Bay City - Is it a FAIL?

Desmond,

I would agree that it probably is unlikely or impossible to set up a mainland rental business that functions as a RL business, if you're not one of the original biggies. As you point out, it's impossible to reach that scale on mainland, and it's too expensive to start up now as a continental estate unless you have a genius plan (which half the grid will copy in 2 months anyway).

But let's not forget that this isn't the goal for many (if not most) people, and achieving something on a smaller scale than that is not failure and is not "doomed."

For the hard-core hobbyist who finds SL fun, and would spend hours a day here anyway, and who just wants to meet the personal challenge of getting the sim to pay for itself, it is surprisingly easy to turn a profit on a mainland sim. Thousands of people out there are doing it, most of whom don't post in these forums. I know it's probably inconvenient to let that secret out, to those who depend on the rental market for their RL business and don't want to see a lot of competition from people basically doing it for free. But that's the reality. If anything, it is we hobbyists who are putting the big dent on the original biggies trying to keep this up as a RL business. It's hard for me to see how that old model is sustainable, but more power, and big kudos to those like you who are still making a go of it!

--Avion

It was an absolute resounding success....................for Linden Labs.

Think of all those weeny plots that were sold between 70k to 200 K (250 USD to 750 USD) at the the LL auctions.....literally 100's of them.

Now you have a well designed, laggy (always laggy for me when i go there even without traffic), part Covenant'd and a nice looking Ghost City. I think the most I have ever counted were 25 avatars spread across the entire region!

I haven't evaluated Nauticulus Region as yet....but the few times i have mapped it, there seemed more "Green Dot" activity.....plus from my understanding the plots were cheaper at the Auctions.....still for silly amounts, but not as bad as Bay City scam.

I considered participating in the Bay City auctions..had itchy fingers to do so. I wanted to buy a plot and place a satellite store, which i would have fully marketed and not just left dangling alone relying on walkby traffic. Then i considered renting, there was a lovely plot opposite the Theatre and Blaze Columbia....but the rent seemed a bit high for the amount of the land, so i gave up that idea.

I still would consider it, if the prices came down and were more reasonable (40-50k maybe) and i saw the region being more vibrant. It would help if LL showcased the regions....i don't recall seeing the region in the Showcase tabs.

Stating the obvious I guess but whether you think BC is a fail or not depends on how you want to personally measure it. A thriving community has been stated as important by many, colourful and definitely not grey seems important to some, a good return on investment is clearly important to most and to that end a lot of discussion has concentrated on inflated land prices.

When I look around BC, what I see is that - with very few exceptions - people have built there with thoughtfulness and maturity and with some sort of urban theme in mind and that says a great deal considering there is no covenant. What attracted me to owning land in BC in the first place was the abundance of protected land and the presence of clearly thoughtful neighours! :) In my search for an unspoilt view my choice was to pay a premium for land in BC rather than pay a premium tier every month for land on a private estate. The risk for me with no covenant is of course that my view might become spoilt, but buying land on a private estate carries some risks too. So I accept the risks in BC and am enjoying my view.... for now! ;)

One thing is for sure, the state of the global economy has a lot to answer for. I would guess that most of the residents currently selling their land in BC are not speculators but people who saw BC as a cool place to own land long term, to set up a home or a small business venture, and who are reluctantly selling as they are now finding it hard to justify their tier payments in light of continued RL financial difficulty. When you look at the immense sea of yellow and abandoned land spanning across the entire SL mainland it might not be that BC is doing so badly. But with all that land up for sale and the economy still worsening, BC is going to change, its occupants are going to change, and so will it's personal appeal to each of us.

I doubt its because of LL Tier ...that charge is miniscual. How much is tier on a 1024 sqm plot? The premium subs is nearly offset by stripends recieved over a year.

I roughly estimated the number of number of plots in Bay City at 300. This is based on the assumption that there are 25 plots per all 12 of the Bay City sims (exclusive of a number of regions in the sim that do not have resident owned content). As of today there are 59 plots marked as for sale. This is roughly 5/6th of the total available plots in Bay City. I suspect that many, if not most other mainland areas have much higher levels of available land than that. Those that are available tend to be on the very high priced range: below the level of Nova Albion, but still higher than anywhere else on the mainland.

Let's call that a modest win.

As I said before, there are only so many unique stores to draw a person to Bay City. This seems to be slowly changing. Some have made a definite commitment to Bay City, including Rebel Hope, Barnesworth Anubis, and Designs of Darkness. The latter is opening an expanded main store in Bay City, replacing their smaller location in the same sim. Several other top creators such as Terra Aeronautics and Primouth Motors have stores in Bay City as well. That said, there are still a lot of storefronts and land there that may be underutilized.

Let's call this a draw. Could go either way.

From a style perspective, there are some gaps. That said, there are also a number of positives, including from the folks mentioned above. Compared to a finely tuned estate? it still has a long way to go. Compared to, well, just about anywhere else on the mainland? It's a gem.

Here's 1000 words on Bay City, courtesy of a 4096m draw distance:



I'd say there's more hits than misses in that photo, even with a couple oddities present in that shot.

Events are in process now, with the Bay City parade set to rival the Nova Albion parade of last weekend. some other items are on the burner too. Expect updates in the near future on those. No win or fail on that right now, as we're working 'em up - then you can judge 'em.

So... is Bay City a FAIL? People will always find something to pick on about it, and people have a whole lot of axes to grind over it. But you know what? The more I think about it, the more positive I am. I'm certainly a lot more positive than I was a couple pages back!

Edit: For those interested in presentation on "Bay City Style," come to the Bayjou theater tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. SLT. Event listing here: https://secure-web6.secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=2507801

Three neighbours I talked to in the last week are selling because they can't afford it any more. Maybe they need to sell off some land to reduce their tier down a level or maybe they need to sell everything and cancel their premium membership altogether. I didn't ask details, it wasn't my business. And I know that's only three people, but judging by the amount of land for sale or abandoned in SL I'd say that for many people the ability to own even 1024 sqm of land has become a luxury they are having to justify. My guess is only a tiny minority of people in SL have businesses that consistently pay for themselves, for the rest every pound or dollar they spend on SL is a luxury. But we're going off-topic here, i think Marianne summed it up very well with her last post.

I know I've been looking at some land I was never gonna get rid of (no, not in Bay City), an thinking hard about dropping it. RL times are hard, and I'm not using it like I could. Maybe tier isn't a big deal to many, but I tink f'r some, it's money they'd rather not be tossin out a window if they dun hafta.

There was a live music venue there at one point (which is, of course, different than utilizing that stage in the park on Linden land). I visited once (in 200. One of the few times I had trouble getting into a sim because it was full.

As far as I know it moved, or disappeared (there is another venue out there with the same name, but I haven't taken the time to figure out if it is the same people behind it).

(yay, can finally post, read rest of thread)

(Yay Lexxi!)

Could it be Second Arts in Tanelorn?

I wonder if the presenter might consider putting some of the content of that presentation into the wiki, for reference of future Bay City residents (and admittedly like me: folks with schedule conflicts). One thing I've always liked about Bay City is the motif. To me, it's evocative of a lot of rich period content from, say, Edward Hopper to "Breakfast at Tiffany's." And I've found many uses--not all obvious--for the mole-supplied textures there.

The presenter is indeed working on a way to present (and expand) on it in the future, an the wiki might be a dandy spot for it.

The music venue that I visited was called either "Smooth", or "Silence". I do not recall which Bay City sim it was located in, though.

What a difference 10 months can make...

Shortly after the first auctions came to pass:


Last night, in Imaginario:


Bay city - Imaginario is very quickly turning into a gem, with actual main stores for some good designers. Some good people, too.