Economic Impact of v1.6 Release

I write this as the system has been down for most of the day for the conversion. If this post makes no sense, it may be SL withdrawl setting in.

Obviously this maintenance outtage has impacted the entire economy in land sales, dwell, gifts, but only for a brief time. But will there be any impact on the economy or sociology of SL with the release?

Whenever building tools are improved, effort time should be reduced. Therefore, will there be any impact on building costs with new functionality on objects and land?

If 1.6 provides a better rendering engine, will we see the SL trial-subscription conversion rate increase, resulting in more population growth due to lower requirements?

Or, is this release just a slight upgrade resulting in a negligible impact?

I see no reason why this update should be any different than any previous update in regard to economic impact. I have yet to see a change in SL's technology that corresponds with a change in people's spending habits inworld (except of course when changes have lead to new types ofproducts becoming available, such as animations in 1.4, but even at those times things have remained more or less the same in relative terms.)

I'm sure there will be the usual doom-cryers, whiners, and complainers that inevitably accompany any and every change, but in the end those people never matter. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I think the ability to sell objects with land will make a difference over time. I think it will become more common for people to buy land with a build on it in order to get the combination.

Many people want to build themselves, so not them. But some people recognize a really great piece of work that fits a piece of land very nicely, and they will buy it just like that. Its too hard to do that now.

So the really good builders can get into the land baron business, and I suspect some of them will.

I am wondering also if the some 1.6 changes won't make private communities easier to set up. They seem like they would. So maybe the number of private islands and managed communities will start to grow.

I think the rendering improvements should enable more avatars to be in one place before lag problems arise, so that may help some clubs and events provide a better experience for more users at a time. That may make hosting events more profitable, because fewer people will be driven away by lag.

Anyway, I would expect these changes to cause deflections in the economy, not abrupt shifts. Just my opinion.

Buster

Yeah, even though 1.6 has far more changes and advances in comparison to previous updates, the majority are merely for conenience and entertainment purposes. The friends list, extra drag arrows, the search ability, and ofcourse streaming video =)

In terms of economic impact, as some smart people above have already decided, i dont think that there will be much of a shift at all. Sure, some happy go lucky people will now attempt to sell land will objects already in place, and at a higher cost no doubt. But when i bought my first piece of land, i bought it with an idea. Not someone elses idea already on it!! lol.

But hey, designing aint gonna get any easier. Animation, scripting, building, all you land barrons out there.... its still gonna be as tough =)

My thoughts, takes a bow.

(God i wish it would hurry up, i think i've read everything.)

Applauds your bow - and ditto to what everyone said above.

hello, I represent the law firm of Doom-Crier, Whiner and Complainer esq. and we are initiated a crass-action lawsuite agianst Linden Labs for changing the version of SL.....

most builders seem to be finding the new build tools harder to work with. this may increase the price of things, but it'll eventually even up once we all get used to it.

group deeding for private islands and selling land with buildings.

I think Buster is on the right track. Being able to offer land with existing property will alter that aspect of the game. Beyond that, I don't see this upgrade altering the economic universe.

Some of them are already in it, and some already essentially sell land with buildings, and it's a good thing now that they can sell buildings on land as a package, and avoid that problem of the $0 sale which is so awkward for all parties -- landowner, purchaser, architect.

Here's the reality, from my experience. People buy land with a building on it, a custom-made building. Then sometimes they are intimidated by the brilliant piece of sculpture and they put it away in inventory or maybe put it somewhere on a mountain to look at if they have one, but they don't always look at it.

Architects are often architectural school or computer school students, or hobbyists in the computer business, or other very talented or skillful individuals who don't necessarily have the capital to buy land under all their buildings.

When a landowner contracts with an architect to put buildings on land to sell the land, as I have done, they can do it different ways. They can buy the building at a flat rate, like $2500 for a fine home or $25000 for a fine estate mansion and pass that cost on to the customer who buys the land. Or he can put it on the land and mark up the land to include the build, since both the land (if it is in a zoned community especially) enhances the building, and the building enhances the land.

Now presumably the new owner of the house can unweld the house from the land, sell the land by itself, or sell the building by itself...we hope. We hope in putting his house with land that the architect hasn't checked off "no transfer/resale" to the next owner after the current buyer -- as so many FIC architects do, because they can't bear for their creations to be resold. That means that power that the landowner had to sell the original house to the new customer on land, is now not extended through the game to the next owner, he can sell that land, but now not with its house. He has to find other land with that house. I don't know how the Lindens worked out that bit.

My experience is that custom homes and high-end pre-fabs are quite good tools for selling real estate and renting real-estate...so that people can put other prefabs and their own builds on that real estate LOL. Some keep the nice custom or prefab, some don't. I'm wondering if we will actually have less freedom now to swap houses around as we wish if more land starts to come with houses welded on it, we'll see. I'm also eager to see whether realtors will weld for-sale signs and plants and stuff now on lots, so that you have to undo them when you first by them, i.e. you can't just blow off the prims in one autoreturn, but you have to go through a few more toggles.

But the biggest question to me is how a group-deeded object/house will now be divvied up once the group desolves. This has always been a burning issue for me for reasons we all know from other threads. And the bug that makes group-deeded objects disappear when return" is pressed on them is a major worry here.

If a house/land is on the market for purchase, and a group officer makes that purchase on behalf of the group, is he then the sole owner of that house, or does the house deed to the group? Or does he deed it? The land is easily recognized as "in common" because it is held in the group, and each group member pays tier on it. But how is a house bought to become group land then pass to group ownership?

I don't know why I think that Lindens didn't think this through and that it is likely still to have troubles and questions. It's not just that I'm cynical by now. It's just that I constantly rediscover how little thought has been put into the group tools in their use for group land.

Each new change hobbles the economy for some, creates a niche for some to make a killing, and confuses many other. It does devastate some groups always. Those who ride out every tide can be very smug about it but they need to recognize the tidal waves around them.-

There's a menu entry in the client (or at least there was in Preview) to a page for buying L$ on the various exchanges. This will increase the volumes on the exchanges, and may raise the value of the L$. Because they now have an easy alternative to running out of cash and leaving in frustration, more newbies may stay around, and eventually become regular players/residents.

With the sell-land-with-objects option, the market for improved land will be greater; this will likely mean land speculators commissioning buildings from architects. Expect to see both upscale custom housing and mass-produced tract housing (Beverly Hills and Levittown, and everything in between), but more homogeneity within sims as speculators buy large lots, develop them in a "themed" manner, and resell them as smaller lots.

Improvements in sim crossing will increase the market for vehicles, especially if the northern continent remains telehub-free.

Commerce will spring up around streaming video, and the land-owners will rediscover the "charge fee to enter parcel" option to support it. People understand the idea of paying money to see a movie, and may accept this. This should manifest in two forms: large, communal theaters that are oriented toward events, and parcels divided up into smaller viewing booths for use by individuals or small groups to play movies (music videos, short films) on-demand.

Ther'es an improvement in sim boundary crossing? Where did you read that?