Land price changes.
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Hiro Queso
503less
Join date: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 2,753
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06-28-2005 19:07
Not so long ago, Robin announced an increase in private estate setup cost along with drastic changes to the way main grid land is auctioned... From: Robin Linden You should be receiving an email this afternoon with the following announcements:
Island Estates
First, effective July 15 the initial set-up fee for private islands will increase to $1,250 per island. This change will not affect your monthly billing.
The price increase reflects increased costs for servers, customization and maintenance, plus the enhanced feature set for private islands versus the mainland. Linden Lab has regularly added new features for estate management, and will continue to refine controls and add features in the future. Today an island owner can control their island environment through terraforming and terrain texture choices, setting the sun position, or connecting to other island to create a new sub-continent. Island owners can also parcel the island, keep it open or private, and completely control access. We will continue to refine island controls and add features as Second Life expands.
Mainland Regions
Second, we're converting to whole region (16 acres) auctions, with a minimum starting bid of US$1000. We will no longer parcel mainland regions in advance, except for those regions that are set aside for First Land for new residents. Buyers will still be able to parcel land and directly resell it to their fellow residents.
Auctions for mainland regions will run until the land is sold, and we'll make sure there is enough land available at any one time so interested buyers will have a choice of terrain and location.
I'm sure you'll have a lot of questions about these changes, so we've planned a Town Hall meeting for tomorrow, Wednesday 6/29 at 3:30PM Pacific/11:30PM GMT with Philip Linden. Would be interested to hear everyones thoughts ahead of the town meeting. |
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Eggy Lippmann
Wiktator
Join date: 1 May 2003
Posts: 7,939
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06-28-2005 19:16
Sounds good to me  |
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Hiro Queso
503less
Join date: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 2,753
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06-28-2005 19:19
From: Eggy Lippmann Sounds good to me I think I will have to think a little on the mainland thing. My initial thoughts are that it's a good thing, especially for those wishing to buy a sim as a group. Given what I do in SL, the private island setup fee increase sux lol |
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Olmy Seraph
Valued Member
Join date: 1 Nov 2004
Posts: 502
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06-28-2005 19:25
I find it hard to believe that as hardware costs continue to drop, they are justifying this increase with increased server costs. I can believe the costs for maintenance though - paying grid monkeys can be expensive, and they might not have allowed for the level of effort it takes to set up and configure a new sim. I know when I bought my sim there was a fair amount of back-and-forth. If they got some better automation around it or trained people better in how to manage the system, it might not be so expensive, but oh well.
More likely, it's just economics. They have increased demand for sims and are milking the market. They are probably also trying to offset some of the shift in spending, as Anshe pays less in monthly fees for a sim than, say, 8 landowners would pay for tier on a whole sim owned in 8 pieces.
I would rather they had instituted 2 classes of sim - one that could be rented out commercially as Anshe is doing available at this higher rate, and another class that is for private use available at a lower rate. That would help LL's bottom line, and would also allow for private use that wouldn't be a drain on LL's tier fees. And if they are going to raise the fees, they should empower rentable sims with better features for deeding land and controlling access/permissions.
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Some people are like Slinkies... not really good for anything, but they sure bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
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Schwanson Schlegel
SL's Tokin' Villain
Join date: 15 Nov 2003
Posts: 2,721
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06-28-2005 19:25
w00t.
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Hiro Queso
503less
Join date: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 2,753
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06-28-2005 19:28
From: Olmy Seraph I find it hard to believe that as hardware costs continue to drop, they are justifying this increase with increased server costs. I can believe the costs for maintenance though - paying grid monkeys can be expensive, and they might not have allowed for the level of effort it takes to set up and configure a new sim. I know when I bought my sim there was a fair amount of back-and-forth. If they got some better automation around it or trained people better in how to manage the system, it might not be so expensive, but oh well.
More likely, it's just economics. They have increased demand for sims and are milking the market. They are probably also trying to offset some of the shift in spending, as Anshe pays less in monthly fees for a sim than, say, 8 landowners would pay for tier on a whole sim owned in 8 pieces. I think you have pretty much hit the nail on the head. |
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Hiro Queso
503less
Join date: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 2,753
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06-28-2005 19:29
From: Schwanson Schlegel w00t. LOL! I'm interested, will this mean an alteration in your payment plans for the rent to buy option you have going? |
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blaze Spinnaker
1/2 Serious
Join date: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 5,898
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06-28-2005 19:34
Considering that LL is not cash flow positive (never mind profitable) I can't imagine they're 'milking' anything but rather just trying to make the business work.
This is all a great idea, however I think they need to give us better landlord abilities on the mainland to equal that of the private islands otherwise they're are just slowing down zoned sims in SecondLife and therefore slowing down a general improvement to the nature of the world.
_____________________
Taken from The last paragraph on pg. 16 of Cory Ondrejka's paper " Changing Realities: User Creation, Communication, and Innovation in Digital Worlds : " User-created content takes the idea of leveraging player opinions a step further by allowing them to effectively prototype new ideas and features. Developers can then measure which new concepts most improve the products and incorporate them into the game in future patches."
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Hiro Queso
503less
Join date: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 2,753
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06-28-2005 19:36
From: blaze Spinnaker
This is all a great idea, however I think they need to give us better landlord abilities on the mainland to equal that of the private islands otherwise they're are just slowing down zoned sims in SecondLife and therefore slowing down a general improvement to the nature of the world.
Well they have addressed this in the opposite way really. One of the reasons stated for the increase in private estate sim setup cost was the very fact that they have more land management tools than main grid land. |
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Olmy Seraph
Valued Member
Join date: 1 Nov 2004
Posts: 502
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06-28-2005 19:45
From: blaze Spinnaker Considering that LL is not cash flow positive (never mind profitable) I can't imagine they're 'milking' anything but rather just trying to make the business work. Pardon me, I didn't mean for the word "milking" to be pejorative. But basic econ is that increased demand allows higher pricing when you control the supply. I was just saying they are doing that. They could just say "increased demand" though, and not BS us with crap about higher server costs. We're not dumb, and talking down to us with marketingspeak doesn't help sell the changes.
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Some people are like Slinkies... not really good for anything, but they sure bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
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Schwanson Schlegel
SL's Tokin' Villain
Join date: 15 Nov 2003
Posts: 2,721
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06-28-2005 19:53
From: Hiro Queso LOL! I'm interested, will this mean an alteration in your payment plans for the rent to buy option you have going? Not for those that take advantage of these great deals ASAP!!! /invalid_link.html/invalid_link.html |
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Hiro Queso
503less
Join date: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 2,753
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06-28-2005 19:57
haha do I get commission for setting that one up?  |
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Smith Peel
Smif v2.0
Join date: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 1,597
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Ummmmmm
06-28-2005 20:05
This is going to cause the land market to crash.
*polishes off crystal ball*
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Schwanson Schlegel
SL's Tokin' Villain
Join date: 15 Nov 2003
Posts: 2,721
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06-28-2005 20:05
Seriously, I have no reason to change the deal that I have w/ current customers.
Future customers will certainly feel these changes. That's why I posted those links, if people are interested in doing a deal like that, now would be the cheapest time to do it.
Are you making any changes on your islands for current customers?
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Hiro Queso
503less
Join date: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 2,753
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06-28-2005 20:06
From: Schwanson Schlegel Seriously, I have no reason to change the deal that I have w/ current customers.
Future customers will certainly feel these changes. That's why I posted those links, if people are interested in doing a deal like that, now would be the cheapest time to do it.
Are you making any changes on your islands for current customers? Na, I charge no purchase price anyway. If they ever increased land fees, then the rent would have to increase accordingly. |
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Roberta Dalek
Probably trouble
Join date: 21 Oct 2004
Posts: 1,174
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06-28-2005 22:45
As the grid grows LL won't have the resources to parcel small bits of land. It makes more sense to get others to do that for you. Parcelling land must take lots of staff time. I'm interested in this bit - From: Robin Linden Auctions for mainland regions will run until the land is sold, and we'll make sure there is enough land available at any one time so interested buyers will have a choice of terrain and location. This looks like the Lindens are no longer releasing land in relation to population growth but are instead letting the market decide the amount of new land available. From: Robin Linden We will no longer parcel mainland regions in advance, except for those regions that are set aside for First Land for new residents. First land sims? I wonder what they are going to do with released land now. I thought that above a certain amount it goes to auction, below a certain amount it goes public. As people are unlikely to release an entire sim I guess the sensible thing would be for released/confiscated land to become first land. What they do with bits not divisible by 512 I don't know. |
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Buster Peel
Spat the dummy.
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,242
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06-28-2005 23:42
From: Smith Peel This is going to cause the land market to crash.
*polishes off crystal ball* I predict the opposite. It may stave off the crash. Maybe. |
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Ghoti Nyak
καλλιστι
Join date: 7 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,078
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06-29-2005 05:14
Well, this makes me sad. What a lose for the common resident. No longer can someone buy land at auction directly from LL, but rather now must go through a middleman. So now, the single individual or small group wishing to buy 1/4 or 1/2 a sim is forced to buy it marked up at a significant profit from Landbarons. Sad.
-Ghoti
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"Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon." ~ H.P. Lovecraft
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Chage McCoy
Aerodrome Janitor
Join date: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 336
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06-29-2005 05:19
Agreed Ghoti.
This is a really disappointing move by LL. I would have thought they could at least discuss the pros and cons about such a policy shift before doing it.
Its just another case of appeasing the key land stakeholders in SL
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Timmy Night
Cliff View Owner
Join date: 4 Apr 2005
Posts: 291
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06-29-2005 05:33
I found it interesting that this new change of policy came in the relative dead of the night for those of us here in the States. I received the policy change in an email at 9:22 pm AZ Time. But, I think it was in another thread where I talked about and end of fiscal quarter move (though extremely late) to shore up the bottom line.
In all honesty, I would not want to be Philip Linden this afternoon at the town hall meeting.
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"I'm villifying you for God's sake - pay attention!" Sir Peter O'Toole as King Henry II in "The Lion In Winter"
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Chrystin Hathor
Registered User
Join date: 24 Jun 2004
Posts: 83
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06-29-2005 05:57
What LL is doing is caving in to the Land Barons. They'll be the ones with resources to grab the new lands enmasse, leaving the rest of us dependant on purchasing land from them. Not fair. If anything, LL should break the land barons, and limit the amount of land one individual or group can own. Just because someone has more money than another player doesn't give them an inherent right to more power or enjoyment in SL. We shouldn't have RL faults replicated in SL.
Chrystin Hathor
reluctant socialist
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Mhaijik Guillaume
Chadeaux Vamp
Join date: 18 Jun 2004
Posts: 620
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hmmmm, go go land barony
06-29-2005 06:02
I agree with Ghoti and Chage. From: someone Mainland Regions
Second, we're converting to whole region (16 acres) auctions, with a minimum starting bid of US$1000. The auctions allowed the common people to pick up some land and try and deal in real estate. I being a simple common person does not have $1000 to play with so I will never be able to dabble in land auction purchases now. I think this is really sad and LL just cut a lot of people out of something. Another example of the Rich get Richer. |
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blaze Spinnaker
1/2 Serious
Join date: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 5,898
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06-29-2005 06:56
Oddly enough, I've never done land baroning via the auctions.
_____________________
Taken from The last paragraph on pg. 16 of Cory Ondrejka's paper " Changing Realities: User Creation, Communication, and Innovation in Digital Worlds : " User-created content takes the idea of leveraging player opinions a step further by allowing them to effectively prototype new ideas and features. Developers can then measure which new concepts most improve the products and incorporate them into the game in future patches."
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Chris Wilde
Custom User Title
Join date: 21 Jul 2004
Posts: 768
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06-29-2005 07:59
In some ways it will help the average resident. It should increased the demand for lots already for sale. Thats assuming the mainland full sim auctions arent continually bought up. I mean if LL puts out 10 full mainland sims for auction, they'll surely be bought. But after the next 20 or 30 or 40, will those full sims continually be purchased? I guess that depends on how quickly the people buying full sims can carve them up and sell them. In either case, a glut of land for sale, no matter who bought it originally, will keep land prices low.
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Darth Padar
Registered User
Join date: 23 May 2005
Posts: 4
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06-29-2005 08:01
I'm slightly confused...the Linden announcement says the private island setup price will change to $1250 effective July 15th, but the private island page application form is showing the price as $1250 today? http://secondlife.com/land/islands.php |
