Active users not growing - what to do?

Hi the 60 day login number has stuck at 1.7 million for about 2 months now I think, and concurrent login levels have been 27 - 35000 for that period too. Up until now SL has grown exponentially but we are seeing that come to a screeching halt. This will have major consequences if it stays this way. Land prices will drop dramatically, businesses will fail even more than they do already, Linden Labs will not be able to make so much profit from selling new land and will so have to tax us in other ways to stay in business.

I'm sure LL are working to bring back growth, but I wonder if anyone else has ideas about what the problems are. Its easy to say oh its because of x, y and z that annoys me about SL but if you think about it if your replying to this thread you're not one of the users who have registered and left, so your issues might be different to theirs.

One thing I can say for sure is that SL's help system is appalling. I have been a software writer for 20 years and mostly I've worked on user interfaces over that time. Even with office software which people have to use for their work, there is a huge resistance to using anything that is remotely unfriendly to pick up. There is also a huge range of technical expertise amongst users. I mentioned SL to a bright friend of mine who does her work on her laptop, she downloaded the client but gave up at the first post of learning how to use it, it was too confusing.

SL has a lot of potential users who are not particularly techy or into computer gaming as such, and I think a lot of them get put off. There needs to be a much better hand-holding type of help system which gets out of your way when you are proficient. Orientation island is pretty but you need to at least get people started with the most basic controls they need before they have to walk around an island. And even introduce them to basic concepts like an avatar and a camera.

Then you could have 'tip of the day' type pop-ups to teach people tricks and controls and ideas that they havent thought of each time they log in so they get more and more proficient. This is all technically basic stuff and would cost peanuts to implement.

Any other thoughts?

It is called market saturation where all the potential customers have already signed up (tried and didn't like, couldn't get to work, got tired of, etc.).

There are really only two ways around market saturation, wait for the market to grow or make something new and compelling which expands the desire. SL is a bit hammerlocked by the problem that as the game becomes more popular (concurrency) it becomes less desirable (lag).

Or, given recent revelations, the Phil should just be able to will new customers into existence.

I personally think it would be good for the community if growth did stop, or even went into the red. When you're adding thousands a day, you don't really care about the few dozen who become disillusioned and leave.

If LL gets a reduced income stream, it'll turn more attention to appeasing the current subscribers to keep them from tiering down, rather than ignoring some legitimate concerns because growth makes them irrelevant.

Okay, here's a quick list of constraining factors, plucked more or less at random from the top of my head:

* The perception of SL as an online game is going to keep away many people who are not into gaming and don't realize that SL would suit them.

* The perception of SL as an online game is going to disappoint gamers who come here and immediately want to kill people.

* High tech specs: not just anyone can run the SL client, and an even smaller number can run it really well

* IT knowledge: large numbers of people have little or no knowledge of how their computer works, so they will flee when you start asking them to update drivers, clear their cache, defrag their hard drive, change firewall settings or disable a particular aspect of their security system.

* Orientation is a zoo and even the Public Help Islands are overrun with griefers and incredible rude or horny noobs. It makes the first exposure to SL very unpleasant for people who are not accustomed to that level of crudity and lewdness in their internet exchanges

* There is no structure beyond Orientation Island, so unless your'e comfortable exploring in a digital environment, the freedom can be bewildering. I immediatley head for the forums -- I know they're out there and will help me learn -- but most people who play SL don't show up here. I open menus and click on things, figuring I won't mess anything up too badly, but other people are very hesitant to explore an inerface.

* A lot of people would have no idea what to do with themselves in SL even if they mastered everything. You have to be fairly self-motivated to find your niche here. It's not going to be handed to you.

* Every time the system gets borked and customer support drops the ball, you lose customers AND their word-of-mouth reocmmendations.

After reading some of the threads about dropping land prices and the end of First Land, another thought struck me.

The stagnant sign-up rate has many causes, some even seasonal, but the end of the First Land program means no one is using alt accounts just to buy First Land. Just how many people were doing that is unknown, but it's worth noting that the flat line started at about that time.

So First Land alts have probably been creating the perception of growth that was never there to begin wth.

Really great insight, Beebo. Here are a few more factors:

-Word of mouth is the best advertising. How can anyone recommend SL these days with all the issues and poor customer service?

-It's not news anymore. The buzz has died.

-You never get a second chance to make a first impression. A lot of people give up after one frustrating hour on Orientation Island. To quote my coworker, "I couldn't even pick up the torch, so I felt stupid and left".

-Everyone is busy playing Nintendo Wii.

Also a lot of people don't know how to optimize their view settings. So if they were in a grey world because things weren't rezzing, they might have said "huh?" and left.

Very good points, all of these. I would like to add to this one, it would really help if there wasn't a friggin' GUN provided to every new user in their library when they enter the world. Sure, it's a pretty tame one - but come on, when it's one of the first things they get, why wouldn't they think it's okay to shoot people?

I went to help a friend through Orientation Island, and the very first thing we saw when we 'graduated' him from orientation into the world was a guy shooting people with his little popgun from his library. Another newb asked hey, where did you get that, and the guy said, it was in my library! Isn't this cool?

And another griefer was born.

It was worse. For a time, LL promoted SL as a FPS combat sandbox. It's sad not so much because it causes newbies to run around the world shooting everybody, but that SL combat is pathetic with someone in simulated military gear getting instantly killed with someone's god sensor instantkiller. Folks who enjoy this sort of thing either became full time griefers or moved on to Battlefield, OFP, Counter-Strike, etc where the combat system isn't so severely broken.

Well if Second Life could HANDLE 40k plus there would be WAY more on look at all of the other online games HUGE #'s compaired to sl.
Wel have about 10 to 20% at most of other places but only because Linden Labs wont fix Second Life..instead they add voice..sheesh...they could have thier #'s easly around 100k but for some odd reason they dont seem to want that and for the life of me I cant figger out a real reason for it....

Look on the bright side... if the number of active users stalls or doesn't grow at the explosive rate of the last 6 months then the price of land will finally start dropping down to more sensible levels as the supply begins to catch up with the userbase.

I think the only thing that comes close in terms of concurrent users in Eve.

I am new and I have learned but it has taken me hours to learn what I know now ....which isn't all that much! I think you are right about getting more help early into your life. I am not that great with the computer and I found it very confusing and I felt pretty stupid lots of the time. I really felt stupid when I would get stuck and could'nt walk around or keep up with others!! Later I learned how to fix my settings to reduce the lag. I learned that through one of the classes SL has for newbees. I think the classes are really great and everyone that is new should sign up right away. I think the pop up helpful hints would be perfect and wish it would really happen. I have ordered the book so I am looking forward to reading that and to going to more classes. I am not a quitter and will be on SL as long as my computer will be able to run it......another thought....Maybe some people just can't run it on there systems so they don't bother.

We're all trying to improve the newbie help.

I think the main problem is that SL is facing tough competition. "But, but, SL has no competition! There's nothing like SL!" No, there isn't - but there are other services which provide the same things that people want from SL, often better.

For pure socialising, common IM systems or sites like MySpace are very hard to beat. They have many more people to socialise with. Plus, if you want your avatar to look like (insert pop culture image here), you just have to find another image like that on the internet somewhere, crop it with MS Paint and upload it as your avatar - instead of hoping that someone else has made a 3D version of it, and then having to take out your credit card and pay. And you can visit a regular website from anywhere..

For role-playing, if we think about Richard Bartle's four types of players: explorers have a great time in SL finding tricks or exploring the world, socialisers can do well too (but, see above), but SL can't compete with WoW for killers/imposers (and probably wouldn't want to) and achievers are stymied because all significant achievements in SL are out-of-character RL skills.

For developers of course SL is great - but, building a theme sim for a big company who will then give out custom SL clients that will drop everyone straight into the centre of that theme sim to look around once at the advertisements then log out, is a far cry from what most of us mean when we talk about SL...

And don't forget... it's the seasonal lull between furnace season and A/C season.

The movie industry is aware of this as well and usually waits for summer before releasing their big titles because they know dragging people indoors is difficult this time of year.

I've been in social online environments for twenty+ years.

Spring is definitely off-season.

LL has a vision of what it wants to be - the next Internet. But in its current form, that's a tough sell. Most of the public sees SL as a game. Viewed as a game, SL disappoints around 90% of new residents.

But don't expect to see things stagnate. LL will find a way to expand its network. One way to do this is to allow privately hosted servers, something we know is coming down the pipeline. Just how radically such a move will shakeup the economy and grow the user base remains to be seen.

Look on the bright side - this lull in visitor number growth rates means that the server hardware has some breathing room in which to catch up now.

Kinda surprized how well things are running in world right now - with 39k+ on

And the floodgates opened and the newcomers came rushing in. And what happened? SL choked. Totally unprepared to handle this new wave. What greeted these newcomers? More newcomers. Plenty of other folks who had no clue what they were doing. Newbies asking newbies " HOW DO I?" And while they are trying to figure out the nasty learning curve, bonehead griefers showed them our bad side. What else did the newcomers encounter upon landing on these new shores? Tech issues. They couldnt log in, they couldnt teleport. They quickly discovered the harsh realities of the inadequecies of their computers. Graphic cards unfit for duty or perhaps a connection which wasnt up to snuff. Those who survived this initial rude awakening hit the search engines to explore all the cool stuff. We all know what the top ten delivers. Zombie camping farms and god awful lag fests of pain. Once encountering that mess, they trudged on. Lets go get some first land and build ourself I nice little cottage by a river! At that point in time we had LL decide to crank up the rates. Island prices and monthly fees were skyrocketing, and in their infinate wisdom LL decided to hold a fire sale on existing sims at the old rates. Suddenly the demand for land exceeded supply, and the price of land doubled. First land was being gobbled up by opportunist alts and spit back out at bloated prices. Where was the 512 for a buck a meter that they were promised? The first land fiasco got so pitifully misused that LL finally threw up their hands and said screw it, reneging on their contract with the newcomers, pissing off many. All the little incentives we once had no longer exist. Stipends, rating bonuses, dwell payments, first land. Can you find a 512 for the affordable price of 2500 lindens anymore? HA!
"BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR ECONOMY????" Shut the hell up land barons, the newbies dont care. If the game were advertised as a diversion for the financially elite, maybe the low budget folks wouldnt bother trying it out. Does the story get better? Hell no. Lindens you used to be able to find in search as online now have their lights turned off. Live-help? Lets trash that as well for some yet to be seen suitable replacement. Lets give the griefers a key to our cities and no militia to keep the peace. You want to know why we are screeching to a halt? How about the fact that when 35k people try to log in the whole system bogs down to a crawl. Will we implode and land prices, and sales reciepts tank to unprecedented lows? If we stay the current course, absolutely. Blame this on a seasonal lull? Thats just frosting on an already foul tasting cake. Damn I sound bitter today lol.

You may sound bitter Winter.........but you pretty well nailed it down.

Actually, I tend to agree it's seasonal lull, plus a good helping of oh-that's-what-the-hype-was-be-back-later.

Mid 2004, the wrong four avatars could bring a sim to a standstill, and usually did.

One of today's typical avatars back then would have been called a Blingtard of the Apocalypse, for all the lag.

This last update REALLY helped, however, yes, some very critical functionality was crippled. Group IM's... how easily I took them for granted... ouch.


* * * * *

This may sound odd, but I encourage everyone to take snapshots of the world now, and quick.

Sculpties effectively boosting our prim limit efficiency 1000% or more... likely a voice-dominated world... the grid is going to change radically in the next 3-6 months.

We need to remember our history, to chart the brave new world ahead of us.

Weell I suspect many of us would actually purchases some of the excess land about if it weren't for the fact the RL tier repayments on a nice sized block of VIRTUAL land per month are near enough to pay off a RL car.
My RL house repayments are $595 a month how can I justify paying $295 for a sim of VIRTUAL Land much as I'd like too. The $2k purchase price is affordable but not the monthly payments.

And of course the more of us own Land the more stuff we buy to accessorise it

I'll never forget the day I was informed that land use fees were US dollars, not Lindens. I could not believe anyone would pay that much money for "nothing". Then I started rationalizing my new "hobby". But all it took was one month at the $125 tier level to realize that it just isn't worth it. For the last few months I've been at $40. Next month, I'll be one of those guys who rents on a gorgeous estate for less that that and marvels at how anyone can pay that much money to look at rotating porn on the mainland.

Well, I don't know much about voice, and have no intention of using it (don't want to be constantly on stage), but I think that the advent of voice - if it's easy for most people to use (or at least to listen to others) will bring just a whole BUNCH of people into SL.

coco

Just wait in another few months things will change and the concurrent logins will start to go up again.

I think the explanation is that everyone now has as many alts as they desire.