Question about the developer incentives change

actually that is another interesting question. GOM has fees involved in their calculations, etc. Be intersting to see if LL does support a "price" if that becomes the market value or if that would include fees in GOM. Would show "waste" in converstion of L$ to $$ which would also show that this change would be for the better of those that wanted to switch thier award from a $$ check to L$ using GOM.

Perhaps.. But the potential is there.

LL please just remove the option of being paid in Lindens.

I think you miss my point, Cristiano. In any case, the post above yours made a point I hadn't thought of - about dumping newly-minted Lindens into the economy.

All of this may have unfortunate repercussions on the economy. However, it won't affect the TOS at all, and will have positive and immediate repercussions for Linden Lab, insofar as it will save them 4k a month.

Of course, it will actually cost them money in terms of lost tier and subscription fees, but (a) it will be much easier bookkeeping-wise, and thus save money there, (b) it may work out in some or many cases to simply comping the game to people for months in advance, and thus is not as much skin off the bottom-line nose in the month at hand (in addition to helping guarantee those people stay in the game), and (c) it comps the people they want comped anyhow.

Looks to me like an excellent decision for the Lindens to make.

coco

It's not something I'll ever have to worry about, I'm sure, but I would take mine in $L. Then I could blow it in SL if I wanted, or cash it out if I wanted, and I could choose when the value was right for me to do it.

Sales of those items are the metric.

If someone decides to open source an item, unfortunately they will not benefit from sales, a tough decision for those creators. Perhaps a quarterly awards program for free services and open source products would offer incentive for more such creations/services. The unfortunate side effect will be the cries of favoritism.

Dwell is an easily quantifiable figure. I beleive that is why LL chose that as the metric used for the DI awards.

I think this is the best suggestion.

Actually there is no change. Most probably use $$ to pay for tier or convert L$ to $$ to pay for tier. LL hands these people checks for $$ and then these people turn around and use that $$ to pay for thier tier. Meanwhile the person gets hit for taxes ad time delays for getting the check. This just streamlines the process alot more. Virtual is faster then physical when it is all done online. As pandastrong Fairplay's little thing says it's "all bout the BANG POW NOW".

Only if it a favorable rate as compared to the USD account credit.

Well if you didn't split my quote in half you would have seen that I said the same thing

I was among the first 25 that received a developers incentive way way back in the day (never received it again). But on that first one, they gave us the option of receiving a RL check or crediting the award to future monthly payments to "play" SL. I took that second option. Not sure if they continued to offer that option or not. But I know I would be like you if I were to ever win again. So to me this change seems to offer the best of both worlds.

Others raise good issues though too. A good topic of disucssion to say the least.

Frankly I think this would be a great thing to have LL offer L$ converstion.
I hear tons of screaming about the GOM market and they expect LL to do something about it. Look at this people! This could actually put a permanent stablizer to that market. If LL says 2000L$ = $4 bucks you dang well know everyone is going to go with that figure. If LL says 2000L$ = $10 the ones selling L$ are going to cause that to stablize or lose money in thier eyes.

This is correct. The "change," however, is that they are no longer paying up to 4k a month. They are now comping people. Or giving them play money. That is, in fact, a huge change on many levels.

coco

They offered account credit before - I took account credit each time I received a developer incentive.

I think people are assuming that each of the people who win the Developer's Incentive Award is gaining massive amounts of money. The amount awarded is porportionate to the amount of dewll generated on the person's lands. For me, I will always have my amount (if I ever am awarded again) to my account. I love not having to pay as much for a month of play! Even if it works out to a dollar less a day.

Dwell is important to LL for that means people are staying in game for longer times, which relates to their enjoyment and possibly encouraging more people to join. In addition, the more a person is in game, the more they need "goods" to be able to enhance their play. Thus dewll affects the economy of SL.

I suspect that most people who own enough land to draw lots of people to linger there are also people who have enough money in game that they won't want to have the Lindens to spend (unless they pay their land costs with the Lindens.)

I can understand the need to cut the costs for postage, check issuing, bookkeeping, and then the return of the checks coming back in, also tracking who has not cashed their check, along with ..............Ok, there is a lot behind the scenes to writing checks. Anyone who pays bills can imagine writing 80 checks for varying amounts and sending them out to people. I can see how crediting the accounts would indeed cut costs for the Lindens.

My two cents worth. Darn there went my award!

Just to be clear, my original post isn't questioning that part of it at all - that makes sense to me. It is questioning the offering to receive payment in L$ that raises red flags for me.

Well, it certainly makes sense to me! I always thought it was really cool and nice for them to actually cut checks, but also practically INSANE considering there were other, less expensive ways to reward people, including comping them or providing them extra play money, land, or whatnot.

coco

Yes, Cristiano, I know you understand. I was hoping to explain to some who might not know as much about the awards.

I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was criticising that aspect of it, since I have no problem with those receiving it.

I got one of the first developer incentive awards as well, I think it was in November 2003. I still have my check from LL for about $30, signed by Philip himself (he confirmed that he signed it and didn't just use a computer-generated signature). I figure it might be worth more than $30 someday if, after all, this rough beast that is SL slouches toward a virtual Bethlehem to be born the metaverse.

I opened the Shelter in August of '04 - I first made the bottom of the developers incentive list in September '04 - with a DI of around $20.

I peaked in February of '05, with a DI of around $100. At that peak, I was putting 40-50 hours a week into the Shelter, in addition to my day job. The Shelter was usually in the top 10 of popular places at that time. It was also costing me around $L20k in lindens per month in operational costs.

After the events changes were made around April, it was a huge wakeup call, and I stopped worshiping Dwellnor. (Hail Laggnor!) I stopped trying agressively to pump out events, and also dropped my game time down to a more reasonable 20-25 hours a week.

I last received developer incentive for June - I doubt I'll make the list for July, and that's no matter.

Every month, I'd have Linden apply my developer incentive to my account as a credit By around May - my account credit had reached a point where I had my tier ($25/month) paid thru Jan '06. I would have preferred to receive my developer incentive in Lindens, but ended up taking a check instead, which partially subsididized my premium account fee for Travis.
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These changes mean little to me now, as its somewhat irrelevant to me whether I make dev incentive or not. Tier is paid in advance, and I've switched to a funding model that relies more on donations & advertising than any support from LL.

I can say this - to get on the dev incentive list, it takes a monumental effort that deserves a reward for being successful.

Those who develop other successful items in SL, such as Snapzilla, Critters, and Tringo don't receive a developer incentive. However, these folks are rewarded in other ways that to me, are just as much, if not more valuable.

Nowadays, I don't care about dwell. I try to help new folks, and that's my focus - the reward there, is psychological - and more dear to me than any developer incentive. Folks that create highly popular open-source items - such as Freeview or AO's - I believe also receive a psychological reward as I do.

Its always bothered me that there's been such an anomosity towards 'dwellopers' in Second Life. Especially when I was putting so much time & effort into trying to be successful. When I'd hear the sarcasm, it was if all the effort I was putting in, and the accomplishments that I was making were not something to be proud of.

Is the issue the word "Developer"? I'd love to think it was as simple as that - maybe change the reward to "Traffic Incentive Award" to set expectations. But somehow - even if Linden did that, I think the anomosity would still exist. I think that's unfortunate.

chicago didn't get it. aw well time to go with the flow.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, I support any metric that will reward Cat & co. for their effort on the LSL wiki.

Seconded.

Yawn!
Who cares! Just enjoy SL for what it is.

hehe.. I remember this Beryl. I also remember smacking myself on the head for not doing the same thing.