What if... the Linden dropped to 400 to the USD?

1) More Lindens for the $ means the newbie might stay 1 day longer. So this IS an eventuality. Once the value drops below the stipend vs premium, it WILL become a problem.

2) Most people voting, are the same people who had their attention caught by the mysteriously frozen 'Headlines' on Feb 8th of this year, with an article that says 'You can make a living in SL!'. Obviously a spike in signups has caused this headline to never roll off the front page of the website again.

3) In my opinion, For ANYONE who makes any part of their RL income in the game, choosing answers 3 or higher in this poll is not an option. When the ratio goes from 280 to 400, you lose 42% of your value. What was once a dollar, is now 58 cents. A more 'to the point' poll might be to ask how many people plan to spend more than 2 weeks in SL.

4) Life doesnt' start in Lindens.

How great it would be, (and for those who can at this point should!), to be able to buy dollars. Buy em fast! And after 400 turn it back to Lindens, if the game is around. And if it's not around, your safe, in dollars.

And probably what has more impact is how FAST will we reach 400?

I think my poll would be:

Is it possible for the powers that be to throw the switch and end it all if they never show a profit?

1) Yes
2) No
3) Crapping my pants at the thought

( un-subtle bump for the thread )

Gabriel, I could try and answer your points one by one -but overall Ill just say that this is exactly the poll question I wanted to ask - and think it is interesting to see the results. After all, pundits have been arguing over the falling linden, often forgetting that it might not have the same effect for everyone.

And as Eggy stated, there are also those you earn RL money in SL - but without trading in Lindens! Not an option for most content producers... most products do require amassing lindens then bulk selling if you want to convert the play-money to real money.

Finally, I think you might be overstating the effect of the headline - many of the voters here will have been forum regulars already, and front page headlines always have changed at a slow rate, often being up for several weeks. Less likely consipiracy, more likely inactivity

Simple answer is the sellers would have to raise prices to make as many USD as they had in past or sell more items at the same price.

Personally I think some folks whine way too much. If you are trying to make money in RL thru SL great, but to make a living you really should never depend on a game unless you are designing and selling it in RL.

Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful post.

So sayeth the majority of those who actually read the forums and then bitch and moan about their businesses and welfare stipends and the like.

If you want a true indication of players opinions regarding this issue, you should poll all players. Most of whom don't give a damn about making a buck off the game and just enjoy playing it, as a game.

If it dropped to L$400 per $1 usd, I'd jump out a window.

to the OP:

'Laugh while watching Alby's head explode'

Stop. He's talking about "production cost" -- the costs involved in fabricating or manufacturing something, like paying for the workers who assemble it or buying the raw materials it's made from (which you have to do for every one made), as opposed to planning or designing it (which you only have to do once, no matter how many you sell).

Designing and refining something does take time and (probably) $L, yes, but not for each one you sell. Once your good is in an auto-vendor you don't have to spend $1 or 1 second more, no matter how many purchase requests you get. Occasional updates in packaging and marketing are helpful, sure, but again, they're not determined by how many you need to create.

There is no parallel to the real world this way. Real factories manufacturing real goods need to pay money out to salaries and suppliers just to keep production running, even if they never add new products or redesign their marketing. Inflation causes these costs to rise, so they need to raise their prices to cover that. SL factories -- vending machines -- run for free forever once started.

Except that everytime there is an update, a lot of your merchandise becomes outdated.

But what you miss here is that it does not matter whether the real world capitalist has to raise his prices. He is not is the business of making stuff, he is in the business of hiring people to make stuff. He is going to work the same 60 hours a week whether he hires 20 people or 20,000.

In the digital age, of course there is. SL is not the only world that sells content.

That still isn't linked to how many copies of Item X you've sold. You'll have the same work ahead of you whether you've sold eight copies or eight thousand. It's not a "production cost". (Maybe I should be saying "variable cost". Things like the difference between production cost and overhead are standard accounting concepts, AFAIK. I think too many of us are just unfamiliar with the terms being used.)


I didn't miss anything. I'm clarifying a point. When it costs you absolutely zero more time or money to make the second, third, or eight thousandth widget beyond what it cost you to make the first, you have one less reason to raise your prices to compensate for inflation. Not "no reason". "One less." (There could be others, like the cost of your rent going up, or the effective cost of your tier.)

Obviously, there are all kinds of costs that go into any product. I guess the point here is that some costs are variable whereas others are fixed.

If this is the point, then the question becomes "What variable costs are there besides production costs?"

Because it's also clear that production is not the only variable cost.

If I'm understanding the argument correctly, then support costs are also variable since they increase as the number of widgets sold increases. And in an environment such as SecondLife, support costs can be considerable. Linked builds spontaneously unlink. Scripts stop running without warning. Prims drift. User sophistication varies widely. You've got different people with wildly different hardware and graphic/sound configurations.

or those of us non FICs who won a lifetime account in a contest.

I would increase what I charge for all my services, products, texturing and building.
If this failed I would tier down from $200/month to almost nothing. Hopefully enough people doing that would cause LL to rethink the policy. I would only keep a presence in SL to maintain contact with my friends here.