Logo

You know, people in Second Life come and go and there is a flux in the kind of creativity and the available offerings by merchants. One of the people closing their store is Welpie Heinrichs of WISH. This is sad news. Of course she will remain in SL - but more of an observer an much less as a creative contributor. While some people might be clapping and jumping for joy - I am not. After the problems I've faced with Soigne closing and finding a new home for my store it is bittersweet that finding out the friend who helped me is closing her store/brand down.

I still am shaking my head about the whole mess. Her reasoning behind closing is because she needed to concentrate more on her RL and the amount of money going toward her brand here was not condusive to doing so. It was no longer feasible to stay in business. I honestly cannot blame her. While some of you who do create items and sell them have no limit on the amount of time you can spend doing so think that people who create things are all like that - a lot of us are everyday people who have jobs, family and other things that we are responsible for.

When Linden Labs starts making it harder to create items and even starts removing items from XStreet for what ever reason - people involved in that process realize that in the end SL is just a fancy. They drop it. Why should they spend countless hours making items only to have those items copied? What about the face that spending those hours doesn't pay much more than $.05 an hour when everything is said and done - or even less because there are less people here to buy. I forsee SL coming to an end very soon because of this trend. I believe that in a few years it will mirror SIMS in that all the content is controlled by LL. While this might be effective in controlling content theft it doesn't make for a very "creative" environment.

In any case if you like a merchant or designer - please keep them in mind when buying items. Or when someone is new and they want hair or clothing. Because if you forget about them, or decide to only shop at one store - the one that you loved my very well disappear.

On that note - I just found out that one of the stores I have at a mall will have to close. SC Designs mall is closing. This is just awful. It seems like the stores and malls are all tumbling like dominoes. Who's next? How long before only a handful of designers/merchants are left in SL? Is this something that Linden Labs was planning for? I know I'm spinning conspiracy theories etc., but its hard not to notice certain nefarious goings on.

If you want to grab the last of WISH - please go to her store here:

WISH Shoes and More