Anyone nervous?

... and the 70% of non-americans too, especially those of us in Europe already paying 17.5% more for our tier fees than the US equivalent.

Our group's land makes no money whatsoever, it's mostly a playground for us to build and experiment with different construction techniques. But that $47 a month we're paying for 8000 sq m can't go much higher before cutting back is our only option.

As many others have said... land fees are too expensive as is. I'm sure that something like a 25% cut in tier fees will result in at least a 25% increase in landowners, especially on the lower levels. Having a more 'granular' tier fee might help too, as the leap at the higher levels from 8000 to 16000 sq m, or from 16k - 32k, or from 32k to a full region when you might only want a couple of thousand sq m is generally prohibitive for most people, especially those who do not wish to operate commercial activities or simply copy the mall/club combo that is so popular, and boring.

The SIM I am on is going to close end of this month

The combination of VAT and the difficultly with getting any business sponsorship for the project means that the project can't offer Free Land or Tier anymore now.

In the UK the Bank of England is also taking measures to stem a possible recession in the UK sometime this year, so in my opinion tier fees will likely remain as they are right through to the years end.

Re free accounts, if you look at from the marketing angle, if you want people to come to SL to see your products on an island and you say hey just download SL, order a credit card, pay L$10, spend 3 days getting off Orientation Island if you don't crash constantly, then TP to our Island and see our new marketing campaign, then spend 2 days contacting Support to find out that your bank as declined payment and you have to get them to resend it etc etc etc, at least not having to pay, cuts the problems one can encounter here by half.

HiPiHi, the Chinese competitor to SL. It's in development.

With recession looming, it's going to be tougher to ask people to pay more money for entertainment in virtual space. It's just not seen the same way as going to a sports game, or a concert, or whatever, even though the time period to enjoy the product is much longer. If tier went up modestly, I could probably afford to pass the increase on to some degree, but I don't feel that I would be able to justify expanding any further if it would make it more difficult to fill up. Why should I pay an extra couple hundred dollars to LL when it might take me more than a month to fill it up?

I personally don't expect a tier increase anytime soon.

The grid would a price increase now. Yeah, not kidding, once the screaming died down people would pay. I really think so.

But the seeds of destruction would be sown; screaming high cost makes it only that much more worthwhile for competition to come in and wrestle you to the ground.

Raising tier is pretty much guaranteed to sell the future to the next comparable service.

In fact, I'm a bit worried that it's too high right now, and we are already in danger of exactly that.

/me agrees, at least for mainland tier (no offense to Desmond and other island dwellers).

I don't see them dropping tier prices, though. Or raising them. If they do anything this year, I think they'll add a few new steps between the existing tier levels.

If a decent competitor comes along that has tiers say 25% lower than what we pay currently in SL I can pretty much promise that our little rp group would be gone. Its the people that keep me coming here, and Im fairly certain that we would alll transfer to a new service without blinking an eye. Sure, we might not have all the little toys we do here for a while..but its the friendships, definitely NOT the service, that keeps me logged into SL.

Ding!!

Lets hope the Linden Lab marketing dept understands this concept.

SL has an immense economic engine that would take any competitor years to duplicate, in my opinion. For an RP-er, I'm sure you're right: it wouldn't be a big deal to switch to something else. But what store-owner or land-owner would jump over and start paying huge amounts of tier (even if it is 25% less) in some barely-existing economy?

It depends - if the framework is there, it would be wise to get in early and make a name for yourself. RPers are still customers, and often have their own businesses. Few people really make everything themselves. RPers need clothes, gadgets, scripts, animations, etc. The potential is huge, and it would really depend on the nature of the framework of the economy. Look at IMVU - it's booming, but on a different scale, and inside the limitations of its own framework.

Yep starting to wonder the same myself, because on nighshift now it seems like it's 10,000 Aussies and asians on the grid with 25,000 bots, real residents are getting hard to find, and I suspect HiPi could have a huge impact just on timezone alone, and there's no economy yet, but the Chinese won't muck around when it comes to making money, won't be long and if anything there is a huge potential for experienced store owners and creators here to get a big head start in a new devolping world.
HiPi have seen all the mistakes LL make and if they hit the market with half price tier, how well will a tier increase go here?
Hech people may even have to pay to access full features or something, encouraging people to go premium and bring cash in.

Although I don't think it will take years, I agree not many residents will leave SL because of competition. If I leave it will be because of performance issues and high tier. My next adventure would then be foraying into this amazing world I've heard about called real life.

I'm not so sure, I have heard Real Life has not even sorted out being able to right click... there are just way to many issues to list..

Exactly..I started off as a premium member in SL, but downgraded in the past 6 months because to be honest there is no advantage to being preimum right now. I do have payment info on file...but why should I pay every month now that they have eliminated first land...grid performance has degraded to the point that I get logged out of SL about 80% of the time I try to teleport anywhere and griefers can create alt accounts faster than you can ban them from your land. Add that to the upcoming 'voluntary' age verification and the sanitation of the grid to exclude anything even remotely distasteful to a very vocal minority and ...well, you get my point? Tier fees here are outrageous. Many people dont pay as much in actual rent as they charge for monthly tier and yet Phil says he wants to make this world globally viable? There are some places where 195$ a month is half of their income (and thats grandfathered prices, the new sims add another 100$ on top of that) Until tier drops to a point where the majority can own land, not just greedy land barons who charge a 50% markup on islands they advertise for 'sale' but won't transfer ownership rights...well its pretty much going to be a playground for those who can afford to pay it. The point of the opening post (and given the economic 'stats' released today I think LL might just feel justified in raising tiers..I mean LOOK the economy is doing so well!*insert sarcasm here* ) is how many people are preparing for a raise in tier soon...and how?

Nice ASS-umption.........Anyone one thats been around will tell you its just not the chinese its the germans, dutch and south american users as well running batches of bots. And please don`t use "ASIANS" by doing this your including japanese as well. This theory is as unstable as the client with 50,000 users on online. Yes there is a major log in jam at times. But thats because it seems " EVERYONE is running sleek clients and home made version of bot clients................................Look at the the cuurect levels of full paying accounts its not even close to level it should be, and llabs doesnt care period. Because they cando without this part of the structure of income. since they have paid island ads all over sl these days. as for that Chinese version of a vr its not even close to being ready. But once it is then we all can hop over there. Too many IF, Whats, and could be(s)......doesnt add up to anymore truth other then but ASS-umption......

Personally Im not pinning my hopes on HiPiHi..Its going to be highly regulated by the Chinese government (and if you thought the censors in SL were bad....). I don't know how this got off on bots and such. Im just trying to find out how many think LL is going to raise tier once their promise of no Q1 changes expires. I would hope they look at the economy as a whole and decide to lower them a bit....but I'm not holding my breath. Especially after their glowing report on how 'well' we are doing and how 'strong' the SL economy is. Sounds like a build up tp a ''well we think the market can hold up under a slight increase in tiers announcement. When they should be implementing a 30 day trial and then pay system like every other game (oops, used the 'g' word) out there does.

A tier raise would look good on the books (in the short term) if LL were to sell the Second Life service itself....

I read "no Q1 tier increase" to mean "no increase until at least April 2008", not sure why February is stated by the OP.

A tier levelling (all sims at 295 per month including mainland) would be painful enough (50 per cent increase for some), but a raise, right now, an overnight OVER 50 per cent increase in basic costs, that would be a bold move, but it is a move LL has done before with sim purchase prices....

Are we looking at $395 per sim per month, or $450 per sim month.... the mind boggles...

I think a tier restructure rather than an increase is on the cards. If you own a mainland sim, the next step takes you into an extra half a sim tier increase, that's too much. People would probably pay a little extra as and when they could afford but how many want half a sim worth of tier when they only want a 1024 plot.

However if they do increase tier, we have the 60 day promise, which gives people time to tier down.

Premium membership is definitely being looked at as a project by LL. They need to add value to it.

I doubt we would see any numbers this drastic for a very long time.

Tier leveling would, in my opinion, be a Chernobyl for almost any business on the mainlaind. It would be the same as banning mainland business. The purchase price for mainland is already always higher than estate land. No one would put up with the charming quirks of the mainland if the tier was the same as estate land.

That will be a fun time, trying to unload your land while prices drop to L$4 a meter. Also, there is no guarantee we will get a 60 day promise.

I guess this depends on what business you're in. Store owners and Landlords take in a lot of money from customers who purchase Linden dollars without the obligation and hassle of premium membership. Increasing premium memberships adds to LL's bottom line I'm sure, but I don't see how it helps SL businesses or the economy. I may be seeing this from my myopic landlording viewpoint, and missing something.

I prefer LL's efforts go into adding value to spending money in general. I'd also give anything to see a TV ad campaign like WoW recently launched. (The Vern Troyer one).

This reminds me of Ross Perot's "Giant Sucking Sound."

I don't know if we're on different wavelengths here, I'm a landlord too but if I wasn't, I'd see no point in having a premium membership. There is very little benefit to it.

Personally I think they should give premium members discounts on LL products, such as we get a discount on classifieds. or they allow non premiums to own land but give premiums a discount on tier fees.

Me too; I could not justify the added expense to my accountant when there is a viable less expensive alternative. I would come back to socialize tho if my friends didn't move too.

Ciaran, I think I see where you're coming from now. Yes, as a premium customer, I see no real benefit to having the membership aside from my ability to own land. And yes, I would like to see more benefits like your examples there.

What I was getting at earlier is that people who seek premium memberships as they stand now are likely doing so in order to own land. Landowners are pretty much by definition not customers of our rental businesses. So although I totally agree with you that I'd like to see better benefits from my own membership, I'm not out there encouraging people to sign up.

It's usually the calm before the storm. Always nice to say no before coming in with a big yes. Sort of calming the nerves before the hit sort of thing.