Why is Second Life Starting to Add Private Sims After Years of Steady Loss?

Could be nothing, could be something, but in the last month, according to Grid Survey, Second Life has gained about 50 private sims:

This is after many years of steady private sim loss, which has been the most worrying thing, since private sims constitute Second Life's core revenue. Of course, 50 sims isn't a lot, but then again, that could be nearly $200,000 in yearly revenue. Yes yes, too soon to tell if this means anything, but as Joe Essid notes, when he brought this to my attention, "That is something remarkable".

Comments

[MetacamOh]

It's the Colbert Bump

[Vanadis Falconer]

It is Ebbe effect.
Linden Lab has a new CEO who stated prioritizes a viable technology.
Many have left Second Life because of all the clutter of "new amazing technological advances" we promised but that just caused the trouble for most of us.
Ebbe has shown that he cares that voice is difficult to get started. Ebbe has further said that it will go as fast to log in to Second Life as in any other game or program.
This gives hope for the future. Ebbe grew up in Sweden and just like any other Swedes characterized by the term "Swedish quality".
It might not only Volvo that will be sold with the term "Swedish quality" but Second Life will wear that title too in the future.

[RULosingHair]

It's under-statistical, there is no statistically significant Sample Size N in that.

You would also need to include the Moving Average.

What is a Moving Average?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LLpQcVSeoQ

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I think it's just tracking the global economy. As conditions improve for the tiny percentage of people who can afford a private sim, they get back into it. File under first world problems.

[cathartes aura]

Anyone find it interesting that it's approximately 50 regions. Not 30 or 40 or 100. And so soon after Eb's arrival the numbers magically go up.

TOS hasn't been changed to uphold IP rights of builders, Atlas Land Program still in place, Grandfathered tier still in place, and tier fees no one but the top 1% can afford still in place.

No meaningful changes that would help the 99% of SL residents who can't afford land at current pricing.

I repeat - "New Boss same as the Old Boss".

[Iggy]

Having been accused here at NWN of being an SL Deathwatcher, I could not resist pointing this positive news out to Hamlet and his readers.

Is it a short-term trend? A "dead cat bounce"? The Ebbe effect? Market "finding bottom"?

First-world problems easing? Actually, that last one probably can be discounted, given the time frame. We should have seen growth a bit earlier, if SL's fate tracks the rest of the economy.

We'll find out and I may be proven wrong that SL can't grow again given the platform's limitations; @Vanadis, Volvo is in the midst of *completely* redesigning their offerings, something LL can't manage. LL is still stuck with the cybernetic equivalent of a 240 chassis and drive-train but now SL has a heads-up display and new sheet metal.

[MetacamOh]

BTW they also mentioned Second Life on Shameless Sunday night. :)

[Ciaran_Laval]

The losses had slowed down quite significantly prior to the recent rise. The grid didn't grow at all this week in terms of private estates, the net change was 0 but the week prior to that saw net private estate growth of 42 regions. That was the largest week on week growth since 17th June 2012.

It is much too early to read too much into this, in the heady days of June 2012 the grid grew for three weeks in a row and then saw a large loss that removed all that growth and then some.

However the grid only grew once during the whole of 2013 and has now shown growth for 2 of the last 4 weeks, so something does seem to be changing.

Between November and February World Of Warcraft attracted an additional 200,000 subscribers after months of losses too. No idea why that would happen either.

[Pussycat Catnap]

While it is nice to see growth - its too soon to call.

They call a recession after 3 months of losses and not 1 for a reason - once a trend is there.

1 month of growth could be a trend or an anomaly. 50 sims up is small in the larger scale of things - so its not really even a spike. Normally, we're down by less than 10 if I recall rightly.

Lets just see how it goes over the next few months.

[RULosingHair]

"Concurrent Users per Region" is far more yielding.

[Dirk]

Possibly Oculus Rift related?

[Pussycat Catnap]

"Concurrent Users per Region" is far more yielding.
*****

SL has always let every user get their own land, and some get more than just a single plot. SO that metric has always been useless.

Concurrency on the other hand is a useful metric - and its not that different now than its been any other day for the past few years - it fluctuates a lot by the time of day, but the values at those time remain fairly similar.

[AmandaD]

"It's under-statistical, there is no statistically significant Sample Size N in that."

This isn't a sample its the entire set of information. A sample is when you look at a small percentage of a group or set of information and project out to the entire set from that.

This is the all of regions in SL so there has been a real 1/4 or one percent rise in the number of SL private regions. That's a small number and a short term so might or might not indicate the beginning of a trend.

I've seen more traffic and had more rentals on my single region and traffic at several RP estates I go too seems to be increasing. One of those estates has just added a region because of demand for rentals.

If things are still heading up in six months then we have a trend.

[Eliza Wrigglesworth]

"Counting Wasteland is not very yielding...

Those Region-Counters tend to display the Vendor side of things, but what about the Consumer side? What do Region Metrics and Analytics tell us about Concurrent Users?"...etc...etc...

Quoted from RULosingHair's post above:

If you really want to challenge Tyche Shepherd's numbers, I think you should probably contact her directly.

From what I know about her, she's more than up to the task.