Conference Call with Land Owners

Recently we asked 20 people, chosen at random from a list of the largest land owners in Second Life, to participate in a conference call about owning land. Four actually called in. We talked about why they own land, ideas and concerns about the auction process, and general issues about land. Many thanks to those who participated!

Following are notes from this conversation. If you have anything you'd like to add, please feel free to add your comments here.

Given how few people actually ended up participating, I think next time we'll move our conference in-world. It appears SL is a better place for communication than the phone system!

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November 17, 2004: Conference call - land owners
Randomly chose 20 out of top 100; 10 agreed to call in, only 4 actually did, plus one email response.


General land use
Three out of four have traded currency. One claims that he was able to work his way up without investing $US until very recently.

One created clubs and a shopping center to try to make some money to cover his land costs. (Events as bribes to cover costs.) Someone else mentioned that they got into the reselling business in order to cover their land tier. One person claimed they made more than enough money to cover their land tier.

Bought most of one sim by trading land with local landowners. He felt pressure to stay in the Most Popular places so that his project would have good attendance.

The influx of land in August was annoying; I bought high.

A couple of people felt that seeing 30 sims come on at once brings down demand since the buyer knows that they don't have bid on the current parcels for auction, there will be more tomorrow.

One resell process - parcels and sets land for sale, and much is bought immediately without customer contact. Then as those areas are built up, he gets Ims from people wanting a price break on a particular remaining parcel and he negotiates and then flies out and sets the land for sale to them.

A couple of people noted that after residents buy one plot of land in a sim, many of them will want to expand in the same sim. That’s why one reseller liked being next to First Land plots.

One person thought that many people buy more land than they can afford to pay monthly costs on and wind up reselling some of it.

I own land to build on primarily. Most of my land holdings are in xx, which is 'homebase' for me. When I first joined SL, I bought some land in xx (I think it was) and within 2 weeks found a nice, water front parcel in xx. That was in late Sept. of '03, and I've stayed there ever since. I use this land to house my castle and the new xx, plus full-size model homes of the houses I sell.

I use the land in various ways... to build on, to acquire additional prims. My goal is to acquire as much of xx as possible. Right now, LL and I are the two largest holders. I have been slowly acquiring more land from my neighbors with a right to first buy-back option. If I ever sell/move, my old neighbors will be given the option to buy thier old land back before I'd put it on the general market.

Auctions and selling
A couple of people think the auctions are weak because not enough people bid. They mentioned two factors, that the auctions are not in-world and the fact that bidders get discouraged when they are beat by resellers.

One person asked for a escrow feature that allowed people to agree on trade parcels of land so that they wouldn't have to trust each other.

In response to the idea of Linden selling land in world through a reverse auction, a couple of people liked the idea. One suggested that he would wait until residents bought a few plots and then buy up the rest of the sim and sell them to the settlers as they decided to expand.

A couple of people felt that it was unfair for the Private Islands to cost less than a mainland sim sells for but to have more features plus a telehub. They asked for more control on mainland sims owned by one person.

Asked for the ability to bid on land that was not for sale

I don't buy land for resale. I buy land I intend to keep.

Have not used the auctions. I don't bother, as I'd rather not compete with the few major land dealers out there.

Allowing the value to be set by the market is fair. Like the idea of special pricing for first-time buyers as a means of helping them to get a foothold in becoming a land owner. Don't see any need for intervention on pricing fluxuations by LL.

I've heard people complaining about lack of forewarning to the top land owners when LL releases land and the need for LL to set a target land price. I disagree with both of those ideas. To me, it reeks of what would be considered insider trading if it were in a RL situation. The market will dictate pricing and I think it's been doing pretty well. I feel that the only people these suggestions will really have any impact on are those that make thier living in dealing land.

Possibly, LL should consider something that monitors the % of land for sale, and when it drops below a pre-determined %, LL should release more sims. This might be some way to add the sought after stability without having too much involvment from LL.

Land design
One or two disliked Linden land in the sims, especially roads. Diagonal roads make it hard to create square parcels. One was ambivelent about Linden protected areas, didn't like the areas in the middle of the sim but loved being protected from neighbors. One had an interesting idea of Linden creating corridors of protected land around the sim or around larger plots.

Perfect plot= no neighbors, flatish on a hill or by water and square

Linden land that borders someone's land should be terraformable by a resident so it blends better

Differing opinions about the value of first land: First land is valuable on a per sim basis because those people are usually looking to expand. First land on a per sim basis is not valuable because those areas usually become very ugly

One expressed preference for the 'old' sims with greater terraforming capabilities over the newer sims.

Thanks for the summary, Robin! Very enlightening.

Thanks for posting this Robin! Very interesting.

Yes thank you Robin.

This is a great idea, however it does paint LL into a bit of a corner if they need to change strategies.

I think a better idea is just to let us know what LL intends on doing in the next 3 months.. So if not a target price, then a target % of land to be for sale.

And the issue isn't what is or isnt good for land sellers. The issue is what's coming down the pipe for everyone. You can't plan anything, even if it is just to plan to exit the land baron business, if you don't know what's going on.

Very interesting Robin. Interesting, much as it's interesting to read about Halliburton and Exxon/Mobil being consulted on national energy policy; about Walmart and Citibank on economic policy; about Pfizer and Ely Lilly on drug regulations.

Interesting, but not very enlightening or helpful to the rest of us.

Not all of the top land-holders are land dealers. Some of them use the land for personal/group projects, so in those cases the reference to those large corporations falls a little flat, as land is not thier product.

Not all the companies I listed fall into the "hated" category either. My point stands - it's a case of trying to take the pulse of a situation by talking only to the biggest players.

I think it's important to try to talk with everyone, including sometimes with the people who use something most frequently. We've done town hall meetings in the past where we've talked about land, and we've done surveys on the subject as well. In both these cases anyone was welcome to participate.

In this particular case we wanted to talk with people who have been most active in the land market, either as land holders or as commercial sellers. As you can see, the response was very small, so I wouldn't assume this is representative, nor will we make any changes specifically as a result. That said, land and land sales are critical to Second Life, and there were lots of interesting ideas, and some very valid issues raised. I thought everyone would be intrigued, and might want to add their own ideas. This forum seems like one way to do that.

As we continue to grow, we'll be looking for other ways to get feedback from anyone who wants to give it, anyway you want to send it! I'm committed to finding ways to give anyone who wants one a voice. So please feel free to send me an email, a private message, or an IM in-world, or post here.

Robin I understand why you polled these ppl they spend the most money. I think it should also be noted however some of them are the most hated players in SL. So does that make their opinions less valid? I doubt it. I think its a very fine line to pick out one group of players over another. IMO. I just dont see it doing anything but glorify and validating what they have done in the past. Which is no secret that I disagree with how they do business and I disagree with LL backing them. Such as Cory talking about how the 10% over auction isn't much and now by your poll with the same group of ppl. That and you said "commercial purposes" eww.

I think you did very well at walking that fine line, good job.

Cat

I wish I had been invited, as do a lot of other large land holders. Maybe they can do more of these in the future.

I apologize, Robin. I did find this information interesting, but let my hatred of the current land system overflow onto you.

I also wish I had been invited for this. I am not one of the really big land owners (not exactly small either... I am the largest land holder of Abbotts Aerodrome now), but as some people know I am very active in the overall commercial aspect of SL and these issues are very interesting to me.


I agree that this would be nice to have, as I do have a 10-meter-long "problem spot" where the land doesn't blend correctly (it didn't blend correctly before I tried terraforming either) that would be nice to have smoothed out. However, I cannot fathom how this could be done without human intervention for each modification.


I also agree that "at market" without restrictions is the best way to sell land, and I believe the ability to search and bid on auctions from within the SL client would duly eradicate most of the issues people have with the land auction system.

The idea of a reverse auction is intriguing. I would enjoy seeing how a test run of that turns out.

I'm a newb, not a large land owner, and I wouldn't even want to be a reseller, but one question I have is why aren't more people jumping into the auctions and competing with these so-called "land barons"? OK, so you might get outbid, but you also kept them from buying low.
Given that first land costs $L 1 per sq meter, paying $L 6-8 per m2 doesn't sound very high to me. And many places are even cheaper than that.

Unless there are technical issues I'm not aware of, a lot of the complaining I have heard of seems really anti-commerce/socialist to me. Maybe it's historical, remembering the "good old days" when everything was easy.
Trust me, a highly regulated game economy will turn into social warfare really quickly. Especially if the population jumps.

There are many of us who have quietly and with patience increased our land tier until we have at least achieved the $195 month full sim tier even tho we are prevented from owning more of our home sim by odd and unused left over parcels of Linden land that are full of left over junk that despite asking, the lindens wont even move, change, put back into order or even let us tidy ourselves.

Often these paths and bits in poor condition run right through land we now pay for.

I dont think many people like myself who ' look after' and enrich and shape and build and preserve land, and strive to enhance a sim in unity are at all the same as the many land trading buying and selling ' baron' names that probably were the ones who were interviewed. If you spoke to me ( or anyone who knows me) about my land holding and i now pay the $195 month.... and plan to add more... you would get a different picture of how i respect and use SL land.

Until you speak to people who are not just land traders but land preservers, stewards even, who preserve and enhance land not just use it for money making, you wont get full picture. Yet we often pay a great deal to LL. You should speak to the SL parks people and such like also not just the big land dealer traders who make tje most movement. Some of us buy land and never sell it for the benefit of sims entirely

They did. Not all of them were land dealers/barons. There are many large land-holders who share similar views as yours... and I'm pretty sure they were expressed.

Cat, I think why "these people" were polled was not the money spent monthly but, the time that it take to be successful in the land game. "These People" spend alot of there game time researching trends and buying habits. So, it seems to me to be the logical source to tap. Good job on the part of LL to look at this from a logical point.

It is a problem though that requires a certain degree of constant monitoring not to let some voices become more important than others.

I think LL is generally aware of this though... so hopefully it won't be a problem.

make a blanket statement get jumped on, make a direct reference get banned in the forums. I can't win this one.

"Robin I understand why you polled these ppl they spend the most money. I think it should also be noted however some of them are the most hated players in SL. So does that make their opinions less valid? I doubt it. I think its a very fine line to pick out one group of players over another. IMO. I just dont see it doing anything but glorify and validating what they have done in the past. Which is no secret that I disagree with how they do business and I disagree with LL backing them. Such as Cory talking about how the 10% over auction isn't much and now by your poll with the same group of ppl. That and you said "commercial purposes" eww.

I think you did very well at walking that fine line, good job.

Cat"

Is what I said.

can you tell us who the 20 ppl were?

They'll tell you as soon as everyone can know everyone else's alts.

In other words, it would be a breach of privacy.


LF

I think the question was which avatars. Seems fair enough.

It's still a breach of privacy. They called 20 of the top land owners in the game. Some of those folks simply do not want to be known. Ergo, they're not going to give out names.

LF

I pulled a list of the 100 largest landowners in SL. The amount of land owned ranged from 6.5 sims (number 1) to .5 sims (numbers 75-100). Then I used a random number generator and pulled 20 individuals. The amount of land among that group ranged from 4.4 sims to .5 sims. As I mentioned earlier, of the 20 only 4 actually called in and one sent an email.

Of the 5 who responded, only one buys/sells land regularly. I'm not sure why the specific names are especially relevant, but I want to respect the privacy of those who did respond and won't share their names.

Nothing will change directly as a result of this particular conversation. This was just one way of getting feedback, and hopefully we'll continue to get feedback from SL'ers in a variety of different ways and from different groups -- land owners, newcomers, basic members, non-land owners and so on. As we learn more, we'll continue to share what we hear.