Discussion Thread - Details on the Q2 2008 Island Price Change

Honestly. If I got my sim and it works (even halfway) I would have nothing to complain about, my island would not be for rental or for business, this would be a private sim for myself and my fiance.

Just wait until you start dealing with them paying that much money, then see if you feel you have complaints

I wonder if you would be happy if they dropped the price $650 just before you brought a few, hmm probably not.....................

I wonder if you would be happy if LL promised you a refund on your sim if you returned it, then took back your sim & decided their promise of a refund was a mistake, leaving you without your sim and without your money.

I wonder if you explained the problem to them and their only response was to tell you to submit a ticket, if you would be happy.

Probably not.

I'm not happy that they did it to me, either. I don't feel inspired to buy any more sims no matter what the cost. Since I have now had the experience of having no money and no sim, and no resolution in sight.

LOL...sounds like someone tries to either play GOD or be an expert in something he/she is not.

You say "isnt it obvious"....and YES....it IS obvious that tier fees will not go up if all those thousands of sims are sold. First, I dont see why so many more sims should be sold. $1000 is STILL alot of money for most in SL. Second. When more land is available it will be no sense for LL to raise tier fees for estate owners. If they do and people start abandoning the land LL will loose huge amounts on fees that they else would be able to get pretty fat from.

So try again. This time with more sense build into your statements.

Well no, they will power off a couple depreciated servers and write them off or partition them for other functionality if they actually have people who partition things for functionality, then return them to vendor they were leasing from. They will not actually be owning the equipment flat out, that would not make sense as it is obsolete and the vendors will allow upgrade bonuses. So try again, this time with more sense built into your statements if you have a clue about IT and the relative likely pittance between electric, ops, network expense vs. SIM tier across a server farm. They are making a percentage from sims, a good one maybe, but not all of it from that source. Operations/equipment is expense and depreciation values. I am no expert at accounting though, but still, IT and SL do not work that ridiculously simple.

The sim owners are not begrudging the more positive state of things for the new buyer, but how can anyone, not this poster, be so dim as to not see the point of people who have been paying the big bucks and essentially been bludgeoned, and no I am not one of them, by a feeble business comprehension.

You know, all this content did not miraculously pop into being, people largely paid to develop it, and to expand it, creating opportunities for more people to do the same. That made your freebie hair and shoes possible, and lets you wander around cool places to look at stuff.

I went to Doc Eldritch the other day.....after I made a pair of pants in Gimp. Kinda looked around and thought, oh yeah, he earned this sim plenty.

No one can really be stupid enough to blame people for investing in a shared luxury and being upset about getting a shaft now can they ?

By sim getting cheaper your VAT just dropped 40% too on purchase. Other countries pay tax too on SL.............

Not really a wizard on long term money flow are you Tegg ? (hint, look at previous investment possibility which prolly fueled server expansion to let you be sitting where you are!) SL was once a patch of a few sims hm ?

You mean you can make more profit by paying higher VAT on more expensive island sims, like if they were $10,000US an Island we'd be able to make a fortune?
LL should keep raising prices, so when the opposition hit the market your $1700 sims will then be worth $17,000.
Here I was thinking buy low, sell high and it's actually the opposite?

Mean you look at more than the last week Tegg, lot of these people have owned sims a long time. Crazy idea huh ? Wow.

A lot of those people have also made way more than $700 over 4 years off those sims too.
Buying Virtual land as an investment is like buying a blank webpage as an investment. Unless you can make value by content or make it earn for you, your are playing high risk.
What are LL to do leave them expensive while the opposition start chewing at SL's userbase which is all SL has left really, thye have SL's code or at least a better version of it, in 12 months other worlds will be cheaper with better features and not strangled by trying to keep everything 2003 compatible and hopefully learnt off all the mistakes SL has shown how not to do many things.
Imagine if they had Customer service, good avatar mesh, crossable sim boundries, working teleports, vehicles and combat systems.........

Well I dunno, if they made more than 700 how much did they pay in ? Again, to make more sims, to create content ?

Duuuuuuuude, seriously, you spend a few K on something and someone else spends a buck fifty and says you have no right to be upset. Duuuuuuude.

Is great for new people getting sims, they never griped about that, but they lost a chunk overnight. See you cannot see everyone who owns a sim as a land baron. They aren't.

So, you have a choice, newbie with three sims, or vet with 1 who makes stuff. Newbie will want a BDSM club, a mall, yada yada. Vet is cranking out scripts, items.....put in a ton over time.

Duuuuuuude ? You are not gonna mind much if your burger rolls on the floor before making it to your bun. I mean hey, everyone paid for a burger who gets one. Bad luck you got the one in the dirt.

C'mon, seriously.

What is this opposition that you refer to with the low-priced sims?

What are these other worlds that will be cheaper with better features in 12 months?

I'd like a name so I could try it out and see if it's truly comparable to SL. That is, if it's one I haven't tried yet.

There's only one problem... This is not what LL sells. I do not see a "3D web hosting setup portal", I see a "land store". I also see economic statistics on supply & demand...

You are saying they are using misleading and false marketing statements to get more money in their pockets, right? Hmmm... How about that! What a surprise! A brand new high-tech world; same old crooked marketing gimmicks... Selling a Klondike gold rush concession, delivering a web hosting service. It's almost funny!

It makes sense to people who still have a grip on reality.

It makes sense to me too.

Now... Can you understand the point that... This is not what LL is selling? Pretty simple! You are OK with a car dealer telling you that you are buying an helicopter? I'm not! Of course, I will still expect it to be a car but I will also denounce that car dealer. In fact, where I live, that type of misleading marketing gimmicks are illegal.

But, hey, like I said... Misleading advertising and marketing gimmicks can be very entertaining, so that's all good

Interesting discussion over at metanomics the other day, Zee said he expects the upfront fee to fluctuate.

http://metanomics.net/22-apr-2008/analysts-informationweek-and-gartner-event-transcript

Zee's bit is at the end.

I do not believe that I am buying land. We are all playing a game where there is virtual land and everything you buy is a set of 0s and 1s on a hard drive, or the privilege to use something. Now, if you want accurate marketing, sell it that way! Um, no. We don't do that. The "misleading marketing" angle is a straw man.

So... The car dealer is selling you an helicopter. You don't believe you are getting an helicopter. You know you are getting a car. Therefore, the car dealer is justified to advertise helicopters. You don't mind... You know it's just a game to get him rich.

Interesting!

Hmmm... I wonder if I could get away with that in my RL business... Nah! I wouldn't do that to my clients

http://www.openlifegrid.com/

$25US to buy a sim and $75US per month tier even if they double their prices out of beta how is LL supposed to kep selling islands at previous pricing and tier rates?

It's catching up fast for only 6 months old, and they are going to branch in different directions, not hampered by the "make all the 2003 stuff still work" problem

The landborons have been milking auctions for ages, rolling in money they make from buying a sim and carving it into 512 plots. Or making sure a $1700 starting price always costs and end user $3k.
Long term rentals and store owners tell you in this and other threads they have made that easy.
And the rest of us if you buy a sim it's to use it for the next 10 years or sell to buy another, not to sell for money.
You are buying 1's & 0's on a harddrive, even if the landstore says it's land, I know it's not.

I don't consider it competition, considering I couldn't walk across the welcome area without crashing repeatedly when I was there all alone, and have heard similar from everyone else I know that has tried it.

As I already said Tegg, all sim owners are not land barons. ; ) You know better.

The sim owners you are railing against are "the rest of us". Stop and think about it, who can absorb the loss better without being upset in the forums. Prolly a land baron, huh ? Who is gonna hurt more from it, and post ?

Uh huh. The rest of "us". (shakes her head)

So basically when "the rest of us" decide to buy 2nd, or 3rd sims we'd rather pay $1700 than $1000 each?
I only own half a sim now, but when I buy my first sim, I don't want to pay $1700 for it just because that's what it cost the owner in 2005. And I I had brought a sim in 2005 and lost $700, Well if I didn't get $700 worth of income and or enjoyment out of it in 3 years, it was a pretty dumb thing to do and a waste of time owning it for 3 years.

I am not sure what you are missing so I will repost to help you out.



You are kind of ignoring an awful lot to keep banging on the same point, which no one argued with in the first place. They are upset about their investment and a business practice that hurt them financially, not anyone elses good fortune. If you paid the least attention you would note they would be happy with some form of credit or applicable balance, but Tegg, you are not paying attention. You are fighting the landbaron-who-shall-be-named and she is not here.

Will you try to read the stuff posted ? Just a few paragraphs maybe ? A sentence or two ?

What part are you not grasping about a bunch of normal people who put more money into it than you did, to make the existence you now have ?

I know three sim owners, which I am guessing is not impressive, and none of them are land barons. Mostly they all followed the dream of owning that you are. Like where is this not computing with you, Tegg ?