SionCorn? Sion-Ara!

{ August 9, 2009 @ 8:23 pm } · { Business }
{ Tags: Business, Second Life, sion chickens, sion zaius, sionchickens, SionCorn, SL, Virtual reality }

The thing about the SionCorn, which was initially lauded as this savior of Chicken breeders everywhere in that it was allegedly going to save them a few of their hard earned dollar seems to have turned much of the community on it’s ear! The SionCorn itself is quite expensive in the long run – don’t be fooled! After the purchase of the starter kit ($L 495) and then the ongoing maintenance costs such as the Sprinkler (Which is said to be optional, but unless you want to run to the ocean once every hour around the clock to fill your bucket with water to nourish your corn, the Sprinkler is actually mandatory. And that’s another $L  495 – per refill.) On top of that, you have to make sure you buy your CobServers, which work like the proteggtors, otherwise you can’t store or sell your corn when it matures.

And when it matures, what do you do? Well, it is a bit shrouded in Mystery since it will be a few weeks before anyone needs to find out. Apparently you have to take it to a centralized location with a machine that processes the corn cobs you harvest in preparation for use or sale. I don’t have a lot of information on it, and couldn’t come by it easily, and upon asking a lot of people seemed dumbfounded as to what to do in the end-game of corn farming. Will it cost more money? Who knows, but if it follow’s Sion Zaius’s business model, you betcha!

And lets talk about how long it takes for the corn to mature – that is until it actually does you any good.

30 Days from planting. 4 weeks between harvests. And it is rumored that each cob only gives you 60 feeds – that’s LESS than one normal feeder bowl! Not to mention one stalk of Corn is 15 or 16 Prims, which is double that of an adult chicken.  The prim requirements alone make growing corn, for most folks anyhow, out of the question. Especially if one stalk of Corn barely produces as much as a simple feed bowl you can purchase directly from Sion’s Vendors. No fertilizing required!

I was just as excited as the next Chicken Fanatic (And I admit it! I am! I think they’re wonderful!) but when the details – much of were not provided in the notecard with delivery – began pouring out from the community, I was really disappointed. Now, the concept of growing your own food is as ingenious as the initial chicken farming itself, and Sion has yet again pioneered a brand new industry for a product, which is as admirable as it is fascinating to watch develop! But unfortunately, as it stand currently, there seem to be no benefits to the farmer at all.

You don’t save money, you still have to buy food between 30 day harvests, the prims usage can be overwhelming, and the corn itself requires ongoing monetary maintenance, as much as the chickens themselves, if not more – especially for those both breeding AND growing a crop! And lets face it, growing one stalk of corn would be a waste of your time, effort and money with little return.

There are a shocking amount of people who have sold off their entire farm, chickens and all, to invest in corn since the breeding/buyer market for chickens and eggs is so overly saturated. Eggs aren’t moving off shelves even at the lowest prices, Scarces are becoming less scarce by the day, Ancients are commonplace now, and the competition is fierce. The Breeders who were once at the top of the chain, selling their wares to the public have found that the public has left the equation, and now they are the ones being sold too. It’s the Breeders of Chickens who are now the target demographic for sellers, and they’re being sold booth spaces, Chicken paraphernalia, plots on “chicken friendly” sims, tools for packaging eggs, you name it, there is somebody marketing to the throngs of breeders, and making a pretty penny doing so!

This realization has caused a lot of breeders to Chuck their Chickens thinking they’ll save money and jump on board this bandwagon hoping to sell current and future Breeders SionCorn to turn a profit. And that may work, but it will have to have a considerable return to turn that profit, and crops will always have to be in rotation unless you want a couple of cobs on the market just once a month. And you’ll be having to compete with Sion himself who has no overhead cost and continues to sell bowls and breeder feeders. To make anything off your corn, you’ll have to sell more or as much as Sion, but for less. Otherwise, people will do just that, continue buying their feed from a Sion Vendor.

One incentive provided to feeding chickens SionCorn is the chance to have your Chickens lay a Not-Yet-Discovered “Secret Breed” of rare chicken eggs. These Eggs can only be laid by a Chicken fed a certain variation of SionCorn. That’s a great marketing tool to get people to give the SionCorn a swing, but is it enough, especially since many won’t ever possess this rare undiscovered?

The upside to the legions of people leaving the Chicken industry for the Corn Farming industry is that it reduces the amount of people churning out more unwanted, unoriginal eggs that are plaguing marketplaces across the grid in limitless supply. Now, obviously when they realize how much money they are spending to compete with the maker, a lot of folks may just throw in the towel altogether. Especially as more and more unaware hopefuls begin trying their hand in corn and become as plentiful in numbers as Chicken Breeders themselves.

I’d like to have some Corn Farmer’s share their experiences in management so far. Obviously it’s too early to hear testimonies on harvests given that 30 days have not passed since it’s release, but if I have learned one thing on this great adventure it is that the community is full of great minds and they make it work with minimal information provided as far as what to expect.

There is a group Sion has founded for SionCorn growers called “SionCorn Official” for questions and information. And, again, in my experience, there is no shortage of kind, thoughtful, and considerate people willing to help.