Massive OS sim abandonments

Which is now closed anyways. *sigh*

Sucker bet!!! lol... sighs. I expect them to do EXACTLY that. Which I think anyone who WAS considering purchasing new islands, the regular ones, will not now because LL has proven it can and will jack up prices 67 percent a few months after you buy your land from them. The bad move here is not just in the loss of income from the people who had originally bought OS and are now abandoning them, but in the loss of Future Sales, which LL will no doubt feel as the economy has already made people cautious with the spending of money. I wouldn't doubt that the biggest regular island owners are also now looking to divest themselves of regular islands in the expectation SL may jump prices on them, and those 10 islands that cost 3000 a month in tier up keep (sample number) will cost them over 5000.

I don't doubt a similar price hike lies in wait for regular islands. Little island owners, who own only one or two islands will have it bad enough that many will have to abandon lands. Pay 200 bucks MORE a month in tier for an island, of be able to pay rent or your heating bill or eating? Lots of us saved for months if not years, and buddied up with friends to share costs of our islands. We aren't rich. Most of us are not making any kind of income back on our land either. We are however the long term money infusing user that Linden Labs ought to have more concern over. Burn your long term paying user base, and show potential paying users how badly they can get taken, and Linden Labs may see very chilly sales in the New Year indeed.

mcx

who are you fooling, Gregg? There.com sucks lemon trees, Second Life is where it is at, I have been a gamer for years.

So you are out some L$ and $$$? Okay what were you doing with all those open space sims? No doubt ripping off renters into thinking they were getting a good deal by renting your low-budget, low-prim half-mast land... you are the scammer here and LL is very right in taking them out... Openspace were created for full sim owners to enjoy added on space to their sims, not for profiteers to scam newbs.

Well, I don't know what your issue is with landowners. It seems awfully presumptuous to say that they have all acted the same, let alone badly. Mine was clear that it is an OS. She was also clear that she has been charged VAT by Linden (which she feels is not legal under trade rules with her country, btw).

Linden was clear that OS could be rented to others, and that they "can" be used for residential. As I understand it, they doubled the prims and made them stand-alone properties, with transferable manager rights, in a context where it was clear people wanted to rent them.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/03/07/announcing-changes-to-the-openspace-product/

I think 3,750 prims was a good number for me to make a home. We're so happy for you if, by your standards, $75/month is next to worthless.

Perhaps in a few more months, Linden will decide that the value of whatever you buy from them is 67% more than what you have been paying up until now. If our money is worth so little for open spaces compared to earlier promises, and if you expect us to pay extra or leave after just a few months on the OS: Why should your money be worth more?

you forgot, it's also really ugly

mmm yes i 2nd that, tis ugly

There's some gorgeous mainland.

But muuuuuuuch more ugly mainland.

massive OS abandonment's??


Funny, I see lots of people buying & selling. Perhaps its those who were psuedo-owning (ie: 'bought' theirs from an estate) who are abandoning.

But I see people buying full transfer OS's as fast as they are offered.

Heck, if any of you have one you are going to dump, IM me in world...I can use a few.

We shall overcome this.... its what those who love SL do.

Location location location

Yeah, I have read through this entire discussion over the past couple of weeks and have been wondering about that.


Agreed. See my post near this one. I've got USD in hand for anyone who wants to dump an OS.

SL has lost about 2000 sims so far, since the announcement. That's a net loss, by the way, so that includes the conversions of Openspace sims into full sims. The actual number of Openspace sims lost is therefore actually greater than 2000 sims, and the rate of loss is accelerating.

I'd think twice about picking up these sims as people abandon them. When the price skyrockets the middle of next year, they're going to be a huge liability.

Absolutely true. And what is the thinking of these people who buy OS/Homesteads now without knowing the CPU Ratios and Script Limits? Sorta like buying a car and gambling that it will have 8 cylinders instead of 4.

I think you're missing the point, it's cheaper to buy 4 OS sims and convert them to a full sim than it is to get a full sim in the first place with the set up charges.

I'm only basing that on what I know of prices but i'm pretty sure that's what these people are doing.

Agreed, if you have 2 openspaces, to convert them to a full sim is going to cost USD$500 to get two openspaces from LL, if you can pick up 2 from those looking to bail for USD$200 you're quids in.

However it's a buyers market not a sellers market.

I would tend to agree with you, if the purpose of buying the OSes is to re-rent them as is. However:

And that is exactly what I am doing. I think that the market for parcels on full sims is going to skyrocket once July hits and the homesteads are no longer "affordable" to renters. I'm buying OSes strictly with an eye toward converting them to full sims, and I want to be ready when that market explodes. It's been my experience that people want prims, not square meters.

Well, 2000 x $75US per month x 12 months is nothing to sneeze at on a balance sheet. That's what, about $3.6 million a year? Ouch.

I know Gregg personally. The 26 OS sims he had to dump weren't being whored out like so many other land barons, he runs a micro-nation called "Antiquity", a Victorian-era world with pirates and naval battles.

The majority of his OS sims were water for sailing, what LL expressly intended OS sims for, however due to the price hike as well as the ships (these aren't tiny ships, theyre big frigates and galleons with 20 cannons) needing more prims than the "new" OS sims would allow without an upgrade to homestead ... he had to shut down, and effectively shrink our world by 50%.

I think it's criminal and cowardly the way Linden Lab behaves. They have land owners by the balls and they know it. You pay them money and use their service, but at any time they can snatch it from you or change the rules on you, and you either give it up and all the hard work you put into it (not to mention the money you paid) or you downgrade to 700~ prims, OR you pay 400$ and upgrade to homestead and keep the same benefits you had before... even though you'll still use it for the same thing, a place for people to sail and have the occasional naval battle.

I highly recommend that everyone effected by this contact the FTC. It's a bait and switch and fraudlent trading, it also goes against what is called "reasonable expectation of service". File a complaint and contact your individual state to find local laws LL is breaking, I know California has some against this sort of thing, and they're based here.

/354/5d/289825/1.html

It's M Linden's fault. He torpedoed Philip Linden and took the company, now he's turning it into a profit machine whereas it was Philip's dream. Long live Philip Linden.

I don't get it. Net loss is 2000 so why are we saying that the total lost OS sims is more than 2000? If I convert 2750 OS sims into full sims then there's a net loss of ~2000 and as far as LL are concerned they lost nothing.

Of course sims ARE being cancelled/abandoned but can't we conclude the number is definitely less than 2000?

I suppose the only thing you might be considering is the "loss" of sims that would have been ordered but haven't been.

if people had converted 2000 OS sims into full sims, there would be a net loss of 1500 sims, the possibility that not every OS sim has been converted into a full sim is more likely, right? So the net loss is going to be over 1500 at this time.

that's how I see it.

Also on a monthly basis they were increasing sims by around 1000 a month, so that figure is to be factored in as loss too, so on the wildest estimates one could say after conversions the number of lost OS spaces so far is no less than 2500 at this time.

Maybe we mean different things by "net loss". If 2000 OS sims convert to full sims then I'd call that a net loss of 0.

I just said something totally wrong - delete.

You really can't get a efinitive idea on what is happening yet. Some people are abandoning on emotions alone, some are on financial grounds, and even if the numbers look "massive" until the price increase actually hits, and all those intending to bail out do, and then allow a bit of time to see how many people pick up those spaces, only then will the true effect be known. And I suspect it will turn out to be a wash, new people will buy in, other current residents like Elanthius will use it an opportunity to expand and some will just pay up and continue on. Let's see what happens for the next 6 months or so. SL isn't going to disappear anytime soon.

The negative growth figures take the consolidations into account. So if four Openspace sims are converted into one full sim, that's a net loss of three sims.

So even taking the consolidations into account as adding one sim for each four consolidated to create it, we've STILL lost 2000 sims in the past four weeks.

A few short-sighted people are buying up these OS sims right now - it's the equivalent of blindfolding themselves as they sign on the dotted line. In January, the rates go up, and they skyrocket in six months - that's when the true impact of this decision will start to be felt. Right now it's only the ones with a little foresight who are abandoning the sims. As soon as people start getting forced to drop them because of sheer expense, we'll most likely see a huge exodus.

People can can do things as an an emotional or intellectual response, but wait till it hits them in the wallet. That's when the real damage starts.

That depends on what they're paying for them. They're still going to get 6 months of use at $95/month, so even if they abandon them in 6 months they'll still have had 6 months of use out of them at a cost that's still a bargain.