More Second Life fun...

As I think I said earlier, if I'm not working on a project in Second Life, I'm not that interested in it. Lots of people hang out in dance rooms, chat, meet people, etc, but that doesn't interest me much.

So, I've been trying to keep busy.

As you'll recall, my first foray into Second Life was doing scripting work for a guy. He paid me what I think now was way too much to make some casino games. His shop has since disappeared, and I haven't heard from him, in spite of him saying that he had big plans for more games. Oh well.

I then made my own game (well, based on a Vegas game that Iwan described to me), and rented out a spot at a casino/club. The rent was supposed to be for a week, and that time has since expired and I haven't heard anything, so there it remains. The game doesn't get played that much, and it appears to be about breaking even, so no big news there. I had the game listed for sale at L$1500 (about $2.50 USD) on a Second Life shopping website, but no buyers. I reduced the price to $500, but still nothing. However, I just got a message in the game, though, from someone who was interested in buying it, so I immediately went to the shopping site, jacked the price up to $1500, and told him that was the going rate, but if he wanted to buy directly from me, we could work out a deal. What a sneaky bastard I am. :)

Apart from that potential sale, the casino game business is mostly a flop (so far). I decided to switch markets and create an Easter Egg Hunt system. That has done relatively well, selling 6 copies so far at $1 USD apiece. Woo hoo (did you hear the sarcasm?) I'm hoping that, because the hunt is meant to be played by a lot of people, it will get some exposure and interest will be sparked. Not holding my breath, but it's fun to hope. Maybe as Easter approaches.

After that, I needed a new project. I had two working ideas that I wanted to harness. The first is that player-vs-house gambling games seem to be less popular than player-vs-player games where the house takes a cut (texas hold'em is a good example). The second idea was a commission-based product, where the creator (me!) gets a cut of every pot. This game could be passed around for cheap or free, and I would get paid based on it's performance.

So I created the Cutthroat Lottery Ball. There are a lot of "lottery" systems that others have made, where everyone puts money into the pot, and after a certain amount of time, a winner is chosen, they win the pot, and the process repeats. Totally stupid, but people love it. Also, owners typically add money into the lottery to attract customers. The twist that I added (the "Cutthroat" part) was the concept where the last player to donate money wins a portion of the pot. It's configurable, but something like 25%. The idea, hopefully, is that players will see who the last player is and exactly how much they'll win, and keep donating to be the last one in the pool (kind of like "sniping" in eBay). More donating means bigger pots which means more money for the owner (they can take a cut) and the creator (me!)

That's the theory at least.

I released the CLB in two versions. The first is free, and I get 10% of every pot. The second costs money, but the creator commission is waived. I put them up for sale last night (and an hour later, while lying in bed, thought of a critical bug that I had to get up and fix before anyone bought one!), and so far two of the commission versions have been sold (well, "sold" for $0). So, any minute now, the 10%'s should come rolling in!

The hooks have been baited. The lines are in the water. Now, it's just a waiting game. (Or, more likely, time to start baiting more hooks!)

If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears...