Incentive to become a premium member

I will probably regret saying anything (as usual) however all kinds of people play this game not just "rich folk" people who are students who have managed to get a computer on grant/scholarship/student loans for instance (no i'm not one of them i have a premium account) but where every dollar counts. Other people may have managed to get a computer and lets say lost a job while holding a premium membership (i have a friend who has that problem is both a student and lost their job) and so instead of quitting the game altogether downgrade and have fun anyhow.

72 bucks is a lot to some so they can only manage to squeeze out the 10 bucks a month for a premium and then some guy comes along and points a fingure at him and says "hey your not buying lindens" okay what if he can't afford it?

Others can squeeze out the 72 bucks but don't have that extra few bucks for lindens per month.

I guess my problem is why is everyone busy judging what others can afford who already play this game or may want to play this game when they have no idea what countries, economic background etc these people come from

I look at responses like this and i think WOAH cheapest form of entertainment is in fact online entertainment (mmorpgs) this one has a free option hence there are lots of free account holders who can't afford to play other games or upgrade that is why they are here.

They also spend lindens and make SL go round why be so thoughtless and mean judge whether or not they can afford to upgrade or for that matter buy lindens

Maybe all your ingame friends have no money flow problems in IRL i don't know but I have all kinds of friends at all levels of this game. Some are studens, one is playing this game for minor financial gain to purchase a computer, others just play and can afford to purchase lindens at will. I fit in the middle I can afford to do so much but no more and want to have enough land to build something that I like.

I guess people really do need to stop and look around and think 72 bucks in one wack can be a lot depending on economic status even country can influence that.

Anyhow

well come tear this apart but i find that people are being cold hearted and honestly it makes people who post like this look mean and well the game then starts to look mean and i know some of the personal viewpoints on this board have in fact coloured how i see this game when it did not before and put a bad taste in my mouth.

I have seen words like welfare fly around among other things and people tell me that since i can afford to own a computer i therefore can afford other things. Well that's just mean cold hearted, thoughtless and somewhat self centered in resepect to how the posters lobbying to raise real world costs for players at both membership levels with regards to what they think of people who may be less well off then them.

I guess i wish people would stop looking down their noses at others. I see enough of that in life already and honestly i don't want to see it in a game there is no reason for it to exist. LIfe is hard enough as it is why can't people just stop this wierdness and just play the game and stop bashing

p.s. sorry to pick on your post yours is mild compared to others but yes 72 bucks a year is too much for some of my game friends its reality of their life please don't begrudge them the ability to keep playing this game as is or look at them in a negative light

You see im responding here to the bottom. While the basic is renting and LL is getting 3.5 percent they are also getting the person that owns that lands tier on top of that 3.5%. So essentially quite often LL makes out better in that sense depending if that rented land is paid in tier as opposed to paypal. So figure this those that rent out land probably wouldnt be paying that tier to begin with they are making a slight profit letting people pay with L instead of USD or locking into some sort of long term contract that if they cant afford LL would be screwed.

Its a win - win - win situation for most people but it depends how you work it out and how that particular rental is done. The thing is Basics shouldnt be cut down more nor should premiums get anymore then they do. If the stipends are gotten rid of i'd expect some kind of compensation however because im not paying an extra 5 usd a month for air.

Consider this Lets say Anshe buys a full sim. Now she is forking out 195 usd a month to pay the tier. And may of paid 1000 dollar or so to get the sim in the first place. Now she rents that same sim out for so much a month making a profit off it. She then pays tier and sells her L and that L sold in USD lets say she charged 220 USD worth vs 195 USD. She then sells that 220 usd worth of L on LindEx and LL gets 3.5% of that on top of her tier which is also covered by that. Now LL made out and thats where the Win - Win situation comes from.

I whole heartidly agree with you to many people act like they should be treated massively better just because they pay some fee. Its a problem in real life to sadly where we treat poor people like dirt and to many people do it. I in fact supported keeping the basic stipend and signup bonus i thought it was a good thing and i viewed it as a good introduction to them.

These same people that may of become productive at some point are now forced to buy L to get started in SL and sadly thats going to dent the creative process that exists in SL a bit. Another move by those that view everyone that plays for leisurely purposes as being leeches on the economy. People have less money = spend less = less profit = more ranting that something is ruining the economy. I wonder if these same people ever stopped to think gee what is my effect on the economy of sl.

The point is they dont sadly. They dont consider their actions and are to worried about some kind of profit margin. They then look down on those that are less productive and are now FORCED to be less productive members in SL. I've yet to see any economic action that has improved SL at all. And have yet to hear an economic action suggestion that will.

Sadly these people dont care about the majority of SL and its quite a shame considering these people make up your "profit"

But the person that owns that land is probably tiering it at a high tier discount, very probably the maximum possible, so they are gettign less tier than they would have if the renter had bought the land instead.



Well that's exactly the problem, the Premium stipend is very valuable to some people but not to others. The stipend should not be gotten rid of but perhaps the option could be offered for each person to choose to give it up in exchange for something else.



Hang on though, it seems very unlikely that any land baron would make such a low amount of profit on a sim! Only US$25? If you look at Anshe's actual rental page you see she charges US$15 a month for 2048 which is US$480/sim, not US$220. So she pays US$195 in tier, plus US$6 for her Premium membership, and then the LindeX fee for cashing out US$220 is US$7. So LL make US$208. By comparison if the LL had sold the sim to Premiums who owned it it would have made the US$480 from their tier, but then every one of those 32 would have a Premium membership for another US$192, so they would make US$672. That is US$464 extra per month so in three months LL would have made back the money they lost by not having gotten the US$1000 for the initial sim sale.

Now of course again you could argue that this is worth it because Anshe does make beautiful sims and she also insulates LL against the risk of the land not selling, or not being tiered for two months, or whatever. But the point still stands that they would make far more money if they could give those 32 people more reason to want to buy a Premium membership.

Yes but if they are successful and make $5000/month that needs to be cashed out LL gets $175.00. Who cares about that measly $10? They also help indirectly by tier on rented land, as well as helping the SL economy.



They gain a free tier and 2100Lindens + a $1000L bonus+ reduced rate on another parcel of land. Sounds like a good deal to me already. No need to enhance it.



As quoted earlier, if one is successful and makes $2000/month regardless if they are premium, and hence pay LL a $70 exchange fee, why do you think they should also pay a $10 charge on top of that? Sounds like that basic is more valuable to LL than the $6.00/month premium acct who only spends stipends. Just my opinion (and I am currently premium btw)

But LL did sell it to a premium user who bought the entire sim and her tier is only $195. So you are saying they need to increase Anshe's tier? (sorry for being somewhat flippant

this reminds me of a discussion on net neutrality - get ready to pay more for you internet bandwidth and the USA is going to become an Island

But by the same logic if they are cashing out US$5000 a month, why should they mind paying US$10 more to help keep the game alive?

And also, knowing that they are a Premium member would help avoid the perception that Premium memberships are for people who "don't want to put in the time".



If someone is cashing out US$5000 then an extra 2100 Lindens will mean nothing to them. If they are doing that on a Basic then they can already rent all the land they need. Premium should provide something to appeal to that user too.



LL could always do with some more money - why shouldn't they try to find something that that person would be prepared to pay US$10 extra for?

Is the game dying?




Who cares what others think



This example had nothing to do with the above person makeing $5000 on this game




I agree. Why don't they also raise the price of premium to $20.00 per month, and not give discounts to annual subscriptions

The real question is why is it SOO importent for people to become premium members.

Yes, it is. As you know, LL is still in the reds. Every single dime can be critical for the target of getting some profit. The investors are having an eye on that.

You've got to be joking... the game is expanding rapidly by every measure we have and they just recently got a new round of investor capital. LL is hiring new employees. These are not the signs of a desparate company at all.

You are right, the got investor money. But investor money != profit. They have to use that money to create profit or else the investors will jump off.

Edit: You may have 10 million dollars in your pocket and you might want to say "hey, I did good at work today. I have a lot of money in my pocket". That's what a lot of people say. But what if the 10 million dollars is not yours. Doesn't look good now, right?

That's why a lot of new business owner fail here in Germany. Most of them are jobless people who didnt study business administration. They fail to see that a big wallet doesn't mean a healthy shop like it used to be in a paid job.

The new round of investor money is evidence that people who have a much better understanding of LL's finances than you are willing to bet $11 million that it will succeed and turn a profit.

There are over 1000 privately held islands generating almost $200,000 per month in income. And that is increasing at nearly 20% a month*. That means at the present rate of growth there would be over 6700 servers generating $1.3 million a month in tier in 1 year. And that's not counting the tier generated from the mainland.

Now tell me what evidence you have that SL is dying again?

*Granted this rate of growth is likely not sustainable for a long time, but it certainly points to a profitable future.

Even if it isn't dying, an extra US$10 wouldn't do any harm to LL.



We certainly hope that LL cares what their customers think.



Yes it did. A person who is making US$5000 has no incentive to go Premium because the extra L$2000 and land tier are worth relatively little to them. If they could choose different options instead then perhaps they would be prepared to go Premium.



Because they're a part of LL's business model and they ought to continue to be so.

Yes, yes, LL has potentials, thats why they invested big money. But that's it, just potentials. But this isn't the reality (yet). Philip mentioned a few months ago, that there are no profits yet.

Exactly, a few thousand dollars per month could be enough for a better support.

The biggest problem is, if we had 100% premium members, that is 100000, SL will be flooded with too much stipend. That is 100000 * 500 = 50000000 per week! If the growth rate of the population isn't high enough to absorb the stipends, it will cause a devaluation big time!

A solution would be to have a dynamic stipend like RBD once said. You get less stipends if devaluation is happening.

Or you make the stipends a volunteer feature. Because business people aren't the one, who don't need stipends, LL should give them the incentive to drop the stipends. LL could offer some useful business tools for 500L per week. Something like a second business money acount for your avatar. Or the possibility to create personal statistics for your own shop.

The problem with a dynamic stipend is that when it goes low, the people who depend on stipend start getting much less value from their Premium than the people who are earning other money on SL, and they can't help devaluation.



That's something I'd consider with the exception that a) it should be offered for having a Premium membership and choosing to give up the stipend (not just paying L$500 a week from earned money), and b) it has to be something that would be impossible for a regular resident to create which a banking or statistics service isn't.

I think a more correct question here would be "Is SL's monthly revenue going up. I.E. Are they earning more and more every month, with expectations that they will soon earn more than they spend, and will finally be able to begin turning a profit some time in the future? Or are they earning the same, or even less, month after month, and are stuck in the red for the forseable future?

As for charging premiums, you kinda have to set up a balance. Forcing everyone to pay $10 a month has a short term benefit of a slight increase in cash, but a HUGE detriment of fewer people actually playing the game. Even if people who play free don't leave, charging $10 a month cuts into the potential of new freebie accounts coming in, having a chance to look around, and having a potential to eventually buy land (go premium). SL's trend for the last three years has been to move away from charging to play the game, and to make more money on land tier and the economy. In the long run that trend is much more profitable than basic $10 a month fees. Entropia is a current example of how a free to play game can survive on its economy. My guess is SL is hoping to move in that same direction, but to get there they need to attrack a lot more customers and have a lot more money moving through Lindex and land sales.
(Entropia is an example of economy-supported game, but imho Entropia sucks compared to SL due to lack of being able to create your own stuff).