SL's 'hook' (Apologies, this will be LONG).

I know I am not the first person to notice this, and I'm not sure if I am the first person to post about it. It occurs to me that much of the reason that players are at odds with Linden Labs in general (when they are) is because we're operating under two completely different sets of assumptions and the two rarely, if ever, meet.

Second Life is a virtual playground where you can create anything you want, given you have the ability or are willing to learn it.

The above statement is the promise implied within most literature and marketing collateral delivered by Linden Labs. And, for the most part, it is completely true. Much moreso than what usually passes for marketing collateral. If you have the ability or are willing to learn it, you really can create anything you want in Second Life.

However, there is a layered set of requirements for using or enjoying the things you create in Second Life:

1) All creations (physical objects within the world) are made of primitives ("prims".

2) All land within Second Life supports a limited amount of prims.

3) The only places within Second Life where you can create and manipulate prims are:
- Personally owned land,
- group owned land upon which you have been given permissions,
- owned land set to permit you to add prims to it (temporarily or otherwise), or
- public sandboxes

4) The only places within Second Life where you can maintain prims (place and keep them there) are:
- Personally owned land,
- group owned land upon which you have been given permissions,
- owned land with -auto return- set to 'off'.

5) Your personal land offers a somewhat limited ratio of square meters-to-prims, approximately 18% of total for the 'first land' size of 512 square meters, with that percentage rising slightly on sliding scale with larger allotments.

6) In order to effect a 'reasonable amount' of prims to actively explore and enjoy Second Life, you must find some method by which to gain access to or permissions for exponentially more prim space than is permitted by the current structure of land parceling.

Sometimes this is as simple as using the public sandboxes... but usually, it involves working over a number of days and that effectively eliminates the sandbox as an alternative (as they are 'cleaned' daily).

But the underlying assumption by Linden Labs is that you will want to create, hence you will want access to more prims, hence you will buy land, hence they will make more money from you than your basic $9.95 or your premium $9.95/month.

The player's general assumption (and one I labored under until recently) seems to be that Linden Labs wants everyone to create content, and that creating content is both the genesis and reason for longevity of the virtual playground product.

In actuality, Linden Labs does not want everyone who joins to necessarily create content. They only want every player who joins to USE PRIMS.... because becoming interested in prims leads to land ownership, and land owership along with monthly premium fees and tier fees creates their primary revenue stream.

To demonstrate this reality, let us look briefly at the ladder. Linden Labs rewards those who own the most land by effectively paying for their land ownership. On the face, this would seem counter-productive, especially when one realises that tier is a large part of the incoming revenue stream.

On the other hand, those who own all this land bring and support players on the path that leads to becoming prim hungry... and, hopefully, interested in owning their own land and paying tier themselves.

The 'hook' in Second Life is not the content itself. Another area in which this is readily demonstrable is the manner in which Second Life is advertised. They do not advertise the cool content per se, but the ABILITY TO CREATE COOL CONTENT. (Hey, look, you can build this swell car! Hey look, you can make this cool house! Etc.)

This is why event bonuses are gone. They have served their purpose. This is also why Linden Labs does not give more weight to the idea of supporting content creation as a means to the end. It is also why they are luke-warm to any idea which supports content creation over land ownership or the things that will most likely result in the desire to own land.

Ironically, the existing setup insures I will never again own land, and will actively seek to support my content creation by renting and social networking. This is an unexpected result that Linden Labs has not considered and does not yet know how to handle. They have painted themselves into a corner, because their stated interest in creating new land owners is now under threat by those who rent land and effectively put an end to the need to have more land. Who knows how many of those renters would eventually buy islands if renting was not an option? Personally, I hope we never find out. (Sorry, LL.)

Anyway... this occurred to me as I was building my first attempt at a house. My landlord created a nice 'lab' for me to play with, and while thinking about what I would have had to do in order to effect a safe place to leave a number of prims for a week or more, this happened.

Thanks for reading.

So basically you're reiterating what we've all been saying for 3 years, that SL is not a game, but rather a place for collaborative creation.

Um, no. What I'm saying is much more than that, most of which deals with why we aren't seeing more support for events, why we're not seeing more support OF content creation for its own sake, and why we shouldn't expect this to change. Also, why rentals will likely become a 'thing of the past' as soon as Linden Labs can find a way to manage it without pissing us all off to the point of quitting.

Linden Labs isn't in this to make a big, warm fuzzy. They're in this to make money. You know, 'filthy lucre'. The whole 'collaborative content creation' angle is just that... an angle. You know, something to make you feel warm and fuzzy while you're paying tier.

i think content creation is one of things ll is trying to balance against their bottom line. i do think they've been doing a sub-optimal job of it.

if there were no content, there is very little reason for people to come to sl.

one of the things ll has been saying very indirectly is, "if you want something in sl, and you can implement it, get off your ass and do it."

everytime sl has tried to create subsidies, they have been gamed. and ll has tried to eliminate the gaming.

now, perhaps ll should just accept that subsidies will be gamed, and check how badly they are gamed.

if the benefit to content creation of subsidies is greater by a sufficient factor, then perhaps ll should just suck it up and deal with the gaming (and the complaining that goes with it).

The ugly reality is, human nature in general wants benefit from their effort. Or, in all honesty, benefit with no effort. (wry grin) I do not disagree with you. But I think Linden Labs either doesn't see this or doesn't like the manner in which it jives (or fails to) with their assumption that, given the chance, everyone will explore their philanthropic tendencies or work real hard to create content just so SL can 'get more players'.

I am reminded of a game... hmm... I think it was Asheron's Call (?) wherein the first spell of a type ever cast in the world was amazingly powerful, but every subsequent casting of that spell became less and less so until the spell wasn't worth casting at all.

Perhaps if Linden Labs rewarded unique things or 'firsts' in the world and then rewarded copies or items of the same type on a decreasing scale... but no, that would involve caring about the content itself. They have demonstrated this is not an area of interest.

Sticky wicket, to be sure. Will be interesting to see what the next quarter brings.

Nice read, Cienna.

The funny thing is, LL isn't the only one making money here -- a number of Residents are, so it really is a unusual dynamic.

Yes, very good Cienna.

A lot of us have been discussing specifically this for quite awhile.

I also specifically asked Lindens to respond to this:

/invalid_link.html

It's quite possible they had Ben answer because they didn't want an executive to go out on a limb and make a commitment.

Someone should follow up in the Hotline to get clarification. I can only say that I'm glad I didn't go down this route, just yet..

huh? was this thread a complaint? or an observation? or was there a suggestion in there? The sl hook is good but low and behold they're in it to make money, and processing resources are limited. Is that about the gist of it?

I think you missed the point, Rick. But it is ok.

Since March? Er, ok. But my point was not to say some nefarious counter-renting effort is underway (as implied in the thread you linked). It was merely to point out that the 'hook' in Second Life has had much of the bait removed with the advent of renting and that I don't think Linden Labs has adequately thought through the various possible outcomes. Also that player perception of Linden Labs motivation is often off-base, and more often than not, these and other variables work at cross-purposes.

Interesting post, Cienna. There's a few things that I thought of while reading:

1. Prim "Hunger" : Not everyone thinks this way. A 1024sqm plot is a LOT of prims for me. My scripted TVs use 2 prims, but have over 600 lines of code.
2. Prim limits : I like to conserve prim use, and thus, I tend to get more creative in how I construct things when I want to keep my prims to a limit.
3. Product-to-market : Items that are "firsts" in a market can become popular among the players. When these products are for sale, they'll fetch a higher price in their first run than in a previously saturated market. Imitation will likely follow, and prices will be driven down over time.

Content creation will directly benefit the residents before LL. This doesn't mean it won't benefit LL -- as you've mentioned (advertising, etc...).

However, in terms of a solid profit -LL's primary revenue is from a) subscriptions, and b) land tiers. In the long run, I think the content issue is going to be us building content for us. Not us building content for the lindens.

After all, I've got to do something in-world, and a pirate doesn't look good dancing at clubs.

(edit) On Renting: Definately benefits the residents. I'm all for it, and would love to see what happens.

Unless I read it wrong... seems they are all for private estate "leasing" and see the benefits it brings to the community at large.

Looks to me like a rant not unlike Ulrikas, which boils down to: give me more socialism, Linden Labs. Resentment at the "ladder" which creates bulk discount for larger land owners. *Shrugs*. Well, too bad, most things in life work that way.



No, they've done enough to coddle and fete and cosset all those content-creators that P.S., they also exploited as free labour to beta test and develop their game, and now they're saying: get off the tit, babies.

And they are rightly looking at enhancing other aspects of commerce in the game, and moving slowly but at least in the right directly toward ensuring more protection for land-owners and land-based business, which is they key to civilization.



Sounds good to me, you're not mature enough to accept the responsibilities and costs and effort of land, so flit around in sandboxes, mooch off friends, and sure, network up the wazoo with the few other people who fit in this category. You're in the minority.



Oh, they're doing fine. They're pretending they don't get what a tekkie wiki is, they pretend they aren't one themselves, or haven't supported your tekkie wiki all this time, but at some level, they do get it -- at the level of their land auction where they continue to rake in the bucks LOL.



No, this is just Chicken Little talking -- sometimes when your little world comes to an end, I know it can feel like "the world" as a whole coming to an end, but people are still buying loads of land, and renting it too, and buying private islands to use as a whole or lease to others.



I wouldn't worry about Linden Labs' land business, it seems they are doing a proverbial land office business

Interestingly enough, Ben Linden's comment/reply to you is itself one of the strongest statements supporting this dynamic that I have yet seen:



More users over all does not equate to a 'bigger win' on the revenue stream. Indeed, if more users overall go 'basic' and RENT it will be quite a loss to the revenue stream and could potentially be damaging to the longevity of the product itself.

Ben seems to think as many players do, in that he thinks player content automatically results in things that contribute to revenue. Perhaps if all resident who rent are on premium accounts, it would. But anecdotal evidence does not seem to support that as the norm. I feel pretty safe in saying from what I read and research, most people look for ways to avoid spending USD while gaining as much enjoyment as possible.

One can only conclude there is a faulty premise at work within Linden Labs as to the causality between renting land and either purchasing land and paying tier OR registering as premium accounts. Perhaps there are two models for the revenue stream, either of which can support cost of business -- and it is merely a matter of keeping them both chugging well enough to split the income burden. Hard to say.

But even if the dual stream is the means, the two are naturally counter to one another on a larger scale, especially since there is such a schism between consumer and cooperative personalities in the world.

The statement that more people renting means more revenue (paraphrasing Ben Linden) is not only not true, but likely damagingly false.

i think the ll has calculated that $195/month/sim is enough.

even if everyone was basic and renting on private sims, the income stream would still be there.

the other thing is that even if only a small percent of residents with tier, it is better for sl to have more residents, so the number represented by that precentage is bigger.

I'm glad that Ben Linden made that statement, it shows that this widespread urban myth that the Lindens "resent" renting because it "deprives them" of singleton tier payments at higher rares is not their short-sighted default view. They "get it" that more enhanced options for players = more revenue in the long run.



Sure does. Most people aren't monks, and they spend at least SOME MONEY. All you have to do is to look at that streaming "last 10 things bought in world" to get what the masses are doing. They're not doing what you think they're doing, and thank the Lord for it!



Basic players without land are some of the biggest spenders around. They buy money on GOM or they have businesses that make loads of money which they then spend in the game.



Maybe you need to expand your anecdotes beyond the 2.5 people who are your friends on your sim or in your sandbox? It's just not the case. I see loads of people on premium accounts buying land and spending out the wazoo on skins, homes, clothing, and vehicles.


This is complete hogwash lol. People spend money out the wazoo on this game. They are already affluent middle-class Americans for the most part and they spend, spend, spend. If there are some caches and enclaves of Poor Folk, that's fine, and it's true for them that they just hack around in sandboxes with scripts, etc. and don't spend much money.

There's a metagame called Ascetic in which certain elitist players outdo themselves in trying to show how much they do without land, or without clothes, or without income, or without ratings, or whatever. It's just one of the many games you can play in SL. Don't confuse one of the metagames within SL to be "the whole game itself" -- it isn't.



Or one can conclude that the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings *cough*



Or 10 models? It's that big a place!



Cooperative personalities -- often you have to read: socialists -- are indeed a dying breed. And there is a schism between them and consumers. But consumers aren't evil. Consumers actually do a lot more cooperating than you might imagine to keep their consumer-based world afloat. Overall, they have a more ameliorative affect on the economy and the world for everyone, while the "cooperativists" who imagine themselves to be altruistic and selfless sit and simmer in envy and hatred -- and don't contribute anyway.




No, it's true. And not false, and not damaging. Have you read the Red Queen section of Alice in Wonderland lately?

I don't think they have to worry about the revenue lost by players who choose to only rent land from someone else...

I mean, whether YOU own it, or someone ELSE owns it, and you rent it - SOMEONE is STILL paying LL for that land.

But if the (completely ineffective) protest you're engaging in makes you feel better, more power to you. (Light teasing in that comment, don't take it personally - but, I am just pointing out that refusing to own land yourself, but still paying someone else to rent theirs doesn't really lessen LL's income from tier fees. SOMEONE is still paying for the land you use in USD.)

(Edited to add...)

I do realize that my (initially) short response only addressed your choice to never again own land, but to rent it instead. As to the rest of your post - I don't think you're wrong that LL wants to ... "encourage" (lol) players to go beyond merely having the basic $10-for-life account. I mean, $10 one time - and you get to play for as long as SL exists? Yeah, if NO ONE ever owned land, and paid monthly fees, and tier fees, etc - then wow, SL would cease to be in short order.

I also want to state that it is entirely possible to do work in a sandbox over the course of "days." - Or however long you want. If your project is too big to link (too many prims, or too widely spaced prims) you CAN still take it into inventory as ONE item, and re-rez it with the relative positions of the prims in tact. Just select them all (even if you don't link them) and take it into inventory. *shrugs*

Well, your thesis is (tell me if I am wrong):



What I really think, and what people confuse with my desire to debate from all sides, is that LindenLabs is trying to attain a balance between content creators and content users. They recognize, as we all do, that without one you do not have the other.

So, at times when they're feeling they need more content they'll nudge the balance in favor of content creators and when they feel they can handle more users, they'll nudge the balance in favor of users.

The "featurati" as Prok put it, may be featured because LL is currently feeling insecure about their current content. Notice that the people there are all content creators? But then the pictures on the front page are about things to do, not so much things to create. Again, it's not obvious because they're trying to attain a balance and these two concepts, creators and content users, are somewhat diametrically opposed.

My thesis (and Prok's, I think) is that we need people (like you, apparently! nyah nyah) who understand this balance and appreciate that we need people who can fully bridge the two - content creators and content consumers. People who understand that we're building content so people will use it and expand our universe.

However, Andrew and a number of others made the very realistic statement that SL simply is not ready to grow. I mean, come on - I can barely log into SecondLife right now. The last thing we need are more users!

So, that really only leaves us with content creators. If we can't bring on new users, then we might as well try to formulate more complex content - we have nothing better to do at the moment.

And, in the end, that may be why Prok (and I) get so much push back. Partially because we're jerks, I guess, but mostly because we're arguing in favor of an idea who's timeliness is simply not appropiate. When the time is right and SL is ready to grow, we may find that our ideas are the accepted norm and we'll be simply stating the obvious.

Very true. But I think they 'metronome' more than is healthy for things. Part of the disadvantage of listening to us is the urge to be reactive to us. Not always helpful.

Anyway, I see we've drawn the kook out again... oh well. It was an interesting discussion while it lasted.

Maybe what we need is more content that uses up lots of land but doesn't require lots of users.

Like golf courses, or something. Heh.

Ahhh, don't give up so easily.

You have proposed a very original idea in a sea of unoriginal ideas. It would be sad to see this go awry simply because you took someone off ignore / can't resist the "view post" link.

If a basic subscriber decides to rent, he/she will be renting from a premium landowner, who pays tier to LL. LL pulls in a profit from the landowner.

Basic subscribers pull in L$50/wk in stipend payments. At that price alone, one isn't going to be getting a large parcel, unless one is in a co-op rental project. Still, landowner pays tier.

Basic subscribers selling content (i.e. renting vendor space) can pull in more L$, but still have to rent land. Other residents benefit from the content that's produced (eh, ideally).

Finally, a premium account isn't much at all.

I consider the Basic account to be the "Explorer" account and the Premium to be the "Resident" account. Just my thinking. Considering you can upgrade/downgrade your account at any time, I think LL's banking on those residents who decide to stay and participate to upgrade to premium.

Even if more users go Basic and rent, they still have to solve the problem of how to make the L$ to pay the rental fees. As I don't think many folks want to worry about "paying the bills" in SL (not very enjoyable!), upgrading to premium and getting L$500/wk seems like a more attractive option.

My 2 L$.

i wonder how many people have premium accounts but don't use them to own land?

also, grouping with friends gives you the land tier bonus. groups can own much more land than an individual might be willing to own.

Hardly. More like it is impossible for the kook's presence to do anything but ruin a discussion... usually because the kook is more interested in shoring up self esteem than contributing much of anything.

I really do despise such attention whores.