Dropping The Ball

Lol thanks for your input, and dismissal without any kind of contribution . Let me ask you, as a n00b when you got land of the landless, did you sell it? What did you do with the money? Did you buy more land? Were you able to purchase more than you sold due to the difference between landless L$1/m2 and the market value? All thats gone now to newbie players, and the only thing left is real dollar money expenditures above and beyond what there were before for anything above 512m2. So i think your right, obviously there would be more players with less cost to join the game.

Wow, there is that assumption again that we came into this game with the intent to make money.

I just love it when the point of the orginal topic goes "over their head"

Follow your own advice, Don't speculate

Would this be considered a oxymoron?

I do believe that alot of the creativity in SL are created on once an empty lot that was for sale at one point.

So what?

Although I've been to GOM and had a look, I can't see any real evidence of what you're talking about.

I don't see how a market crash would effect everyday users in SL anyway. The difference between RL and SL in this instance is that no-one loses their job - they still get their L$500 a week, and they still spend it on clothes, houses, aeroplanes, cars, furniture etc etc. The only people really effected by this are the people throwing large amounts of outside money into the game - with a view to making more money. Anyone else who created wealth 'in game', and enjoys using SL, for the sake of usng SL, can just ride it out. They can carry on doing the in-game things they enjoy. Personally, I haven't noticed any difference - except that I can now more easily buy some land and build a better house for myself.

I've got no objection to people making money in-game on property. It's just when people pump loads of RL money in. If you're drawing parallels between SL and RL - it's like someone arriving out of the ether in RL with several billion $ to spend, buying up whole chunks of land, and then selling them off to people at vastly inflated prices. Not very realistic. All any of this does is artificially skew the economy. So the Lindens skewed it back. I applaud them.

Deklax,

I too got hurt with the land price drop.

Why I got hurt? In order to build, I had to buy land. I had no choice, and I bought land at the current rates then. Heck, if you wanna play, you goto pay. No problem.

Now, I don't blame the Lindens. If you follow the forums closely, you will notice SL politics are far to the left. Many seek the socialist utopia they have not been able to achieve in RL. Unfortunately, they have been the loudest, and the Lindens listened.

Like in RL, you have your extremist left, and your wealthy capitalists. The extreme left have nothing so they want everyone else to have nothing. The extreme wealthy, know how to make money and will find ways to make it. Some ethical some not.

Now, there are people like you, me, and many others that brought a lot of real money into the game, not as an investment, but in order to constructively participate. We are the small business, club owners, the architecs, enterpreneurs, etc. -the middle class

And as in every conflict between the extreme left and the wealthy, the middle class gets screwed. A nation, whether in RL or SL cannot prosper or be truly free without a middle class.

I have yet to see the massive purchase of small plots by 'the poor' as it was predicted. All I see is more and more for sale signs and empty lots. And I may add, a lot of beggars. People flying around begging for money. Socialism at its finest.

Leftist zealots keep forgetting that the whole purpose of SL and LL is to be a capitalist enterprise meant to make money, it really is a business. If the influx of capital stops, then there will be no one to pay the salaries of the fine people that run the game. I am sure 'barons' were paying thousands of dollars a month in tier fees. Well, I am sure those funds are drying or will dry up soon. And then what?

-tito

- the 'revolutionaries' of today, are the oppressors of tomorrow -

Oh dear.



No - they probably adjusted the market so that people were able to buy land when they came into the game - one of the big selling points of SL. Being able to buy land and build, that is. It's offputting for everyone concerned if owning land is prohibitively expensive. That's just common sense - not left wing politics.



Whatever



Give examples. Show me some 'middle class' architects, builders or other small business owners who have had to put their prices down as a result of the (GASP!) 'property crash'. Directly address some of the other posts, then you'll get taken more seriously, instead of vaguely trying to bring RL politics into it.



What a load of crap.



I wouldn't call anyone on this thread a 'leftwing zealot'. People just want a bit of a balance. They don't want a reasonable plot to be *completely* unobtainable. They understand that people want to make money, and probably want to make money themselves. Now - go and read a few of the posts above, and reply to them directly, instead of making ridiculous blanket assumptions. And watch out for those 'Commies' under your bed!

Lol, again I point out that if you found it PROHIBITIVELY expensive to purchase ANY amount of land under the old system then that was a complete failing by you and not a lack of opportunity. To reference my own SL experience, in the first week i was here I claimed a mature landless plot, sold it, bought my neighbors plot and one pg plot, sold it, bought another neighbors plot, and quickly found myself on a 1536 M plot with a beautiful home and waterview. After a few weeks or so when i really got in the game i decided i needed to upgrade and sold that to move even farther up the teir chain - AND AT NO ACTUAL COST. Until i chose to actively participate in the land markets, i didn't spend a cent beyond my membership fee and at one point was on a lot ~6,500m2. What were you doing? Shopping for sex animations? Its a sad day when the poor and skillless are able to bitch so loudly that they drown out all reason and logic. There will always be people like you that have no ability to function in an economy, but they will always be the ones living on the top of the PG cliff facing a massive club, regardless of base land cost.



One of several definitions of politics for you from dictionary.com - The often internally conflicting interrelationships among people in a society.

How does this not apply?

If you need examples of real people, (as opposed to supposively 'rich' people, which i can tell your inherently bias against and the reason you were quickly labeled a zealot) losing money based on the LL land market games then just fly around and land on ANY developed plot built in the last 6 months, ask them what they paid per /m2 and calculate their loses including tier fees if they choose to wait an unknown amount of time for LL to hike another spike up. This doesn't even count the players that should truely matter to LL which is the long term developers all over who have chosen or were going to choose[/] (in some cases even in groups of people) to invest money in a long term project that they felt would be worth it under previous assumptions. They are going to be in for quite a surprise when they are stuck with a full sim or 1/2 sim of land, 125-195 dollars a month in tier fees, and no way to get rid of it other than lose 100,000+ linden's they could have formerly regained. These arnt baron's, but people participating in society.

From: someone

Now - go and read a few of the posts above, and reply to them directly, instead of making ridiculous blanket assumptions. And watch out for those 'Commies' under your bed!

Hypocritical, much?

Deklax - I wasn't actually addressing anything you said - I thought we were having quite a sensible discussion till Tito Gomez stuck his oar in.

If you go back and read my posts you'll see that my standpoint is pretty moderate - in other words - people should go ahead and make money if they want, but speculating real money in a virtual world (in my opinion) is a silly thing to do. If you look at what I actually wrote, you'll see that I'm not talking about you at all. You make money in-game, and contribute something. I think people should be given a fair crack of the whip when joining the game (like you were), and not be instantly excluded because someone else is pumping £1000's of RL dollars into the game, thus artificially inflating property prices. Do you get what I'm saying now?

I just think it was a bit stupid of Tito to label everyone who holds this particular view 'leftwing zealots'.



Getting a bit personal now, aren't we?



No - just irony. Hence the wink


ps - please read what I'm saying properly, and we'll save a lot of time.

Maybe I'm missing some sort of clever backhanded point, but why would a valuable-to-Linden Lab long-term developer participating in society want to get rid of their land?

This point is a good one. There are a few people that specifically try to control the market, and for a long time i think they succeeded. My only guess as to why this occured is because the people controlling the market had some hand in the profits at the end. Since that time however its my belief that the game has attracted enough people to have a base that is too large to be effectively bankrolled by any single group of individuals. In the real world, if one person tries to buy all the land around your home and altar the worth of that real estate they will quickly be undercut elsewhere and lose significantly. This is because they can't buy ALL the land in the world. Likewise, until there was a some critical mass of sims for the world to consume the land market here was completely prospective. After recent growth however, the land could have taken on a true value via the competing interests of the marketplace - multiple interested purchasers bidding on auction and via ingame purchases. This was taking place, and continues in the flooded market that exists now, which is continuing the downward spiral we are experiencing back toward L$1/m2.



Second person was probably not the best choice. I apologize although I feel my point stands as a general statement of the majority of people who claim land was unobtainable. Obviously, I have no idea what you were doing or where you live ^_^



Forums always seem so hostile.

Oh ... and



WTF?? Quote please?!

Well, for a few examples, they could:

1) Want to Relocate
2) Want to Expand
3) Want to go to a Private Sim
4) Wants to participate in one of the new sim-types (aka Snow atm)
5) Wants to work with a new group
.........
Need i continue? These are just a few, but all can be expanded to specific situations if you require.

I agree with most of that - except the downward spiral bit. I think what you're seeing is more of an 'adjustment'. Prices will start to creep up again.



I haven't actually been in-world as much as I'd like since I joined because I've been v v busy. But I have been learning to build/script, which is why I joined really. Like I said, each to his own.



[/B]

I know what you mean. Easy to get hold of the wrong end of the stick.

Except for #3 maybe, these should all get easier now. There is a lot of land for sale now, but that is partly at least because the inworld prices haven't caught up with the auction prices. No matter where the prices end up leveling out, people are not going to continue to hold tons of unsold land. They have to pay monthly tiers on it after all. It is even now easy to expand. Buy cheap land! A couple of weeks down the road, if you want to relocate, or your points #4 or #5, sell your land cheap, buy your land cheap. No problem.

Lol Essense, for you I'll go through this again-


Well, for a few examples, they could:

1) Want to Relocate - If you currently own half a sim on a hill and decided you need a beach-view, Although its very likely you can FIND some land on the beach now (just as you could before) the difference here is under current land prices you could have to 'pay' literally hundreds of thousands more L$ to purchase a comparable plot even at comparable sell/buy prices due to the incredible loss they would have to take on the first plot. Their only other choice is to stay where they are.

2) Want to Expand - In many cases sims are not just 'available' for expansion. Could you find a single well developed tropical sim with a large enough for expansion ready for purchase?

3) Want to go to a Private Sim - Obviously a huge loss
4) Wants to participate in one of the new sim-types (aka Snow atm)
5) Wants to work with a new group- These two you seemed to dismiss by saying 'take your licks and get over it' Do you have anything more substantial? Again I'd refrence my argument for #1 and the losses sustained.

An "adjustment" that brought effective prices down by 75%, and is continuing via a new release of 30 more snow sims that have yet to be auctioned.

The point I think you are missing is like it or not, you have already taken the loss whether you sell your land or not. So if you want to relocate you might as well just bite the bullet and take the loss. You will still have aproximately the same number of Linden / US dollars and a piece of land you like more.

Actually, I do believe you missed the point. Dek was just giving reasons as to why one would want to relocate and expand, and reason #3 was because they would want a private sim. Then you decided that this is not a reason, therefore missing the orginal point. This is absolutely possible and I have seen it happen regardless of their reasons.

lol good point MJ, very good point, also; The point i think you are missing is mostly the originating topic of this thread; could you go back and read it? =)

Extremely off topic, but very humorous:

During a conversation in the EFnet IRC #secondlife channel where [someone] was requesting non-sexually bias default and overridable animations:

[12:47pm]« [someone] » They aren't giving us the solution.
[12:48pm]« [someone] » because everyone at LL thinks like Deklax.


hehe. If only

Deklax, the points in the original post appear to be that you bought high, are considering selling low, and think that the Linden response to user demand for land (adding land) needs explanation. It doesn't. It is as sensible as a large landholder seeing that the market is low and holding on to their land, capitalizing through use as opposed to merely planting a "for sale" sign.

The reason this subject will never be reconciled is that Second Life and the majority of its users consider landholding to be open-ended. Your assumption, your view, naturally includes the end of the cycle, when a player "cashes out." This is your business interest, the land itself. I find it interesting that you act as if LL ought to have maintained an artificial scarcity to benefit a minority of the population. You are not unique in this respect, but this thread is an excellent examination of the mindset.

One of Essence's points was that it is actually easier to move now that the market has approached prior levels. You may have spent a million lindens on your forty acres, but now it is worth a thousand. Sell it for a thousand, buy a different forty acres with that thousand. Your land is still worth the same amount, with the same capital loss. However, accounting for time, the capital loss will be made insignificant by income and recurring fees. Become a clever and successful businessman, and make income off the land you have through use -- your overall positive or negative balance does not depend on how much you paid in the first place, but the difference between tier and income. Is the initial loss scary? Stick with it until it fades, ride the market back up, or yes, suck it up and sell.

Those five reasons you cited have a lot to do with wanting to do something, but not very much to do with running a successful business in SL. If moving hurts your bottom line, don't move. If you will gain more than you will lose within an acceptable timeframe by moving, move. And buying a sim? Economy of scale. That's for another thread.

If the land speculators had had the resources and courage to continue pouring in money to restrict land ownership and maintain scarcity, Linden Lab would have kept adding land until it was, again, easier for everyone to make that initial investment. Simple and sensible.

I hear someone made something like USD30K off land speculation, and despite my teasing I empathize with those who have sustained a loss. However, looking for explanations sounds to me as though you are just looking for who took the cash out of your wallet to pay for this game. Here's a hint: it wasn't Linden Lab.

EDIT: I are grammar good.

Um.... yes. My main point was that in this economy there is no need for large numbers of people to consistently lose money or be pressured to hold land that they don't want, or don't want as much as other land - afterall, this is a game in the end and having to treat it as a business is NOT what im after and I dont think what the majority of the people here want to do. Although there are many profitable aspects of the game its main appeal is and always will be the fun/entertainment it provides people. Honestly, I bought quite a bit of land very cheap imnsho, and I dont plan on getting rid of it anytime soon due to several large scale projects in design for the future and if the market ever -does- return to a higher rate and not disappear completely I would profit very much from this dip. That doesn't mean I think its necessary or valid.

From: someone

I hear someone made something like USD30K off land speculation, and despite my teasing I empathize with those who have sustained a loss. However, looking for explanations sounds to me as though you are just looking for who took the cash out of your wallet to pay for this game. Here's a hint: it wasn't Linden Lab.

LOL, in that i completely disagree on several levels. Linden Lab is in complete control and I'm not sure why you assume so much about me or my perspective.

As for the 30k lucky winner, thats the beauty of getting in early on a Pyramid-like system, you reap the benifits - especially under a system like this completely controlled by one group of individuals.

I know this comment was originally posted toward one person, but then it became a blanket statement......and blanket statements are dangerous because they are *rarely* true. Keep that in mind.

If people are having fun, then they should not worry about "losing" money -- spend money, have fun. Paying customers to have fun is not a good business model. Second Life is designed to suck the money right out of you. If you don't pay in cash you pay in time. And if you don't pay in cash or time, you're at the top of the pyramid. And it is a pyramid of limited dimensions. And so on and so forth. This is not new.

Individual users of Second Life can pay their $10 and have fun forever, pay more and have land, or approach the experience like a business and maybe, just maybe, end up with a continuing positive balance because other users are effectively paying the bills. Unfortunately, your main point does not make any sense no matter what the economy is like.

I assume you want a free ride, because that is what your main point suggests. If you like you can treat my argument as hypothetical... I'm assuming you didn't actually spend a million lindens on forty acres.

If Linden Lab is in complete control of your spending, I suggest you call your credit card company, have them reverse the charges due to business fraud, and cancel the card. If you used Paypal or some other method the recompense may be a bit more difficult. Obviously I'm making assumptions again.

I think you must have misread what i originally said, or I didn't phrase approrpriately for your consumption, let me try again

Linden Lab is in complete control and I'm not sure why you assume so much about me or my perspective.

read: Linden Lab is in complete control of the economic situation in the game that has caused what you 'empathize with'. Beyond that I am not sure why you assume so much about me after my previous posts to the contrary that I personally had any losses or something here, so your remark about my wallet was initially invalid to me.

This second version might be a little clearer for you, but im tiring quickly of repeating myself. I have the feeling you were just being caustic anyways.