The Metaplace Business Model
We know that this is a developer's blog, but since there have been a number of questions about our business model, we thought we'd take a break from scripts and markup language to talk dollars and cents. We promise more technical goodness next week, but you might want to keep reading to learn how you can make some money using Metaplace. Below are the most frequent questions that we get - word for word (we swear).
How much does it cost?
Use of the platform is free to create a world for you and your friends. Once a world grows beyond a certain size, we'll need to charge you to cover bandwidth, hosting, etc. We don't know the exact cutoff size yet, but we'll be figuring it out over the next few months. If your world exceeds that cutoff, we'll change you in our virtual currency and give you the tools to pass on some, or all, of the costs to your players if you want.
So, I can make money running my world?
Yup. We'll give you all the tools to monetize it via subscription, micro-transaction and if you're running your world out of the goodness of your heart, you can also allow players to make donations to help you cover costs.
That sounds super. Are there any other ways to make money on Metaplace?
Why, yes there are. We'll also have a marketplace where you can sell (or buy) art, style-sheets, scripts or anything else you want to build and sell. You can also give stuff away if you feel like making the world a better place.
Can I cash out of the system?
As long as what you're doing is legal, we'll gladly let you cash out in a manner similar to Amazon Associates or Google Adsense.
Will I own my IP?
Our goal is to have users maintain control over their own IP.
I really like ads, please tell me there will there be ads!?
As with most free things on the net, we will have some advertising. However, if you're a premium world builder and want to turn them off, that will be an option as well.
Can I just license the tech?
No. As you've probably noticed, we're big on openness and the value of the network. We believe that each world created using the Metaplace technology makes the entire network more valuable. There's more users, more content, more scripts and it's one more step towards making virtual worlds ubiquitous. Long-term, we see ourselves evolving into a network service provider that handles things search, DNS and other network-level services. To accomplish this goal, we want to encourage as many worlds on the network as possible. Adding another walled garden doesn't help us accomplish that goal.
Really? How about for $40 million?
Let's talk. We're idealistic, not crazy.
Can I put my client on my own site?
Yes! Put it on your site, your blog and anywhere else that will help you drive users to your world. They're your customers/players/residents; you go out and market to them however you like. We'll also index the world and allow tagging so that we can drive traffic to you from Metaplace.com.
Who does the hosting?
We'll do the hosting for all worlds initially. We've built the platform to be distributed, but we need to get the network to scale before we allow the servers out into the wild.
Do Areae do anything to prevent illegal content being uploaded?
There will be so much content uploaded to the Metaplace platform that it would be impractical for us to review every piece of content before it was in a virtual world. However, we will have mechanisms for users or community members to identify and notify us of illegal content, and our digital currency cannot be transferred back into real world money except by approved business partners who have agreed to a terms of service that prohibits illegal content.
Gift certificates: I want to offer a free gift certificate to new users for some feature for 30 days then start charging for it if they continue to use it, will that be something Metaplace can help set up?
We'll provide a host of different billing mechanisms for world operators to use with their players. We'll be testing these in later phases of closed and open beta, and once there's a full suite of billing options open we can answer more questions about it then.
Can Metaplace help me contact advertisers that they know that might be interested in my special world?
Our internal wiki provides helpful links to many things, such as access to free art and sound resources. Over time, we'll make arrangements with advertisers and other providers of useful services, and pass this information on to world creators so they have a starting point for integrating these services into their worlds.
If I want to bring in a 3rd party advertiser (like Adsense) into my world, can I do that?
Many third party advertisers provide an ad as an image. Since any object in the world is created via a web link, it means that these could theoretically as easily be ads as any other type of image. We haven't tried it yet though!
Will there be an API to interact with Metabucks? For instance - I sell t-shirts and with each sale a user also gets 100 Metabucks.
Yes, there will be a way to do this. But keep in mind that you can't just deduct virtual currency willy-nilly – the transaction will have to happen on our end. And if you are giving a user some currency, it will have to come from somewhere – like, your account.
This hasn't been covered, but would it be possible to buy advertising space on the Metaplace home page or in other worlds using Metabucks?
Possibly. We have space on the front page for “featured worlds” and the like, so we can probably work something out!
In a recent interview Raph stated that developers would have to be "approved partners" in order to cash out on their earnings to real cash. Can someone please explain this to us as that doesn't sound very democratic? Who chooses the criteria for who is eligible to become an approved partner? What if we make a game that is not to this approving body's liking but is hugely successful with pay users or players. How will we get a return on our investment for making and promoting said game using the Metaplace platform?
The issue here is about legality; ultimately, the approving body is actually governments, not us. In some countries, for example, running a world that featured gambling and cashing out the profits is illegal. We need to do a verification step so that we can be sure we (and you) are respecting the law.
Metaplace is a dream come true, when can I get building?
We're working as fast as we can! We want to get you building on the system as soon as possible. We were overwhelmed by alpha applicants and expect a similar response to our beta application. We recommend keeping a close eye (or just subscribing to the feed) on this blog as we'll post timeline updates as they become available.
Jason Hable
Business Development
Previous Post | 10 Comments | Next Post
Posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 9:03 AM PDT
Reader Comments
Grinless said:
on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 9:41 AM PDT:
Albert said:
on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 10:26 AM PDT:
Andrew said:
on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 12:30 PM PDT:
Taran Rampersad said:
Frankly, it seems a bit like a blowoff. Perhaps there could be a remedy thought of...
on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 6:51 PM PDT:
Patrick said:
Patrick
on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 7:01 PM PDT:
Timothy Read said:
on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 6:16 AM PDT:
Pablo said:
on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 5:03 PM PDT:
Arrakiv said:
I am very pleased with the answers and they all are pretty much what I was expecting and hoping to hear.
You are doing quite a job on keeping us informed, keep uo the good work :)
- Grinless