IMVU Fails Miserably, Worst Community Eva’
Recently a reference to Ashne Chung’s success selling content in IMVU perked my curiosity. I had heard other things that IMVU seems to get right as a platform and technically impression is they do many things very right. But they do one thing horribly wrong.
IMVU attracts the worst community possible.
Don’t believe me? Below is the unedited (beware, not PG) transcript of my first experience having gone through the tutorial and reached the ‘chat with someone’ step. This step quite randomly selects someone and quite discretely teleports the person’s avatar into your space if they accept, which despite her aversion to helping me, sexybabyii* decided to do. She knew little more than I.
[* I am leaving the extremely unsexy sexybabyii's name in the chat log because frankly I don't care if it is a violation of IMVU's terms of service.]
Hopefully this will serve as an example of why controlled, mentored first virtual world experiences are so critical to any virtual world–especially those for business or education. IMVU misses this mark big time. Second Life at least tries to get it right and has committed volunteers helping. Entropia does one better and builds incentive into mentoring others. IMVU surprises unwilling random avatars with noobie ‘chat with someone’ tutorial step fulfillment, such a mistake.
I wish I had screenshots to go with this. Guest_sexybabyii is in the skimpiest wannabe cheerleader outfit. Still there was nothing attractive about this person, who just might find me here somehow and confirm my argument for anonymity. She insists I TPed into her place, but in the end she discovered she had been TPed to mine. Again, if chat speak and swear words aren’t your thing, just trust me and skip it:
Guest_sexybabyiii has joined the chat
imohax: hey, sorry, just doing the tutorial
imohax: thanks for helping out
Guest_sexybabyiii: ur ugly leave
Guest_sexybabyiii: i iddient help u
imohax: you have no idea honey
Guest_sexybabyiii: at all
Guest_sexybabyiii: leave now thnx
imohax: and thanks for confirming my suspicioun that second life community and people are sooo much better
imohax: this is my place i think, no?
Guest_sexybabyiii: bye bye
Guest_sexybabyiii: its mine go go
Guest_sexybabyiii: leave this chat with me and u plz
Guest_sexybabyiii: thnxs bye bye
Guest_sexybabyiii: plz fgo
[huge pause while imohax figures it out]
Guest_sexybabyiii tackles imohax
imohax: nah
Guest_sexybabyiii: wat the fuck ogo
Guest_sexybabyiii kicks imohax between the legs
Guest_sexybabyiii: haha
Guest_sexybabyiii: go go ogo gogogogogogogogogogogogogogoogogogoggogogooggogogooooooooooooooooooooooooooogggggggggggggoooooooooooooggg
imohax: sorry where you doing something, had you minimized, enjoy your day
Guest_sexybabyiii: u go
Guest_sexybabyiii: plz
imohax: ya know “not so sexy” if you would help me maybe i would be able to figure out how
Guest_sexybabyiii has left the chat
imohax: there we go
Now after that warm fuzzy experience I will take SL random griefing anyday. My greatest regret is that I wasted $8 to get the Guest_ off my name. I won’t be returning unless someone of quality that I have met through twitter, Facebook, or SL has something interesting to do in IMVU, which I seriously doubt.
Friends don’t let friends do IMVU.
January 22, 2009 at 11:36 am
Hahahaha! Oh my god, it made me think of: http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/mental%20german%20kid.jpg
January 22, 2009 at 11:56 am
Doh. The scary part is that Linden labs is seriously considering merging the grids, which I actually agree with so long as the on-boarding and initial login is a controlled, mentored experience focused on community and there is some way for mature individuals (notice I did not say adults) to find one another and avoid the rest.
January 23, 2009 at 8:22 am
HI imohax, thanks for leaving me your blog on this subject. If you have managed to get up the nerve (lol) to return to IMVU, You would have read what I experienced in my first visit to a group chat room. The experience has left me less than enthused about visiting another one. This experience is what prompted me to seek out people in my own age group, and state. Hoping like you, to find someone normal to talk to.
January 23, 2009 at 9:53 am
Someone wonderfully sane and mature it seems exists on IMVU!
Kidding of course, I am sure there are many wonderful people there just hard to find, which, in fairness, is still hard in any world. I look forward to meeting you Andersgirl.
My biggest gripe with IMVU is springing people in on one another without knowing what is going on and without any attempt to match their interests. This just demonstrated the value of community based sims and grids such as the ReactionGrid OpenSim grid as well as specific Second Life sims.
January 24, 2009 at 2:13 pm
hello mo hax. Can you contact me please? I couldn’t find your email on the site
AIM:cheezcola
email: ammarcola@gmail.com
January 28, 2009 at 2:15 pm
every coin has 2 sides ,ok so lets flip this coin shall we ,first anything new and unfamiliar takes more than 5 min to learn how to manuever smoothly,2)a program that spans 5 continents is bound to have the good the bad and the ugly,random chat now if u read the information available to you there are settings most everything has them amazing huh,1 of which lets u turn off chat now which most do after there first usually unsettling experience,then you can search by age,country,sex,or interests or simply explore a little browsing home pages not unlike myspace ect leave message to those you may like to chat with acess pass age verified over 18 yr old which yes can include R+ rated behavior and language or gp general pass all ages no nudity possiable language well can you moniter vulgar people anywhere but you are free to click chat window closed anytime and anything spanning 5 continents your going to find full spectrum of personalitys behavior morals and views.IMVU is both a blessing and a curse as is the world ,you have no idea how many on imvu are handicapped,disabled dying have limitations for them they can walk dance talk and even experience intimate physical activities destract them from there pain fear isolation transport them to beaches citys planes ships anywhere do anything you can imagine they are healthy fit whole alive now isnt that a blessing if even for just a while and even though and you tell me a place you wont yes you find many mean shallow selfish peverted dillusional dysfunctional harmful people also .you have to use your own judgement on people you choose to or not to interact with thats just life,but for the countless people it affords a little quality of life in there short time left make it benificial program and worth exercizing our good judgement deal with the occasional bad experience so many can experience the things we take for granted would you deny this to those who without this program could not be possiable,things are private in rooms not people watching people having sex in the open as with secondlife and other 3D chats and bottom line if you dont like it simply click off!
January 29, 2009 at 9:40 am
Thanks Angelita, you are completely right. I was wrong to characterize the whole community on IMVU based on one very bad experience. Had I done the same for SL or Entropia I would equally have been wrong.
The point I failed to make–mostly because my virtual IMVU body was still in pain and humiliation from that experience–is that IMVU fails to promote the right community connections and mentoring during its critical first-try phase.
IMVU fails to provide any community/mentor support to newcomers. It does the opposite, it throws unsuspecting users in front of a newbie inadvertently asking for help because of what the Tutorial step requires.
Thank you for helping me realize that my characterization of the whole community based on one experience was just dead wrong. I completely agree that 1 in 45,000 is no indication of the people. Several have since offered friendship that I would consider peers rather than chat-speaking meanies.
And, hey, I virtually ‘grew up’ in Second Life so I am familiar with the you get what you seek, seek what you like, forget the rest mantra. One of the things that IMVU does really well, as you point out is provide configurable content and community filtering. It is like a suped-up mute button. I really liked that feature and thing SL will need it–especially if they are merging the teen and grown-up grids. Can you imagine if you could turn off displaying nudity in SL? What a great addition to business context sims?
Thanks so much for your perspective, Angelita.
February 19, 2009 at 1:59 am
Oddly enough I had exactly the opposite experience entering IMVU…sounds like i was one of the lucky ones. Though I have known my share of not so pleasant encounters since then. I gotta say that yours was…lovely…
Thats a good example of why I don’t private chat with people I don’t already know.
February 19, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Yes Dani, just wish I had had the option. They throw two random people together to pass that chat tutorial step. That is the real gripe. Honestly, I have not been back and have no desire to. So much still happening with Second Life and OpenSim. Unparalleled creative expression in SL, IMVU can’t even come close to that.
March 1, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Well try having one of the “curvy” avatars that have a little meat on them like I “bought”..remember how mean kids were in elementary school? Well, multiply that by 50. Luckily I have razor sharp wit and equally hateful come-backs for these little bastards.
I’ve already spent $20 on IMVU and am thinking of stopping..everybody in there is so CHILDISH..I’m still debating.
March 25, 2009 at 8:20 am
Just got an email from a nice person trying to convince me to give it a try again. But after attending things like Pooky’s 1st Question (thanks Bevan for the suggestion) I just cannot see IMVU ever coming close to that kind of fun, informative experience. No lack of silly there, but mixed with really intelligent, really informed, real people.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy meeting people of all styles, classes, races, species and educational backgrounds. Helped one new guy yesterday with his friends that many would find hard to even talk to. But reserving judgment, everyone deserves a helping hand. By the way, lady avatars, you have a unique opportunity to guide those lead-tongued cretins toward becoming better than they are–especially if they are trying to be nice no matter how badly they fail.
September 27, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Bahahahaha just another “Noob” on imvu xD.No seriously it doesn’t fails.It’s just cause the noobs over there come there for virtual pleasure coughsexcough xD.Other then that,other people on imvu aren’t that “non-polite?”Oh and,dont click on chat now button.. Thats where those persons(like that sexybabyy girl)are.. Now the stupid thing that you did its cause you spent your REAL MONEY on imvu for not having Guest_ in your nickname.Once again DONT DO CHAT NOW BUTTON and everything will be OK
!OR if you have to.. then “talk” to “noob” for a little,and when you get credits leave SIMPLE AS THAT!
November 12, 2009 at 1:14 am
well your dumb as fucking hell then..
1) you dont randomly private chat people and expect them to answer or even be nice for that matter because everyone is wary of hackers and this mostly takes place in private chats, you join public rooms and make friends there, NOBODY likes guests_ and its always been like that and it will never change.. default avis are UGLY!
2) dont ever compare IMVU to second life IMVU is obviously much better, gaia online’s got the immature little kid community but lots of fun activity, second life has nothing to offer its a simulator where you cant really travel anywhere without accidently trespassing on someone elses property/parcel and getting 15 seconds to leave otherwise eject/ban, random bastards walk around with their fucking dicks out and no clothes saying hi to every chick they see, i swear 80% of the SL players only play SL to have virtual sex or cybering its so stupid.. 10% run businesses and dont sell anything because the game is fucking dead, the other 10% are new players that dont play for longer than a week.
3) IMVU fails to provide and community/mentor support to new players? name a fucking employee with the last name Linden that actually helps the players in SL.. thats right NONE OF THEM DO all they want is money for virtual land/tier they dont care about nobody
i can understand your frustration about being new to IMVU but dont bash the game or even compare it to second life which is even worst biggest epic fail peice of shit engine i ever seen even greenlife emerald viewer and modular systems are getting sued by these linden bastards for stupid reasons but like i said all they want is money.
November 12, 2009 at 2:52 am
imvurocks, I need not say anything more. I did not random chat someone. I was doing what the start up tutorial required. I never had a guest_ name, that was the other person, not me. I will continue to compare IMVU to whatever I feel like.
Mostly, your comment could not prove my point more. Stay away from IMVU.
November 28, 2009 at 10:48 am
Uhm, Chat Now is not the best way to find normal people in Imvu, darling. In IMVU, there’s a lot of SMART people in a lot of age groups. Believe me, using random chats is not the best way to find them. There is alot of Public Rooms, where you can actually have a normal conversation. I was using Imvu for a long time, I can’t stand childish people, but SOMEHOW I found a lot of nice and intelligent persons with attitude. :] If you couldn’t find some, thats yours, not Imvu’s problem. I just can’t stand people who make conclusion from one chat. There’s a lot of retarded people in real life. But you do not create a post after you meet one in the street?
November 28, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Kristina, you missed the entire point of my post, which is that I AGREE with you. The tutorial or whatever that they give you at the start throws you into situations anyone with any virtual worlds experience would NOT do, such as random solicited chat with strangers who don’t know enough not to accept. I did not have a choice.
I agree there are likely great people there, met one after the fact who read my post and was nice about it.
As for it being my problem not finding good people? Well, in this case it was entirely IMVU’s problem, not mine. I followed their tutorial which is setup to encourage random chat with unsuspecting residents without any ability to self-filter. Believe me, being in SL for three years I’ve learned how to find fantastic people. I’m sure I could have in IMVU also had my initial, planned experience not been so horrendous. I know people have similar experiences with SL as well, which is always a shame.
I suppose I should give IMVU another chance, but based just on the comments on this blog there is no way I ever will. Somehow I don’t feel I will be missed.
March 7, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Hi, my names Terra. I recently read the chat you had with that person on IMVU. I know i’m late, but I would just like to say, everyone on IMVU is not like that. I know a lot of people on there, and none of them are like that. I get were your comming from, but you only talked to her, and didnt take the time to talk to anyone else. I have a SL and some were mean and some were nice, but SL really slowed my computer down, and IMVU didn’t. So that’s all I have to say.