Blue Mars is always going to get compared to Second Life – it’s in direct competition for the same markets, which is why so many SL residents are watching it carefully.
The primary factor that will determine Blue Mars’ future is going to be the cost. So do their sums add up?
Blue Mars has four tiers of land hosting on their grid – Outpost, Village, City and Metropolis.
Village is comparable to a standard Second Life sim, in that it will concurrently hold 50 avatars. The prices undercut that of a new SL sim, with the setup cost being USD750 with a monthly hosting fee of USD275. This compares with Second Life’s setup cost of USD1,000 and monthly tier of USD300.
The sim is also 16km by 16km, which is much larger than what Second Life will offer you. So on paper, it seems Blue Mars is ticking all the right boxes?
Not quite.
Blue Mars operate a system they call “Revenue Sharing”. In this system, Avatar Reality – the makers of Blue Mars – will take a quarter, that’s 25%, of all the money you make from sales. That’s a huge chunk of change.
Additionally, you can only cash out once a month without incurring their USD50 fee. Suddenly, all these hidden costs are starting to add up and Blue Mars, despite its prettyfully rendered world, doesn’t quite look so appealing anymore.
Do Blue Mars’ sums add up? Not from where I’m golfing.
Trinity Dechou on February 2, 2010
Can anyone imagine if LL attempted to have this type of charge strategy in SL? It would lead to public damnation. It’s like having a web hosting company who charges commission on sales through your website which they host. Isn’t that why you pay monthly bills?
uberVU - social comments on February 3, 2010
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by pradprathivi: Do Blue Mars’ sums add up? http://blog.pradprathivi.com/2010/02/02/blue-mars-do-the-sums-add-up/...
Jessica on February 26, 2010
blue mars is horrible. maybe the americans will go but Japanese friendly in look, it is not. It looks too crappy anyway. the avatars and the engine even though it’s modded cry it’s crap.