Rocket City Mall to Close

Rocket City is a furry community in Second Life noted for two things. One is it's connection to the Rocket City Furmeet, a Fantasy con that meets every year in Alabama every Memorial Day Weekend. When I first came to the place in 2007, the place had a recreation of the hotel the conventioneers met at. But it was removed in 2009, and the land became much more forest and ground. The second thing is it's avatar mall (or dealer's den as they're sometimes called) named the Vendor Jungle. It is owned by Koterie Itoku, and is located on a large skybox. Before 2009, the shopping mall was accessible from the Rocket City motel lobby, and resembled a higher floor. It currently looks much like the title suggests, in the middle of a jungle. It offers a wide selection of avatars from a number of companies, in addition to accessories, and all products have to conform to the PG rating standards of the community.

However, the mall will not be around for much longer. There was an announcement that at the end of March, the mall and it's vendors will be taken down.

Hi everyone. The time has come to make a difficult decision that we've seen coming, but have been putting off for a few years now. Our Vendor Jungle will be closing at the end of March, 2014. Please, please, please do not get upset at Koterie. She has worked many long and hard hours for years to keep the Vendor Jungle going. The Vendor Jungle would have been closed several years ago if it wasn't for her efforts, and I owe her a lot of gratitude for all the hard work she put into it.

To answer the question you are most likely thinking right now, Rocket City itself (the region) is not going anywhere for now. There was a brief period of time around 2007 when the Vendor Jungle did fund 100% of the costs of our sim, but it didn't last long. The percentage of what its funded has decreased by a huge amount over the years. I'm not sure what the percentage it's at today, because, to be honest, I haven't looked in a few months. I just didn't want to know. (In essence, we have been paying almost the entire cost of the sim out of our pockets for a while anyhow.)

While there is another furry avatar shopping mall, Northstar, it has a number of adult-oriented products that may intimidate some shoppers. Whether another PG rated avatar mall will come to take Rocket City's place remains to be seen.

Bixyl Shuftan