RL T-Shirt Store Opens Branch in Second Life

ches_grin writes "The (very real) t-shirt maker American Apparel has opened a virtual store in Second Life, becoming the first major retailer to set up shop in the SL universe. Though items cost only $1, the company hopes to bolster real life sales. Article includes some screenshots of the store and clothes." From the article: "The amount of money American Apparel has made so far on Second Life is probably not as much as they would make in a day at a single store ... But the idea meshes existing Korean online game models in which players can buy accessories for their avatars in micro-transactions, with the idea of the social Web--an online, virtual community. American Apparel's store suggests a new form of videogaming only starting to be explored in the U.S."

Like they say,

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Made in the USA?

So, are these virtual T-Shirts created by American gamers on their payroll, or in East Asian sweatshops?

Re:Made in the USA?

American Apparel's two big selling points are:

• American-made, non-sweatshop products
• A creepy pervert owner and creepy, sleazy advertising

So ... err, I forgot what point I was going to make.

Next...

...we're going to see Abercrombie. Now your 'hard earned' Linden Dollars can be used to buy a $25 not real t-shirt, instead of a $50 real t-shirt!

I for one welcome our new virtual overpriced fashion masters.

Lots of opportunity...

...for Fredricks of Hollywood. There are a million overweight males in basements looking to kit out their hot online female personas.

Shoplifting?

Purchasers can outfit their online avatars with digital renderings of slim-cut T's and dresses modeled after real-life merchandise.

So is their going to be a way for real-life shoplifting to occur too? If so ... I'm in! Otherwise, there's no way I'm paying real $$ to outfit an avatar.

Think Geek?

Where's the Think Geek boutique? All those Second Life folks need to get themselves some Slashdot T-shirts.

Can you do it yourself?

I don't know much about SL, but I have heard that people have an unprecedented amount of freedom to create their own items. Does this extend to player-created clothing? If so, how long until someone bootlegs the $1 t-shirt for 50 cents, or even better, for free?

A whole new can of worms?

So - players are allowed to create content, such as T-Shirt designs? I'm admittedly not a 2nd life player and 100% not a lawyer, but dosen't this bring up a TON of copyright and IP issues for both the player AND the owner of a "virtual world"? I'm already mortified by how some laws have adapted to the ability of data/content to be replicated by computers - what happens when real world governments start passing laws on "virtual" populaces and content? Or when the owner of the game world makes decisions about that world that affect IP? Or.... *?* (And, as an aside, the EULA may not protect the game company in all cases/locations)

Or alternatively...

you could make your own...?

doomed for failure

It'll never sell. Most clothing in game is extremely cheap. Especially things like basic Ts. Most people either give the stuff away or charge very cheaply for it. I've seen boxes of Ts like 50 for L$25. They want to charge L$150 for a pair of socks? Good luck with that.
This is probably why the store is devoid of any traffic, and the only person there is some linden who appears to be trapped in the floor.

RL Advertising

This actually looks like a nice advertising move. Imagine if your first encounter with the Gap was in some game like SL and later you discovered the real thing in RL. It might be amusing/cool enough to make you more likely to buy something at the RL store. It's probably too soon to tell, but American Apparel might just see some RL store sales from this. Heck, this /. story about them won't hurt either. The only real problem here is that SL is not the most popular MMO around. Now if they could open a shop in Azeroth, then they'd be talking!

What's the appeal of Second Life?

This may be slightly off-topic, but I have to ask.. I tried Second Life once a few months ago and it seemed like a huge, slow, disorganized mess with bad graphics and a terrible user interface. (I was using the Mac client - which may not be as good as the windows one, I don't know). What's the appeal there? I have this sinking feeling that it is a success for the same reasons MySpace is - but I'd really like to think I was just missing something. :-)

Absolutely amazing.

This is great. Companies spend millions to advertise on television, in magazines and numberous other places. But the idiot consumers actually pay these companies to advertise their products.

It's already bad enough with people walking around in $50 t-shirts with huge logos plastered all over them. Now we've got people paying money online for essentially no other reason than to help this company advertise.

The depth of corporate greed is easily outdone by the depth of consumer stupidity.

This isn't such a bad idea

The demographic for this kind of thing is probably larger than you'd think.

Think about the number of people who go to great lengths to personalize their avatar in a game like WoW which has very limited customization options. With a game like Second Life, where your character IS YOU, the desire to "pimp your toon" is HUGE.

Also, this business model, has almost no overhead costs. Sure, advertising factors in, but you only need to design the items once, and never actually need to manufacture them.

Sadly though, because of the smaller populations of a game like Second Life, I dont think it's going to be a huge cash cow any time soon. However, once a game like Second Life that's more of a Life Sim than a game like WoW (which is a murloc-killing sim) becomes the top MMO, the profits could be amazing.

Re:In Reverse, Too!

Hell, I saw someone walking around that con with a RL version of that business' product.