Sim Deathwatch: Second Life Loses 2 Grendel's Children Sims After Losing Linden Lab's Attention

Grendel's Children, longtime creators of incredible custom avatars in Second Life, is closing down two of its four SL sims, Prim Perfect reports, but not for lack of funds. Rather, they're claiming a lack of support or response from Linden Lab, and communications frustrations so great, they resorted to contacting CEO Rod Humble via his Twitter account, which is not exactly the most direct way of asking for technical help. Says co-creator Toady Nakamura:

“We took this problem all the way to the CEO,” says Toady, “and it was fixed for 3 days. Then it broke again. We can’t keep going to the top for routine things like ‘we cannot move in our sim’.”

Read much more here. While Grendel's Children still remains in SL, users will have to make do with less land where their are creations showcased -- while the Lindens will have to make do with some $7000 less yearly revenue from Grendel's Children. Ironically, Toady Nakamura contacted me very recently, noting that on September 1, 2011, it will be the fifth anniversary of Grendel's Children as an SL business. "It's a shame to see others leaving SL," Toady told me then, "we're still here and planning to stay." I just didn't expect them to stay in such a diminished footprint.

Pictured above: A still from "Wizard & the Ozimal", an excellent machinima featuring hordes of Grendel's creatures: Watch it here.

Comments

[misnomer_jones]

That's a travesty.

Grendel's Children have been a long time, premiere creator. Without long time residents to look to, what do new residents have?

LL needs to balance focus on both, not just the new resident, to maintain success. Unlike kill and skill 'games', SL's stickiness comes from other residents and not churn. Without the experienced creators, SL loses stickiness.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

There are MMO/virtual worlds that have outmoded graphics and gameplay which have nonetheless endured, in part because customer service is deeply and proactively involved with the player community.

There are some really excellent MMO/virtual worlds that have shut their doors, in part because customer service was lackluster, apathetic or openly hostile towards the user base.

LL needs to beef up support staff, and that staff needs to be people who are enthusiastic about taking ownership of an issue, problem-solving and community engagement. A "ticket" system in which "no action" is the default is not acceptable.

[Adeon Writer]

It's a little unfair that we can't hear LL's side of the story due to their need to repect customer privacy.

Not that grandel's would lie, but anyone closing up shop can pass the buck to LL.

But the good news is that the Grendels most people know of - the store half - probably is the half that's staying.

[anotherdeadavatar]

Anyone that is in myriad groups for shops etc, probably have seen the flurry of closing notices and different blog posts on those as well. People are jumping ship..a shame really, but it's happening more and more.

[Noirran Marx]

I own multiple sims, and I can confirm by experience CS is next to nothing. We've had multiple tickets in for griefing issues for over 3 weeks now with zero response. If you go to concierge chat they tell you it's an abuse report and they can't do anything about it. For sim performance issues, I had to request 2 sims be moved to a different server and it fixed the problem right away (yay for Dee Linden!). So yea LL if you are bothering to read this, your AR department needs a boot in the rear and if concierge chat can't do anything why are they there?

[Hamlet Au]

"It's a little unfair that we can't hear LL's side of the story due to their need to repect customer privacy."

Frankly it would probably be in LL's interest if they handled these disputes in a transparent manner, publishing the details in a forum thread, so other sim owners can see how they're handled and resolved.

[Metacam Oh]

I wrote about this on my blog, here is pretty much my thoughts on this;

"The bottom line is this, a product that costs $3540 PER year (plus membership fee) is a substantial investment, let alone $14K. You know what most normal companies do when someone spends that kind of money? They assign a specific person who is your sales representative, or support representative that you can speak to on a personal level as your liaison. They don’t tell you to file a report and we’ll get back to you and lose the paper in the shuffle, and they don’t forward you to a call center in India with some teenage kid making 4 bucks an hour. They have one person who will practically wipe your ass if you need it, and why? Because when you take your $14K and walk they know who to blame!"

[Kim]

I used to own three sims. I closed two of them after contacting the Lindens for support many times and stating that unless I get a response, I'll be shutting down two of my three sims. Then I submitted a ticket instructing them to close the sims, followed by another ticket stating that if they respond to my previous tickets, I'll keep them open.

They didn't respond, and I now own one sim.

I'd like to keep all three open, but it's the principle.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

It doesn't make one single solitary bit of difference if a user is spending $14k a year or zero. Every human being is equally valuable, and you need to have a level of customer service adequate to make them ALL feel valued.

[Uccello]

As most anyone can tell you, I’m a bigger SLFanGurl than most, but I’ve yet to file a JIRA report and have it resolved. Ever. Search my blog for JIRA or just go to http://poultryreport.blogspot.com/2008/05/rare-angry-blog-reply.html or http://poultryreport.blogspot.com/2010/06/inventory-rebirth.html to see typical results. My brother has had a JIRA report open for over a year. Speaking to individual Lindens in-world has worked, but mostly for minor things … stuck avies, reporting griefers, and the like. Since I can’t speak, phone support doesn’t work for me, but my experience with Live chat tells me that would be a waste of time anyway (see http://poultryreport.blogspot.com/2011/01/this-is-why-you-have-alts.html for a typical experience).

[Stone Semyorka]

It feels like we're going backwards. I keep wondering why Linden Lab doesn't counter this bad publicity by writing roundup stories on blogs and in press releases about all the fascinating new stuff that is being built to replace the old stuff that is passing away. Is the southbound stream a river and the northbound only a babbling brook?

[anotherdeadavatar]

@Arcadia Codesmith

That's all very quaint and stuff..but money makes the world go round. Those shelling out that kind of money in SL should get Tier 1 , Platinum, Super Duper immediate response/immediate fix types of customer support.

And while it's a good idea to have good customer service in general, those that are paying the bills should get first class customer service, as was stated above by Metacam Oh.

[Cacia Escape]

Do try to check your facts before posting something based purely on an interpretation of someone else's article. While the Prim Perfect article makes mention of observing Rod Humble responding to complaints on his Twitter feed, it does not specifically name that as the method used to contact him by Grendel's Children. Yes a past sim issue was taken directly to him but not via so public a format as Twitter.

[InsyX Piranha]

Typical of LL as they do this to the LGBT community all the time. Some have left to start own grids due to the lack of support from LL. Seems they just give attention to a select few on the website and other aspects and leave the others to whatever. Not bitter about it as this happens in RL where 1 percent of the people will always have it all and the rest can go crap on a brick. However, they should know life does revolve more than just the 10 nplaces LL seems to always highlight.