Discussion Thread - Details on the Q2 2008 Island Price Change

Anyone thinking of buying a sim right now may want to think twice. The new CEO may think $500 for an Island is a better threshold. Or maybe he will raise everyone's tier. Nothing is set in stone.

The first thing Michael Eisner did when he became CEO was raise the admission price to the Disney parks by 25%. Attendance actually went up and overnight he made the company millions.

Of course, you could make transactions there and actually walk around the theme parks without crashing.

No no no Raymond, some people do not care others may pay less tomorrow as long as they get to pay less than the people before them, while eating a burger covered in ground dirt. A merry win ! They'll not be whiners by complaining.

Having a stable, workable SL is simply not the issue, perish the thought.

After just browsing the blog and reading about the return of the old land store, I just have to laugh. Only about half the things they say will happen ever happen. They said they would be dumping 10 mainland sims a day to auction starting two weeks ago. Instead, it's been 4 a day at the most. This is just one example of "official" information that ends up being false. You have to be a glutton for punishment to give LL your money these days.

(gasps) Your first mistake was browsing the blog. I was kind of amused to see no one paid much attention to the A/B testing announcement, which essentially meant...hm, ridiculously bad things from an IT perspective on an application that uses real money.

BUT...now now. Sims and hamburgers.......

I had it in writing that they would give me a refund for a recently-purchased sim (due to the price increase), so I took down all my work and sent it back. Then after I returned it, the Linden who promised me the refund said "sorry, I misunderstood, no refund for you". This "final resolution" was after my sim had already been gone for 10 days. I had to make multiple phone calls and live chats over the next 3 days to get someone to listen to me, meanwhile I had no money and no sim and all I could get was "submit a ticket".

When I finally got someone willing to listen, my money was refunded in minutes. But the damage is already done. I will not be buying any more islands with my own money in SL again. They can and will take them away from you and basically make you fight them for what they promised in the first place.

Another sim owner recently told me that she bought a sim from another resident and it took 27 days to transfer. Apparently she "bothered" the Lindens too many times because she was allegedly threatened with suspension and told that the Lindens were not her personal servants. This was after her money was already gone as well.

I was saving up to buy 2 more sims and openspaces but I withdrew that and now I am going to buy furniture in RL instead. I have no desire to give money to LL ever again.

It's quite apparent to me that a lot of the people who say sim owners have nothing to complain about, are not actually sim owners themselves.

Snowflake, I am very sorry to hear about your experience. I am happy they did give you your money back eventually. I'm sure those days when it was up in the air were grueling for you. Who needs that kind of stress for what's supposed to be an escape from the rigors of RL?

It's really sad because I'm sure you had visions and excitement over your virtual project. But I think you made the right decision. They have not earned your, or anyone else's confidence that they can deliver what they say they will, or give you a Grid stable enough for you to do business or have fun in.

More straw.

In real life, you get what you are paying for. A car, a helicopter, etc.

In a GAME where everything is an analogy of something in real life, it's more than fine to market by the analogy. So long as you let people know that it's virtual. Virtual = 1s and 0s, get a grip.

That's the interesting part. It is a "game" that uses real money. I am always sensing most people are not getting this, and nor are they. You use a much different standard of accountability, if you are responsible, when you transact real money, as a corporation I mean.

That's just a common sense business standard. But I always sense they are not really understanding the toys they are playing with. Developers develop, they do not.....account, or operate.

(shrugs) Thinking out loud.

Just thought I would give an update on my ventures into OpenSim since I sold all my sims following the price changes (and the uncertainty due to further price revisions in Q3).

I now have my own sim on my own PC, complete with all the builds I had in my main sim of Hoini. That took quite a lot of work, as on a standalone sim there are no stores to go buy the things you need, so everything, every prim, every texture, every script, every sound, every anim has to be created from scratch. Fortunately, several of the suppliers to my builds in Hoini, Sukka Mire, Swey etc have kindly donated full perm textures for their buildings, that I was able to upload directly into my standalone.

Price comparison:

Cost of sim: US$0.00
Monthly tier: US$0.00

I have no lag, crashes, failed teleports, things refusing to rezz, etc, so far.

The OpenSim software is catching up fast with all the capabilities of SL, and the LSL scripting is almost 100% now.

My friends now have a second icon on their desktop, to join me in my sim, and everything is working out very well, thus far.

I will be experimenting with connecting my sim to the OSGrid this weekend, and if that is successful I will then connect it to several of the other OS grids too, and see how stable each one is (but not to the OpenLife grid, which does not permit standalone sims to connect to their grid).

Early next week I will be doing some experiments with asteady increase in numbers of visitors, to see the loading effects, and what my internet upload speed would need to be to cope adequately, and experimenting with the new feature from one of the new viewers that allows teleporting to the SL grid (not a true avatar passport system yet, but a step in the right direction).

For anyone who fancies a trip down this path, I have provided a full step-by-step guide in my blog, together with my experiences, at:

http://rock-vacirca.blogspot.com/

Questions are welcome.

Rock

But this is everyones good fortune, not just new buyers, this is honestly like people complaining the price of petrol has gone down 50% because they already have a full tank of fuel and want to be finacially compensated.
Comon, name her, because buggered if I know exactly who you're talking about because people invested in virtual land thinking it was like gold and now realise it's like paper.
I brought land to use it not to make money, if I wanted to do that I would put the money in the RL bank.

I guess we don't live on the same planet.

I guess we didn't read the same SL website.

I guess we didn't read the same blog announcements.

I guess we didn't read the same forum posts.

Anyways... I'll try to go find a grip. What does it look like? Is it expensive? Is it a game or something to use on my website? Can I resell it after?

Most of what I have read here is not simply about that. Of course, it's never nice to buy an item and see it at 40% off a week later. However, what I see is a lot of people who are fine with prices going down but are wondering about unprofessional cowboy-like customer relations by LL.

Hopefully their new communication manager they announced a few days ago (I don't remember the exact title) didn't get her public relations diploma in a box of cracker jack and we'll start seeing some more responsible behavior by LL... Let's hope, for their own sake.

Exactly!

LL can cut the prices down to 50$ if they want. Fine! The problem is their total lack of credibility in customer relations.

It looks like a game for sure... But a game of yo-yo!

So what if we use real money? We buy service, which involves some data storage. To say that the advertising is false is going too far. LL is a business, this isn't a charity. Blizzard's games are true games and they take real money to play. So what? It is a service, with many aspects.

I went to a store today, I picked up some items on the shelves and handed the storekeeper a piece of paper. Now this piece of paper had some artwork on it but at the end of the day it's a piece of paper, however the storekeeper recognises it as something of value and enters into an exchange with me, the piece of paper allows me to take the goods.

It doesn't matter what you call it or what it is, if someone else recognises that it has value then the item has worth, whether its virtual or not is besides the point.

In a world where the 0's and 1's that depict land have value over and above mere hosting space, then there is a value associated to that asset.

The same goes for items created here by residents, they are only 0's and 1's but if someone decides they have value and enters an exchange for that asset then the asset has value.

I agree, Ciaran. What I'm attacking is the nonsense about misleading marketing. What fool really thinks they are buying land?

Well there have been some marketing issues, I believe the Bragg case brought some up. However the idea that it's real land is, I agree, bunkum.

However I'm a little bit concerned that this dip in land prices will be reversed. Hardware prices do indeed drop, but not by 40% overnight and Zee said that the hardware prices have dropped since November 2006. The only way prices fall by that much is if you're buying the same kit. At some point that kit will be obsolete and bigger, better and faster hardware will be purchased and that's going to be more expensive, which points to a land price increase, indeed Zee said he expected upfront fees to fluctuate.

LL need to have a model in place that reflects these changing values in a way that people can appraise and if they'd address these issues there would be a lot less hollering and moaning because it would be clear as day how the process worked.

I doubt that anyone thinks they are buying land as in *hard brown dirt that is part of the earth*, but the way LL markets it you are buying "complete ownership" of a grid space.

Here is the exact wording as of 1 minute ago:

Each Region is US $1000

A region will give you complete ownership of each grid space you purchase.


I'd say that the wording "complete ownership" is pretty misleading if that's not what you really get. For example if you are getting rental of a server space, it should not say "complete ownership", it should say "rental"

Well the whole thing is subject to the terms of service. THAT aspect, I have no quarrel with, really. Just put an asterisk by it. But in truth, if you don't pay your taxes, you can lose your land. There is no such thing as complete ownership of that, either.

Exactly. And it seems like LL is listening... They are now talking in some places about "initial setup fees" of 1000US$ instead of talking about "buying" - just as an example. Next, perhaps they'll even find a way to make clients feel wanted, who knows?!? But there's hope.

Funny how such a simple thing seems like a strange concept for some: Honesty in communications with clients. Funny! I guess some people are nostalgic of the lawless far west era. Oh well... Let's get some popcorn and watch what the cowboys will do next

If you conflate the analogy with what you actually get, there is the confusion.

Relative to other models in the game, inside the analogy, it is ownership. You have title, no one but LL as the sovereign can take it from you.

Stepping back and looking at the money transaction, it's clearly not full ownership but a contractual obligation that you purchased. You don't own the hardware, all you own are your IP rights.

I keep those two things separate.

yes it is so easy:

1. push out your Islands for a attractive price
2. wait some month or a year
3. rip them off with the tier

We all own our IP rights whether we purchase a sim or not, per the TOS.

Well no Cristalle, you are not grasping the regulatory responsibility of trafficking in real currencies. I played WoW, my monthly fee was singular, their plat only had RL ebay value if any. One fee, virtual world provided.

You bought the service when you paid your fee, additional monetary commitment carries additional financial regulatory responsibility for an IT company in terms of competent financials. Any company whatever that does business in money. I mean this is business 101.

So now you are a company dealing in money. You want to support your consumers. Well, to use the hamburger analogy, it is not all well and good if your meat was bad in a mad cow shipment simply because you ate it and did not get sick. And you would roundly appear ridiculous if you said it was.

Of course it is a business, but as I said before, this world did not build itself, surely you comprehend as much. Those people who bought sims gave you places beyond the original patch of land here to go to, and content to use. Would you say for example, the old explorers who discovered new lands, or the following settlers who developed them are insignificant because they are sooooo yesterday ? Not if you have an intelligence. Is Bill Gates work in his garage as a kid irrelevant now ? Of course not.

Buy a couple sims now, have them lower the price in a few months, same for Tegg. You will cry louder than anyone. It becomes just so unjust ! When it happens to you.

Sure they are a business, c'mon now. And you can make one too. If you do, and accept money, you think you get a free pass on service and related compensation for currency rendered and product delivered ?

It is a simple empathy here, for people who invested in the product you are playing with. Had they not invested, where do you think LL would have gone with this when they came out with the idea ?

Right, so what if it is real money. How much have YOU put into the development of it to criticize anyone who actually put in a lot ?

Have some common sense here. They have a legitimate gripe and are not begrudging people coming after. Like I said, and they said, most will happily accept some manner of credit to continue their efforts.

Do you really not comprehend what paying real money means ? Are you not grasping that simply paying a monthly fee adds to content, with how much, if you include tier, being relative to how much LL has to work with to pay their folks ? Hello ?

Who do you think financed this content, and pays the Lindens to develop it Tegg ? Look at that in past tense. Hm ? Where did the money come from ? I can only wonder why again you did not read the post I copied for you. You bang on one point, ignoring the rest.

All I can say....again....is duuuuuude, c'mon now.