Incentive to become a premium member

aaah yeah ^^ but it still doesn't solve the problem of giving a real reason to go premium, in the best world, 70% f the sl users should be premium

Another agreement here. I pay 72 a year PLUS 75 a month for my land. I have and I quote NEVER NEVER turned a profit on my land. The closest I got to even covering it with lindens was I think 60 of it once. I have been be premium since birth cause it's right and fair and at the time it was worth it to pay. Although it is seemingly becoming less worth it to me to pay. Dang I can go to free and bop around like a bunch of others I know of going from gaming place to gaming place stealing 1000's of Linden pots from people sittin there for fun puttin their hard earned (or earned real life and bought in game) Lindens in to play. Right try that at your next real life poker game see if they invite you back honey.

OH btw the few times I managed to sell a few lindens to cover a tier a couple months actually far underweighs the Lindens I bought other times when I was wantin to prowl the streets and buy some toys. Cmon Tinies alone could break ya. Oh not to mention that perfect piece of land coming available after the neighbors bailed my area because the Telehubs were gone.

The hope I had not to long ago for this game is very very very rapidly decending and I fear we're approaching an unreturnable abyss. I wish I could stay positive but these last couple weeks has been horrible in SL for a lot of things.

I think the biggest mistake is thinking everyone can get along paying different prices for a game where the possibilities are almost limitless. I'm more than willing and so is my RL Partner to pay for both our accounts premium and any ALTs we'd want to hold on to because I think if we don't start on the same foot we'll never see eye to eye and never agree on the next step.

But what do I know. I'm just a resident who owns less than a half sim who cares more about having fun than making my fortune.

There should be more incentives to go premium, period. It's in LL's best interests, and the majority of the players too because more revenue means more development.

$10 a month really is nothing, frankly, and why people expect everything for nothing is simply beyond me.

Sims Online gives you a 14 days free trial, then it's either pay or you can't play any more. Over 3 years later, we are still getting new players signing up. So it's proof it works.

Lewis

As Sandy said on another End stipens ... look at this i agree with her too

Today, 11:33 PM #116
Sandy Barnett
Registered User


Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 33 Attitudes and Conflict

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Well well well. For those people who come here to SL to get away from all of the Real Life back biting, social strife, moral decay, and "conservative work ethics" I must admit, I have a true empathy for. It must be a horrible shock. It sure seems to have followed them in.

Does it just so happen that it is because there is common element connecting Real Life and Second Life? Human interaction? Or is it something that is attached to them, and follows them around wherever it is that they go, carrying it with them like a slime, or some kind of jungle rot...attempting to infect everything that it touches?

I do not really know, and am not going to even try and claim to know the answers of how to solve their problems, concerns, and fears. Let alone, that of the entire community.


But, I can speak of my own experience, and match it with others here who seem to be of like mind as myself. I give quite a credit to "Fade Languish" Who seems to be making the attempt at inspiring a THOUGHT process among those who are making assumptions, jumping to conclusions, and creating "facts" out of opinions.

It is rather scary to see, and read about every day. Almost with no change...non stop day in, and day out....24 hours a day. Attack after attack, name calling, lumping "others" into groups....The old "You are either with us, or against us" mentality. Good vs. Evil. All the same old rot and nonsense that has infected man from the start of time, it would seem.

Fortunately, for me, I did not come here with the expectation that the the "Real" world will simply vanish and cease to exist. I believe that I am real. I believe that my monitor is real, that my computer is real, and the Internet connection, communication lines, servers and most other users are also real. So...as far as I am concerned....This IS Real Life to me.

It is only that there are quite a few things there that are not possible in ones physical world that are allowable here in Virtual Environment. Did anyone truly expect for this to be a place where EVERYTHING you WANT is just GIVEN to you? OR...simply purchased?

No one can GIVE you happiness. No one can BUY happiness either. Rich, or poor. Monetary wealth does not decide who we are as people. Only we can choose who we are, and how to achieve that happiness.

And, as some very wise people have said..."Freedom - is not Free" For those who are half asleep..."free" in this case is not referring to a payment of MONEY.


Have you ever been in love? Have you ever lost someone that you love? Oh, the rewards are wonderful! Riches that can not even be measured in any form of currency. The kind of wealth that is not supported by any government, or company at a fixed price, or even a variable one. Certainly not one open for trade. And the loss....well....it is certainly not the same as having to start from scratch with no money.

That is true happiness that is experienced, but it does not come for "free". True love is not given away as a charity, nor can it be bought.


This is a wonderful community, will endless potential. I am sorry for those who begin to limit it, by creating false walls to try and reduce it into simple linear definitions. It is indeed a blank canvass (platform) on which to express ourselves.

Did I come here to make money? Did I come here to escape from work? Did I come to play a game, or steal from others? No.

I came here so that I could sit on a beach and watch the sun rise over the water along the shore of nice little beach, and to be able to share that experience with my fiance' who is seperated from me by massive amounts of land, water, and distance between us.

Just sending IM's back and forth, even using VoIP, or video chat....gets rather old after a while, and is not the same as being together. Here is a way to hold hands...to sit together...to have yet another way to experience one another while being so far apart.

It costs nothing. I do not care about the LindEX destroying my happiness, I do not care about stipends destroying my happiness. Those are both mere elements of this world that allow different people to create different things on the blank canvass.

My canvass costs me nothing other than my time. I do not need a single Linden to enjoy my life here. For me...the value of the Llinden is ZERO...and at the same time...it is INFINITE.

Now, I know this is distracting from all of the negative energy in this forum, but for the time being, I have confidence that it too will survive the Stipend and LindEX issue.

I don't believe taking from some is an encouragement. If they wish to add more value, they should add it, not simply take from others.

The premium fee is not LL's lifeblood. Tier is. How people pay that tier, indirectly, or directly, matters not a jot.

The amount of premium residents will not determine LL's future, in my opinion. It is a fraction of their primary business, which is renting server space. I can imagine them being more profitable by dropping the notion of a premium account, removing the barriers to land ownership. Imagine how many would be willing to rent from LL, if they didn't have the barrier of a premium membership as well.

Largely, there's is not a subscription model. Not everyone operates via subscriptions. I ran a successful magazine for years. The magazine was free, our revenue came purely from advertisers. Being free, allowed us a far greater circulation, which drew far more advertisers. LL is taking a similar approach, I believe.

Why would premium membership be a barrier? Premium membership is $L500 a week, and your first 512m. If you don't want to pay that then you can buy your $L and rent.



So LL should go free and cover costs with advertising? I'm really not clear on what you're saying here.

But...why would you buy Starbucks coffee to piss on when urinal cakes are so much cheaper?

Was the magazine international? National? Regional? Or tailored for a specific comsumer interest?

Frankly, anything under a million residents logged in won't make an international company look at SL as an advertising venue. The market is too small and too widespread, the demographics vary wildly.

Right now, we have an average of 4.5K residents logged in at any given time. You can buy an ad on a basic cable tv station and reach more consumers than that. And the way textures rez on SL makes billboards in world undependable at best and a big blur at worst.

Because, they are more likely to commit to land, if they only have to think about the cost of that tier alone. By this I mean, if it only cost you about 4 or five dollars to have a 512, not $9.95, you may get more people buying in. Lower the cost of entry, you get more takers. People could then decide what amount of Lindens they purchase for themselves. It may be none sometimes. More choice for the consumer, always good. If I say to you, minimum cost $4, or minimum cost $9.95, regardless of other benefits, which is easier to commit to?



No, that's not what I'm saying. Think of it like the internet itself... it costs you nothing to browse... but want a permanent presence, want to reach those browsing, you have to pay to do so. More people in the world, the more people willing to pay for some server space, either to reach those people, or have a presence in the world, for whatever reason.

In my example, we had more people willing to pay, because they knew it was reaching more people by being free. Sl is somewhat of a tourist economy. The more people dropping in to visit, the more viable SL businesses are, more will be willing to pay tier to access those tourists and their Lindens. More people in the world, more social opportunities etc, the more people will want to get themselves a home or a presence here.

End result, more people paying tier. And tier is their primary business, not subscriptions. Look at the direction LL is taking, it seems to me they are thinking exactly along these lines, with the removal of barriers to creating a basic account. They have progressively been moving away from a subscription model, to a free one, all by themselves.

Star, note my response above. I'm not discussing advertising, rather subscription versus free. It was an analogy.

What are you all afraid of.

#1 Most basic users use market buy anyway by clicking on the L$ sign ingame.
#2 If someone is using the sell option, he/she is earning money ingame.
#3 If you earn hundreds of US$ per month (and this is when the difference between market sell and limit sell is clearly visible) it should be fair to give LL $10.
#4 Day traders earn so much money in such an easy way, they should pay, too.

As you can see, this should effect only the basic business owners only. Anyone of you who comes to SL for "the fun" and to flee from RL and such won't notice any difference.

I belive in corporate citizenship. All those businesses should help the community by paying LL some addtitional money besides the transaction fees.

@Fade: This is a valid way of approach to increase LL's revenue. It might be even a better one then mine.

That may be so, but consider that the Premium membership may be an indication of a real and long term commitment to SL, in a similar way to the charter memberships used to be. People who are prepared to put their money where their mouth is, contribute to the pot in advance in the belief and hope that SL continues. These people will still be here if LL has a bad year willing them to succeed... Sure you can swell numbers with free accounts, easy sign ups and people who are only interested in making money but until/unless SL becomes some kind of ubiquitous and de facto 3D web protocol, it's still something of a niche product and maybe needs its hardcore advocates and supporters.

CJ, I'll take your words at face value, that for you your premium reflects a commitment to SL. I have no reason to do otherwise.

However, I don't believe that's true of many here who on the one hand say, 'hey, I'm supporting LL with my premium' to help justify their stance, whist they are screaming even more loudly, 'hey, I pay for my stipend, that's part of my premium', and 'I'll go basic if you take stipends away'! 'I'll sure for breach of contract if LL cuts the stipend'. Especially if they're saying, 'LL doesn't know what it's doing, the CEO's smoking a pipe', 'their vision is bullshit'... why should I believe for a second they believe in SL and their premium reflects their support and good wishes to LL? Over and over again, people are quite clearly articulating what they're paying for, and what they expect, and it's not that.

People can't have it both ways. Either you're paying a fee so SL survives, regardless of what they offer, as an act of faith and goodwill, or you're a consumer demanding value. If that really was why the majority are paying premium, they wouldn't be saying 'hey I won't pay it unless you give me this.'

I would add, that the US$40 tier I pay, is a greater commitment to SL than my premium fee, and a greater source of revenue to them. As a niche product, ultimately, it's doomed, because as such it is currently not viable. It has to move beyond a hardcore base of enthusiasts to survive.

@Mad...

If you believe subscription is the way LL should be going, then yes, it makes sense to add more value to premium accounts.

My main qualm, is that there are many successful basics, who are paying large amounts of tier indirectly via renting. They are putting in. (Waits for Yumi to jump all over this with some stuff about how LL is losing out on profit because of this). Sure, you could try and corral them all into premiums, but you won't get all of them. The more options you provide customers, the more flexibilty, the more likely you are to get their business. One size rarely fits all.

ps I like the notion of 'corporate citizenship' though.

I think basic users should have a box attached to their head permanently to encourage them to switch to premium*

*the box would stay attached even after they switched to premium

I don't want to "jump all over it"! But it's perfectly true that LL does get less profit as a result of this option being available. And so, it would be better if some other incentive, other than land, to go Premium could be devised. For a small landowner (ie someone who perhaps just wants a house) the premium fee is too expensive and to a large landowner it's an irritation when they're paying high tier anyway. At the moment that incentive is stipend, which is why it hopefully won't be taken away.

Just teasing Yumi

Actually Yumi they get more profit this way. The tier is paid and they get a cut from the sale on LindEx so actually the basics that rent do more for LL then premiums if you look at the big picture. The rented land would otherwise go to waste if they were premium and alot of people that run rental businesses would just drop tier. They provide the rentals charge a lil more to pay in L and LL gets a little extra cash this way.

Its actually more profitable for LL considering these basic accounts have to buy L which earns LL some profit and then the person getting the rent has to sell it earning LL profit as well. This could add up to more profit for LL in the long run as the land that is rented would probably be dropped otherwise. Often when someone rents an entire parcel for L they are charged a bit more and the successful basics can often pay this extra that extra is often some profit claimed by LL .

Basics shouldnt be impeeded just because someone feel's that premiums need more incentives because thats how There operates and it makes for a pretty shitty community. Personally I feel the incentives to go premium at the current time are fine they used to be better though with ratings and stuff =/.

Very well said. The SL is surprisingly complex, and LL profit is dependant on far more than tier, land sales and premium account fees.

That's also why I believe that LL will eventually make whatever necessary changes to the SL which are appropriate to have it work as a whole, and not focus on short term profit or loss. That's why we have basic accounts and a free first 512 in tier.

When a basic rents land, LL only gets the landlord's tier for that parcel which if it is a 512 is US$1.50/month.

When a premium owns land LL gets the premium membership tier for that parcel which if it is a 512 and they go Premium for a year is US$6.00/month.

LL make more money from tier than Premiums, but Premiums are the best "value" for LL because LL have to put less of their resources in to get that money.



Well we are suggesting here that premiums should get something further extra, ideally not that something should be taken away from basics! I don't know why you think it makes for a bad community, most online games don't even have free memberships and they often don't have bad communities. What does make for a bad community is when someone gets insulted for going premium because people assume they'd only do it because they couldn't earn L$ any other way.

You already are. You get free lindens and free land. a 72$ premium member receives 26000$L per year. On the exchange at current rate, $72 would only yield 23,700 so you are essentially getting 2300 lindens free (or ~$6USD). Add to that free 512 tier. Now you want more? OK you have more..you can buy first land at a rediculous 1L$/m and resell it at 5or6$ thereby netting another 2000+$L

Besides when the land owners convert their renters L$ to USD they also receive a 3.5% cut. So basically for LL its a win-win as long as money is being spent somewhere

I don't get anything for free. I pay for it through premium fees. Calling it free is a false statement.

As Jonas mentioned, neither of them are free. The Premium stipend is a slightly better value than the exchange over a year but it only comes a week at a time - essentially if you buy on LindeX, you're paying US$6 for the benefit of having all those L$ right away instead of just getting them slowly spaced out over a year.

The problem with the Premium stipend is that people who are "successful" in SL, at content creation or service provision or whatever you wish, usually have very little use for it, and they just cash it out with the rest of the L$ and make the value go down. So what happens is that the people who are successful - that is often the people who are getting the most out of SL - are the people with the least incentive to buy a Premium membership.

That should be avoided if possible - ideally everyone on SL should be able to gain something by going Premium. Yes this means that even the most successful can't get everything in the world without Premium, but that's already the case after a fashion. The best way of doing that is probably to allow each Premium member to choose one of several bonus package.



Umm.... LL get a 3.5% cut. As opposed to getting 100%. How's that win-win?

ok, one more time, all together now:

If it makes SL less fun, it is a bad idea.

One more time. You get what you pay for.