Encouraging Premium Accounts

When I first joined Second Life, there was a program called "First Land". This program was so badly abused that new residents who should have been able to take advantage of it, weren't able to do so. I won't go into details about it. Those who remember it know what I'm talking about. And I'm really not suggesting it come back.

The thing about the First Land program is that it was the main reason why I was thinking of getting a Premium Account back then. After doing a little research, I found out how broken it was and gave up the idea. Linden Lab also recognized the problems and cancelled the program shortly thereafter.

Since then I have found no compelling reason to move up from my basic account. If I want $L, I can buy them directly on the Lindex at a better rate than the stipends that comes with a premium account ($L 300 a week).

If I go looking at the land auctions, it is hard to find a 512m2 parcel. When I do, it is often a strange shape or has a horrible view, or the price goes up to the point where I'm no longer willing to pay the auction price.

I guess what I'm saying is that I would like a compelling reason to consider a premium account again.

The popular opinion is that LL really isn't interested in Premium Accounts any more, they don't generate much profit for them, I can't say if that's true or not. I went Premium within a couple of weeks of joining, when first Land was stil going on. By the time I decided to buy land it had been discontinued. I found a 512 on my own, but sold it after a couple of months to move to a private estate. I kept my Premiumj going for about a year without owning mainland, before downgrading to basic back in April. I'm not interested in owning land again, and don't see me going Premium again under the current program.

Yeah, it's true that premium accounts are no longer very important to LL, that's even their official line.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/07/08/second-life-virtual-world-expands-35-in-q2/

Why would a person be specifically looking at auctions to get a 512 instead of buying one?

They became less-valuable BECAUSE of LL, when they reduced the stipend they basically made them a pointless thing to have, as the only benefit is having land, and many people are happier renting instead.

There are plenty of very basic areas that LL could invest a tiny amount of time in to add value to premium accounts for the regular users as well.

Here is the JIRA issue for improving premium accounts:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-763

The "Because land represents nearly 8x more revenue to us than premium accounts..." seems a bit ambigious though.

Does he mean "all of the private sims provide us with 8x more revenue than premium accounts" or does he mean land in general (including mainland).

The former just doesn't ring true (the equivalent of 16500 full private sims vs 3400ish mainland sim, aside from the fact that mainland will generally bring in more per sim), the latter would be a bit of a contradiction because a premium account is a requirement to own one type of land.

512 m plots are available for less than L$1400 at the moment. With such low prices, I don't see any need for any special land incentives.

Popular maybe but I'm not sure it's accurate. LL has been spending non-trivial money this year trying to get the mainland into better shape..

He said that LL was not interested in "enhancing the premium subscription", not that LL is uninterested in selling tier. Land is sufficiently driving fees, LL doesn't currently need to resort to "rewards" to sell subscriptions for their own sake. From December to August, 91% of the former subscription head count ended up holding 1/3 more mainland, and that's awesome for the company. Fewer support obligations, less play money to hand out, more revenue. Base subscriptions aren't attractive things to push while business is going that way.

First land was abused because a 512 was worth more than the $9.99 it cost to set up a premium account, buy land, transfer to alt and then cancel the premium account. Now that land is worth so very (very very) much less it would be safe to bring the first land system back and once again encourage new players to join the mainland.

Problem is LL aren't really interested in dealing with a bunch of mewling newbs and they'd rather large estate managers dealt with the support nightmare. Seems like LL have realised that the people they want to deal with are either estate owners who have got their shizzo together already or very rich in-the-know small timers who will buy parcels in fancy new mainland estates like Bay City and Nautilus.

Frankly, it's a stroke of pure genius that must be saving them a ton of costs for support staff.

But is that for the average Joe Premium Member who may want a 512 or 1024, or a bit bigger, or is it for the bigger players, perhaps getting ready for a new swarm of corporate locusts?

Pity, too. I was reluctant but a couple of my friends tiered up and got FIrst Land in Noonkkot, and talked me into joining them, and I went out and talked a dozen more people into signing up, and we all bought into the same area of the same sim... and expanding that into the Coonspiracy was all kinds of fun.
That, though, I can get behind. I got into premium when you got a bigger stipend, and first land, and it meant at least something... and even then I was very reluctant. Some people might recall that I used to dismiss the whole idea as silly, even then. I can certainly see why people might not bother now.

I have thought that they ought to take some of the long-standing Jiras asking for this or that new feature that might make sense as a new premium bonus... I don't recall offhand now any specific examples, but looking around I'm sure I could bring them up to local memory again... and do that. Let premium members have more groups, or change the name that shows up in their nametag, or let them log in 'offline' so they can work without being bugged with having to get an alt to hide from people (no, busy mode doesn't cut it), or bring back first land, or have alts that share inventory, or something.

And not just because I'm premium. If these were just for *new* premiums, I still think it'd be a good idea.

Dunno. Popular opinion, or at least the vocal opinion, around here usually assumes the worst, despite evidence or rationality.

That said, LL does sorta seem to be shooting themselves in the foot a lot. I just looked at a bunch of auctions in the land store page that were closing soon and each one showed empty blue space on the map. I know I'm not going to bid on anything I can't see and am not always interested in fighting with the in-world map..