On Linden Lab's blog, Nelson Linden just posted Second Life land pricing updates effective next year:
- "All retail private region maintenance, including grandfathered pricing, is expected to continue without increase through Dec. 31, 2011."
- "All education and non-profit private regions of any type, purchased after Dec. 31, 2010, will be invoiced at standard (i.e. non-discounted) pricing."
Feel free to discuss in Comments!
There goes the education sector...
Posted by: Csteph | Monday, October 04, 2010 at 03:00 PM
No kidding.
And there goes how many thousands of concurrent users brought in for classes in SL every year, from September to April?
Does LL really think that enough colleges and universities are going to be able to *afford* to stick around at the higher costs, to make make up the lost revenue for those who leave?
Posted by: Scylla Rhiadra | Monday, October 04, 2010 at 03:50 PM
See y'all in OpenSim.
Posted by: Ignatius Onomatopoeia | Monday, October 04, 2010 at 04:46 PM
We're gonna need a bigger boat.
Posted by: Little Lost Linden | Monday, October 04, 2010 at 05:42 PM
/me wonders if the students markedly provide any great degree of income for The Benevolent Manarchy. If education etc,. was a loss leader that didn't pan out.
Posted by: brinda allen | Monday, October 04, 2010 at 07:53 PM
This pricing change also affects museums, churches, government agencies, and organizations like Virtual Ability and the American Cancer Society (Relay for Life).
Posted by: Troy McConaghy | Monday, October 04, 2010 at 10:23 PM
Just what is going on with Linden Labs?
I don't see what cutting off educational institutions and nonprofits is going to earn them.
that was pretty much the only good press they ever got.
Not a day goes by without some sort of abysmal news about SL right now, I'm starting to seriously question my motivation to bring content to this service.
Posted by: Oni Horan | Monday, October 04, 2010 at 10:38 PM
Well u know they have their "reputation" to think about. Education and nonprofits just dont fit in that concept...they are not nekkid enough?
Warning this comment has a touch of sarcasm ;)
http://kranfel.blogspot.com/2010/10/second-life-embarrassing.html
Posted by: Vesper Kling | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 01:09 AM
"Not a day goes by without some sort of abysmal news about SL right now, I'm starting to seriously question my motivation to bring content to this service."
On the bright side, there is always Planet Michael...
Posted by: Little Lost Linden | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 03:57 AM
I'm still angry as hell about this, but I'll stop throwing darts as Philip's picture long enough to answer brinda.
Retention among my students--about 100 from four classes and half that many from a colleagues' two classes--has been 0.
Millennials don't like SL for reasons hashed out in many posts by Feldie Epstein, me, and others. That said, though undergrads don't return to the platform after classes end, I hear from faculty in professional and graduate schools a different story.
In medical and nursing programs there's more of a motive to build good simulations. And these faculty and students are as screwed over as any program that, say, uses SL for a first-year writing class.
Posted by: Ignatius Onomatopoeia | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 03:57 AM
WTF Moments In Linden Lab History: WTF #643.
Bass-Ackwards. Your numbers are stagnant. If you want to get out of the rut, drop land purchase and tier prices for everybody by at least 50% and preferably 90%.
Second Life is still the big kid on the block because of the creators. But there is a proliferation of other virtual worlds out there now, and SL is hemmoraging its best and brightest due to short-sighted, high-handed, boneheaded blunders like this.
Gah! Pull your heads out, people! I can't believe human beings this STUPID are allowed near a server.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 06:55 AM
While every other technology on Planet Earth gets either cheaper or better or both...
Posted by: Rusalka Writer | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 10:31 AM
What in the hell are they thinking? Why do they continue to shoot themselves in the foot like this? These servers must be long since paid for, there is a huge PR problem doing this, the natural attrition rate will rise dramatically now, and yet another reason for exodus from SL to other virtual world areas. Soon another payment system will be established on another world that is dependable as we believe Lindens to be, and a way to transfer inventory will come up, and people will just go. I'm tired of paying them $295 a month for a sim, when I know I can get others for less or host my own now for pretty much nothing. Its the assets and money system that keep most folks around. I so wish they would stop trying to sabotage themselves and all of us at the same time.
Posted by: Von Johin | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 11:11 AM
This is indeed sad. I hope the education secotr will stay, but the cost increase will for sure have a impact.
On the other hand, all those recent news from LL does seem to point towards something going on behind the scenes. Maybe financial problems? This will be the most logical conclusion I think.
Posted by: Rin Tae | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 12:48 PM
Here, as in the SL blog and forums, there are lots of motives attributed to LL as a way of "explaining" the decision, ie the company is greedy, boneheaded, stupid, callous, uncaring, and so on.
There are two basic reasons for the ferocity of the reactions. The first one is that NO explanation of the decision was offered. Thus, we are left to wander in a total vacuum of facts and our worst fears are free to run wild. Second, the announcement was dropped like a bomb. Clearly, in a time of recession few companies would double the price of a product and expect such a decision to make any sense to its constituents.
So the real question is 1) WHY was this decision made in the first place and 2) assuming it was a painful decision of the part of those running LL, why wasn't there a good, clear, honest explanation for it, backed up with a few facts that we could check out and verify.
VERY PUZZLING
Posted by: Charles2 McCaw | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 06:41 PM
The question about why there was no explanation about this is, I think, easy to answer:
In the all happy MBA world of business nothing bad is ever happening and it seems like LL is following this policy no matter what. So they wont ever admit that anything is wrong or that it has to be done to keep the company profitable. Even the slightest sign of weakness is percieved like the end of the world while there is the stange believe that customers and investory alike are falling for this kind of corporate spin.
Posted by: Rin Tae | Wednesday, October 06, 2010 at 08:20 AM