How much are the lindens pocketing?

Don't forget too how much a server costs and especially how SL keeps growing! Yes they are making $, but it is not as much as you guys think. Thankfully there capable of having lifetime accounts (basic) that do not cost more then a one time fee. There are few games that i even know of that do this! The changes have made the world different for ownership of land, but also look at the demand and drop in auction prices for land too. Be happy that SL gets better as time goes and not become weak.

This is part of their business plan? That's pretty agressive. I don't know very many people who have enough computing power and bandwidth to support a sim. Do you have any more information on this matter?

-Ansi

Actually, the computer you are playing SL on is probably better equipped than most of the sims, they just have to crunch numbers, not render graphics or sound.

> I don't know very many people who have enough computing power and bandwidth to support a sim. Do you have any more information on this matter?

You can lease a dedicated high-bandwidth server for about 120-200usd a month.

Of course, thats only fractionally cheaper than renting an island sim, which is why we dont feel that the Lindens are exactly rolling in cash; they're just scraping by.

By the way, something that's also part of what I'd call the "Business Model" is the whole vision for how the game runs. It's things like what kindof in-game development do we want to encourage? I guess technically thats not part of Business Model per se, but it's how I meant it.

> The genius of SL is it will get cheaper to run as time goes on [...] once SL gives people the ability to license the server software for their own boxes, the income will come flowing in like water

See, that would be a big change to the Business Model. Currently, hosting forms a *very* big part of their whole system. Andrew actually suggested a couple of months ago that if OSMP actually gets its act together (ie I stop playing Diablo ), the new business model for Linden could be to host OSMP. That doesnt point to a company looking to shift from centralized hosting to off-the-shelf software really shortly.

Azelda

Well, even with start-up costs, employee wages and benefits, ongoing expansions and maintainence and expansion costs, they must still be raking in a nice sum of cash. You have membership fees, tier fees and land auction purchases (nice bundle there) all coming in a very steady flow.

They're going to let other people host sims?

Well, their money-making isn't in sims, it's a small part of the deal. It will be in selling the game for $9.95 a month to joe or jane average who likes to log in, have a chat, go to parties and quizes.

Frankly, I think they should make a tightly controlled neighbourhood of houses and then sell them off to newbies. They could place items in them but only ones bought off a vendor (house decorations).. would basically be an online sim of the sims ...and people would feel all domestic and not annoyed at the giant robot next door or the 100m high lava fountain.. or whatever

Those accounts are where the money is at.. those of us here aren't them, we make stuff to keep them playing though

PC

You can pretty much calculate their revenue

~400 sims * 400 / month = 160K / month

Might want to add about 500 new users per month .. so 5K in client revenue. Would not be surprised if they did not go to free client model very soon.

Assuming they have roughly 20 employees, that's about 200K burn rate right their.

400 servers + bandwidth is probably costing another 40K / month (100 per server / month .. get a nice bulk rate I bet on 400 servers)

So they're probably losing about ~80K (75K w/ client revenue) / month.

My per sim average might be a bit off. Hard to say.

If you assume a 65K sim was filled with 512 parcels, then it would be 1280 per SIM.
If you assume one player ones the whole thing it's $200 per month.

My guess is the average is on the low side.


I think they need to expand to about 1000 sims before they're hitting break even. Which is why you see the explosion of new sims all the time Seems doable.

Very very back of the envelope.

Feel free to chime in with your guestimates.

Yeah if they are working in India. That number is so low its laughable....base salary is probably over a mil not including benefits.

I think you missed that I'm working in per month terms here.

200K / month = 10K / month / employee.

If you've got something nice to say, don't worry about being right. However, if you're going to criticize think very hard before doing so!

To end this discussion, LL is making a profit. Thats why they switched to the 1.2 form of land. 15 dollars a month wasnt enough for them to be making a return, so thats why we have the current land management tools.

Why do you think they're making a profit?

Or rather, cash flow positive (which is good) .. I like to work on a cash basis, small business owner mentality.

I really doubt they're making a profit according to accounting standards.

For what it's worth... the inworld directory lists 54 different Linden accounts. Some accounts are undoubtably used by more than one Linden for various purposes and some Lindens may have more than one account. All in all, I get the feeling that there are more than 20 employess as the number of of ingame Linden accounts has risen noticeably in the last few months. I've seen new Linden liasons inworld a few times recently.

I've worked in the industry.. and guys, I really doubt they have 20 people working for them full time. Dragon Empires had around 40 full time developers at one point, comprising animators, programmers and artists, and this was for a full-fat MMORPG, as one might say.

Compare this to SL
- no world builers (player created) (0 people)
- not many artists needed (mostly player created) (1 guy)
- maintenance programing and some bug fixes/features (maybe 2 guys)
- server setup (1 guy)
- no animators (contactors at start maybe)
- customer support (5 people?)
- management
- contractors

..well we should ask those who visited.. but 20 is way off I imagine.


All this is good because it means they're making money and it means we'll see SL2!

er.. second.. second life?

confused!

PC

The lindens have mentioned around 25-26 as their "employee number", so that's about right.

That's probably also including Philip and Robin. And philip probably doesn't have a paycheck, he's indepdendently wealthy, and this is his baby

Just conjecture, of course.

The only indication I have of the lindens NOT losing money is their constant upbeatness. If the company was going down the shitter, SOMEONE would know, and SOMEONE would leak it. Maybe a disgruntled employee, maybe someone fearing the end of SL, whatever. There's no rumors like that going around (half-credible, anyway).

Ergo, if the rumor mill is silent, and the company is happy, and alive, I would guess they're making money, or close to it

LF

1 server guy for 400 servers? As a previous chief architect for a dot com I find that a tad improbable. (Though impressive if true!)

I would say at least 2 server engineers, at least 5-6 engineers / artists. Probably at least 2 QA, that's 9-10 right there. Add management(3?), marketing(2?), customer service1, and administrative 2 and you got 18. Now add various consultants / part time / missed and you can easily get 20.

However, I think that is lower end estimate. I would not be surprised if the numbers were higher.

And have the seed venture capital companies' received any return on their investment yet?

Speculate as we will - at least the Grid is up each day.

I believe LL is privately held.

I figured they'd farm out a lot of the day-to-day admin of servers

I don't see where they are using artists and programmers mind.. That's our job!

PC

*rummages through Linden pockets*


Lint. Lots of lint.

Loss-leader and tax pool with excellent potential in a few years, once the product is defined and apps are identified. Entertainment is one thing; remember the educational and corporate initiatives that are off the consumer grid. Still an experiment, not profitable, but depending on the besides-entertainment initiatives, may be gaining predictably on the break-even point. Cost is way cheap; confidence still seems high at this point.

Making a profit, isn't the only way to be successful in business. Allot of companies purposely do not make a 'profit'. Instead of making profit, witch is taxed, they make a loss. How do they make a loss? one way is to reinvest. Ones a company is making a loss, their taxes change. By having less taxes to pay, the companie get to keep more of their money. from a long term perspective by re investing they will end up making more money per month. And when they finally do turn a 'profit' it's not taxed as profit till they 'break even from all their losses.'

lindon labs can make any where from 200 to 640 dollar a month on a sim, a month, in sim taxes. If there are 400 sims. They make some where between 80,000 - 256,000 in sim taxes a month. I don't know what land is going for these days, but last time I looked, each new sim was taking in at least 2,000. Some times allot more, expecially with hole sims, and or sims broken up into little peaces. If they add ten sims a month, that's at least 20,000 a month.

I wounder how meber ships fees fit into the equation.

so I would estimate around 220,000 a month. And if this continues ll stand to take in at least 2,640,000 in the next 12 months. That is with out counting in the bonus of subscription fees. Or new land added, and the land taxes the add land produces. But if they add 10 new sims a month for 12 months, and they make the maxium 640 in land taxes per new sim. that at 499,260 additional revinew in land taxes, and 240,000 in land deeds. Or ruffly 739,260. That would put their revenue for the next 12 months at 3,379,260. (2,640,000 + 739,260 = 3,379,260)

Of crose that's not taking into account any of their expensise.

They've only earned 9.95$ on me.

*grins*

So long as they make enough to keep the doors open and grow I don't really care.

My curiosity has always been in the technology, not so much how much money it can make - my (lack of) inworld business sense seems to mirror that

Guess I'm not wired that way.

Siggy.