Sim tier and price raise in 2008?

Oh, and honestly, this thread is perhaps overlooking the most important factor that will go into any tier increases.

For how much additional money can we bilk these guys?

Forget about costs of doing business. My general observation of the actors in the Second Life economy is that they have lots to complain about, but when it comes to the one and only action they can take to pressure Linden Labs into changing something- that one and only action being withholding their money- there's no action.

Besides, I don't see how Linden Labs honestly takes a hit anyway if there is land dumping. They already have the sunk money from your "purchase" of the land. Now they just need to keep the tiers. If they take an overall loss from high tiers because people dump their land, they will just lower the tiers back and watch a new wave of purchasers buy in when the tiers are lowered. The new purchasers will initially trumpet their financial success in buying in when land prices were depreciated from the previous tier increase.

Remember, from Linden Labs's perspective, it doesn't matter whether one person pays tier for all 12 months of a year, or a different person is paying tier each month. And remember, Linden Labs doesn't care whether that land has established buiding on it, or whether it is perpetually under construction. The amount of tier collected is just the same.

I get the feeling that when Linden Labs looks at Second Life residents, they don't see consumers, and they don't see business-people. They see suckers.

I'm feeling more and more like a sucker every day.

I feel you, Amity. The biggest problem is that SL doesn't have an economy to speak of other than sex, in the sense of providing jobs. SL is a luxury that is increasingly more expensive to play. Jobs help to make the game worthwhile, and sustainable. An increase in prices without a corresponding increase in income is going to hurt people who make the game work through participating fully in the economy - either as a content creator or service provider. You can't raise rent or prices too much, if at all, on a noob who camps or hosts for a meager living.

And what give us this feeling? I think it all comes down to poor communication. When there finally is some competition who comes along and kicks LL's ass, this will make a great case study on how to ruin a good idea with horrible customer service.

yea, so many people buy new houses and cars and have a stay at home mum nowdays.
it aint the 1950's mate. cost of living has been outpacing disposable income for yonks.

same here Nina .... i would averagethat every year I stay with my current employer I am financially worse off...

But back to point.
I dont think many of us can continue to pay for an ever increasing Lindon Banking system there has to be a stable platform with a stable economy or else its all for nothing. I agree LL has to make thier money too.... BUT the fact that they are now in profit they seem to have little forthought over what is thier most valuble asset . which of course is us.
With the negative media and corporate pull outs .. they should be thinking about how to get more people in, rather than how to drive people out. With thier biggest stream comming from tier it seems little sense to fiddle with thier income unless they are financial strapped or just Phillip has a board of investors going ...WE WANT OUR MONEY!!!!!

I think if Linden Labs increase the tiers, they may be gearing towards the corporate crowd, who can afford to pay those higher prices.

I was taking to a friend who's also in SL and she thinks gradually if a lot more big corporations buy into it, it will be used more as a business too instead of a place to play for the common user.

Since coming into LL now gives a corporation a negative press release ("Playboy the latest latecomer morons to build a low traffic sim in SL" instead of a positive one ("Americam Apparel the first real life merchant to have a virtual store!", they are gearing for a customer that no longer exists. The only good reason for companies to come into SL is gone: Publicity.

Here is the problem and LL has to know of a balance. they open up and sell more and more sims which drops the prices on mainland in general. The more they raise tier, the less sims they will sell because users won't buy much land due to tier cost and sim owners will cut back in fear of being stuck with tier cost since land isn't selling. A lot of people are willing to buy as much land as possible, but tier cost keeps a lot of people from expanding into that next tier category. So, LL is not hurt, but sim owners and consumers are. If tier gets much higher, you will have a lot of people selling off land and less people buying which will kill the value of land all together, which will also leave LL with sims unbought and auctions not generating any revenue. The cheaper the tier, the more valuable the land would be as you would have more buyers.

You would have a corporate crowd with no consumers, so that wouldn't last long. Can't afford to buy any of the corporate services because you spent all of your extra money on tier cost.

I've had the feeling for a quite a while that Linden Labs probably wants to just deal with corporate users and not the common consumer. Of course, Second Life needs those consumers before the corporate users come in. But my guess is that Linden Labs would probably like to outsource (and/or open source) the parts of Second Life with which it doesn't deal well. Without having specific examples on the top of my head, a lot of Linden Labs's ongoing policy decisions seem to be consistent with Linden Labs just not wanting to be involved in the mundane management of Second Life. (Well, now a few come to mind- open source server plans, concierge service, withdrawal of First Land, loosening policies to allow private island owners to take care of griefing problems themselves. And since it seems to me that they just don't give a damn about what happens with mainland, they are just helping private island sims compete better with them when it comes to real estate, and why would they do that unless they'd just rather not be in the real estate business at all?)

If i gave up the land i own, that cost approaching £400, just dumped it.. in less than a year, i would save its initial cost, in saved monthly fees, from that point on, i am making money.. its sitting in my bank gaining interest, if i dont use it to gain more than that, and it isnt that difficult in the UK to make £400...ie buy something(s) from an auction and resell for example.

Lindens might smile as i went, and resell that land subsequently.. and carry on receiving income.. or not.. no guarantee there, as one can buy anything one desires in SL, the land i dump might stay unsold for months.

I could look at what i could do with the land and try to offset the cost of the monthly fee,but i am no business seeker.. i enjoy SL just as it is.. the monthly fee is a a luxury, no different than anything else i buy that doesnt enable me to exist happily.

I have talked to folks, that have no house.. nothing much except what they can carry, and sleep where they stop, wherever that might be.. I have no wish to be that basic.. and they see me as a millionaire. i see me just managing.. its about perspective..

There could come a point at which i think the luxury of SL is no longer something i want..

I can walk away or change..sometimes i envy the buskers on street corners..

They could be just waiting for a buyout from someone like Sony or another company in that category who would make money while advertising their products.

I think Linden Labs needs to hire the services of a reputable Economist that might be able to develop a viable business model for future years to come.


The question is whether Linden Labs could achieve more overall annual income by increasing their Tiers to Land owners (which will inevitably lead to a land dump and decrease in overall land holdings) or actually REDUCE Tiers and thereby making it more affordable & inviting to SL players.

My guess is that the initial LL pricing structure back in 2001/2 was geared more towards the US and its economy. ie. what was affordable in relation to average disposable income. The problem is that SL has moved on.....it's become a "World Wide Game" which does not take into account average earnings and ultimately disposable income of other Nationals for this Virtual world environment.

For example...i recently had a long conversation with a Brazilian SIM owner who was sitting on large amounts of empty unsold/rented land. She explained that for Brazilians this is a very expensive luxury to spend RL money in a virtual world considering average monthly earnings are around $500 or whatever. So you can see that $25 monthly Tier for a 4096 sq/m plot for a Brazil player might feel the same as spending $100 for a US or West European citizen for similar land size. This also explains that if you ever visit Brazilian shopping malls you will find most products are sold at significantly reduced prices.....and I mean very low prices!!

If you consider that the Brazilian community as a whole is one of the largest here on SL...(i'm assuming it's of the order of around a 1/4 million players) you can see that Linden Labs have missed a trick here! With a proper Tier structure (i.e Reduced Tier)...you bring into play many more new potential land owners......now multiply that by many East European citizens on lower salaries....and parts of Asia (e.g India/China)....and you can see LL general pricing policy is cock-eyed and out of touch with real world economics.!!

Like i said many months ago.....the only way Linden Labs will ever wise up, is if a serious rival emerges....with a similar quality product on a more stable platform and affordable to a world wide audience.

i personally WANT more land..... and had just decided to buy more and using some spare savings i had to help the extra tier for 6 months and see wether or not it pays for itself .... but that idea is scrapped now untill LL decide what they gonna do.

But LL isnt exactly a well run business model is it.......................

The only thing that will get LL's attention is mass abandonment of land. Empty sims with no one paying tier, non-sales of auctioned sims. However, I sincerely doubt that will ever happen. It costs too much to just abandon it all.

the abandon part won't happen, but the slow down of auction buying will if people see no one is buying land due to tier cost capping spending.

but even when sims were being dumped nonstop and land value fell by half there were still a few people buying every sim in sight. i dont know what his plan was but one guy in particular was buying them all up.

I disagree about non-sales - because there is always someone opportunistic out there. These are the people that propped prices up. I don't fully understand the price crash that just happened. Most of the land for sale and almost all the auctions do not support the 6L/m2 price range. I cannot imagine that there are that many people who bought that much land at 5L/m2 that are selling it and making a profit. It looks like loss is the new business model.

Still is, God bless him.

A lot of end users now find full sims affordable. So not all who are buying are carving and selling. None of the four buyers of the sims around mine are resellers.

How can you say that, when JB bought half of the sims on the block?

Still, like I said - it doesn't explain how the price of what is actually for sale can go that low. Almost none of the auctions supported going under 7, and yet, we rushed headlong toward 6, even with newly minted sims. Only when LL turned down the spigot has it started to rise again. Land expanded massively in the last 6 months. Before then, it was crushingly high. Do you really mean to tell me that the old plots on the older sims are on sale for a fire sale? Casinos/clubs come and go so quickly, I cannot believe that it is all casino land that is making that much impact, unless there really WAS a fire sale on the land. Ah well, whatever.

Incorrect and there's a very good chance you'll see more RL products inworld in the near future.

You do know that windlight would be client side - right?

I look forward to ignoring them. Unless you bring true value, useful products and creativity to SL like the creators I know and respect, there's no reason to ever visit your corporate sim.

Indeed, but with ICT your money is going further now even without an increase and has been year on year for some time. My broadband, Cable and telephone costs are lower now than they were 12 months ago. In fact my Broadband supplier will shortly be increasing the speed of my connection for no extra cost.