Private SL Sim Loss Significantly Slows to Rates Lower Than Last Two Years

Countless classic Second Life private sims like the Petrovsky Flux have disappeared due to tier payments, but there's a flicker of good news in the latest report from expert grid analyst Tyche Shepherd:

Adult rated regions increased in number by 4 to 5601 (23.9% of the grid) while General rated were also up by 4 to 2875(12.3%). Year to date net private estate losses stand at 608 regions (3.6%)

At the current moment, that means roughly 4% of private SL sims will have disappeared during 2017. That is a lot, but here's the notable thing: Back in May of this year, private sim loss was on track to be 6%. So between May and now, the erosion has slowed significantly.

As it turns out, Tyche tells me, the current trend is even better when you pull the camera back a bit: "It's a smaller loss to date than the last 2 years."

What's staunched the loss of SL sims since earlier this year? Probably many elements, including:

• The launch of Sansar, which seems to have renewed interest and activity in Second Life.
• Linden Lab's launch of a Pokemon Go-type in SL this Summer, which gives landowners a potential new means of increasing user visits.
• Linden Lab's August announcement that major updates of SL are planned, including cloud deployment.

Why not wait and see ? just a month to go . Its a smaller loss to date than the last 2 years

— Tyche Shepherd (@tycheshepherd) December 4, 2017

More on this in the New Year -- like I told Tyche, this is too interesting a development to wait on until then!

Comments

[Chic Aeon]

While I am happy that the decline is declining :D so far as sim loss goes, pointing to the glytches as being significant in the slowdown has pretty much no merit in my mind.

If you look at the official wikie : http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:TCMG#Want_to_host_Glytches.3F

which we are not allowed to copy and paste from --- you can see that on September 22nd when the game was new The Lab announced that they were putting the finishing touches on the ability for private landowners to host the game. A couple more announcements of the "were almost there" variety have occurred, but so far almost three month later --- there are no private sims hosting.

The reason is simple. While the game was fun for some folks, it has not been embraced overall. Too difficult to learn, too many purposeful problems introduces for folks to conquer -- folks came and went in quick succession.

The end game as I type this is getting the canon (down to 15 blues from 25 originally). Quite a few folks have those at the 15 blues price, a few were beta testers but I know two RL friends who now have them.

But (and it is a big one) once you get the canon there is no more game. You can keep doing what you have been doing for months, catching and deleting glytchs (Really? How many can you possibly use?) and counting out gems, but there is nothing new to do and NOTHING to spend those gems on besides random prizes that almost no one wants.

I had what many people thought were some positive ways to get enthusiasm going for the glych game -- which I really like except for that spinning your wheels part of the equation, but they won't be implemented. So the glytch areas will be used by a handful of folks for passing the time. The need for other locations -- unless a new part of the game emerges -- is moot. I rarely see more than one to three people playing during a 20 minute run of fifteen or more sims.

I think that the slowing of sim loss is more LIKELY to be because it is pretty obvious to many folks that SL "is" the only game in town. Too many were worried about Sansar. And while it might go somewhere over time, it is clear that it is not doing so now. We still have the best and more varied original content out there in our "world not a game" genre. So folks feel more secure in keeping or making their investments in Second Life -- and for many, that means land.

[DanCoyote]

Expertise in creating quality virtual world experiences is priceless and anchor sim experiences attract community. If Linden Lab wants to give a shot in the arm to SL, it should award sims to artists for little or no tier. The LEA system is good, but too temporary. A number of the artists I know like Dekka, Beth, Nebulosis, Selavy, Oberon, Warner, Comet, Filthy, Juria, Solo, Arahan and others might be much more inclined to re-invigorate the SL contemporary art scene if the cost of serious exhibition space was not so high. I personally think that a thriving art scene, means a thriving virtual world.

[Clara Seller]

The good news is that you're not bleeding out as quickly, the bad news is you have less blood to lose. I think your pressure is bottoming a little.

Your treatment plan is: we will give you a baby sister, Sansar, and hope she is a match for transfusion. Oopa, that didn't work. We could focus on making game spaces. We know how much you love playing games. That's why you're here, right? "Dr.Quack, she's losing consciousness." I know, let's get her to the clouds. Clouds are good.

Flatline_______________________________________________________.

[Bought and Paid For]

This blog post should come with 'SPONSORED CONTENT' on top of it like they do on other sites. I totally saw this coming. It's become the typical thing when news starts swirling about how badly SL is doing now-just post something that says the opposite. The guy running this thing is a paid shill.

[Pulsar]

I think it's true that Sansar renewed some interest for SL, indirectly (and among outsiders and ex SLers). Inside SL instead, it looks like it had the opposite effect, when it was launched:
https://imgur.com/a/UV0Hu
It looks like people in SL were cashing out scared (the red line is the moment when Sansar was released). The subsequent LL announcement of SL updates may have helped to reassure the crowd. But the launch renewed the interest for virtual words and other LL products indeed ("So Linden Lab released a new VW? Ah, LL from Second Life? Is that one still around?"), so journalists wrote various new articles about SL, which may have helped a little.
As for the Glytch game, I hardly see anyone still playing it. It was a great idea and I think LL was on the right track with it, but it needed further development, people lost interest for it quickly. Maybe it attracted a few new people to SL, but I'm not sure how many.

Other things that comes to my mind: perhaps the losses have reached a point, where what's left is mainly the most-hardcore people. They resist more. With the help of the improving global economy maybe: after the long global financial crisis, this year economies in Europe are improving more (less for the UK).
Maybe there are other reasons too and a mix of all these factors together.

[Chic Aeon]

@Pulsar

Totally agree.

I hadn't thought about it much but when I go and check a profile (usually to respond to someone about work) I most often see ten year olds and sometimes 12 year olds as the people writing.

I am proudly turning ten this New Years Eve (don't laugh) and proud to be in that group.

[DanCoyote]

Congrats Chic. It's good to see some other double digit SLers chime in. We do so because there's still nothing like SL, warts and all. BTW, whoever thought introducing a game element into SL was going to "catch on' or last, doesn't know a thing about why people reside in SL. There are PLENTY of games, they're just the same typical social, psychosexual games that people play in any world they inhabit. Um didn't someone inform the corporate kiddies at LL that Second Life is not now, nor has it ever been a "game" space?

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I agree with Pulsar and Chic. The regions that are gone are probably amongst the ones that were least sustainable long term. I'm not sure exactly what has been happening demographically, Last year I was seeing more 4 and 5 years than anything else. But this year there seem to be huge numbers of 8 year plus avatars active. They're not going to give up on SL so easily. They might take a break now and then maybe even for a couple of years...but they pop back, maybe as an alt, maybe as their original avatar.

Me? I've got an 11 year avatar and I'm still around.