SL Developer: To Stop Second Life's Land Loss, Linden Lab Needs a Non-Commercial Land Option

To judge by the Second Life land data compiled by Tyche Shepherd (which you can follow on her Twitter feed), Second Life land ownership has been shrinking fairly regularly in the last couple months. Second Life content creator Darrius Gothly has a smart analysis of the issue. The key problem, if I understand him correctly, is that some Second Life Residents use their land to open up SL stores and other businesses (and can thus cover their land expenses with in-world revenue), while many more use their land for virtual homes, artwork, or other non-commercial activities (and therefore, have a harder time covering their land fees.) However, Mr. Gothly has a solution:

Cheap land is meant for people to live on, not do business from. So on those Cheap Land Sims, they need to be Commerce Disabled. When you are on a Residential Sim, if you right click a Vendor or Touch a scripted object, or do anything else that might lead to you paying money to it, that action is disabled. That’s actually pretty simple to do.

Works for me -- how about you? And more key, would the Lindens go for this model, gambling that offering a cheaper pricing option would create more customers?

Hat tip: Mal Burns, who Chestnut Rau rightly dubbed Second Life's "human RSS machine".

Comments

[Harper Ganesvoort]

Something like that might just make me loosen up the purse strings for a plot of ground of my own....

[Ann Otoole InSL]

They are called homestead sims. What LL needs to do is let anyone that wants such a slow performing capability limited region to buy a limit of one directly from LL without having to buy a full region first. Cut estates a deal on them in bulk to offset so the estates can rent a little cheaper overall so people that don't want to buy from LL can rent while those that don't want to rent from an estate can get one from LL direct.

In the meantime there is a glut of "cheap land" in SL. I see no problem with someone that wants "cheap land" getting it. A premium account and $40 a month gets you 8192 (plus group deed bonus) and that is more than enough for a residence.

But if you are looking for the SL economy to improve so people will feel like keeping and buying more islands then LL needs to work harder on fixing search and the issues with the over saturated keywords that cause a lot of popular searches to produce garbage results. And other glaring defects. And stop listing land set for sale in the all search and keep it in a land and rentals search. And bring back events browsing. And stop interfering in the economy.

Then there is some really odd stuff going on with search related to certain locations. Analysis ongoing on that.

[comoro Infinity]

Commerce Disabled? Really?
You move the viewer to the Web inside a browser then you ask people to buy land in SL for a house?
You give me the Wings [AND] the Roots?
Get real, this business model (with these tiers) ain't going anywhere.

[brinda allen]

My covenant states no commercial use other than a "stay at home" business.{one where the owner must be present}

Sure lower my $5880USD tier for a full region and two homesteads!
I will never recover setup fees, that's just fact. I would like to break even tho.

[Jovin]

I'd definitely go along with the idea of Residential and Commercial zoning but I think SL needs carrot more than stick right now. We already have acres of low-concurrency average-performance land in SL - we call them sims.

What we need is the option to have higher-spec, higher-concurrency land available to club and event organisers and busy retailers. Instead of running 4 sims per server couldn't we run 2 and see what's possible? Set aside (or create) a new mainland continent made from these high-spec sims and zone it as the commercial centre of SL. That way the successful and busy businesses could migrate to the high-spec' sims and leave the average sims we already have for residential use.

[soror nishi]

A prim in SL is 650% more expensive than in InWorlds. It's pure greed, nothing else.

[Robert Graf]

Only a noob or a glutten for punishment would think about buying land at this point in SL. Grandfathered/Reduced tier being paid by oldies and large estates guarantees you will not be competitive. For years they have enjoyed a minimum 33.3% tier advantage over normal regular players. This is the main reason for LL/SL's nose dive. The "little folks" are waking up to the manipulation and scamming that has been going on for years in SL. ;)_~~~

[ELQ]

Also, how? you can rez a prim cube and anybody can pay it - paying the owner. You can't keep that from happening, really.

[ELQ]

Okay, you COULD disable commerce on that particular server, but I think that would actually break far more than simply paying a prim. I'm doubtful of the survival of functionality in SO many areas and instances should fundamentals such as commerce, which is integral to so much of the server code, be altered.

[Leondra]

I soooo want LL to do this sort of thing. I piggy-back a "homestead" sim on a friend's estate. I am happy with the number of prims, etc. I live economically in RL, as well. I would like to just pay these tiers to LL and not be dependent. I want a place to create, at a price I consider reasonable. I view this as my "hobby". As long as fees are commensurable with other hobbies... bowling, golf, doll collecting, miniature railroads... (gag). Add in tipping at my favorite live music venues, I still spend less than most people I know on their "hobbies". LL is missing out on attracting many people into sim ownership. We are not all here for commercialism. Are you listening, Phil?, I know you are. :)

[Little Lost Linden]

I think most SL land is just too expensive to begin with. It really is just overpriced for what you get, and it's just that simple.

Perhaps a price reduction is in order this year.

Not only that, but the lack of dynamic shadows is starting to really hurt the virtual experience. Just like Windlight, the eye candy needs to keep coming to peek peoples interests.

The more immersive SL can be, the better. There are a lot of people who are paying these expensive costs who want true VR, and really, they aren't getting it yet...

The programming needs to change as well. SL barely uses a GPU the way it should. Offload some CPU to GPU for a better visual experience.

[Metacam Oh]

Found this article pretty detached from SL's reality really. Sure commerce and residential are separated in RL, however the reason SL is dying is not because Residential people dont have places to live, its because the commercial people cant even break even so to say making residential dirt cheap will fix the land problem is ummmm very short sighted

[Uriel Wheeler]

I rent skyboxes. I charge enough that I break even in the long run, given historical occupancy rates.

I've got a specific niche - people who are just invested enough to want somewhere to rez things, but are not invested enough to buy land on their own. They don't want to make that commitment yet.

But my population is *transient*. With few exceptions, most of my renters move on - either leaving SL or (among those who have told me) buying their own land. But while they're with me, they're still exploring their options.

Both this plan - and Linden Homes - try to undermine the niche that I and other skybox landlords fill. Both try to force users to commit more fully to SL (thus making them a captive market) more quickly.

And I think a significant percentage of users feel that pressure, and don't like it. Meanwhile, those of us who exist on the margins of SL's economy get to know that Linden Labs would put us out of business if they could. It's rather like a lemonade manufacturer deciding to open stores everywhere they see a kid's lemonade stand.

[Botgirl Questi]

The problem for most people isn't that Second Life isn't worth their money, but that it's not worth their time. I just posted on this topic here:

http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-cost-isnt-reason-for-second-life.html

[Darrius Gothly]

I'd like to clarify one point, I didn't say make the cheaper land LESS functional. I strongly believe it needs to be AS functional, in number of prims, processing power etc. There really is no reason to cheap the Residential Sims just because they cost less. I believe there is tons of "wiggle room" in LL's pricing now. They just have to give a little today to earn way more tomorrow.

@ELQ - Rez a prim and try to pay it. It won't let you. That's because it isn't "Commerce Enabled" yet. You need a script to do that. If a script can turn it on, the Sim can keep it turned off.

[Adric Antfarm]

I have no idea what reality Botgirl exists in, but in mine there is no Second Life peak demand and a lot of us aren't doing so well we can afford to pay whatever.

I do thank her for saving us the trouble of clicking on her name by providing yet another link to her site.

As for her idea Linden needs to support "certain communities" I am sure that is from a list her crowd provides no doubt.

The sooner the elite decides Second Life is no longer cool - the better. They ask we pay the most and they get the freebies.

[L. Knoller]

*sigh*

I sounds to me like the "move all the sex deviants to their own continent, that'll fix things" solution.

Changing things more is NOT going to fix things that were broken in the first place by badly thought out changes. I am, for one, totally sick of all the idiotic changes Linden Labs have made in the last couple of years.

Here's an idea: Why dont they roll back some the mess they've made, ask for forgiveness from there long suffering customers and actually start to hear to what we are asking for?

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Free housing for premium subscribers is a step in the right direction.

Most virtual games/worlds with a housing system give you a home or personal space for free (or for game currency you earn through play), and more space if you either subscribe or pay a one-time premium.

Most of them can afford that through instancing. Most virtual spaces are occupied only a fraction of the time, and there's no need to keep them up and running when you can load them on demand and run more residences on fewer servers.

SL's problem is that they've built their entire revenue model around land reselling (as has the wealthiest segment of the resident base). Moving away from that (as they MUST do to remain competitive) is going to be painful for everybody in that segment of the market.

Buckle up. No matter which way it goes, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

[IntLibber Brautigan]

This is horse puckey. The land loss is happening because people are sick of LL messing around with the economy, becoming more fascist, banning entire economic sectors, and treating their best customers, the estate owners, like crap. And their sims are way overpriced, Opensim demonstrates that 90% of one's tier has absolutely nothing to do with the actual server.