Actual Island Counts

The highest island count as reported on the economics statistics page was Oct 29th, representing data through midnight Oct 28th. That's the day after Jack Linden's original blog post at 6pm on the 27th. I will list the stats below and calculations based on them. Note that the dates listed account for data through midnight the previous day in all cases:

Date..........Island Count.....Change.........Avg/Day..Last/Day
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 29.......26,665............. 0...................N/A........N/A
Nov 4........26,422............. -243..............-40.5......-40.5
Nov 6........26,311............. -354..............-44.2......-55.5
Nov10.......26,172............. -493..............-41.1......-34.75
Nov13.......25,981............. -684..............-45.6......-63.67
Nov17.......25,744............. -921..............-48.5......-59.25
Nov19.......25,574........... -1,091.............-52.0......-85.0
Nov21.......25,434........... -1,231.............-53.5......-70.0
Nov24.......25,119........... -1,546.............-59.5......-105
Nov26.......24,889........... -1,776.............-63.4......-115
Dec 1........24,562.......... -2,103.............-63.7......-65.4
Dec 5........24,372.......... -2,293.............-62.0......-47.5

Note also: the trend prior to Oct 26th was to *add* around 40 per day, so the "total losses" are the actual reduction of island count + the expected gain in islands based on past trends.


Economic Impact on Linden Labs:
--------------------------------------

Zee Linden provided two data points on land distribution in his 3rd Quarter economics discussion. One is that there were 10,337 open spaces as of 30 Sep 2008 paying maintenance (ie past the first month when they dont pay tier)

The other was that on 14 November the land distribution was 39% full islands, 44% open spaces, and 14% mainland. The unaccounted for 3% I assume is linden-owned land.
The total islands reported in the economics statistics is 25,922 on Nov 14th, so that implies 13,742 openspaces. Those numbers are inconsistent, since only 1045 islands were added in October and 1688 in September, which yields a maximum of 13,070 when added to the 10,337 paying maintenance as of 30 Sep.

Given the discrepancy, I will assume a range of 13-14,000 openspaces as the peak number.

Zee Linden also mentioned "we are seeing a lot of conversions" of four open spaces to one full island. Let us assume that conversions are 75% of the change, and that cancellations of full islands are the remaining 25%. Then each hundred lost from the total island count is 25 full islands, and 100 open spaces converted to 25 islands. Thus the full islands cancel out, and all of the loss in island count is openspaces.

The income calculation then becomes easy. 13,000 open spaces x 75 a month = 975,000
10,263 open spaces at 95 a month post 1 Jan 2009 gives the same income. So if they lose more than 2,737 islands, total income will be lower. Similarly, 7800 open spaces on 1 Jul 2009 would also produce the same income at 125 a month.

The total number of islands lost so far (2,293) is getting close to my estimate of "breakeven" on the price increase (2,750). In simple terms, past 2,750, Linden Labs loses more from lost islands than they gain from the higher tier.

Note, that only covers *income*, I have no information on how *expenses* change when you reduce island count.

There was a peak of island losses approximately one month after the original announcement. My hypothesis is this is the "early reaction" pulse: island owners who either abandoned open spaces, or consolidated them back to a full island, but who allowed around a month, or till their next tier payment, for their tenants to pack up/move/let their lease run out.

My expectation is there will be another peak at the time the first $95 a month tier will be due. Not being an island owner, I'm not sure of the timing of that increase. I *think* its the first due date on or after Jan 1, 2009, but please correct me if that's wrong.

The problem is the losses you count here do not consider sims that were combined to form a full sim. If 4 OS sims are combined into 1 full sim there is approximately no loss for LL and it changes where they break even.

…and then again, 2000 opensims at $125 is a lot more money than 500 full sims at $295 a month. 250,000 compared to 147,500, even at $95 it's 50,000 more!

hey!


think its more 250,000 compared to 147,500 however ...
at the time its 150.000 compared to 147.500 (75u$/os)

dont forget less traffic = lower cost too

and frankly noone knows lindenlabs businessplan, so it makes no sense to speculate bout lost income

Yes it is 250,000, I blame my calculator.

edit corrected in my original post

That doesn't follow. If someone combines 4 OpenSpaces to a regular sim LL gets the same income but the total number of sims drops by 3.