Straight from the expert grid analysis of Tyche Shepherd, this somber stat:
The slow puncture that is #secondlife continues to deflate Grid down by 28 regions this week to 23744. YTD 1.6% losshttps://t.co/EHNYQqoZWl
— Tyche Shepherd (@tycheshepherd) May 7, 2017
Full report from her latest SL Universe post:
A net loss of 28 private estate regions this week. Linden owned regions were unchanged in number... year to date net private estate losses stand at 271 regions (1.6% loss).
That's 271 gone in just the first four months of this year, so assuming that rate of decline remains consistent (and unless there's a major change in pricing, it likely will be), we're talking about a total loss of over 1,000 private sims in 2017. In terms of revenue that goes to Linden Lab, that's rather a lot:
Those 1000+ sims gone from Second Life would translate into roughly $4 million dollars in yearly revenue gone, detracting from current overall annual revenue that's already estimated to be down to $50 million a year (from a high of $100 million a year in 2009). Which again, brings up the need to staunch the revenue loss with new ideas, and for Sansar and High Fidelity to build a better world to succeed this one.
Well, this reminds me of beating the dead horse like the US health care situation.
Everyone who is sane pretty much agrees there is a problem. But protecting the interests of everyone except those buying the product is the only solutions that are allowed. Sims are disappearing. Ain't that a darn shame. Let's raise the tier and see if we can't get those profits back up. That's what my ex land baron did.
Posted by: Clara Seller | Tuesday, May 09, 2017 at 06:53 PM
So, 1k sims represents a loss of 4 million dollars?
Ok -what does the remainder .... 16k sims... represent, financially speaking? My rough off-the-top-of-my-head guess would be 64 million dollars this year?
I'm not aware of any other company making that kind of money in the VR field -is anyone else?
There's no denying that there's a loss going on; but I'm not expecting LL to close the doors tomorrow; are you?
Posted by: Han Held | Tuesday, May 09, 2017 at 07:16 PM
This is very simple - Prices are overrated - Im not defending Opensim against SL but when we see serous companies like Digiworldz, Inworlds and Kitely flourishing and growing, making a living with prices 10 times lower than SL, that is factual proof that SL prices are VERY exagerated, a grandfathered posture from an monopoly position --- Lower prices and I will run back to SL and spend my cash there - Me and many thousands - Do so so simple
Posted by: Carlos Loff | Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 05:18 AM
It's just natural progression. It was a thing for a while, now it's less of a thing. Such is the internet.
Although I do have to agree that the pricing has much to do with it.
The reality is that I can buy a comparable sized piece of undeveloped land in RL for less than the startup cost of a sim, and pay less taxes than tier.
Posted by: Dartagan Shepherd | Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 06:43 AM
"Im not defending Opensim against SL but when we see serous companies like Digiworldz, Inworlds and Kitely flourishing and growing"
-->>LOL<----
The only real competition for second life is High Fidelity,Space & Sansar
- Inworldz, they never delivered the promises they made to residents,they have not updated to a real website in 4 years, while the new forum is a joke that is proof if they cannot even create an impressive website then you know more things are screwed up behind the scenes.
-Digiworldz, the owner goes around bulling people into becoming his customers, sh*t starter & drama seducer.
Who is Running Opensim?_Were is the Roadmap?_ What non-profit foundation is it? opensim sealed it's fate when they pushed out the Project Moses people, the last well funded group that will ever try. No more IBM,Sun,Oracle,Microsoft that was a half decade or more back.
People stay in Second Life as that is were the people are and the sweet cash flow is, no one wants to move to a ghetto version of second life.
"making a living with prices 10 times lower than SL, that is factual proof that SL prices are VERY exagerated"
That is because Linden Lab has real employees who keep second life going and we all pay to help keep that with the servers going, unlike Inworldz were Beth's Hillbilly family members Role-Play as Support Members & Developers of the grid.
"Lower prices and I will run back to SL and spend my cash there - Me and many thousands - Do so so simple"
Or you could have to face reality & compromise that you cannot have everything by living within your means. Thousands? LOL
Posted by: Bacon & Eggs | Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 07:19 AM
I am sorry for my English, but I will try to explain what I have seen. I think that obviously the prices are incredibly high, to that we add the silence of LL for a long time that Sansar would not eliminate SL. People are very careful when spending their money and more when prices are high. To that we add that there are new immense monopolies of clothes, created in parallel for the new feminine mesh bodies. I've seen 3 or 4 female clothing creators have appeared for mesh bodies and since then I've seen more than 18 creators disappear in that segment (and counting). In this we have to think very well, for example, if 20 creators get a total of 500,000 lindens monthly (insurance is much more), each will have 25,000, with that they pay their parcels with 5,000, spend money buying other creators (20,000 is a Ridiculous amount to convert it into real currency), those second creators benefited in turn pay their land and continue to buy another and others, is a healthy economy, because money is still circulating. But if, on the contrary, those 20 close their businesses by the arrival of these 3 or 4 large monopolies and these 3 or 4 designers distribute those 500,000 Lindens, it is each 125,000 (who also share the same full sim) them They will spend 25,000 a month and the rest will take it out of SL in real money, so we see news that the creators surpass the profits of the LL itself. Those new monopolies are killing SL. At this point the only way is LL have to take control of the templates (they already change the TOS) and sale bye itself on market after a year of use from the original creator. Something like that, if not... SL will desapear.
Posted by: Dani | Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 08:53 AM
Yes Dani, monopolies are a huge problem for everyone except the people who are running the show. It's a mindset in RL and SL that I don't see changing because it controls absolutely everything. It seems that most people are content in SL to always order off of the same menu, look alike, dress alike, decorate alike, shop alike, and click "teleport" for hours on end to get to be among the first to do it. Just like nobody will question, in a couple of years, when the media is touting the hottest celebrity beach destination is the Arctic and the latest rage at Hollywood parties is the new Pacific seafood that glows in the dark.
Posted by: Clara Seller | Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 12:01 PM
I used to have 4 sims in Second Life and was a huge consumer in there. Due to the absolute horrific customer service I left Second Life. The reresentatives are nowhere to be found and at any moment Linden can take control of your account as well as all your hard work as a business owner in Second Life. Second Life is dying rapidly and even the new projects will not save it. They will be similar to other OS grids that have no designers no commerce and are all Linden created worlds that are ghostowns. Remember Avination and other worlds. Second Life needs to fix their customer service and change their policies. They protect the wrong people and those that actually spend money and make money they go after. I hope that it shuts down finally so people in there can focus on their real lives. That day will be here soon. Half the population is alts and people are leaving the game bu the tenfold and moving on to other online games and apps. Bye Second Life and good riddance. Hire better people and stop gouging your actual consumers.
Posted by: SecondLifeIsDead | Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 07:25 PM
The grid is not really selling 'land' per se. What they are selling, is creative control in a shared environment. They are also selling 'something to do after dinner' for a great number of people as well.
There is a reason I characterise it this way. If, for instance you are in New York on a winter evening, and want to go out to catch dinner and a movie, you are going to spend easily 50 bucks. Even worse if you see a baseball game or concert. Bottom line is: even a nosebleed expensive online evening is very cheap, compared to real life experiences. Sure, maybe your bowling team night or fast food night out is cheaper, but not everyone lives that way. Just a couple martinis at a bar at 9pm will set you back 20 bucks, easily.
In that light, *any* online experience is embarrassingly inexpensive. Yes, there are experiences that are much cheaper, or even free. But I haven't seen McDonalds put Michelin starred restaurants out of business, and they never will. It's entirely possible to make real money off premium online experiences. Saying SL is expensive, is sort of like saying Bentley is expensive. Well, yes. The Chevy dealership is down the street, sir.
From this perspective, SL is actually a pretty good deal. Nobody's stopping anyone from starting their own opensim, or even playing Runescape for free for that matter. There's a time and place for that. Want a cheap online social, creative experience? Get a minecraft server going. Run it from your house for free and invite all your friends. Just don't expect to be able to go shopping, or round off any of those little cubes littered around you.
* * * * *
All these private region owners, in some ways, had their value proposition increased by 33%, or for a slight cash increase, 50%, when the regions got more resources last december. "Price per prim" does not exactly translate into 33% more creative control, but it *is* a rough yardstick to measure by. Resource wise, SL *dropped* in cost by a huge, significant percentage. Tier for resources decreased dramatically. This is *on top* of the dramatic decrease in resource demands that became possible when mesh was enabled on the grid. A modern region is also embarrassingly computationally powerful, compared to the old class 3 or 4 regions that we used to have. In terms of 2004, or 2007, or even 2009, what you can do nowadays was at the time, utterly impossible. Just approximating what we can do now, back in 2007 would have cost not hundreds, but thousands a month. Creative control is waaaay up, by hundreds of percent, for the same dollar. A homestead nowadays is 5000 mesh based prims and 20 functional avatars not lagged to a standstill... that's roughly on par with what an original region could do on a good day, for far less. And without the ridiculously inflated land auctions or weeks of waiting to get one; any of the major land barons can get you one pretty much instantly and won't care much what you do with it. Tier, effectively, is waaaay down.
I think their big failure is probably marketing... people still do not seem to understand what products are for. For example the whole Sansar thing. Your average person with an average job and an average laptop, is probably not going to have a cutting edge gaming rig with VR hardware. Not yet, anyway, and the market isn't very big. But corporations and government agencies who need immersive educational facilities will, and won't even blink at paying for a custom environment, or custom content. Using real dollars, not online brownie points. It's a niche product. That's great! So are Zamboni's; if you own a hockey rink a Zamboni is a great investment. It's probably not something the average commuter would drive, and trying to imagine that everyman's purpose for a Zamboni makes no sense.
And finally, regarding a possible 6% loss of regions on the grid, well, sure. This is a dot com era architecture and product. It's 2017 now! When SL came out, half the people in the USA literally didn't have broadband even if it was available to them, and most people had a Nokia candy bar shaped phone. In 2002, most consumers were still seriously wondering if they should keep their AOL accounts. Yet somehow, the SL online experience survived since then, where Star Wars Galaxies (and a lot of others) didn't. Of course SL income is way down from 10 years ago, but we should actually be surprised that it is still around at all.
Posted by: Desmond Shang | Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 10:31 PM
Bacon & Eggs - Facts are facts - I have bern on Digiworldz for more than 1 year, but I had Homesteads and Full Sims on SL since 2008 - Avatar - Loff Auer - With Digiworldz I get - Great helping community - Few hours issue solving by customer care - Much mire land - MUCH MORE performance and no server issues, Im just stating facts and I spend 59$ a month, enjoying land and prims equivalent to 48 SL Sims, Im not selling an opinion, Im stating FACTS - OS service is in all aspects BETTER and cheaper than SL, you clearly never had lands on a decent grind for a decent ammount of time - And when you accuse folks hiding face by wearing ALIAS NAME - You are just trolling and being 1.000 times worst than anyone you may refer
Posted by: Carlos Loff | Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 05:46 AM
Why would I be running back to SL ? SL is overall better than Opensim - With my friends and groups and huge quality inventory + a rich affordable market I can create any type of world almost overnight - Im a worlds creator and community/events Manager - The only thing keeping me at bay is tier prices - A Full Sim will be more expensive than my RL rent (I share in half wth GF) and that puts a terrible pressure on any project, forcing Us to open stores ot homes rentals instead of creative low cost features
Posted by: Carlos Loff | Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 06:01 AM
@ Carlos Loff
You're a legend in your own mind with everyone knowing it.
Posted by: Bacon & Eggs | Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 08:37 AM
@ Desmond Shang
Thank you desmond for the thoughts, your opinions are often refreshing and at an angle most others miss while being insidiously informative.
@ Clara
Very good point indeed!
Posted by: Bacon & Eggs | Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 08:41 AM
@ SecondLifeIsDead
"Half the population is alts and people are leaving the game bu the tenfold and moving on to other online games and apps. Bye Second Life and good riddance. Hire better people and stop gouging your actual consumers."
Hopefully someone at linden lab will read the butthurt reports you sent them and get to it ASAP!
Posted by: Bacon & Eggs | Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 08:46 AM
Carlos Loff - Im a very reasonable person - I paid so much attention to your words and I missed SL so much, that one sentence from you made ne come back to SL, at least for a wild 2 month experience - Your words were something like <<< I know there's where the bucks flow >>> And you are right, Im in for one last chance to make business - I rented a whole Homestead and Im building the best resort SL has ever seen - Coral Homes - The Adult Homestead has quite a shiny name - Squirt - But I home it starts Squirting bucks soon - No time for fooling around with those tiers - On the other hand, I managed to setup more in 4h than in OS with days - We can't even get a swimming roaming dolphin in OS - More - I found out Kayakers Magic animals have very little impact on server time while in OS the same animals have a collossal weight
Posted by: Carlos Loff | Saturday, May 13, 2017 at 05:12 AM