[Archived - Unequal] Pay to be paid - New update

Posted by “FemmeDraven” on May 22, 2023.

First off, any creator who receives a cash payment from IMVU should also receive a statement at the end of the year showing what they paid in required membership fees as those would be considered a business expense and should be documented and confirmed by the company requiring the payment. Second, if membership is required for creators to receive cash payments why can't creators request ALL of their funds each month (or every two weeks) and why is there even a cap (MASA)? If IMVU is going to require all creators to pay membership fees in order to receive cash payments shouldn't creators require IMVU to give them ALL of their money each month? There is no other company out there that holds contract workers' funds hostage and doles it out in increments subject to changes in sales volume. If someone stops creating but continues to pay for VIP they should be receiving any income earned on a regular basis without having to request their own money and that income amount shouldn't be subject to change based on the creator's production. This whole pay situation with IMVU would be like a realtor selling a home one month but the broker telling them they're only getting half of their money from that sale because they didn't sell anything the following month. Um, no, that's not how it works and I'm surprised IMVU has gotten away with it for this long.

Posted by “FemmeDraven” on May 21, 2023.

I knew they'd end up doing this. Saw it coming and everyone was all, "Oh no, that'll never happen." Well, here we are. Why would anyone think IMVU wouldn't go back on their word when they've shown us over and over again creators mean nothing to them? All they care about are the noobs who click on all the ads because those ads generate bigger chunks of revenue but they eventually die out and I'm sure that's what's happening and their bottom line is shrinking so now they're gonna make creators pay just to get their earnings. I've stopped creating unless it's something I want and I only renew VIP if I wanna make something and I buy a gift card so they can't bill my credit card every month. What a waste of 10+ years this has been. The one good thing is the friendships I've developed and those will continue at SL where we've all been learning our way around for the past 6 months, in preparation for the demise of IMVU.

Posted by “Nums” on May 21, 2023.

Hard to blame people who don't use IMVU Beta. The interface is still incredibly bad and frustrating to use. I don't know what they're waiting for when it comes to updating and fixing the issues with it. Maybe like you said, it's already abandoned.

Posted by “Sylaraia” on May 21, 2023.

I'll give you the trends issue. I honestly don't know about IMVU+ because I don't use it. I haven't heard hardly anything positive about it and it seems like IMVU did what they always do with a project - get 75% of the way there, see something shiny somewhere else, and forevermore abandon it. I'd have to see the statistics on who is using what, since in my orbit everyone is using the old client.

Posted by “TheForsakenDead” on May 21, 2023.

Funny enough, a lot of those super stars are furious about this change!

Posted by “TheForsakenDead” on May 21, 2023.

I think if you make a request before the change it'll be paid out. Unless you mean something else then ignore me.

Posted by “AThousandTales” on May 21, 2023.

I have legacy VIP, am grandfathered in and am set to earn cash, but I do not believe I got the message. There is a slight chance I overlooked it, because I do have a habit of deleting all of IMVU's spam messages (like offers I don't want), though I doubt it.

Posted by “MissMaya” on May 21, 2023.

That's not true. I have gold VIP and got the message on both accounts. It may have something to do with your earning distribution however. If you are set to earn cash, you definitely get the message.

Posted by “MissMaya” on May 21, 2023.

@Sylaraia​ That would be true if we didn't take into account two main factors. First of all trend. Fashion is ever changing and we struggle to keep up, there is always new demand for older fashions (Y2k) but in new and improved bodies, etc.

Second of all, the new effects. IMVU does not have nearly enough new products with updated bodies and meshes with IMVU+ effects for new generation platforms... Now more than ever, creators are needed or the software development team won't have anyone to keep creating items using studio and all the bells and whistles.

Posted by “TheForsakenDead” on May 21, 2023.

If you have VIP at all - even grandfathered in, you won't get this message. My bestie has GOLD VIP and didn't but my partner and I did get it and we don't have VIP at all

Posted by “TheForsakenDead” on May 21, 2023.

This is not true. It does not take your grandfathered status away - I have friends who are grandfathered and did VIP For a bit and then got rid of it because they couldn't afford it. They are still grandfathered in. They even confirmed in this post if you stop paying for VIP You can still create you just can't get cash pay outs.

Posted by “Sylaraia” on May 21, 2023.

Hmmm. I disagree. Your average IMVUian doesn't have the eye for detail that we do. I've encountered this when I cleaned carpets for a living and I was also a picture framer. The average Joe/Jill Shmoe just doesn't notice what we do. Now, if you take into account what a mess shopping is in the catalog, yeah, I get closer to your position. But numerically, I think you'll find that the majority is going to find what they want and be satisfied. That just leaves a miniscule number of creators they actually need for their promotional gifts, and frankly, that's just a lucky/talented few of us. And by us, I discount me. My texturing has improved significantly since I began, but it's still nowhere near real-internet professional. :)

Posted by “MRxGQxFUTURISTIKxKG” on May 21, 2023.

I do not 100% agree that they have enough products if we talking about quality products to satisfy a user. For one IMVU is so far behind with they virtual world platform that most people as of today that join IMVU with the other competing virtual platforms. Abandons their account. Things are out of date and the shop is flooded with name brand stuff and low quality work. There not many creators here that know materials that well because 3d texture feature is new with the studio. I do 3d texture art for secondlife. I will not waste my hard time with that kind of work on here to pay vip to earn cash. Nor can they afford me as a creator with that kind of skill set. That's the whole point here they cant afford the creators here. But they want us to make material enable products for free! I think not.

Posted by “Sylaraia” on May 20, 2023.

What's a creator advocate going to do? Get a predit bounced off their nose and be told to be thankful they allow us to create on their platform? Take a look at the catalog numbers. Even if half of those sixty million products are disabled, hidden, set to display only, or otherwise not available, IMVU has enough product to satisfy any new users for probably well over a decade. We could all stop creating tomorrow and they'd just pop the champagne corks to celebrate that they finally got rid of those pesky payouts to the holdouts amongst professional creators. We should have formed a guild fifteen years ago and used that power to leverage our power. That ship not only already sailed, though, it sailed to Mars on Musk's rocket.

I've been at this for a decade and a half and this is only the latest of dozens of outrages the had the community up in arms. What happened in the past that never worked? Here's a short list:

1. Creators threatening to sabotage their own catalogs, effectively punishing their customers in order to put a thumb in the eye of IMVU.
2. Creators threatening to close up shop permanently, as in retire, and deny themselves their income rather than just letting their shop still generate income while they found a better platform. I suspect this move on IMVU's part is to try and get those people who did move on but kept their shops alive to give up the ghost in disgust.
3. My favorite - online petitions! Because corporations are democracies - oh, wait, they're not.
4. Threatening something I can't disclose in the forums without having my account instantly banned, but would be the likely most effective course of action. That is, of course, if you can afford it. Needless to say, those creators were banned permanently.

I'm sorry, but if we had a creator advocate, it'd just be a symbolic position opened up again just to mollify us. That person would quickly come to find out that they're powerless before the corporation. The most they would be able to do is give input if IMVU decides to go back to working on the creating programs (arguably useful, but not what is being sought here).

Posted by “MRxGQxFUTURISTIKxKG” on May 20, 2023.

It's most likely going be null and void at the cut off. That what they did when they started the creator payment program with masa to all the grandfathers accounts. Left us with millions of credits we can never cash out. IMVU is really good at not paying us. So with the switch over with masa in place a lot are going lose money again. They really have not learn since they been losing users and creators. Perhaps they figure it out when this site is empty. My account is a cash account only. I do not play IMVU and I have way more then enough dev token to create with. Also the security of protecting are products are very poor they only just monitor who stealing but they do not invest in upgrading their software to prevent the hacking and stealing of people products. The value of cashing out credits need to be raised too. It's just really hard for me to accept this direction they going in. After being a creator on secondlife for few years. My standards on what I will accept from IMVU has raised the bar high for me. After not experiencing what IMVU do to their creators on this platform. I will have to agree with most of the creators this is not acceptable. I pay for a subscription on secondlife. But with that I get perks that Is useful to me as a creator. One of them is zero on upload fee for my images. But even with out that perk upload for images is only 10 lindens which would be like paying 10 credits. Profit taken from market sales is only 10 lindens which is like paying only 10 credits. There is no need over there to use creators income as a backbone to keep their platform stable. So now I know it can be done and that IMVU just do not care and rather take all are money and give us nothing in return. I will not accept the vip movement ever. I will cont to watch more creators leave this platform and more users follow their fav creators till there no one left but children who cant even afford your VIP packages too. The sit on this platform all day long spamming messages to adults begging for gifts and credits. This is what the IMVU experience has become now.