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Aribeth Zelin · 02-06-2012, 04:42 PM

I think LL needs to make it easier to get a sim and to keep one - I know a few people who snapped up a sim and then ended up closing it down again.

Seriously - if you cut the tier in half [for everyone] and then made set up match the tier [for private sims], I think more folks would have land. I know I could probably manage to justify 150 a month, but I can't afford 300 a month. Also, they need to make homesteads available without getting a full region first.

Also, some of those drops have been as people close down their stores and shift to marketplace only - and that's been going on for the last three - five months. I don't think its all from that sale.

Mrs Chung · 02-06-2012, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joebear

I think this is large estate companies just dumping sims as tenants leave them. I think sl needs to send out a note to the large estate owners to smooth this over.

I've actually gone around looking for sims to rent and estates just don't have them, but are happy to preorder.

LL should add some incentive for sim retention to those large land holders, or something.

As of today, there are 270 estate sims for lease in SL, Full and Homestead sims; and the weekly leasing prices are still pretty darn good. Just do a land sales search for 65536 sqm, and you will find them all listed. If you are using Viewer 2-3, I can't help you, because I still refuse to use that damn thing.

Mrs Chung · 02-06-2012, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aribeth Zelin

I think LL needs to make it easier to get a sim and to keep one - I know a few people who snapped up a sim and then ended up closing it down again.

Seriously - if you cut the tier in half [for everyone] and then made set up match the tier [for private sims], I think more folks would have land. I know I could probably manage to justify 150 a month, but I can't afford 300 a month. Also, they need to make homesteads available without getting a full region first.

Also, some of those drops have been as people close down their stores and shift to marketplace only - and that's been going on for the last three - five months. I don't think its all from that sale.

If LL lowered the tier by half, that would eliminate half their revenue. They would then have to lay-off half their staff or more, and move to smaller quarters, and probably end up bankrupt.

Lowering tier is really not an option, but there are many, many other things LL could do to revive the land market by providing certain incentives. However, LL never had, so it seems, anyone on staff that had any marketing expertise, which is really just plain horse sense.

**Ayesha Lytton** · 02-06-2012, 11:04 PM

Reducing tier wouldn't necessarily reduce revenue, as many people would increase their holdings. If tier were still $195/month, sims that were half occupied would make tier at current rental prices. This would have allowed me to keep many of the sims I've recently given up - even if I reduced rent slightly for the tenants. That reduction would spur more land buying on the part of tenants too.

Aribeth Zelin · 02-07-2012, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs Chung

If LL lowered the tier by half, that would eliminate half their revenue. They would then have to lay-off half their staff or more, and move to smaller quarters, and probably end up bankrupt.

Lowering tier is really not an option, but there are many, many other things LL could do to revive the land market by providing certain incentives. However, LL never had, so it seems, anyone on staff that had any marketing expertise, which is really just plain horse sense.

Except, as Ayesha points out, if it were cheaper, more people would want land. Seriously, study business - when the original computers and cell phones came out, few people had them -because they were too expensive for most folks-, when you make things cheaper, many more people buy them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ayesha Lytton

Reducing tier wouldn't necessarily reduce revenue, as many people would increase their holdings. If tier were still $195/month, sims that were half occupied would make tier at current rental prices. This would have allowed me to keep many of the sims I've recently given up - even if I reduced rent slightly for the tenants. That reduction would spur more land buying on the part of tenants too.

It would. I honestly think that reducing tier would end up benefiting everyone - it would encourage people to get land. Seriously, if all tier was reduced by half, you could have a 512 for 2.50 a month, or double that for 4 - but it would encourage more when you consider the idea of higher ends, not even to the full sim levels.

SimonLeo · 02-07-2012, 06:39 AM

If LL lowers the tier to $195 then that is a reduction of 34%.
This means to get the same amount of money in sales they would have to rent out 1.51 times the amount of sims the rent out now.
To do that they will have to use more resources to keep those sims running which will also cost money.

Do you seriously think that is going to happen?

I don't.

Mrs Chung · 02-07-2012, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aribeth Zelin

Except, as Ayesha points out, if it were cheaper, more people would want land. Seriously, study business - when the original computers and cell phones came out, few people had them -because they were too expensive for most folks-, when you make things cheaper, many more people buy them.

It would. I honestly think that reducing tier would end up benefiting everyone - it would encourage people to get land. Seriously, if all tier was reduced by half, you could have a 512 for 2.50 a month, or double that for 4 - but it would encourage more when you consider the idea of higher ends, not even to the full sim levels.

If LL reduced tier to half, yes, more people would buy or lease land. However, in order to simply match the revenue LL has now, double the number of people would have to start buying or leasing land. That is quite the risk for LL to take.

But supposing it worked. Supposing that by reducing the tier price to half, more that double the number of people started to buy and lease land. Given that scenario, LL would have to make more capital cost expenditures to accommodate this increase in land. The existing land is not as vacant as one might think. LL would then have to hire more staff to accommodate support - given LL's current support which has always been poor at best, anyway - well you get the drift.

Why should LL do this? Why should it risk such an undertaking? Sure, match the revenue but increase costs to accommodate this major change? Such a risk would be idiotic on LL's part. Those who run SL have made some large bone-headed decisions in the past, but we should give them credit for not making decisions that would almost immediately land them into bankruptcy.

There are incentives LL could introduce that would improve land purchasing, e.g., allow anyone to buy an estate Homestead sim and wave the need to own an estate full prim. However, for those who do own a full prim sim, the tier for Homesteads would be at $95.00 per month. If you just owned a Homestead, your tier would be $125.00 per month. This would be an incentive to buy a full prim sim, and it would open up the market to everyone to buy their own Homestead. Sure this is a price reduction, in a way, but LL could accommodate for this through increase sales. Sure this would anger the large land barons, but they could work with this scenario. It would make the Atlas Program obsolete, but put everyone back on an even keel.

Khamon · 02-07-2012, 10:39 AM

The cost of homesteads was originally raised from $75 to $125 a month not to cover the cost of hosting the service, by the Labs admission, but to slow the adoption rate because the "support team" couldn't meet the demand. It seems unlikely that they'll open that flood gate again because they don't want to deal with us individually.

Machines that meet Linden Lab's server specifications, and allow 10TB of monthly bandwidth, cost between $4,068 and $5,088 to host annually. A homestead server might require more dedicated bandwidth that 10TB a month so the initial estimates might be a bit low, but twelve homesteads hosted on one of these gathers $18,000 a year in tier. Granted the Lab have to rent office space, pay programmers, maintain a redundant fiber network, and support a number of people that pretend to foster the community and provide user support; but that's still a whole lot of markup for hosting an Internet service. I believe reducing tier rates just some token percentage would help renew the feeling that users are residents invested in a building and inhabiting a world.

Anya Ristow · 02-07-2012, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs Chung

If LL reduced tier to half, yes, more people would buy or lease land. However, in order to simply match the revenue LL has now, double the number of people would have to start buying or leasing land.

Or 41% more people holding, on average, 41% more land. I think that's do-able, and would increase satisfaction for those who do hold land.

In 2012 LL's 2004 business model is higher risk than reducing tier.

Ciaran Laval · 02-07-2012, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs Chung

If LL lowered the tier by half, that would eliminate half their revenue. They would then have to lay-off half their staff or more, and move to smaller quarters, and probably end up bankrupt.

Lowering tier is really not an option, but there are many, many other things LL could do to revive the land market by providing certain incentives. However, LL never had, so it seems, anyone on staff that had any marketing expertise, which is really just plain horse sense.

Reducing tier without other credible sources of income would be economic madness by LL, they're still generating healthy tier but the curve is definitely downwards, they have time to figure it all out before they hit panic mode, whether they do address the issue is another matter.

Anya Ristow · 02-07-2012, 11:10 AM

I believe SL usage peaked in 2008 and is back to 2007 levels. I believe the classified spending curve, which hasn't been published since 2010-ish, is more reflective than other measures of activity, as for some reason it wasn't fudged by automated activity. It peaked in 2008. I believe a plot of actual human usage and spending would be similar.

But the estate market continued to grow into 2011.

I also believe LL has, or had, a program of supporting resident businesses at the 70% and 100% levels. That is, if they wanted to keep you around, they'd make up the difference between 70% of your tier and your real sales. Say, for example, you were earning 50% of your tier. LL would grace you with another 20% in sales to bots, effectively reducing your tier. If they liked your products and wanted to keep you trying. If they really wanted to keep you around they'd make sure you made 100% tier.

It puts the web-based marketplace in perspective. It may seem counter-productive for LL to move people away from tier-paying, money-losing businesses to fee-based web services, except that they weren't earning all that tier, anyway. They were giving some of it back.

I admit it's a whacky theory. If there's any truth to it, you might suppose they've been doing something similar in the land market. Easiest to just plop down islands and make them look rented by fake accounts, if they just want to make SL appear to still be growing, but they might also be renting from resident estates, effectively lowering their tier and increasing the apparent demand for land.

If so, they aren't collecting as much tier as is apparent, anyway.

How big was the grid in 2007 with $200 island tier? Do you think the grid is really as big as it appears in 2012 with $300 tier?

I believe SL reduced spending on the 70% and 100% programs a couple years ago, and you might be seeing the same happen in the estate market.

I believe a smaller, human-filled grid will be more fun, more profitable and more sustainable than a creepy, empty grid. And without so much in-world spending there might be room to lower tier.

Just a bit of tinfoil hattery.

Aribeth Zelin · 02-07-2012, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs Chung

If LL reduced tier to half, yes, more people would buy or lease land. However, in order to simply match the revenue LL has now, double the number of people would have to start buying or leasing land. That is quite the risk for LL to take.

But supposing it worked. Supposing that by reducing the tier price to half, more that double the number of people started to buy and lease land. Given that scenario, LL would have to make more capital cost expenditures to accommodate this increase in land. The existing land is not as vacant as one might think. LL would then have to hire more staff to accommodate support - given LL's current support which has always been poor at best, anyway - well you get the drift.

Why should LL do this? Why should it risk such an undertaking? Sure, match the revenue but increase costs to accommodate this major change? Such a risk would be idiotic on LL's part. Those who run SL have made some large bone-headed decisions in the past, but we should give them credit for not making decisions that would almost immediately land them into bankruptcy.

There are incentives LL could introduce that would improve land purchasing, e.g., allow anyone to buy an estate Homestead sim and wave the need to own an estate full prim. However, for those who do own a full prim sim, the tier for Homesteads would be at $95.00 per month. If you just owned a Homestead, your tier would be $125.00 per month. This would be an incentive to buy a full prim sim, and it would open up the market to everyone to buy their own Homestead. Sure this is a price reduction, in a way, but LL could accommodate for this through increase sales. Sure this would anger the large land barons, but they could work with this scenario. It would make the Atlas Program obsolete, but put everyone back on an even keel.

Except that I don't think the 30 dollars a month cost break would be incentive - and let me explain my point and why I think they should, even if they won't.

As I hope corporations are starting to learn - sustained growth/prosperity keeps the company alive longer and equals more in the long run - when you just worry about increasing every single quarter, then you kill your cash cow. In other words, milk makes more sense than beef, if you have a cow - because you can continue to sell the milk when the beef of the other guy is gone.

Also, expense of the hardware is down significantly from when they put those price tags on tier, and its better. Better and cheaper - yet they still charge the same amounts, and the service [the regions] do not seem significantly better [though at least more stable most of the time]. So where is that money going? I don't think enough is going to pay for CS, and I don't think enough is going into development - most is probably going to the investors/board - and that seems foolish to me.

And finally, if they don't, I think we'll continue to see the numbers of regions dropping - and eventually SL will get shut down because the people at the top won't be making enough to bother with it.

Mrs Chung · 02-07-2012, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aribeth Zelin

Except that I don't think the 30 dollars a month cost break would be incentive - and let me explain my point and why I think they should, even if they won't.

As I hope corporations are starting to learn - sustained growth/prosperity keeps the company alive longer and equals more in the long run - when you just worry about increasing every single quarter, then you kill your cash cow. In other words, milk makes more sense than beef, if you have a cow - because you can continue to sell the milk when the beef of the other guy is gone.

Also, expense of the hardware is down significantly from when they put those price tags on tier, and its better. Better and cheaper - yet they still charge the same amounts, and the service [the regions] do not seem significantly better [though at least more stable most of the time]. So where is that money going? I don't think enough is going to pay for CS, and I don't think enough is going into development - most is probably going to the investors/board - and that seems foolish to me.

And finally, if they don't, I think we'll continue to see the numbers of regions dropping - and eventually SL will get shut down because the people at the top won't be making enough to bother with it.

Perhaps it is simply a matter of a slow death, versus a quick death. Your solution would most definitely quicken the inevitable. However, I do see where you are coming from. I just think a slow death is much better - and the venture capitalists, I am sure, do not want to take any more risks with this baby; and I am quite certain, they still call the shots.

Wildefire Walcott · 02-07-2012, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khamon

The cost of homesteads was originally raised from $75 to $125 a month not to cover the cost of hosting the service, by the Labs admission, but to slow the adoption rate because the "support team" couldn't meet the demand. It seems unlikely that they'll open that flood gate again because they don't want to deal with us individually.

I agreed primarily to this portion of your post. LL doesn't like providing customer support. They've cut just about every corner they can there. Lowering tier will increase support burden, and that's the opposite of the direction they've been heading the past three years.

They definitely favor a small number of the largest estates, but a big reason for that is that the individual estates take on the majority of the support. If everyone could afford their own sim, LL would be freaking deluged with rollback requests and "Why is my breedable ranch homestead lagging" support tickets.

Khamon · 02-07-2012, 04:32 PM

That's why we told Philip, after 1.2 was published, that the Lab should work toward sims being larger (512 or 1024 squared) and being the smallest billable chunk of land. We learned two things: how hosed the database coding, or lack thereof, was and that Philip didn't, and never would, understand the virtual land rental business. He cried the day that private estates surpassed the number of Linden-owned Mainland sims.

Linden Lab could now be functioning as a host, supporting just a few hundred users, with the rest of us paying tier to private estates and being supported by respective staff. A bit of feature and interface development would add value to the service but would preferably be outsourced to a professional shop.

tokyo.enyo · 02-07-2012, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aribeth Zelin

I think LL needs to make it easier to get a sim and to keep one - I know a few people who snapped up a sim and then ended up closing it down again.

Seriously - if you cut the tier in half [for everyone] and then made set up match the tier [for private sims], I think more folks would have land. I know I could probably manage to justify 150 a month, but I can't afford 300 a month. Also, they need to make homesteads available without getting a full region first.

Also, some of those drops have been as people close down their stores and shift to marketplace only - and that's been going on for the last three - five months. I don't think its all from that sale.

Sorry to jump in and rehash this post, but i completley agree. I'm not interested in being in a real estate business, but have wanted my own sim cause i like the privacy but not the price.

Mainly the thing is also that sometimes renting them, and i've seen FWE prices - they're exhorbitant sometimes. It's quite frustrating.

RandomCruiser · 02-09-2012, 03:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ciaran Laval

Reducing tier without other credible sources of income would be economic madness by LL, they're still generating healthy tier but the curve is definitely downwards, they have time to figure it all out before they hit panic mode, whether they do address the issue is another matter.

I don't think "panic" is the case

. It's a fact in SL there is TOO MUCH LAND; a lot of land Barons have a low Sim accupation and the situation is becoming even worse in these months. SL needs of a shrink of at least 2000/3000 Sims. This is bad?? i think not. This is a very expensive game, in this moment the economic crisis is HUGE and paintful for many persons, so the cash is rare....expecially in Europe.
Less Sims will mean better tiers for land and faster Viewer performance.
LL have many problems to manage 64000 avatars online, so SL has less servers/bandwidth than expected. IMO LL is well conscious that in upcoming months the grid will smaller than now....so it stay conservative.
Less Sims, smaller Grid-----> better service for cash capable customers.

This is fine for me, there are too much useless avatars around SL now

melponeme_k · 02-10-2012, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khamon

We learned two things: how hosed the database coding, or lack thereof, was and that Philip didn't, and never would, understand the virtual land rental business. He cried the day that private estates surpassed the number of Linden-owned Mainland sims.

Oh but he did understand all of that. But he wanted to turn us all into Singularity Stepford people. The reason he really cried was because we all dumped his psych experiment to escape to the estates.

Didn't he have egg all over his face when presenting the final results to the Kurzweil crowd.

Damn the hoi polloi didn't want to be robot servant people for the rich. Who would have thought that could be.

**Tyche Shepherd** · 02-12-2012, 06:12 PM

A tiny increase of 2 regions this week, with both private Estates and Linden owned regions showing net growth of 1 region.

Total number of Main Grid regions is now 30554 ( 23339 private estates & 7215 Linden owned)
114 new regions were added and 36 returned to the grid, with 146 regions removed (21 were renamed and 0 came and went since last report)

This week the 2 ACS estates Judy Chung & Miriam Chung added 11 regions each, Weezles Real Estate added 10 and the Michael Chung ACS estate added 9 There were no significant losses this week seen amongst any estates.

Adult rated regions grew by 4 regions to 3275 (10.7% of the grid) whilst General rated fell by 23 to 4750 (15.5%) . This is the first week where there were more Adult Rated private estate regions than General rated private estate regions (2923 vs 2922)/

Breakdown of current regions by Ownership and Classification:

Estate - Adult: 2923
Estate - General: 2922
Estate - Moderate: 17472
Estate - Offline: 22
Linden - Adult: 352
Linden - General: 1828
Linden - Moderate: 5035

The 150 new/returned regions are :

Code:

Agadir
ALCHIMIA ESTATE1 ª
Andante
Android Reloaded
Arab Casino
Asylum Break
ATLANTIC GAMES
BabyLicious
Balanvi
Bel Air Estates
Bellavista ª
Black Widow
Bluegatco
Bohemian Rhapsody
Bondage Island
Brat Haven ª
Brooklyns Finest ª
Buckley ª
Butterfly Paradise
Caramel Sundae
Cars ª
Chandelier
City Ville
Cour Royale
Creedland
Dark Eden ª
Darkness Fallz ª
Decouvertes
Deja Vu ª
Delphinidae ª
Diamond Blue ª
Diamond Central ª
Diamond Green ª
Diamond Orange ª
Diamond Red ª
Doggiez Market
Dolcenotte
Dove Isle
Dragon Warrior
Eclairs
eNubian
Ethereal Isle ª
Exotic Tropics
Fairy Island ª
Faithful Land
Frankfurt Main ª
Friends ª
Game of Love
Gangsta Paradise
Gelato
Genesis County
Gilligan ª
Glimpse of Eternity
Guns and Roses
HAMC HQ
Happablap Island ª
Hillman University
Hognose
Hot Fudge
Idaho West
Ille Dianne
Impeller
InsidersHealth VRC
Isla Calienta
Jarngard
Karanova
Khaos Dreams
Kitty Kat
Lake House ª
Land Of Lakes
Le Canaillou
Legal Insanity 2
Limerance
Lone Heart MZ
Los Palmas
Lost Valentine
LP1
LP2
Lucky Land
Lunar Sunset
Macaroons
Macchiato
Madison Landing
Maelstrom Estate
Maestro ª
Makumba
Mariposa Beach
Mariposa Falls
Meoow Kitty
Miracle Bay II ª
Miss America Latina
Mon doux ile
Moonlight Breedable Horses
Muse ª
Music Box
Mysteria ª
Mystic Games
Mythical Isle ª
nagisa ª
NCD
Negan Tapeh
NeverlandX
NO nfsyat
North Star ª
Ocean Realms Barbary
Old Time Prims
Olympus Lightning
Onderon
Option
Perrinton ª
PLATINUM DREAMS GAMING
Polar Bears
Raptura
Rekkrstad
Resurrection Isle
Rondvik
Sapphirus Ceylon
Savina
Sincere Love
Spanish Harlem
sparte
Storybook Village
Sugar Plum
Sunny Day
Sunset Falls ª
Super Nova
Temasek Terraforming
The Enchantress
THE FAMILY ESTATE
The Meadows ª
The Wet Spot
Tierra de Leyenda
Timeless Treasures
TORNADO CITY ª
Tranquil Nights
Troubled Waters
Truffles
TwoStars
Ultsch ª
Villas del Sol
Virtual Reverie
Warriors Caye
Weston College
Xcaves Kingdom ª
Xposed
XS I
XS II
XS III
Xxtreme Oasis Breedables
Zandis Folly ª

ª indicates region which have returned to the grid

The 146 regions no longer on the grid are :

Code:

A Zee Studios
Accompishing More
AG the Network
al7ejaz gambling
Alaqua
ALCHIMIA
Aloha Paradise Falls
Amaya
Amemura
Ardent Isle
Ascelon Kingdom
Asguard
Azure Cove
Bates
Black Kat Island
BloodShadow
Bloody Empire
BootyBay
Brundisium
Bryn Oh
Calaby
Caledon Eyre
Camotes Island
Capua
Cardonicus
CAT PAW Island
Cerrito
Chibuya
Clear Water
club equipment
Coastal Palm Islands
Coconut Paradise
Corazon
Crossfire
CyberGRID
Dallas Entertainment
DOIT Island
Dreaming Pumpkin
Enchanted Paradise
ENTOS
Espanola
Fairport Island
Fantasie Woods
Fashion History Island
Floofiboom
Fragile Dreams
Freud
Garden Paradise
GlenMorin
Golgothica
Goose Islands
Hadji
Halca
Hawks Isle
Heartland
Hide and Seek
Hoth
IRI Campus
Isle of Ischia
JnJs Dreams
Kakteeninsel
Kerkyra Isle
Kings Realm
KittyCatS Winterland
Kushie
Kyo
L K One
L K Two
Laughing Valley
Lefsom Seymans Bayou
LindenWorld Search
Local Natives
Lochness
Lyrica
Lyrical Glade
Lyrical Sunset
Magic Island
Magic Palace
Marsh Sanctuary
Moonfire dAlliez
New Jack City
North Keep
ogashima
Onyx Isle
Paradox Paradise
Pasarella
Pearl Caye
Pegasus Rising
PLATINUM BREEDABLES
PrimWorks
Psychopathy Red
Puntarenas 8
Quebec Borealys
Rainforest
Ravens Mist
RCNJ
Red Fjord
Reef Caye
Requiem Village
Riverbanks
Riverlands
Royal Court
Runway Cafe
Sacred Tome
Salina
Samurai Kami
San Juanico
SANGUINIS
Semolina
Shadow Kingdom
Shattered Realms
Sheherazade Island
Silver City
SimChanted
SimChanted 2
SimChanted 3
Simchanted 4
SIVA
Sloan Consortium 2
SnickerDoodle
Socos Sparkling Paradise
Stacy
Sulvec Beach
Sunglow Island
Sweet Tooth
Sworn to Fun
Tajuk Oasis
Tegueste
The Garden
The Ruins
Tir na Caer
Tir na Gealach
Tropical Estates
Twilight Town
TWINK LAGOON
Unity Rainbow
Valhalla Games
Valhalla Paradise VIII
Via Kincora
Virtual Edge Expo
Visible Mysteries
Viva Kustom
Westside Coast
WildFlowerBeach
zaimokuza
Zen Moonwall

Of these 21 are renames :

Code:

ALCHIMIA	==>	ANGELO
Aloha Paradise Falls	==>	Xxtreme Oasis Breedables
Amemura	==>	IMONI
CAT PAW Island	==>	Andante
Coastal Palm Islands	==>	Ocean Realms Barbary
Corazon	==>	Spanish Harlem
Dreaming Pumpkin	==>	Ethereal Isle
Espanola	==>	Miss America Latina
Fragile Dreams	==>	ATLANTIC GAMES
Golgothica	==>	NeverlandX
KittyCatS Winterland	==>	Mysteria
Kyo	==>	HAMC HQ
Local Natives	==>	Storybook Village
New Jack City	==>	THE FAMILY ESTATE
Red Fjord	==>	Bondage Island
SimChanted	==>	Butterfly Paradise
SimChanted 2	==>	Mariposa Falls
SimChanted 3	==>	Mariposa Beach
Stacy	==>	Brat Haven
Sunglow Island	==>	BabyLicious
zaimokuza	==>	nagisa

Estate groupings going off line

1 (n=2): Ardent Isle,San Juanico
2 (n=5): Bloody Empire,Crossfire,Requiem Village,Shadow Kingdom,Sweet Tooth
3 (n=2): Garden Paradise,The Garden
4 (n=2): L K One,L K Two
5 (n=2): Salina,Tropical Estates
6 (n=3): SimChanted,SimChanted 2,Simchanted 4
7 (n=2): The Ruins,Tir na Gealach

Estate groupings coming online

1 (n=2): Arab Casino,NO nfsyat
2 (n=3): Bel Air Estates,Gilligan,Hillman University
3 (n=2): Butterfly Paradise,Mariposa Falls
4 (n=5): Diamond Blue,Diamond Central,Diamond Green,Diamond Orange,Diamond Red
5 (n=2): Jarngard,Rondvik
6 (n=2): LP1,LP2
7 (n=3): XS I,XS II,XS III

Breakdown of Host Server Classes by Ownership:

Estate - Class 5: 19201
Estate - Class 7: 2894
Estate - Class Unknown: 1244
Linden - Class 5: 1539
Linden - Class 7: 5338
Linden - Class Unknown: 338

The following 22 regions were on the grid but marked as down when the last survey was run:

0 0 Abacus
Aislinn
Baha Bay
Byera Bay
Delin Island
Dunmore Bay
Forest Key
Glint
Haraiki Bay
Isle of Roy
Ismore Galae
Katalin
Lummerland
Prairie Shores
Rooster Tail
Serena Icacos Point
Siorai
Sound of Heart
Supernova
Turbo
Vanutu
Zodiac Beach

Mrs Chung · 02-13-2012, 10:13 AM

Hmmm, perhaps the tail-spin is now over from the October given-away, and it will be back the usual for the next few months - maintenance mode.

It is exciting wondering what Linden Lab will do next. How about "free" adult Linden Homes - supplied fully furnished; with all the wild and woolly animations one could want?

Ciaran Laval · 02-13-2012, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs Chung

It is exciting wondering what Linden Lab will do next. How about "free" adult Linden Homes - supplied fully furnished; with all the wild and woolly animations one could want?

Did you put that idea in the survey on Linden Homes

Mrs Chung · 02-13-2012, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ciaran Laval

Did you put that idea in the survey on Linden Homes

I would not want to slander the Chung name, therefore, I would never do such a thing.

However, today my mind has been racing

with potential names for the sims if LL were to follow through with this idea, e.g., Birthday Suit, Goring, Dead Ending; and found it quite entertaining for a dull Monday morning.

Gonville · 02-14-2012, 02:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs Chung

Hmmm, perhaps the tail-spin is now over from the October given-away, and it will be back the usual for the next few months - maintenance mode.

Looking at the graphs, you can see the sudden jump in October, and things look to be back to the long-term trend line, of a slow decline.

Back to usual isn't good, and the jump of the last few months seems to be over. I'm just eyeballing it, but it doesn't look as though it needs fancy statistics. There's a growth in the percentage of Adult regions, but how much of that is down to a faster skrinkage of the other numbers?

**Tyche Shepherd** · 02-14-2012, 02:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gonville

There's a growth in the percentage of Adult regions, but how much of that is down to a faster skrinkage of the other numbers?

There are other charts on Second Life Grid Survey which answer that question

The percentage of adult regions has partially been driven by grid shrinkage but mostly by real growth in Adult regions on almost a week by week basis*.This chart shows the increase in the number of Adult Rated regions over time:

For the first 4 months some of this growth was driven by the creation of Zindra adult mainland but other than 6 adult sandboxes there has been no expansion of LL controlled Adult Regions since Oct 2009 (they currently account for 352 regions in this chart) . Since then the real growth in adult regions has been amongst Private Estates.

ETA: For sake of completness
Whilst Adult rated regions have been growing, much of any recent overall decline is reflected in the number of Moderate Regions:

General Rated have tended to remain flat in numbers, the sudden peaks and slow declines in following months are more about delivery of new regions (whose default access state is General) rather than an indication of overall demand for General rated. The underlying demand is flat .

* Overall 4% of the change in percentage of Adult Rated regions can be explained by net shrinkage, 96% is due to actual growth in numbers of Adult Rated regions.

Anya Ristow · 02-14-2012, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyche Shepherd

Overall 4% of the change in percentage of Adult Rated regions can be explained by net shrinkage, 96% is due to actual growth in numbers of Adult Rated regions.

I've assumed it's oher-rated regions changing to adult. Do you track this for individual regions? That is, would you be able to determine if the growth of adult-rated regions comes from new regions or converted old ones?

02-06-2012, 04:42 PM	#1426 (permalink)
Aribeth Zelin Just call me Beth Singing along with old music Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Out in the mists Posts: 5,720 My Mood: SL Join Date: Oct 4 2009 Business: Faerycat Designs Client: Firestorm	I think LL needs to make it easier to get a sim and to keep one - I know a few people who snapped up a sim and then ended up closing it down again. Seriously - if you cut the tier in half [for everyone] and then made set up match the tier [for private sims], I think more folks would have land. I know I could probably manage to justify 150 a month, but I can't afford 300 a month. Also, they need to make homesteads available without getting a full region first. Also, some of those drops have been as people close down their stores and shift to marketplace only - and that's been going on for the last three - five months. I don't think its all from that sale. __________________ Faerycat Designs In World -Marketplace 1- Marketplace 2

02-06-2012, 11:04 PM	#1429 (permalink)
Ayesha Lytton Solace Beach Owner *SLU Supporter* Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: California Posts: 1,112 Business: Solace Beach Estates Client: Singularity	Reducing tier wouldn't necessarily reduce revenue, as many people would increase their holdings. If tier were still $195/month, sims that were half occupied would make tier at current rental prices. This would have allowed me to keep many of the sims I've recently given up - even if I reduced rent slightly for the tenants. That reduction would spur more land buying on the part of tenants too. __________________ Solace Beach Estates: Beautiful Residential & Commercial Land for All Budgets! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Solace%20Beach/193/48/23

02-07-2012, 06:39 AM	#1431 (permalink)
SimonLeo Technisch directeur I am my business. Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 1,004 My Mood: Suduko Champion! Poker Drop Champion! Sonic Champion! Blob Farm Champion! Zombie Survival Champion! Fishing Lalala Champion! Business: Virtuateq	If LL lowers the tier to $195 then that is a reduction of 34%. This means to get the same amount of money in sales they would have to rent out 1.51 times the amount of sims the rent out now. To do that they will have to use more resources to keep those sims running which will also cost money. Do you seriously think that is going to happen? I don't. __________________ Get the land you want!

02-07-2012, 10:39 AM	#1433 (permalink)
Khamon Aspiring Harpist *SLU Supporter* Thumbs Up Sweetie Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Alabama Posts: 9,203 My Mood: SL Join Date: November, 2003 Blog Entries: 1	The cost of homesteads was originally raised from $75 to $125 a month not to cover the cost of hosting the service, by the Labs admission, but to slow the adoption rate because the "support team" couldn't meet the demand. It seems unlikely that they'll open that flood gate again because they don't want to deal with us individually. Machines that meet Linden Lab's server specifications, and allow 10TB of monthly bandwidth, cost between $4,068 and $5,088 to host annually. A homestead server might require more dedicated bandwidth that 10TB a month so the initial estimates might be a bit low, but twelve homesteads hosted on one of these gathers $18,000 a year in tier. Granted the Lab have to rent office space, pay programmers, maintain a redundant fiber network, and support a number of people that pretend to foster the community and provide user support; but that's still a whole lot of markup for hosting an Internet service. I believe reducing tier rates just some token percentage would help renew the feeling that users are residents invested in a building and inhabiting a world. __________________ A Journey Through the World of Lever Harping

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02-07-2012, 11:10 AM	#1436 (permalink)
Anya Ristow Senior Member done now Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 2,383 SL Join Date: September 2006	I believe SL usage peaked in 2008 and is back to 2007 levels. I believe the classified spending curve, which hasn't been published since 2010-ish, is more reflective than other measures of activity, as for some reason it wasn't fudged by automated activity. It peaked in 2008. I believe a plot of actual human usage and spending would be similar. But the estate market continued to grow into 2011. I also believe LL has, or had, a program of supporting resident businesses at the 70% and 100% levels. That is, if they wanted to keep you around, they'd make up the difference between 70% of your tier and your real sales. Say, for example, you were earning 50% of your tier. LL would grace you with another 20% in sales to bots, effectively reducing your tier. If they liked your products and wanted to keep you trying. If they really wanted to keep you around they'd make sure you made 100% tier. It puts the web-based marketplace in perspective. It may seem counter-productive for LL to move people away from tier-paying, money-losing businesses to fee-based web services, except that they weren't earning all that tier, anyway. They were giving some of it back. I admit it's a whacky theory. If there's any truth to it, you might suppose they've been doing something similar in the land market. Easiest to just plop down islands and make them look rented by fake accounts, if they just want to make SL appear to still be growing, but they might also be renting from resident estates, effectively lowering their tier and increasing the apparent demand for land. If so, they aren't collecting as much tier as is apparent, anyway. How big was the grid in 2007 with $200 island tier? Do you think the grid is really as big as it appears in 2012 with $300 tier? I believe SL reduced spending on the 70% and 100% programs a couple years ago, and you might be seeing the same happen in the estate market. I believe a smaller, human-filled grid will be more fun, more profitable and more sustainable than a creepy, empty grid. And without so much in-world spending there might be room to lower tier. Just a bit of tinfoil hattery.

02-07-2012, 04:32 PM	#1440 (permalink)
Khamon Aspiring Harpist *SLU Supporter* Thumbs Up Sweetie Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Alabama Posts: 9,203 My Mood: SL Join Date: November, 2003 Blog Entries: 1	That's why we told Philip, after 1.2 was published, that the Lab should work toward sims being larger (512 or 1024 squared) and being the smallest billable chunk of land. We learned two things: how hosed the database coding, or lack thereof, was and that Philip didn't, and never would, understand the virtual land rental business. He cried the day that private estates surpassed the number of Linden-owned Mainland sims. Linden Lab could now be functioning as a host, supporting just a few hundred users, with the rest of us paying tier to private estates and being supported by respective staff. A bit of feature and interface development would add value to the service but would preferably be outsourced to a professional shop.

02-13-2012, 10:13 AM	#1445 (permalink)
Mrs Chung Hahaha Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: LaChine Posts: 165 My Mood: SL Join Date: forgot Business: monkey Client: dunno but it keeps crashing all the time	Hmmm, perhaps the tail-spin is now over from the October given-away, and it will be back the usual for the next few months - maintenance mode. It is exciting wondering what Linden Lab will do next. How about "free" adult Linden Homes - supplied fully furnished; with all the wild and woolly animations one could want?

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