad more Widget card room, beels and whistles because it would slow everyone down. *Sigh*

I’m sure someone will enjoy it. I hope whoever uses it, manages to make some decent money off of it.