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Entrepreneur Makes Millions Selling Virtual Land
kkleiner writes "How much would you pay for a piece of imaginary real estate? Anshe Chung has made millions renting it. Today, Anshe Chung Studios has 80+ employees managing thousands of rental properties, helping design new 3D virtual chat rooms, and making tons of money on virtual to real currency exchanges. Anshe was the first person whose virtual property exceeded a real world value of 1 million dollars, and Anshe Chung Studios is perhaps the single largest third party developer of virtual property ever."
Do two scams cancel each other out?
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
This is Apple's fault. I blame Apple.
A new paradiem for the declining economy.
When I was younger, we called it castles in the sky.
Hey look, these are your VERY OWN 1's and 0's! We are taking painstaking measures to make sure that absolutely NOBODY ELSE has this same arrangement of 1's and 0's. Sure, we could randomly generate them and then check them by md5 sum against all other files in our database, but NO, we design them JUST FOR YOU!
Hurry now and we'll throw in not just one set of 1's and 0's, but we'll sell it at HALF PRICE! That's right call now and only pay $1999.99, that's 50% off the normal price of 3999.98!
But wait, there's MORE.
Call within the next TEN MINUTES and we'll give you not just one set of 1's and 0's, but TWO sets for the same price! That's only 999.995 EACH! Yes, that's 75% off each set of 1's and 0's!
They are virtually PRICELESS!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
I don't want to live on this planet any more :(
It's just fucking bits! Entropy! Their renting fucking entropy!
make him a Virtual Millionaire?
Why don't you people go make fun of those who get paid to design video games OMG THEY'RE JUST 1's AND 0's!!!!!
Dear god, this isn't news. This is ancient and she achieved this from at least 2007 onwards. This is like the equivalent of a newb discovering this cool OS called "lunux" which is for free and thinks he's special. As a SecondLife fanboi myself, please, shut the fuck up up Anshe Chung and focus on the people trying to demolish the walled garden and working on decentralisation and interoperation.
I've never been into Second Life, or World of Warcraft, or any of those online games that've been known for people using real money to buy pretend stuff in the game - but, on an individual level, it's never bothered me. I figure it's those folk's money, so they can spend it however they want... just like I might buy a decent bottle of Scotch.
But somehow, in the aggregate, this bothers me. I can't really put my finger on why, exactly; but it just seems like a sign our society is going down the toilet (or something equally dire). It's probably just because I'm older than most of these people, I suppose.
#DeleteChrome
It is that simple. A piece of linen cloth with colorful specks arranged in a certain pattern is called a painting, and if it happens that someone named Gaugin or Degas left those specs on the linen it's worth millions. Why? It's just some pigments on linen.
You don't pay for the pigments and not for the linen. You pay for the arrangement. Likewise, you pay for the arrangement of those 0s and 1s.
Is it worth that? If you ask me, no. But for some people it seems to be, and as long as there are people willing to pay real money for certain arrangements of pigments or pixels, there will be a market for them.
Hell, some people pay me to tell them how to get their IT infrastructure secure. I don't even give them pixels or pigments, I only give them information without a carrier medium (ok, not entirely true, it's most of the time also encoded in 0s and 1s). But by the logic expressed in most other postings here, I shouldn't even get a dime for what I'm doing, yet there are people willing to pay thousands of dollars per day. Because they want it, because they're willing to pay for it, and because I'm willing to sell that information.
Welcome to the market economy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People like to save their wealth in some neutral readily tradeable form. For some people it is old paintings, for others it is old postage stamps, for most of us it is a record of account held at a bank or bits of paper with some fancy promise to pay printed on them. It could be bits of precious metal, crystals dug out the ground.
With the right perception management of the customer people can be persuaded to accept the value of the almost anything which isn't trivial to produce.
The beauty of it is that once you have convinced a few people that a thing has value it becomes self perpetuating because when a few people are willing to pay for a thing, the value increases and others, seeing the prices paid for that thing, will also then consider buying it - increasing the prices still further.
The trouble is that at some point the commodity being exchanged for whatever the new thing is starts to run out, the price stops increasing and the bubble bursts.
The perfect scam repeated around the world daily. Convince two suckers your piece of crap is valuable and, hey presto, it really is valuable.
Maybe I'm strange, but I spend my days managing websites. Which are essentially virtual newspapers / magazines/ posters/ directories/ whatever. So what if it is a online designed 3d room, its just a online facility people pay for.
I feel a strange separation to my work, because I know in 1000 years from now, no one will ever no I was alive or a person. There won't be an antiques roadshow describing how wonderful/shit my work was, my work wont exist it will be simply gone. Ancient potters, blacksmiths, artist, or architects don't have this problem, part of their work can survive. Something physical something real.
I would love to listen to the future documentaries describing how "clever" we are with our "Internet" and "condoms" and our "iPads". But how simple we were for not realising that we should really have a centralised computer attached to our brains, that can simply kill all the sperm in a man's body before we have sex, by analysing our thoughts and electro-shocking our testicles.
I'm kinda sad that I wont see the future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RedLyae4b2s&t=28
It think it all comes down to this: Someone is making more money than I am and probably in an easier way than I do. It's more of a "wish I thought of that!"
it wants its news headline back.
This was news back in 2006.
This reeks more of an advertisement though.
Linden Labs playing on people forgetting to pump new users into its dying platform, or a way for anshe chung to pump more people in because yes he, he used his wife for public appearances.. is likely hurting now that people are no longer interested in worlds like second life.
Kkleiner owns the website that is referenced
Many of the articles are ads for Second Life and other related things
oh and this little gem:
"Singularity Hub is aggressively building up its advertising relationships with new advertisers, so send us an email at hubadvertising@gmail.com today and let us help you reach our targeted audience.
We offer many different banner sizes, including 728x90, 300x250, and more. In addition to the standard advertising slots above, we welcome advertisers to work with us to consider alternative, creative advertising solutions within the Singularity Hub website.
Learn more about our advertising programs check out our advertising page "
Anyone remember this?
I am a so-called patent troll and early bitcoin investor.
I am now worth over $20 million, mainly from selling rights to patents that I have trolled. Not bad for a kid from Houston with only an Associate's degree.
I recently found a ring (on my property) - heavy but not really attractive (to me). So not really one for gold and diamonds, I took it to a jeweller to get an idea of what I'm dealing with here. Who told me that to buy such a piece today would probably set me back about 11000 (converted to USD). However, if I would sell it to them, they would pay me only the price for the materials, which would give me about 2000 (converted to USD).
I think there are a lot of things like that in the real world. Ever eaten, or had wine, at a restaurant? Ever buy a painting or sculpture? Ever watch a movie? Wearing a watch? Had an internist have a pathologist perform blood test, then prescribe some vitamins to you, that you paid for out of the small change in your pocket?
Guess you all know the joke about the engineer, having been asked to present an itemised bill, wrote: 0.05 for chalk mark, 1499.95 for knowing where to apply the mark.
Not that I would rate the ability to construct virtual real estate anywhere close as valuable, but value is in the eye of the beholder.
This was covered a lot in technology media years ago and looks like a PR fluff piece to hype up the company.
There's nothing particularly earth shattering here. They create art in the form of private islands and then rent said art for profit. This isn't exactly a new phenomenon. They just make a decent chunk of money doing it.
I don't understand any of this, can anybody explain it to me in terms that are easy to understand please? I literally do not understand what any of this is. Like in a few sentences: what the hell?
I mean I commend them for making money and building businesses with this stuff, I just don't understand why anybody pays real money for this, what does it do for them and how does this translate into real life (except for the customers becoming poorer of-course)?
Basically I now find myself at this point in life when I can legitimately say about something that I am looking at: I am too old for this shit.
You can't handle the truth.
People pay anywhere from $5 to $50 for 1s and 0s all the time. Every time a video game is purchased you pay for 1s and 0s. How is this any different? You pay membership dues to various organizations, and once you stop paying you don't take anything with you except the memories. If you have ever paid $100 to go to a Broadway musical, you paid for something you can't touch or own. This is not any different than any other thing you pay money for that you don't get to keep. It's not really that difficult to understand is it? People pay money for things they find valuable. If someone wants to buy virtual property then great. That means somebody got paid and the economy continues. They aren't being extorted or coerced they bought it of their own free will. Silly humans.
Anshe Chung was big back when it looked like Second Life might take off. It is not news that he/she has made a lot of money on Second Life. There was even an article here on slashdot two or three years ago. Anshe Chung made a lot of money by recognizing the possibilities early, just before the buzz hit about Second Life. Since Second Life has passed its apogee, Anshe Chung has managed to continue making money by being one of the dominant players in Second Life business (as a result of having gotten there first).
For those who don't understand Second Life, there are a lot of people who believe that there is a business use for virtual worlds. Second Life became big because it was the first virtual world that looked like it had put all of the peices together. Unfortunately (for Linden Labs and those who think virtual worlds are the future), no one has figured out how to do real world business in a virtual world. Fortunately for Second Life content developers (like Anshe Chung), there are a lot of people who are willing to spend a fair amount of money on their entertainment. Today, Second Life is a visual chat room.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
2007 called and they want their story back.
That's the year Anshe made it big in Second Life. SL hasn't exactly prospered since then, and unless she's been very successful elsewhere, either has Anshe. I don't think her SL empire is doing great, and its theoretical value has shrunk as land values have gone to near zero. She can no longer say she owns a lot of value in land. She's now just a landlord. She makes her money on rent, and unless Linden Lab (they run Second Life) has cut her a special deal, the margins are very low. It's a lot of work and a lot of risk (unless LL has made it risk-free for her) for not a lot of money.
She moved from Germany to China to make the cost-of-doing-business work. Hopefully her "employees" do better than most Second Life "employees". An SL "job" pays pennies per hour. I hope hers are paid in real-life currency, even if it's at Chinese rates.
Really, this article is years behind. Anshe Chung hasn't been relevant in the pantheon of virtual land barons for ages.
Basically, this person makes toys and rents or sells them to people who are willing to pay for those toys. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Supporting 80 employees on $1,000,000 of revenue? Now I know where the Oompa Loompas went after the chocolate factory bankruptcy.
I thought this was old news, and that the millions she made were revealed to mostly be through "virtual prostitution" of sorts?
And that when some folks found out about her having an interview within Second Life, they hilariously griefed her.
But a guy who looks like he lives in Middle Earth selling an expensive rickety box to make crappy plastic rings is a genius. Got it.
This was news like 6 years ago, the real news is that second life has not caved in on itself in a cestpool of land sharks like the one mentioned in the article getting you to "rent" space on a plot and then bans you from it a week later, furries sex slave, and fucking retard noobies trying to cyber fuck every square inch of the place while advertising a "bank" scheme.
Is this really any different than people throwing hundreds of dollars at the latest device from Apple? Look at the people who replace a perfectly good device with one that's newer but offers little additional functionality.
I'd argue that the motivation driving people to buy the latest gadget is identical to the motivation behind someone buying a piece of virtual property. It's pure emotion; the happiness of unwrapping and enjoying something new.
There are a lot of people in the real world making a ton of money on stuff people don't actually need. And I'm not just talking about electronics. Alcohol, drugs, fancy clothing, luxury cars, junk food... We can get into debates about paying for something intangible, but the motivation is the same: pleasure.
http://www.puritube.com/v/RedLyae4b2s%2526t%253D28
It's not because of actual business acumen so beyond everyone else, but actually favorism played by Linden Lab.
Infact, Anshe got a lot of *FREE* land, so it's easy to make a profit when your product costs 0 and you charge a lot for it. Infact, she kept quite high prices always.
Later on, she simply got huge discounts, paying way below what rest of the market plays. Some even rumour she doesn't have to pay the on-going land tax (tier, sim fees).
High prices + very low price to acquire product (lower than competition) = Profit. Doesn't need a genius, to make profit in those conditions.
LL has always supported Anshe and played favors towards her.
I used to be one really big player in that market, but LL killed our business pretty much with ever decreasing land value with ever increasing bigger market floods with new ones, with users disappearing from the system to new rules which would hinder business to increased priced, to lower profit margins due to decrease of value to taxes exceeding the property values on monthly basis. No one can survive in conditions where you loose by flick of button over night 25+ of your property value. In my case that translated to almost monthly tens of thousands of USD lost to artificial devaluation by LL.
I knew all the big players except Anshe personally. I was one of the last to leave the business, but that was more to do with RL situation than anything else. Every major player i knew has quit by now, or has downsized to a mere fraction of their former business.
Last time i checked land values has been the same or below the monthly tax tier. Demand for private sims has been extremely minimal as well. Every place is so empty.
The way to think of Second Life is a distributed game company. Most games, the code, the game servers, and the game content are all done by one company. In Second Life the servers are run by the host company (Linden Research Inc.) The code is open source for the "Viewer" (the program you download and run to play Second Life). A majority of users actually run alternate versions of the Viewer made third parties, that have better features than the official one. And lastly, 99% of the content is made by a subset of the users themselves. As a form of entertainment, it has staying power among the creative "do it yourself" crowd. If you want your game handed to you all pre-made and not have to do anything but play, it's not for you.
The subject of the story, Ailin Graef, made her major start by providing nicer virtual land than was being offered by the owners of Second Life. People liked it, and were willing to pay for it. Like any other entertainment, such as Netflix, or reading Science Fiction novels, it needs no justification. If you find it entertaining, great, if not, find something else to do. I have not made as much as Ailin, but I have made a good amount providing 3D entertainment - enough to buy two new computers...ten times over, and that's doing it as a hobby from home, mostly in Second Life. I'm grateful people found what I did enjoyable, and I had fun creating it. Making stuff is another form of entertainment, for some people.
There is no scam or ripoff here. You can play Second Life entirely free, forever. But about half the users spend some real money each month to get something made by someone else. Just like buying the latest first person shooter game, or a movie ticket, it's an entertainment expense.
I would so laugh if a real estate scam happened to happen on someone that used a scammed visa card to pay with....both would negate the other, no?