With two or three clients. Never realized though. Once the idea didn't stick, and the other client (they came to us with that idea) said "no thank you" when they saw the cost estimates. People think it's *so* easy creating a properly functional virtual environment. I now have a working engine for an "average" flash-based chat room, but refitting it to support shopping, advertising and so on is no small work. Not to mention countless graphics, scenes and animations that need to be made from scratch for each project (to avoid complaints of copying stuff).
I maintain two virtual chat rooms. Even with everything else already done, simply creating one new scene takes about a week or more (I'm working on two new scenes for one of them right now, and there are two more scheduled for the other (though I won't be working on that, a co-worker will)).
To maintain a virtual shop, handle all security issues, customer complaints, presentations of new products... It's not like occasionally changing a banner on a web site, you'd need an almost constant team to handle all changes and updates. A shopping site, though still no easy task, represents only a fraction of complexity, but infinitely better usability and performance. A virtual shop is indeed appealing, but after that appeal and the novelty factor wear out you are at risk of frustrating the users and chasing them away. In most cases it's simply not worth the cost. |
