"Be Creative -- Please!" Longtime Linden Lab Veteran Pleads With Company to Staunch Second Life's Revenue Loss With New Ideas

Vektor Linden testing Mono on the Beta Grid with SLer Opensource Obscure

Shawn "Vektor Linden" Kunkel is a longtime colleague who joined Linden Lab a couple years before I left the company to write my book on the birth of Second Life. Acting as Linden Lab's Server QA Lead for over five years, he's remained a dedicated supporter of Second Life, and recently, after reading reports that Second Life masterpieces were disappearing because their owners were no longer able to pay the company's monthly tier, posted a passionate plea for the company to be creative with its revenue model. 

"Second only to the years in my youth where I worked on the sea with my grandfather," he tells, "my time as an employee at Linden Lab were the most rewarding of my professional life. I had the great privilege of working for an extremely innovative, smart company. To round it all out, our Residents were bar none when it came to their enthusiasm and contribution to the incredible world that we built. So I write this message with love and deep respect to those at the Lab who are in a position to make decisions regarding the monetization of the platform."

His open letter and revenue suggestions after the break:

Shawn with SL founder Philip Rosedale and founding investor/board member Mitch Kapor

I was a Linden for 6 years, from 2004 - 2010. I fought those high tier prices every step of the way (even before they were implemented), arguing that more residents paying lower prices would more than make up the difference, and open the doors to even more people wanting to join.

Linden Lab, if you are listening, I urge you to sharply drop your land and premium rates, do a huge marketing push. For example, 'give away' a lot of those vacant parcels for 6 months, without the ability to resell them; in this push, reach out to former and potential residents, and get people in the door... and breathe some life back into this amazing space.

Some other ideas:

• Very short ads on the splash screen (make it a hook that 3rd party browsers must adhere to, or login fails).
• Sponsor teleports (short ads could be buffered in the client prior to teleporting).
• Implement short/simple, non-intrusive ads in the clients for non-paying residents (as well as visitors to the 'free' parcels I described above), and draw on metatags and usage patterns (this is a superb use of your data warehouse) so they are more appropriate for each individual resident.
• Create effective pathways for real life and in-world businesses to sponsor parcels and regions.

There are tons of other things that are just as feasible that could work, and bring in significant revenue for the Lab. Be creative, please! The math can work in so many ways -- just do something, for the sake of the Second Life that so many of us share and love, and that countless others have yet to discover.

Best wishes from the guy formerly known as Vektor Linden.

Of all these suggestions I especially like the non-intrusive ads for non-paying customers -- a nudge for people to consider going Premium, while bringing in a decent stream of monthly cash to the hundreds of thousands who haven't yet converted. In any case, I welcome his ideas and hope other Lindens (past and present) come forward to present their own.

Comments

[Marianne McCann]

Oh, heck no on the notion of "ads on teleport" and such.

[Carlos Loff]

When you want diversity and fresh original ideas you must allow the small fish to own bigger lands and be able to run their projects - With the incredible high tiers LL practices, the small fish can't handle full sims or even homesteads for long periods, some folks would surelly surprise us with what they are able to do if they could at least $$$ Breathe $$$

[pixels]

If I had to watch an ad ever time I teleported I'd kill my avatar then my account. Any advertising schemes to increase revenue in SL inworld should be opt in only and only on objects.

[Earth Primbee]

I've been leaning far into the I don't know how long I can support my part of Inspire Space Park's tier for some time. Over the years we gobbled up every parcel around us we could on the mainland to keep the view awesome. We've shed well over half of what we used to own to keep the place running.

For a many years donations paid for our reduced load nicely (thank you to all who donate) . Supporters sometimes move on and they are not always replaced by new ones. Without turning to a more focused and real revenue model, we are certainly now in danger of having to choose what to do.

I barely have time to enjoy the place these days but i know the people still do. It would be awesome and a great boost for us if tiers for mainland parcels went down at least.

[Solo Mornington]

Step 1: $195 land fee gets you 5 mainland regions instead of 1, $75 per 5 regions after that.

Step 2: Join all abandoned mainland parcels per region and auction starting at L$0.1/m2. These regions will have land cutting turned off for 3 months.

Step 3: Give sims like the one with Petrovsky Flux to the Linden Endowment for the Arts (because that's why LL made LEA to begin with). Institute a process where the LEA can request such a thing and liaise with the owner.

Step 4: Hire me. Only partially kidding. :-)

[Shawn Kunkel]

I made this plea with the understanding that there would be those who disagree with some of the suggestions. This is precisely what they are - suggestions.

If you are as passionate as I am about SL (member since 2003), I urge you to not /just/ say 'no', to my ideas; I ask you to offer ideas of your own. The creativity that has had me marveling at all of you for 14 years now isn't just limited to your incredible contributions to SL.

I don't think it is reasonable to just say, 'I don't like that', without being imaginative in contributing to the conversation about solutions, as well.

Please, add ideas of your own!

Take care,

- Vek.

[Ernie Farstrider]

I am 77 y.o. this year. I have been in SL for seven+ years. I have a quarter of a region that costs me $900 a year, plus my annual Premium, minus my little periodic allowance. As hobby-costs go, this one is almost reasonable. I would commit to buying the unsold land in my Sansara region and developing it at least as well as I have done so far ... which is SL largest and possibly best (non-profit) art gallery, but the tier would have to be such that my annual cost does not exceed my reach, say $1,000. My build is a frequent destination for hundreds of residents and a way for me to keep mentally active. So there's a thought: when marketing, market to the pre-Alzheimers crowd, too!!!

But the key is to keep the individual's costs reasonable. At our age, seniors are spending on meds, charities, alma maters, and grand-kids. SL is good for us, though, so figure out a way for landowner-hobbyists like me to consolidate our holdings to keep the place presentable and profits at LL reasonable, by understanding us as individuals with commitments that could include SL.

What would happen if I filed a ticket to buy the unbought land in my region for the same tier that I am now paying? Could the accounting system allow it? If not, fix it so that it would.

Finally, respect long-term residents as solutions to the problem. Five years in, we should get a break. Ten years, surely!

Cordially,
Ernie Farstrider

[Tamar Luminos]

"Linden Lab, if you are listening, I urge you to sharply drop your land and premium rates, do a huge marketing push."

THIS, MOSTLY. Sim's are prohibitively expensive to own. Cheaper sim pricing (much cheaper) would mean more people owning sims, more creativity, more people playing and exploring and contributing, and more revenue over time. HOnestly, at this point, it's got to happen or SL will continue to bleed off and lose people till it hits the point it's no longer sustainable.

[Pim Peccable]

Why on earth is ad during Teleport a bad idea?????

It's a picture and a few words where we always have a delay anyway!!
Are you so impulsive that it will adversely affect you life to see some ads for 10sec or so every so often????

[Coco Torvalar]

Do you really think Linden Labs cares its a company out to make money and to try and get people to eventually move to SANSAR so do you think they would reduce land tier fees or give anything way when they will reduce staffing and support to the existing sl for their new creation. Have a look about at how much abandoned land their is. So much mainland sits empty cause people can't afford to pay tier as it creeps higher and linden dollar cost more to buy and people offer cheap rental.

[Han Held]

Saturation advertising is always bad, pretty much end of discussion.

For what you get, SL is insanely expensive, particularly since there are alternatives -more alternatives every day, in fact!

So that means LL needs to walk the fine line between finding new ways to bring in revenue and not intruding or breaking the immersion of the people who are paying money to keep the lights on.

Historically LL has neither known nor understood their user-base so I can't imagine that they'll handle this well.

My advice? BRING BACK L$1/sqm FOR ALL ABANDONED LAND! No auctions, no f...ing around. I don't understand why they stopped that; the only answer I've gotten has been "because people flipped the land" to which I reply "SO WHAT? LL STILL GETS PAID!". Let them flip and even re-abandon to their hearts' content; that's still money circulating in the SL economy.

[dk]

Just make it cheaper.

I've had myself sims that i loved but couldn't afford.
If there no change there will be a slow dead.

Meanwhile more people flee to OpenSim alternatives.
Many don't stay there since it's not the exact same and has alot less content.

I would hate to see SL vanish.
Especially with all the money i spent in it :D

[sirhc deSantis]

'Non paying resident gets forced ads' eh Shawn? So might as well drop the 125 bucks a month I hand over to *someone* in rent completely as you think of me that way...clueless.

[Han Held]

^^ now multiply that reaction by *nearly every non-premium on the grid who puts money into the game to shop or pay rent*

...yeeeeeah.

[Clara Seller]

I appreciate Shawn Kunkel's suggestions. I'm not sure what it would take to get LL to hear these old ideas about reducing tier. But I think it's only part of the equation. The price of the game needs fixed, but the tools of playing the game needs fixed also. The land needs enriched and control of the base avatar needs to be updated and returned to the user. Like in RL, the lazy dependence on monopolies has killed progress and complicated innovation. It has to be reasonably easy to teach new players the basics of the game. Right now it's just about impossible because the avatar is a helter skelter patchwork design full of dead end options and disconnected hoops designed to protect creators while sacrificing usability.

[YsabelleStewart]

They might want to try lowering Premium pricing for a period of three months or so to see whether it brings in a lot more payers. And if it does, they could reconsider their current pricing. The give away of abandoned land for six months would also help. But not if tier prices stay high so the prices shoot up afterwards. They need to bring those down because it's the most common complaint among SL users. Getting people invested in land would lead to a boost for inworld businesses that cater to the house and garden market. And that's more money into the SL economy.

I'm not sure about the ads on tping. It might affect the immersion experience if we get hit with an ad every time we tp to a new place. Targeted advertising that focuses on our interests - LL will have this data collected surely - might be better if it was not too obtrusive on the viewer.

I'd also like SL to have better default avis - more like the newer mesh bodies. I think it would help the clothing market which is currently hit by a variety of mesh bodies, with some better supported than others. Designers unable to get dev kits are losing out to those who can, and the inventories are skyrocketing because of all the mesh models of clothing that comes in one package. I'm not saying LL needs to come up with something as good as Maitreya, etc, nor would I want the mesh body manufacturers put out of business, but something higher quality than exists now might make a big difference to all those who cannot afford mesh bodies. Of course, changes could negatively hit existing mesh clothing residents have in their inventories. Anyway, should have posted this when I was less tired. Just chucking thoughts down here. :)

[MARGARET]

They are not in the position to cut tier. Tier is the only way they make money. Slashing it by 50% would effectively mean slashing their profits by 50%, which they cannot afford. There is absolutely no guarantee people would buy land at 50% the price. They need a creative solution, not a foolhardy one

[Tim King]

If it's possible, how about offering extra land impact packages to Linden home owners? I bet quite a few folks would go for that.

[Shockwave]

I rent because its too expensive to buy. Period. Cut the price and make it up in volume. Youll end up making more because all the newcomers will need clothes and houses and furniture.

[Fred]

All the "ad revenue" streams ideas looks very desperate, it's like they don't believe in the possibilities of their own creation (SL), but instead think try to make money like on youtube. Slapping commercials onto everything will most certainly be another nail in the coffin for SL.

[don]

The posters here believe "Be Creative" is just a slogan for "how to make money".

Pretty pathetic and sad.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Teleports in SL were initially a both money sink that helped restrain non-stop TP skipping, as well as a nudge to building out estates that appealed every other stepof the way along the road, if not all the way, given that TPs never landed you exactly where you wanted to go but instead forced you into one infohub or other, necessitating shorter-range transport development, or growing a penchant for padding or flying along.

This feature remains embedded in SL's code, but its use has faded severely in the face of users' desire for convenience, save at certain multi-sim events. Perhaps it could be revived for certain commercial/mixed-use estates welded to the mainland, where the landowners would commit to advertising on mid-TP advertisements and tolerating such restricted TP routing so long as the roads leading out from the hub of this estate pretty much brought everyone past their shops.

I am pretty much reminded of Kowloon Walled City when I consider possible alternative urban planning ideas for Second Life. I mean, sure it was unsanitary, crime-ridden and a total mess... but it's hard for a place to become unsanitary in Second Life without a lot of planning and design in that direction, and parcel permissions can do some pretty amazing things to curb certain griefing when set properly. it's quite possible that a more curated form of chaos might work wonders.

I'm open to other proposals, really. All I can agree on is what Vector said: the gradual downing of Second Life as we see it right now, cannot be allowed to be continued much longer. Certainly not when Sansar is still far from a certain bet. LL needs to be able to ditch Sansar while extracting bits from it for retrofitting into SL if worst comes to worst.

[LagOh]

I certainly agree that Tier prices are too high- way too high. I would like to make a suggestion on SL Marketplace. I think that in order to sell on SL Marketplace the creator should be required to have an in World store or presence. Too many people killed thiere in World store and only sell online. Once again this is primarily related to the Tier costs.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

don: money may be the root of all evil and a corrupting influence, but a certain level of it is still needed to keep SL up and usable, if not still developing slowly on a technical basis. Dark traffic that can be attributed to text adverts on the TP screen in Firestorm is significant, as has been noted by Hamlet previously - perhaps some of that traffic flow could be redirected to other causes that help maintain Second Life, whether they are premium inworld advertisements or sponsorships by external organizations or businesses. it doesn't even have to be completely nothing but ads for non-premium residents - Perhaps LL could offer TPV developers the ability to decline to show ads every so often (not too often of course. Maybe say on 25% of login or TP screens?)

There is precedent for inworld advertising in Second Life, with several networked advertising systems of various scales from institution specific to estate-wide to grid-wide. Just as LL previously co-opted SL Exchange in as part of its currency and off-grid commerce systems, perhaps one or more of these systems could be co-opted and supplied with new adaptations akin to VMM no-magic-inboxing that required specific work by Linden Lab to enable. This may not necessarily be the best option, but tapping inworld expertise on this matter could potentially make the money flow faster, and hopefully more of it spills into keeping the servers alive.

Another option I can think of is what Shockwave suggested: make it cheaper to own land, in order to give people more excuses to buy stuff or make stuff to fill that land, leading to more sales, leading to more need for land to make or sell more stuff to but ad infinitium (to a limit). Many long-lasting MMOs have survived primarily on this habit of gradually rampining up the level cap along each expansion every few months or so.

We may not have such a system in place hardcode wise, but if you compare stuff we considered top notch in 2004 with what we consider great within our parcels and on our avatars in 2017, you can see several such systems in a subjective manner dictated as a sort of conversation amongst SL Residents: what looks cool? what is light on the sim? what excites? how far can you get away with retaining most or all of the SL Classic Ruth even as mesh body replacements become more and more popular? We should be prepared to examine such trends and see how they can partially be made to serve both residents, creators as well as Linden Lab in reasonable proportions.

Art is great, but sometimes artists need to paint for food and rent - we should not sniffle haughtily when they act on this necessity, in any time, place, or world.

[Ciaran Laval]

The paying/non-paying divide in Second Life is not as straight forward as it is for a platform such as Flickr! Many non-premium members pay a lot of money each month, heck you can even be a sim owner without being a premium member, although Linden Lab have always seemed to include basic members who are concierge customers in their premium membership perks.

I don't think Linden Lab have the technology to provide seamless adverts on teleport, but in a 3D environment there are plenty of opportunities for adverts. I've always wondered why Linden Lab don't have cross product promotions with companies like Adobe, I went to a party at Adobe Island once when they were launching something, but why aren't Adobe adverts around Second Life generally?

Why aren't there adverts for Blender? Maya? Asking companies to sponsor regions or events could also be lucrative in some ways but it would all be a long way short of tier.

Ebbe Altberg recognises that the tier is too damn high (that's not a quote), Sansar will be different, for Second Life it's very late in the day to change the revenue model, tier is far too high a percentage of the revenue model but this has been known for many years.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Late in the day, yes. But is it truly too late to change the model however slightly?

[Ciaran Laval]

No, it's definitely not too late to change the model slightly, it's just that tier being such a central trunk of their revenue model makes it extremely difficult for them to get radical.

Years ago they started to dabble with the message of the day, Firestorm makes great use of that.

[TerrilynnCarami]

I totally agree! The ads would be only be like a billboard sign during teleporting. You wouldn't have to kill your avatar or your account. You look at a black screen anyway. Sheesh! Such drama. I wrote a letter with similar ideas several years ago but no response. There is a way to TACTFULLY stream income into the grid without actually 'selling out'. I'd advise have a small user advisory group to offer perspective and balance. Premium members wouldn't have to see the ads although as a premium member I would simply because they could be creative and witty. Maybe we need a user group to brainstorm these ideas and work with Linden employees? Pete Linden?? If so let me know where to apply.

[LaPiscean Liberty]

Take the walls down around the Garden, and lower prices to land and set yourself up for bringing your opensim customers back to SL. OK leave the walls up, but join the OS community. Oh and I don't care about the TP ads, they are all around my dashboard anyway. :)

[Boronk]

A big help would be to make mainland beautiful. The mainland is an ugly mess of nothingness added with ugly buildings.

The LL own buildings scattered all over mainland need a washup to look more like modern FPS graphics.

If you drop in as a new "player", you find nothing but trolls and ugly mainland. The good spots are hidden either in some private sims or on adult mainland.

Add automatic trees and grass to abandoned lots. Make tree and grass on groundlevel for free with LI. Redo the streets with a more modern look. Redo the ground textures.

It all looks like still being 2007.

[Fred]

If linden Labs want ideas, this place is Clearly where they should start, for many reasons

[Carlos Loff]

I do not think is too late to lower tier - I moved to Opensim and spent huge sums of money, of course I got vast lands and prims and I also investedhuge huge time in building (many stuff is hard to find and we have to build it ourselves and find scripts, etc), but let me tell you something right here - If LL tiers go down to just a third of what they are now, or maybe even just half, II will run back to SL and abandon all projects on Opensim - I have a HUGE quality inventory and I keep seeing better and better non expensive products and gadgets everyday popping at SL market, I even have many groups and friends that I could revive quickly - I just want to make my point from a world´s creator perspective - If LL lowers tiers, even Opensimers would flock back, even those that swear they would not - LL could do something like an experiment - 2 month major discount on new lands, a celebration excuse or whatever and everyone would have their lands purchased during that period, grandfathered much cheaper, that would make people hurry to take the chance and it would keep people in to not loose the grandfather element

[Clara Seller]

This is kinda responding way back to YsabelleStewart. I'm in favor of LL making a new modifiable mesh body that is better than any mesh creators are putting out and totally risk destruction of those content creators current empires. LL should attach the new mesh model option to premium accounts and insure locking users into premium status because they are never going to want to give that up. The new models should restore skin and clothing layer systems back to the user and let a new breed of content creation develop. This would be a wild fire to one of the last SL markets that's still thriving and give more continuity and variety. "Oh, people are just scared of change" is only dragged out when buyers don't like what's being forced on them. When sellers are at risk of losing, we never hear that "afraid of change" thing.

[Iggy 1.0]

I've been paying $35/month for a different hobby to belong to an association.

At that price, I'd own a sim and set up a RP region. I could put it next to other regions with the same theme and HUD/combat system, as Dominica has recently done.

If LL wants to keep their product going (an open question) they need to consider what other hobbies cost participants. Tier continues to be prohibitive for most of us who still enjoy SL.

[irihapeti]

@Han Held

the 1L auto-set-to-sale scheme got turned off at the time when the mainland was progressively more and more abandoned

World Map mainland was/is a yellow desert of sand when auto-set-to-sale

@Ernie Fastrider

your suggestion of allowing existing mainlanders to double their current parcel holdings for the same tiers could be a way to curtail the drifting of desert sand

[CharleyJohnson]

I think most people agree that the ongoing cost of owning land, tier, is too high. To use a metaphor, all LL's revenue seems to come from a pretty high property tax. I would suggest replacing that tax in whole or in part by a sales tax. LL should take a percentage of each sale of goods or services on the Marketplace.

[pixels]

We are bombarded by ads nearly every single second of our lives -- all over the net as well as everywhere we go in RL. Adverts on buildings, vehicles, billboards, radio, television, logos on everything. It never ends.

SL is an escape from all of that "outside" influence. And should remain so as much as possible. There is already plenty of inworld SL store, product, services, etc., advertising.

Ads during the login screen process that can be accessed via a link is doable and would not break immersion. LL could test drive this.

Ads during teleporting would be invasive and break the immersive experience.

I have built many immersive art sims and installations that required using teleports to go from the ground to the sky and to various locations all over the sim and sky. Seeing an ad every time a visitor teleported would be horrible and disruptive to the work.

There are other ways to display ads tastefully inworld without forcing advertising in residents faces.

Maybe some marketing/advertising genius could set up a program to bring in paying sponsors that residents can choose from and have a specific type of interactive sign (or more than one) that residents can touch to get a pop up web link to visit the sponser's website and a free gift with the sponsors name/logo on it. These small advert signs (like the LEA ones on the LEA sims) would be displayed at the entrances to sims, shops, venues, galleries, events, etc. LL would collect the revenue to lower land costs and residents who display these advert signs would get some kind of special perk.

As for the cost of land...

Several years ago, LL decided to offer homestead regions for a very low price. Hundreds of people jumped at the opportunity and bought them. Then LL pulled a bait and switch a couple of months into the deal and jacked up the price within six months. It pissed off a lot of residents, including some of SL's most innovative and creative residents who said fuck this and left.

So, LL has to tread carefully if they decide to lower the land costs and do it right and ethically and not pull this crap again.

[tyler alvarado]

there is no easy answer, but sl could decrease the tier for sure, and could perhaps include water in mainland terraforming rights, and perhaps make better free homes with driveways, and roads to drive on, and have jobs that u can do. make sl more interactive and not just a sex and clubbing place. not that i mind, but hey, you know it would be cool to put out virtual fires, or arrest virtual criminals, or have virtual roadwork.