A response from Caledon.

Another interesting article with quite a following:

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/linden-lab-s-survival-plan-spike-second-life-user-fees

Nice reasoning... except that we are not in SL to compete with each other. 99.9 per cent of SL residents are here to do something of their own, which is of little or no concern for others. So any rreasoning such as regulating land market or in world economy is flawed and irrelevant from the very start. It is probably such a pointless reasoning which made LL take their absurd and destructive decision, for a "market" issue they are alone to see.

I think I already addressed this point but I'll go back to it. Firstly from the huge growth in Estates and zero growth in mainland over the last 6 months it's clear that mainland is not competing with private estates. They serve different customers altogether. If you're to argue that mainland has some sort of advantage over private estates then feel free to buy as much mainland as you like. The playing field is level, everyone who cares to can own as many $195/month mainland sims as they want. Regardless, raise all mainland tier to $295 or lower all private estates to $195. It's clear that this has absolutely no chance of happening and so this is a little bit of me calling your bluff but either way I absolutely do not care what they change mainland tier to as long as it is the same for everyone. You'll note that I make my money trading the spread between one person's value and another's. The underlying cost is irrelevant.

Anyway, my main concern here is my own private estate which can NEVER compete with Anshe or Desmond or a few other old estate owners because they can simply charge less than my costs and still make 50% profit over tier every month. Sure there are a few grandfathered sims floating around that you can buy but realistically it's impossible to get that incredible advantage that those original estate owners had.

I'm surprised that you're not on my side here Wildfire. I guess you don't mind at all that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of class 5 sims out there which cost $195 per month. I imagine their owners must be laughing at you for defending their massive anti-competitive advantage.

Umm 99% of residents aren't here to compete, but most buyers of sims are

If Mainland tier being lower was such a huge advantage then all rentals space on mainland would be filled and charging higher rents, but it's not, estate land is in much higher demand by customers.

Oh I'm not defending anyone. I just honestly didn't see your point. Thanks for explaining.

And yeah, I sure wouldn't complain if my regular sims were all grandfathered class 5s. I definitely covet them, but I don't begrudge anyone who happens to own one. If I were struggling, or had RL $$$ at stake I might feel differently about it, I guess.

/me nods and winks at Elanthius. Pass the crack pipe plz.


Video of OS user trying to log into SL....only to find out his tier is being raised. o.O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8pR1rZZHEs

I maintain that we are NOT here to compete, save some in world merchands, of course. Most of us are here to have a... second life, expectably better than the first.

There is no possible comparizon between main land and private lands. This is because, on a private island, we are the masters of the place, when any time in mainland we can get ugly or unpleasant neighbours, or just simply a different theme. It is just simply not the same thing, like comparing building our own home or living in a block. Even renting a plot on a land baron private estate is better than mainland, because there is a covenant which protects us from most abuses. In mainland nothing such, even not a zoning.

If such a rootless reasoning led the decision of LL, they just have to look at the nearby empty There.com, because we can't build a place as we like in There.com, we can't make groups in There.com. And even this comparizon is not fair to There.com, which is much nicier than the SL mainlands.

Elanthius, Anshe has been selling grandfathered tier regions like crazy just this week.

I think we made both our points clear above; the only thing I might add here is that she would probably not be doing this if grandfathered regions are the incredible advantage they are made out to be. 90% or some ridiculously high percentage of these regions are class 4. Also, I pass along my savings to residents, always have, and I'm certainly not alone in doing that. We all came out of 2006 with residents in our regions, their clear expectation of certain rates, and lots and lots of other strings attached like that.

Personally, I think the biggest competitive factor isn't us, but the incredible number of people who have a friend that says: "Oh, just pay me 100 bucks a month and we'll share the island - I just need a little bit of tier relief." That is incredibly prevalent, and none of us will ever compete with that. Plus it's not just the price point, but also sane neighbours that people go for.

* * * * *

Anyway. I'm at a total loss, still.

Regarding Mark Kingdon - here is his article regarding Facebook learning to listen to their customers, where he points out that customer response in hours, not days is important.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623393

So clearly he "gets it" - and understands the issues perfectly, and has since 12 Sept 2006 at least. But if so, what just happened with our rates, where is the reasonable response, or at least the 'third way' that could ease the situation greatly? If he had just asked residents for help through difficult times for the grid, he would be showered with money - 95% of all residents are good like that.

This is really bothering me. Short of his being kidnapped by aliens - what else is going on that there hasn't been much response here?

I'm starting to get the sense that there is some other factor.

Something significant enough that "blame it on me" is a better thing for the residents to think, than to have the details laid out before us.

And that's the scariest thing of all.

I saw 'em. $1600 each, which is only worth paying if you think that grandfathered prices will last longer than 6 months. It's a tough call but I think the odds are against it and I suppose Anshe does too. If there's one thing I'm not interested in doing it's gambling that I know more about the future of SL than Anshe does.

Desmond,

How much longer do you think "class 4" and the grandfathered tier will last now that LL will have all this extra hardware sitting around? I certainly never had a problem with the grandfathered sims except that the grandfathering didn't sunset with transfer. How many people are going to be impacted by the announcement that the lower tier will be eliminated?

The transferring of grandfathered sims was a bad mistake - As the initial owner you should benefit as long as you own it but not be able to line your pocket because of the sims added value upon transfer. One day people are going to be stung by that on both sides - IF Ansche IS selling many of them this week and, I imagine, getting a premium for them - what happens to those who purchase them IF LL announces the grandfathering is sunsetting Jan1 or March1 or whenever? It's a game of craps and somebody will be left rolling snake-eyes.

As for the Kingdon article - I was floored when I found that the other day. This is not someone who doesn't know better the silence is deliberate. Either that or he doesn't consider us customers which is worse.

It's funny, around this time last year I had two different opportunities to snag some grandfathered class 5s, at around the same price (before new sims were discounted to $1000), but I wasn't in a rush to expand at the time and I was convinced that the $195 monthly wasn't going to last longer than Q1 2008. Silly me.

EDIT: Just read Toryn's post and yeah- I never did understand why the $195 on grandfathered class 5s transferred. It totally makes sense that LL would offer the discounted price to the original owners of the sim, but there's no reason to keep the discount in effect once the sim transfers to someone else. I'd be happy to take advantage of it, as a customer, but I'd never have OKed that decision if I were LL.

Does anyone know why LL didn't go through with the idea of removing grandfathered status on transfer? I've never understood why they didn't do that or why the idea would have met with objections, especially with class 5 sims. Class 4 I guess there was a case.

Well put, Elanthius. None of us is. Or should be, for that matter.

Is it just my suspicious nature, or is this the foreboding of the next price increase? Anyone taking a bet against island grandfathering going away within the next 6 months?

Yep, I think Desmond is nailing it here, there's some sort of unknown attractor out there influencing this entire situation, and we are not privy to it.

I paid 1250 USD for about a dozen regions at 195/month when such price moves were utterly unprecedented. "Grandfathering" is a ridiculous term to describe the situation.

Dozens upon dozens of blogs by satisfied happy people, newspaper articles on multiple continents, television, Anshe's avatar appearing on the cover of Business Week. We were below 1 million signups back then... and then the other 90% of you showed up. Hmmm. So what to do with these longtime customers. That's something you shouldn't need an MBA to sort out.

Long term though, let's ask the question: how long will the market support 295 a month? I remember when AirWarrior II was two dollars an hour to play on AOL Premium Games - I want to say that was 1998, and people flocked to play it. It's now 2008. Who wants to guess what the tier on regions will be in 2018. Or how about 2013, just five years. That's what I think will happen with tier.

As for transferring 195/mo tier regions... if this was no longer allowed, it wouldn't trouble me too much. I didn't set out looking for big advantages, it's just not wanting to get hurt that motivates me.

Nope, that's why I sold my grandfathered sims. But I only sold them for $600usd each. Because, in good conscience I think the tier is going to be raised within the next 6 months. I sold them to other landowners who've been around (not to new folks), and I told them I thought tier would rise before I sold them.

As for another comment. No, I don't think we're SL customers anymore. They have something else in mind. Now, if I could only find that magazine interview I read a couple of months ago where Mark Kingdon discusses the future of SL. I need to review in light of current events to see if it fits in with what I thought then.

Firelight

Might be true for Anshe but it is not for Desmond. We don't have that many of those sims, and most of them are class 4s and still have telehubs. The majority of Caledon's sims are Class Five and not grandfathered.

Personally if LL was to up my prices (I live in one of those sims) they had BETTER give me a class 5 sim on top of it. I pay less because I also get less. Caledon only has ONE grandfathered Class five sim - Mayfair. That's it.

The same argument can be used against Mainland sim owners at the 195 tier level, most of whom are also land barons. I think the better answer is that all the sims at the full sim level need to be equalised at the same price. And no, as long as we have class fours we should not pay class five prices for them.

If that's true why does Desmond threaten such dire consequences if LL expires the grandfathering scheme?



I'd be surprised if most of those class 4 grandfathered sims haven't secretly been upgraded to class 5 already. As class 4 machines expire they're hardly going to be replaced by new class 4s. Regardless, I'm sure LL would love nothing more than to get rid of all those old class 4s and replace them with decent machines if for nothing more than increased uniformity. As soon as class 6 comes out watch out for a big drive to dump all class 4 machines whether or not that includes a price increase.



That's fine, you can pretend that is appropriate if you like. Actually as we start to see the mainland improvements continue over the next year or so I expect they will reach a parity in *value* and so I imagine we will also see parity in *price*

mainland - do away with premium membership, raise the tier about 50 bucks.

islands - lower the tier 50 bucks, and phase out the class fours.

Everyone happy. (mostly)

Because people are highly sensitive to tier changes, when they go up.




I can tell the difference between a class four and a class five. Script times.

My sim is a class four. I see it in the script times and performance. And as an estate manager, I can see ALL of the early Caledon sims are still class fours. The only class five grandfathered sim we have, is Caledon Mayfair and it's the only one with Class Five performance. All the rest have been added on at full price and reflect the full 295 base price in their tier costs. Desmond doesn't make more money than you do, he just happens to have 9 grandfathered sims at class four and exactly ONE class five grandfathered sim.

I'm sure you could probably pick up that many on the open market, and have them all be class fives. They are not exactly scarce right now.



That's fine, you can pretend to insist on rent seeking and declare it "fairness" ... just be aware that some of us will notice rent seeking and call it what it is.

I don't want to keep dragging this on, I think we both understand each other and see the alternative point of view but I have to ask... what is rent seeking?

That's odd, how does that apply to my wish to end grandfathered sim prices?

Oh wait I see. You're saying I'm trying to adjust public policy, i.e. increase the price of grandfathered sims, in order to increase my own wealth. Yes, thats totally what I'm doing. Once grandfathering ends I will start to make more money because other sim owners won't be able to undercut me anymore. That's totally true and agreed.

Thanks.

But, I think that land pricing needs a full overhaul. I'd live with a fifty dollar increase on grandfathered tiers, provided that the high level comes down that fifty dollars.

I would be happy to see the mainland price structuring change, too. I'd like to see the requirement of a premium account be waived for people to buy mainland - that would help you too.

I also want to see mainland move to a per prim pricing and away from a per sq meter pricing, so that the actual value of double prim land is reflected. that way land barons don't bid up too high on the auctions, feel more urge to actually sell or rent the land to an actual tenant, and not just hold onto it forever as an empty lot doing nothing for the community or for content creators who could be selling them content, as they do now in Bay City and Nautilus.

So many things to reform...