Thursday 21 March 2013

"EVERY SECONDLIFE SIM IS IMPORTANT" NOW !

With the steady loss of Secondlife islands, Linden Lab must be in a little bit of a panic. Rod humble must be pulling his hair out right now. Even if they are still profitable, these continuous losses must be scary stuff. Every island is an important source of revenue for Linden Lab. It's surprising they don't love their island customers enough to want to try and keep them.

I have been an estate owner since late 2005 and I currently still have 38 sims spread out over a few avatar accounts and also still have some mainland, mostly for nostalgic reasons.

My holding still make a profit but not much profit, it's very narrow. The big land barrons and Linden  Lab's Atlas program or should we say market killing Land Cartel, are finishing me off. I'm losing the will to provide a good service to my renters so I am considering throwing in the towel and dropping the remaining 38 sims slowly over the rest of the year. I will do it slowly so as not to distress my loyal customers and friends. I have been supporting a number of little niches, mainly RP stuff.

But in my mind, if the niches die, Secondlife dies. It is dying. Sims are disappearing weekly. I'm saddened by this.

I personally think Secondlife is a pretty friggin awesome bit of kit. But we must face facts, people can't afford the tier costs to do anything fun anymore. People really do need their own sims.

Alot of my renters are big plot renter, 1/4 sim to full sims. RPers need lots of land but with the current tier costs the RP communities are being decimated.

With the current sim losses, perhaps Linden Lab should start thinking that every sim counts. Every sim does count now. Every sim is important. Every brave soul that pays these high tier costs should be considered by Linden Lab as gold, they are gold to Linden Lab, they are money in the bank. Do they realsie it ? I don't know. The lack of communication with the community and the way they act feels like they are totally disconnected from their user base.

Hey Linden Lab, people want your island product but you've price it so high they can't get it. In fact, converted, passionate, real customers are giving up their land every week. They are speaking to you through their actions.

Do Linden Lab care about their golden sim owning customers ?
In 8 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in tier, do you know what ? I've never had an email from Linden Lab saying : You are a valuable customer, is there anything we can help you with ?

What happens to a company that doesn't care about it's customers ?
What happens to a company who doesn't speak to it's customers ?
What happens to a company that forgets who their real customers are ?

Every single sim owner should be considered an important source of revenue even if they only have 1  sim.

How long will Linden Lab survive with these relentless losses of islands and revenue ?
Doesn't look good to me

Word on the grapevine is that even top creators are feeling it too. Even successful sim owning creators are dropping sims.

I'm getting out of the land game. In fact Linden Lab killed the land game, killed the game mechanic when they introduced their Land Cartel, oops sorry, I mean Atlas program. Atlas, the Greek Titan is supposed to hold the world up on his shoulders, but in this case Atlas just killed the Secondlife land game mechanic. This is all very ironic since Linden Lab have been frantically trying to pull a new game out of the bag - Creatorverse, Patterns, Dio.  They all cost more to develop than they'll ever make in revenue.

I'm not saying all this to bash Linden Lab or to bash Secondlife. I'm saying it because I don't want Secondlife to die and all the signs point to serious decay. Maybe if Linden Lab started treating every sim owner as a golden goose maybe they could turn this around and stabilize the grid. But mark my words, if tier costs don't come down Secondlife will be no more.

Will Linden Lab be able to stop the losses and stabilize the grid and the SL economy ?


3 comments:

  1. I am sorry to hear that you are leaving. But as sad as we are when Sims that are dear to us personally stop existing, there is still a lot of new islands and stuff coming at the same time. There is a downwards trend, but it is for SL as a platform much slower than you persaonlly might perceive.

    And my personal impression is that LL is earning much more on market place provisions that most people are imagining.

    So it's sad for you and your friends. But I am not panicking at all for SL.

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  2. For me...secondlife ended on the start of 2013...really.. Brazillian RPGs is not the same as 1 year ago... nobody is playing right know...and for us from Brazil...to rent a sim is too much money... and RP now is not the future... Im the creator of the best RPG HUD Urban(Brazil style)on secondlife...i started on a big 5 sims rpg land 2 and a half year ago. AND Im very very bad......i will not work on my system anymore...because i dont see a future for it...i dont see it...i had good days on sl...really...i would like to travel to past again....im very bad.
    Daniloloko Dawes

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  3. It is truly sad so many good people are leaving there sims. But, I can see why. I have been reading a few places about the prices LL has set on there land tiers and setup fees. I "was" going to try it, but not now. So many people feel LL would loose there shirts if they dropped the prices on sims. Get real!! And, I would not be surprised if those speaking about how LL would lose money are actually those in the land "cartels". I have seen, as MANY MANY others have, lots of disappearing sims and users, for that matter. Its not just sim costs, it also has to do with how LL is treating there customers. THERE NOT! Unless its to reprimand them for some thing they may have done or what ever. I have been on SL sine only 2009, but I have had a hell of a lot of fun. However, times are a changing as they say and so is the "fun" factor. It's dropping.

    In my opinion, which probably doesnt amount to a hill of beans actually, SL is facing the same fate as another "online" place. Active Worlds. I was a member there back in 1998 until about 2 years ago or so. I left because the owners no longer gave a crap as to there users. They raised the price of admition, which I will admit was DAMN LOW compaired to many inline places, they raised the cost of owning a "world" which is in some ways similar to a sim. They started charging for "basic" outfits for avatar dress ups. When it all used to be free. They dropped from around 5000 - 10000 users online at any given time to under 100 now days. I amnot sure why there still around though or how, unless its because they have a few major companies using thee "universes" as busniess dealings. And those cost a shit load. Pardon..

    Anyway, conclusion. LL needs to lower there costs for sims from 295 a month to perhaps 195 and perhaps lower there "setup" fee from 10000 to maybe 500 or even less. As I know it dont cost that damn much to set them up. I know,people are going to say, OMG! they can't do that without loosing there shirts!! umm, get real!! They are NOT going to loose there shirts. But, they MAY pick up a lot more buyers!! And YES, they would make MORE money that way than loose it.

    My 2 cents..

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