Grid Survey: Second Life Loses 74 Private Regions in a Week

Last week, according to Tyche Shephard of Grid Survey, which gathers publicly available data on Second Life land, the grid lost 74 private islands, many of them from the estates of famed land baron Anshe Chung, and many from Second Life's educational userbase. As Ms. Shephard details in this forum post:

The main losses this week were amongst the Jewel Island estate which turned off 27 regions, whilst the two [Anshe Chung] owned estates Azure Islands and Outerland dropped 13 and 9 respectively. Another significant loss was 7 University of Texas regions. There were no notable new additions to the grid.

As I've explained before, private islands make up the vast majority of Second Life's revenue, so this represents a substantial income hit. (At standard rates, 74 private regions would annualize out to revenue of over $250,000.) What's more concerning, Tyche recently told me that for all of 2010, Second Life had a net loss of just 46 private regions. It's possible I'm reading her data incorrectly, but both points do seem extremely significant. Updates as they come. Meantime, click here to follow Tyche on Twitter.

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

Do Linded supply exit surveys for leaving customers? I'm curious what the reasoning is.

[Tateru Nino]

@Adeon The Lad dos, though not every time. I am not sure what conditions trigger one. Maybe they run in phases.

I don't recall the results of any such surveys being released, or even talked about except in the broadest possible fashion.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

I suspect the UT System continues to consolidate its holdings. I would not read the loss of 7 sims as an exodus, though that may be ongoing grid-wide in the wake of the higher tiers for education. We'll know if a few more months. For US schools, the fiscal year ends July 1.

After founder Leslie Jarmon's death, Mario Guerra ran the UT project. He told our education group, The Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable, almost a year ago that the UT system originally had 45 regions. At the end of their first year in SL, 14 participating campuses renewed at least 1 of their 3 regions.

I'd like to get Mario to bring his avatar to another VWER meeting to talk about the events at UT, another year on.

BTW, we lost the sim on which VWER hosted OUR meetings, again given the end of discounts. Luckily, Bowling Green State U stepped in with a lovely new amphitheater and we continue our rountables.

Linden Lab would rather have $300 a month from half as many of us, I reckon, than $150 a month from a larger group :)

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Wonder if the Lab can find a therapist willing to treat their tier addiction?

It's going to be a fight, considering their network of codependants and enablers.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

So the Austin campus retains 2 of 7 regions and the San Antonio campus 1 of 3. There are your 7 UT regions. I've asked Mario to comment and provide an update for my blog.

[John Lopez]

Considering they can't seem to accept payments properly (and are then suspending accounts) I'm not surprised some are unwilling to fight the bureaucracy.

As an example: http://elfclanvr.grouply.com/message/1645

They link to http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/On-the-Road-to-Local-Payments/ba-p/845611 which indicates they will do exactly the opposite of what they *have* done for these international sim owners (just a random example I stumbled across).

[Danielle]

43% of estate regions are Homesteads or OpenSpace, so the revenue lost should be more like:

32 x avg of $100/mo homestead and openspace +
42 x avg of $250/mo full sims mixed grandfathered and full price

= $164K per year, or about 1/3 less than your estimate

[Ann Otoole InSL]

The thought of halving your revenue in hopes people will double up must be a tough one. I wonder what Bill Gurley would think of taking that risk. How to do it would be another big deal. Give everyone renting a sim an extra sim and maintain the tier level hoping people would not cancel the new sim? They would have to fund double the region hosts with no increase in revenue while hoping people would pile on and order lots more.

Perhaps a survey of estate stake holders opinions on pricing might be interesting.