Number of mainland sims

Does anybody have a rough (or acurate, if you have it!) total for the number of sims that make up the mainland?

Count them..

I know, I'm just lazy and my eyes hurt after a while of starting at the little pictures!

OK Surina, I took you up on your challenge and counted, probably not amazingly accurately but enough for the purposes I needed it for, which are related to this question I asked in the Second Life Answers forum:

/139/8a/93755/1.html

From that I learned that Governor Linden basically owns around 500 sims worth of land, so I wanted to get an idea of what this actually means in terms of land mass. And so, I've attached an image with about 500 mainland sims highlighted - as this shows, Governer Linden's land holding equate to what appears to be around half, possibly more, of the total mainland land mass. That, to me, is shocking!

Why did I do this? I wrote a blog post the other day about the death of the mainland and wanted to scour for some other figures about exactly how much land is owned by the Lindens themselves and not actually in use.

Now, I know this isn't scientific, but it's good enough to get a rough idea of what % we're looking at. It's difficult to get finite figures on anything here, but it does show a general position. My blog post said that around 55 sims worth of land is also set for sale, but this I believe is very conservative, and it probably adds up to somewhere around 100, even taking into account those that put ridiculous pricing on their land just so it appears in the land sale finder.

It does seem that the mainland is becoming less viable for them - for the Lindens to be sitting on somewhere around half of it and it not be earning any money for them, seems ridiculous economics to me.

Anyway, here's the picture:

Jesus fucking christ. Gov L is supposed to hold 20% of each sim... not 50. They should really look into this and start releasing some of it.

Eggy, I'm not sure they want to release it, that's the point I made in my blog entry. I think they're hanging onto it so people don't get the impression when you look at the map for land sales that the place is emptying, so they're holding it as this hides it. There's a massive amount of land for sale anyway and I've read post after post about the Governor acquiring more land and it not ending up on auction for months, even after enquiries by residents in the same sim because they want to buy it. Why on earth would LL not put the land up for auction if somebody wanted to buy it? Because I don't think the mainland is viable for them financially any more and they'd much prefer people to go rent from private islands. There's more to my reasons for this, which I tried to explain more fully on my blog.

But, basically, I think we're seeing the end of the mainland because Linden Lab is rapidly changing focus towards private islands. This is a conscious decision on their behalf, and I would guess that it's because they end up making much more money on private islands than they do on the mainland.

If they came out and said this though, the shit would really hit the fan.

As a futher thought, if this is the thinking at Linden Lab now (and, obviously I'm being purely hypothetical with all this, as there are no statements from Linden Lab to back this up), as the mainland continues to empty, do you think we'd ever reach a point of the Lindens enacting some kind of compulsary purchase on the mainland? As sims empty, would they wait for a certain land owning limit and then operate in such a manner? Possibly leaving a core of sims, a token of what was once there? What options would they have for compensation? L$ and risk damaging the economy? US$ and impact their balance sheet?

I guess they're in a tricky situation at the moment. Hypothetically speaking

The reasons the mainand is emptying and people migrating to private islands are simple:

1. Linden refuses to clean up the mainland landscape.

2. Clubs, malls, casinos can pop up anywhere, anytime. LAG LAG LAG

3. Prices on the mainland bear no semblance of reality. People pay 12000 L$/ 1000 sqm of rat infested land when they can pay 5000 L$ / sqm on a beautiful private sim with water .. natural landscape and same tier fees. No clubs .. no casinos .. no malls .. just bautiful residential land where you can't built monstrosities on your property lines. Land that is themed in some cases for specific nationalities, architecture or lifestyles.

4. Check out Anshe Chung's Dreamland .. and you'll quickly understand why if I'm going to pay real money for pixels, I want them to be surrounded by consistent .. sustainable .. low lag environment. I own 25000 sqm some of some of the most beautifully landscaped land on SL .. I paid 5000L$ / 1000 sqm for all of it .. that's the standard price. I never see a single sign .. no ads no anti-bush signs .. no ugly builds.

Master, I do agree with all your points. I also think the Lindens realise that it's not cost-effective for them to manage clean-ups, deal with land issues for thousands of people or try to enforce their own zoning rules. It's much leaner, and also more scaleable, for them to push that onto others. It's just common sense. Private islands also give them a guaranteed sum up front and a steady monthly income no matter how much of a sim is being used - that's got to be better for their bank balance. 500-sims worth of land sitting empty, but that they can't actually do much with currently because some parts of them are being used, does not make economic sense. And now they have the added benefit of being able to make those customers worth more with the Land Store reservations.

I want to see what the next couple of weeks bring. I've just heard something that, to me anyway, enforces what I've been saying about the business model of LL changing dramatically, but unfortuantely I'm not comfortable in repeating it at the moment in case (a). it proves not to be true or (b). somebody gets in trouble for having let it slip and plus (c). I don't think it's public knowledge.

I'm not quite ready for that level of expose journalism

Moopf,

A lof of people are jumping ship to the islands, myself included. There are several reasons, personally speaking:

* Lower lag (no camping chairs, etc)

* Freedom from ugly builds: someone cannot buy a parcel next to me on an island, throwing up some ugly hideous *thing* or club or casino, no Bush signs either

* Holes in my land - I have several spots I surround that were purchased as First Land, and as far as I can tell, have never been touched since. I cannot buy these, the owners never log in.

* The ability to choose your neighbors - it does not sound nice to say this... but people do tend to like to group with like-minded people, don't they?

I have wondered what will become of the mainland. I picture it as a vast wasteland of some sort, filled with Bush signs, casinos, clubs, and very little else. Like you'd see in some Max Max style post-apocolyptic movie? Perhaps Linden Labs will one day just let the mainland be a total rule-free zone, where anyone can do anything... who knows?

Surprising.


Some small percentage of this has to do with fairly recent developments (giant blue signs) or at least the *perception* that blight could be at your door at any time on the mainland.


Yet, always, watching the mainland grow has sort of been like watching a flame burn a hole in paper.

Hot, active at the new edges, but relatively quiet or dead where the flame has already passed.




500 sims empty. Yet Anshe can still easily sell at a premium and I've got a waiting list that would fill 2 sims for Caledon?

Community, and local support on a first name basis. Not land price.

I suspect that's the answer to the 500 sim (100,000+ USD a month) question.

Hi Jennifer,

Yes I can understand the reasons why it's happening and, like Master's points, I agree with yours as well. I'm undecided on whether I think the end of the mainland should be welcomed or feared, to be honest, and I'm just pointing out some things that I've noticed and pulled them together and, in place of an official Linden statement, drawn my own conclusion on how their business model might be rapidly changing.

The worst thing that can happen to a small company is that their main saleable assets (the hardware in the case of LL) gather dust and don't earn revenue for them - there isn't generally the breathing space to allow that to go on for too long. They're most likely having to make this shift because of the reasons you've mentioned forcing them in order to raise their revenue. I'm not holding that against them, that would be pretty small-minded and show a complete lack of understanding of their position.

It doesn't feel like it was a long term plan, it feels like it's a sharp reaction to a trend they've realised they can no longer do anything about. And the benfits of embracing it may be much better for them, than if they didn't respond by changing their focus.

As for what would happen to the mainland, as these are basically hardware assets that would still be gathering dust if they just let it become a wasteland, there's a few options I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Many of the sims are old, but more than likely capable of being run as 'void' sims, so you offer them up to the private estate owners on a cheaper deal to let them add void into their planning.

2. Again as many of the sims are old, you introduce a new private island type that's not quite as up to date in hardware and so is cheaper - that could be a big attractor to some people.

3. Some of the newer sims could be turned around and sold as normal private islands.

What's interesting in this is that it would allow them to recycle their hardware, get an additional up-front setup fee for it and stable monthly incomes - fitting it in nicely to the business plan I think they're moving to. They need to make those sims work, and I guess there's plenty of ways of releasing revenue from them.

I think there will always be a small core of mainland sims, reappropriated as a central education and help environment for residents in Second Life.

In fact, if I was Philip, I'd actually quite like this plan!

cadroe probably does

It's OK, I did a rough "finger point at the screen, count the squares" to get to my 500 then blocked that off on the image. I was just being lazy

Ok I have a very small plot of land on the mainland, 2560 m2 to be exact. I would love to have that same amount of land on a private island someplace, but unless I rent off an existing island owner, or put up $1250.00 USD and pay $198.00 USD a month I can't have my own private island. I would love to have a small island of 2560 m2 for my $15.00 a month tier (This will never happen).

Although, given that void sims are held by Governor Linden, as well as the sandboxes, the "rental sims" of Fame, Georgean, etc... Lime, Plum, and the four Welcome Area sims... Waterhead....

You can probably trim that "500 region" number down a little in so far as "actual sellable property" is concerned. Doesn't invalidate your point at all, mind you - even with all that and the 20% protected land in the way of roads and landmarks are figured in, even adding in hidden Linden-use-only sims, it's a bit high.

On the other hand, like Moopf, I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing - the initial change from the old "prim tax" system to the "land allotment" system was due to needing a better source of income, wasn't it? And clearly, while there'll probably always be a demand for the relative freewheeling anarchy of the mainland, people who just want their quiet place to work or talk or show prospective clients the Wonders Of Second Life(tm) are better served by private estates.

Oh yes, I know my figures aren't exact, as I've taken great pains to point out It would be really interesting to find out exactly whether the 20% is for roads etc., or if that's just a belief that never really happened that way and it's much less than 20%. But I guess that's pretty impossible to find out! Plus, I am not at all aware if there are other large Linden land holders, although I suspect it's all been centralized under the Governor account these days.

I really, really wish I'd thought about this a couple of days ago so I could have come up with a snappy question for the town hall about it. C'est la vie!

I'll just have to head to the town hall to ask it myself, if you don't.

It's possible the 20% figure is counting void sims anyway, given that there aren't THAT many public landmarks... a few roads and the infohubs, basically.

Aliasi, I've been thinking further about the land you've rightly said isn't saleable and realise that, actually, although it can be discounted from the potential saleable land that exists now, it is still hardware that isn't directly contributing to the income of Linden Lab and so, revenue from much of that (such as the void sims) could also be realised by being able to shift people away from the mainland. If we accept that the mainland isn't staying profitable for Linden Lab, then the void sims especially from your example, need to be included in that. They'll always need some core of sims for the reasons I've already mentioned, which I'm sure they agree is in their interests, but maybe too much of their hardware is currently being eaten up by land that isn't currently saleable at all.

In addition, they would no longer have to set aside 20% of land - the owners of the private island estates make their own mind up on whether they think it's financially feasible to do so.

Please do so, I can't make the town hall personally, so I'd love it if somebody got the chance to ask some questions along these lines. it might help clarify, or completely invalidate, everything I've been talking about

Both of those would require outright nuking of mainland areas - a huge step that would disrupt a large number of users. Just looking at the green dots and flying over the map you do find that not all of the mainland and the users therein are clubs/malls/etc.

Also, the server information page I read recently read somewhere seems to contain a minimum of 'old' hardware. Max Case's Sim Neighbors (http://neighbours.maxcase.info/) allows one to gather this information if one is so inclined. (My understanding is the higher the number, the newer the server.)

My thought is that, rather than sell the project outright, or close the mainland continents, they might sell the mainland estate to a continental baron.

The unspeakably obvious conclusion which will likely happen naturally anyway.



Who wouldn't use the new estate tools to regentrify areas of the mainland, forge communities and revitalise inexpensive, depressed areas into luxury estates?


I suspect many minor groups will do so, until the market reaches 'shakeout' conditions and consolidates.

Usually two or three major players per industry remain (general rule of thumb in business: Coke/Pepsi, UPS/FedEx, that sort of thing).

I'd try to make a go of it myself but right now, I sense more momentum and support in private islands over the long run. More control, less mess to clean up.

Just for the record, I like the mainland. I've had my holdings there for going on 2 years ... the same parcels for the most part.

While there are some features of a private sim that are appealing, I find I just dont want to leave the mainland.

So, at least for now, my plan is to stay until they power down the box. At which point, I'll be asking for a replay of the telehub buy-back, thank you very much.

Oh ... and while Im at it ... I'd really like to remind people that not everyone feels the mainland is a terrible place. I for one would appreciate it if people would remember that and remember that those of us who do consider the mainland our home would apprepriate a little consideration when these sorts of discussions are going on.

While I understand that everyone is entitled to their opinion, it would be great to remember that disdain for the mainland is not universal.

Just for the record, I'd like to say that I don't have disdain for the mainland. What I've been saying isn't through any dislike, or belief that it is inherently not suitable. If I didn't make that clear earlier, I apologise.

In response to Elde, I'm not suggesting that this will be a sudden "we're going to nuke the mainland", but rather a gradual process, accelerated possibly by some Linden means. What I alluded to in an earlier post, but couldn't actually state, would definitely be one such attempted acceleration.

If the mainland does contain a minimum of old hardware, then this would lead me to think that this hardware, as a more valuable asset, needs to earn and would be ideal for making into a private island.

I dunno, there are so many things to consider here, so little stated categorically, and so much left to conjecture, that it's difficult to get a clear picture. I do sense that we're starting to see apparently disparate policy changes move more towards what I'm describing, but I could be so out of whack y'all end up wondering what I've been smoking!