"There are no auctions at this time"

Wow, did you notice that?

That's amazing. I've never seen that in 6 months of playing SL. No auctions? What does that mean?

Also, looking at "closed auctions" I confirm my impression that auctions tapered down.

Did the Lindens actually slow down land production and decide to close the auction for a few days to sop up their own glut on the market?

Is this in preparation for some big whack of land about to come out somewhere?

Are they closing the land auction for good? (One can never rule out such sudden, unannounced actions by LL).

I noticed that people were walking away with mature in new fast sims for only 4.8/meter, too.

Thoughts?

It means the DB server is playing stupid again, and it's failing MySQL queries again.

Prok,

I don't think the Lindens are going to shut down a very profitable revenue stream such as auctions. I think it is more that they have slowed down production of new sims in light of the server upgrades for the older sims. (See this thread /3/0b/49443/1.html). It could also be a way to shore up the current glut of land due to tier downs and basic profit taking. With some PG land going for as little as L$2.5 per sq meter, even in non-snow sim, I can see that the Lindens might be trying to shore up those prices.

But, as this is the end month for the fiscal quarter, look for a large roll-out of auctions to get their bottom line more enhanced. Hmm, I wonder if they will be rolling out any "great plains" sims? Sorry, wrong thread for that thought.

Well Prok, I have seen this happen before. It hapened last year when there was more land than land holders. Its like the stock market almost. When there is too much land on the market, the prices drop because there arent enough people to buy it. I fully believe that LL is just putting the new land on hold and building up the demand for land again to balance out the prices.

What good is a ton of land, if no one is going to buy it. who knows, there may have even ended being a plot on auction that no one bid on at all, and they got scared. It happens, its supply and demand. I saw this coming with the way they were releasing masses of land, certain people were buying them all up, and then also making more and more islands available.

I also think its the island sales that have hurt the land market, as people are "Deeding" or "renting" land out to people, so people who don't want to tier up just rent instead of buying. Yes, it was a flood of land, and now we are saturated with more supply than demand. a simple business course in college could tell you that.

Well, it will help preserve the status quo.

If a land baron started pulling out of the L$, stopped buying everything in sight (including un-useable sea bottom plots), if mainland sims went completely out of fashion, who knows what might happen...?

I await the outcome with considerable interest - it's not often that the chance to purchase brand new land at less than it cost the vendor at auction occurs, maybe half price sims next?

One thing's for sure - land prices WILL rise again and it's surely a buyers market.

Um, I did manage to graduate from college, and whatever "business" courses I fell asleep in, I've made up for by having in-world experience in the land market. I get all that, Games.

The point of my query is to start a discussion on what is happening and what might happen, not to get lectures about obvious things like supply and demand. And there is no "natural" course here in this very whimsical and volatile market where the Lindens -- the gods -- are the suppliers on a whim. One likes to think they plan things carefully, but we can't be sure how biased they are with a socialist tilt to their ideology. They may have a left-leaning notion of constantly keeping land barons off balance and glutting the land market just so they can help "teh ppl" who otherwise have to pay higher prices from "greedy" land barons. Who knows what goes through their minds.

I'd have to say in the short term, land dealers might be glad if they shut down the auction for a few days and sop up the glut, especially if mature prime new land is going only for 4, and then reselling for less than 7.

PG is 2.5 and 3 in many areas, and mature is dropping everywhere to 6 and even 5, and some are liquidating even at 4 per meter.

It's hard to hold up the value of land and the GOM with those kinds of dropping prices.

But if the Lindens slack off on their land market, the situation could enable people to buy land at cheaper prices, and eventually that brings the price back up.

Will they do that? Well, it depends really on how much they are serious about ceding this world to players, and backing off from it. SO far, they'd rather control the land market and glut it up with their own supply that they can get a certain revenue stream from. They'd rather bank on the fact that if they do nothing about griefing -- which they don't -- and ugly builds -- which they allow even if they are the most horrific -- that people will keep migrating to their fresh land.

In the meantime, the supply of first land is far from keeping up with the demand.

All part of my World Domination Plan.

Careful what you wish for; with power comes responsibility. Taking a look at the complaints and requests, on some days a hostile takeover attempt might be met with "have at it" or "be my guest".

I am surprised. Prokofy actually writes a brief easy-to-digest email with several valid points and it produces dense reponses essentially repeating Prokofy's points. I find it somewhat ironic.

Anyway, I wonder how much the Lindens make from auctions compared to tiers. With land for sale where the description says the owner is tiering down, clearly tier holders are reducing their exposure. Not only is this making a land glut worse, I'm guessing it is impacting Linden's bottom line.

Just $.02 from a long-time lurker.

I think the next part of your world domination plan should be to suck up to the Linden gods so they don't delete your account before you take over the company lol

Sorry if I gave you the wrong idea Prok, I was actually agreeing with you. I don't think its anything out of the ordinary though. I just see common business practice to get prices back up, as I would have done myself if I was head of LL. As Chief Information Officer in the company I work for, I get to hang out and B.S. with all the big wigs here. I see more about how business is really run in the real world as opposed to the colege book world. 2 completely different stories. Anyways, this is common, and I would probably advise everyone to start buying up the land starting 4 days from now when it is dirt cheap cause land barons are trying to drop the tiers.

Land will then flow into the market again at higher prices, and your land value will double. Its just like playing the stock market, and the land is a stock in itself. Buy low, Sell high. But I do agree with you prok, don't get bent out of shape because I express another side of the story.

Actually, this is the second time this week there have been no auctions and it only last a day from what I've noticed.

Absolutely. It's a buyers' market. It's the best time I've ever seen for buying project land. PG in particular is available for a mere song. In fact, some people might even pay YOU to take it off their tier.

Names please Prok?

BB

I believe the Lindens have said they make more in tier than auctions, but if you just ran some theoretical numbers on these 5000 owners who pay tier, vs. what they make on the auction in a week, well, I dunno, probably the tier is a bit more.

Why are people tiering down?

-- poor game performance
-- griefing and ugly builds
-- loss of items in inventory (I keep finding stories of huge losses from inventory)
-- anger at some other game problem -- " tiering down" is the most common form of protest

Bob...I'm almost to that point with some of my PG lol...when I get there...I will call you first, you can be sure of it LOL.

Note too that today they put out really crapola recycled Purina today as the "first land". Beware, newbies! Any picture that shows builds in it isn't on a new sim, but an old sim.

Sometimes there are bargains to be had on old sims when a first land appears that is a recycling of abandoned land. An old sim can be predictable -- better the so-so- build you know than the ugly build that will bite you in the ass tomorrow.

Normally, the better buy is still the new land tho because it will fetch a better resale price.

Might land merchants be tiering down because land prices are so low that they can't make enough profit to justify their tier?

I've been predicting a land correction for weeks now. Tee hee hee... me a prophet.

I'm talking about why ordinary people, not land dealers, are tiering down and selling.

But yes, some land dealers are also finding the glut of the New Continent without telehubs to support the land, no train to pick up the transportation slack, the glut of new islands coming on line, have made it pointless to hold the tier.

The predictability as well the sim update announced last week make the old sims even more of a bargain. Perhaps a better alternative at this point in time to releasing new sims as a supply for first land.

*Sigh* Still here in L.A. Fly home tomorrow. YAY!

Anyway, put me on your list Prok. I have no problem with owning PG land (as one can tell with my holdings.)

Well, it looks like we all pondered this question for naught. There are at least five auctions going at this time.

Hey, that's not very many tho Timmy they usually have quadruple that.

Because it's business as usual.

People tier down.

People tier up.

People tiering down, is not 100% analogous to dissatisfaction.