Could private estate leasing threaten the existence of the basic account ?

As a recent, originally unintended, consequence of some software changes, it is now possible to rent, and yet have the landlord allow you to do almost all the things with the land which you could do as owner. As a result of this, new landlord controlled, themed sims are becoming popular, with leases being bought and sold between residents as though they were the land itself.

To hold such a lease, you do not need to pay the monthly subscription at all, yet some think you lose very little.

It could be argued that this is subverting the reasoning behind the basic account, and that people doing it are in some sense parasitic on those who do pay subs to own land. It's possible that if too many people do it, LL may have to defend itself from the drop in revenue by changing the rules.

But LL don't really lose out. My landlord pays the tier for the land I use. If they were not renting out the land they wouldn't have bought it from LL.

LL sells more islands. The middleman deals with collecting payment etc. It will cost the same for LL to process a payment whether it is for $195 US or $9.99 US.

*nods*
On the other hand it may result in a more or less marginal decline in general land sales.

Ellie, do you hear Linden Labs complaining about this as a problem? I don't.

They hear kaching on their cash register as more islands are sold than used to be.

Of course, they'd get more tier out of 10 separate patrons buying $9.95 accounts and each paying $15 in tier, let's say than they do out of one person who buys in bulk then subdivides into 10 or whatever, but then it pays off in other ways for them as people stay in the game longer, buy products, enable others to buy land then, etc.

The mainland, where you can still have the ultimate freedom of possession, will still continue to be attractive.

Sorry, Roberta, I must have expressed it badly. You misunderstood me. I'm not talking about tier. They do get less tier via the economies of scale (which the landlord gains from) but that is not my point at all.

I'm just talking about the monthly $9.95 premium subscription which was designed as a the base cost of being allowed to own land. I think there are about 20% of 30000 ie 6000 such subscribers.

If half went to private sims, and downgraded to basic, LL would lose RL income of US$30,000 per month or US$360,000 pa. Surely even half that would be significant ? How many people do they employ ?

Now i may be wrong, but don't you still have to pay monthly to access the game? I'm pretty sure you still continue to pay month by month even if you don't upgrade to a premium account.

Nope.

Mind you, its most likely Newbies who might fail to upgrade if they start leasing straight off. The old hands might not bother to downgrade, because they realise that the stipend is worth nearly as much as the sub at present.

But the Newbies are running at about 100 a day, arent they? Surely we need them to start paying US$10 per month ? As many as possible ? Rather than go off leasing and pay nowt but tier ?

The Premium gets you more than just land. It also gets you L$500 per week, or about L$2000 per month. At current GOM rates that would cost you about US$8.50 per month. For users who don't want to have to deal with GOM to get L$, paying $9.95/mo isn't much more costly. One way or the other you need to get cash to spend on stuff, and the premium account is the simplest way to do that.

Dead right. Its probably the newbies who wont know that.
There is not much difference for us, but a big difference for the Lindens. Only the sub brings them RL funding.

But I suppose the no sub "GOM way" pushes up the value of the L$, which then makes LL release more land to pull it back down, which gets them more US$ in part of the auction, except that a good part of that goes to the needed new server purchases.

Subtle , isn't it. Fascinating, no less.

Everyone I know, and have asked, that leases the new land has a premium or higher account. I live in Eldamar which is a themed leased sim, I have met many of the other landowners around there.

Not only that I never understood why they went to a $10 for lifetime membership anyways. The bandwidth alone those accounts use up is worth more then that.

I have quite a large number of tenants renting deeded land in private sims and I would say there is only a handful that are on basic. I think the premium v basic thing is more of an attitude, an attitude which is not determined by the availabiliity off deeded land to rent. I would imagine that my tenants tat are on basic, always have been. Some people do not like paying rl money into the game, never have, never will. Now most of my tenants pay in US$ each month, but the few that are on basic interestingly pay with L$.

I also think that once you have land to call home, whether owned or rented, you will most likely want more L$ to play with. If you make no money in game, the premium account has to be the first port of call to obtain some game money.

I think those who will never pay rl money each month for a game will always feel that way.

I think those that have no problem with paying out rl money for a game will continue to see the premium account as great value whether they are renting or buying land. Someone has already pointed out that the premium account more than pays for itself, even more so if paid quarterly or annually.

Edited to add : I think it would be a very bad move for LL to do away with the basic account. There are some "self sufficient" players with the basic account attitude that offer value to SL that can't be measured in US$.

The $9.95 for life basic account is being questioned more and more. There was a thread where this was raised as a reason for log-in jams and waits. Philip Linden dismissed that concern in his impromptu WA talk last week.

I'm not quite sure wny there is so much animosity to this type of account. It's the newbie, entre account, celebrate it.

I've never seen an official figure of these accounts give out. We heard 3000 new people in the last month, many could be basic.

I"ve seen people on basic rent because they don't want dollar amounts on a RL credit card, they'd rather try to win money in the game or play Tringo and pay rent out of game money.

I've also seen people on premium both rent and buy land. They might buy land and rent a store or visa versa.

I hope my post didn't come across as one with animosity towards basic members, it couldn't be further from the case. I am just pointing out 2 different mindsets that are not going to be changed either way by the availability, or lack there of, deeded rentable land.

The animosity toward basic accounts is easily explained: Jealousy.

People are mad that other people have the opportunity to play forever for just 9.95 one time. I assume this was not always offered.

People hate it that basic members can do everything but own land. And that they get $50 a week stipend.

Sorta like if I paid the regular price to go see a movie, and somebody else got to go see the same movie for nothing, except they had to sit on the floor and couldn't have any snacks. It's easy to see there would be some animosity from the ones sitting in the chairs, especially if they were never offered the sit on the floor and don't eat or drink option to begin with.

But I just ABSOLUTELY KNOW these basic accounts are paying off. Because when I talk my friends into joining, they go completely gaga over the 9.95 idea. They're happy thinking, well, I have nothing to lose, just that one 9.95, and I can always go premium if I want to, but hey, Coco still hasn't, so maybe it's possible. My two roomies I brought from another game are basic accounts, and they live in my house on my land here. (Which I "bought" from Nexus Nash and pay weekly "tier" to him for.)

Just yesterday I was talking to another friend and he, too, was thrilled at the idea of 9.95 for him and for his girlfriend to give it a try. (Ingrid, yes, I couldn't help myself, I sold him on the game, too.)

It is a HUGE selling point for me, as I sell the game, which I swear to God, I'm gonna try not to do so much of until these forums get better and my friends and I aren't maltreated on them by people who think they own them and that I shouldn't be here.

I tell them how much I have done on 9.95, then they join and see. But most people who play like I do wouldn't dream of doing it on basic, because that sure as heck is doing it the hard way.

I am absolutely certain that practically anyone who really gets into the game is going to upgrade to Premium.

The vast majority of those who don't, I would bet money on, don't play very much, either. Or maybe quit playing entirely. Thus those people are not costing much bandwidth, and yet they inflate the numbers of players considerably, and having high numbers and numbers going up is worth its weight in gold in PR and getting others to see this as an up-and-coming game, "the" place to be, rather than something old and tired or losing players.

That alone is why offering basic memberships is a smart move.

coco

I couldn't agree more coco

Ah, I doubt that. Anyone can cut back to the 10 dollar lifetime account at any time. The only ones who wouldn't everneed to are those who got the founding member accounts.

The animosity, if there really is any, probably comes from the fact that - being there is no free lunch - a 10 dollar lifetime player is using resources they aren't paying for. With the advent of rental land that's becomming far less an issue.

Exactly. It's detrimental to the long-term survival of SL to give out bandwidth for free, really. It's not a cheap resource for LL to provide. If it turns out that rental land will make up for it, all well and good. If not, I think the basic accounts need to be phased out (Or, at least, in fairness to those who already have them, not offered anymore).

Who are these "people?" I've never seen anyone beyond Alby look down on basic account holders. And what can you buy with L$50 a week? Half a pair of pants... wheee!

[edit] Nm, just read the two posts that were posted before my post post-haste.

1) the land is paid for monthly
2) the land (for the most part) is not administered by ll. it is administered by the private land holder. this saves a lot of money as employees are very expensive.
3) basic accounts convert to premium accounts at some rate, and premium accounts convert to basic accounts at some rate. i would guess the rate of basic->premium is greater than premium to basic, simply because there are more basic accounts.

this kind of conclusion is hard to support without knowing how many basic accounts remain active after 60 days. inside that 60 day window they are paying for their use (so to speak), and afterward if they go idle, they aren't using resources.

also, some basic accounts probably go idle before the payment-to-cost curves cross.

this conclusion seems unfounded to me. i've never seen anyone complain about these these things.

bandwidth usage, yes. but not these other things.

Well, that's what I get for simplifying. Any long-term (I'd figure over 45 days) 10 dollar lifetimer would have probably gone past any point of LL's breaking even. And I know the sandboxes are filled with 10 dollar lifetimers who are well past 45 days. They're playing, though at the moment only LL knows what percentage of the population are active 10 dollar lifetimers.

Like I said, though, as the ability to rent becomes more widespread, it will allow them to participate in the paying of that bandwidth in indirect ways. So, it - hopefully - becomes less and less of an issue.

Stoneself, we've just seen someone showing animosity to the basic account holder right here in this thread, from Jilian:



This is a curious statement to me, possibly coming out of a worldview that believes something is scarce, and when one person gets it, another person loses it.

The fact is, even if the basic accounts are "parasites" on the body of SL, they are parasites who go to Tringo, buy clothes and jewelry, buy money on the GOM and spend it, bring dwell points to events, and basically flesh out the game. They are your customers. Some of the most enterprising of the basic account holders are people like Aimee who make content others crave and sell it for a lot of money, enhancing not only the economy, but the luster of LL's reputation. Newer basic account holders like Coco are people who steadily, persistently stick it out to make and save money and then become the long-term customers of businesses like GIGAS.

Basic account holders provide business to others who chose to have premium and chose to pay tier. The premiums couldn't go on staying in business and paying tier if they didn't have the substrate of basics to count on. They are tenants, consumers, and if all else fails, dwellers.

It seems inaccurate to claim these people use resources they don't pay for. For one, when premium account holders get $2000 LL they can cash out of the game and pay for the game with it, they seem to be getting subsidized resources too, no worse than the basic accounts. But whatever is spent on these people, basic or premium, is what helps generate something like $50-70,000 US per day in transactions. Somebody is benefiting, that's for sure.

just to put this in scope, the question might be whether or not ll sees any of that 50-70k.

the transactions are in world, ll doesn't get direct benefit from it.

ellie's concern seems to be whether or not ll will continue to see basic accounts as worthwhile.

i think they will.

the first hit is free.

you're still around... right?