Survey Results: SLers Overwhelmingly Reject New Land Discounts & Premium Offer - But Enough Like It To Be Worthwhile

Here's the New World Notes reader survey results for Linden Lab's just announced new region prices (slightly cheaper) and Premium subscription offer (slightly more per month, but for more benefits, including expanded group memberships). With about 250 readers responding  -- a much larger sample than average! -- a strong majority (73%) are not any more interested in paying for an SL region.

Then again, that doesn't mean the discount announcement is a waste of Linden's time, because 11% are now much more interested in paying for a sim. Scale that 11% up to SL's active user base of some 500,000 users, and that'd be 55,000 new sim owners -- i.e. over $150 million in extra yearly revenue. (Or more likely, assume 1 in 10 of that 11% actually do get a sim -- that would still be $15 million+ a year.)

The survey results on the new Premium offer are just as stark -- and potentially promising:

Notably, a whole half are now even less interested in getting a Premium account!

Then again, 6% (that blue slice) are much more interested. And if 6% of SL's user base switched to Premium, that would represent some 30,000 new subscribers, i.e. $3,600,00 more million a year.

In any case, in the next few months, we'll have a better idea how much this new offer has actually grown the sim owner/Premium subscriber base, or didn't. But with such a large, under-monetized pool to draw from, the main goal (as they say in the Valley) is moving the needle -- even by a few percentage points.

Comments

[Taylor]

I would love to own a region directly and would be glad to pay even the old monthly fee, but I'm not going to pay a $349 setup fee. I don't understand the purpose of that fee anymore given that region purchases seem fully automated at this point (from friends I know that new regions come online within minutes).

Especially when I can instead rent a region privately from an established company like Anshe Chung for about the same monthly price I'd be paying the Lab, sans any setup fee.

[So Many Prims]

How many readers are going to be less interested in continuing to pay for a region if it becomes cheaper? Probably very few. I don't think the attitude of 11% of your readers that participated (about 28 people) who are likely comprised of people who already have a region and those who don't translates to a possible 55,000 new region owners.

These stats are fun, but you're only gauging attitudes of your readers.

[So Many Prims]

Also it's weird you didn't ask who already has a region and premium membership.

And given 50% of respondents are less interested in having or maintaining premium accounts given a $2.50 increase to their $9.50 monthly, you're saying the same people indicate there will be a worthwhile uptake in regions at $180 - $230 a month? I get that they have different benefits, but how representative are people that can afford $230 a month of the SL user base anyway.

Maybe if they provided better community management tools there would be more new region co-owners.

SL should have continued to get cheaper across the board. It's getting cheaper for better off residents, more expensive for average premium members and creators, and free members are more or less losing features.

[Susan Wilson]

The Lab is going to make more money from doubling their cashout fee than they will from new regions. Especially when you factor in the decrease in the price of the regions which is a loss on every region that already exists.

[Aryna]

I think the crying about a $2.50 increase is ludacris considering there has not been a price change in 10 years. Base costs (salary, infrastructure, power, hosting...etc) have steadily increased. I am happy they included a few perks along with the increase.

[Vince]

I still don't understand why anyone bothers at all, except for those users who've invested thousands over the years. With Opensim land available at 1-2% of SL's costs, it makes no sense to continue paying the Lab.

[Aurora Johansson]

There is no SL active user base of some 500,000 users. That's fiction. At most, there may be an active user base somewhere in the 40K region counting alts and bots. As for Sansar, I just now checked the Sansar Steam Stats on the web and see only 6 people logged in. Sometimes there are less, sometimes a little more. Usually not more than 20. Sansar isn't doing well. That said, and speaking as a sim owner of a full region in Second Life, the discounted land tier ($20) isn't much to celebrate. It's not significant enough to want me to continue to own my sim in the future. I have friends that own land and they are dissatisfied as well. Linden Research tossed us a bone to placate us.

Eight years ago, when I bought this sim from Linden Research, it cost $1000.00 USD (I suppose you can call it a setup fee) and about $300.00 for the monthly tier. The previous sim tier reduction to about $250 monthly and this latest one to about $230 represents a reduction of only $70.00 over an eight year period. In return, we're still getting a 15 year old game engine that's had few significant upgrades and wasn't well coded even when new. The SL grid is inefficient and poorly coded and overpriced when currently the costs of servers have significantly dropped.

Add to that, it costs more money now to pay Linden Research their tier because cash out and Linden conversion fees have gone up. Linden Research does not accept sim tier payments using their own Linden currency. So I have to convert Lindens to US dollars on their market to pay them their tier and pay higher fees to convert those Lindens to dollars. (It costs more to sell Lindens than buy). My sim is a popular roleplay sim entirely supported by residents and visitors donating Lindens, hence the need to convert and pay their fees. A number of years ago, I paid for the sim tier directly from my bank account. But one day, there was a black out on the San Francisco servers, the system went down, but not before charging my bank account multiple times and drawing out thousands of dollars in a blink of an eye – oops! When I called Linden support, they acted like it was no big deal and to wait. I waited weeks while Linden support took their sweet time to “look into the matter.” In the end, I had to go to my bank to challenge the multiple withdrawals and finally got all those thousands of dollars of my money back. I no longer trust Linden Research to draw money from my account for the tier. The Lindens stay in my SL account till it’s time to convert and pay them.

Which leads me to the trust factor. It’s the trust we sim owners and content creators have lost in Linden Research and their Second Life and Sansar that has led to diminishing supporters and users and declining sims. We simply don’t trust them anymore. Consider also, the numerous past horror stories of people’s accounts being permanently closed for little to no reason, or without enough due process, often with no warning or explanation why. When you sign the TOS, you are agreeing that Linden Research can ban you for any reason or no reason at all. If you criticize Linden Research, you risk being banned for abuse. You can lose everything you invested into Second Life. Because in the end, when you think about it, you own nothing in Second Life. So why should we trust Linden Research enough to want to go out and buy more land in SL or join Sansar?

I’ve never received so much as a thank you for your support as a sim owner from Linden Research in all the years I’ve owned my sim. Never a kind word of gratitude. Never a friendly hand. The hand of Linden Research is extended for payment only.

They’ve chased out many content creators over the years. They’ve chased out educational organizations, big corporations and small businesses with their mismanagement of their enterprise tools and costs. They don’t communicate well or listen to their users, sim owners, content creators, and have lost hundreds of thousands of valuable active users. And there’s the biggest problem of all. Linden Research doesn’t listen to their users. They do what they want, not what the users want. It’s this kind of arrogance Linden Research extended to the Sansar Project – that if we build it, they will come. But we didn’t come. They built a walled in garden, a pretty mausoleum, that they can have more control over, a creative dictatorship, and in the end, despite all their posters of people lining up to enter the gates of the Emerald City, we didn’t come. We didn’t come to the party and Sansar sits silent. Linden Research could have built a new SL 2.0 grid, with a more efficiently coded engine, one that would have allowed the incremental development and use of VR on the side, with more realistic and cheaper land prices, instead of throwing millions of dollars into Project Sansar, something gaming consumers had no demand for or interest in – except for Linden Research.

Kick a dog too many times, that dog won’t trust you. It may even come back to bite you.

[That guy]

The title of this article is very misleading. No one really rejected it. With how the statistics are done it boils down to no one really cares. Those who do have a bone to pick or write mile long comments about how irritated they are with how linden labs is only interested in taking there money. The old saying still applies. You vote with your dollar. If you don't like it don't vote. Crying about it and then at the same time giving them the money anyway does 0 good in the long run. It's a business, cry all you want. Money is the bottems line. Vote with your dollar not with your tears, bisnesses don't care about your tears.

[Aurora Johansson]

In reply to: "That guy" in his post directly under my mile long post, people do care and do vote their dollars. The SL statistics bear that out in declining sims, fleeing developers and content creators, and declines in the SL user base. Not to mention an empty Sansar. It's all there in the stats despite your platitudes. The reason I keep my sim open for the time being is because it's a popular roleplay sim and visitors and residents to my sim pay for the tier with donations. Over $30,000 donated in the years I've owned it and I've never had to pay out of my own purse the tier. It would be cruel of me to close the sim just to spite the expensive tier. It would hurt people that love the place. So long as there are donations to support the sim, I'll keep the lights on. When donations stop coming in, when the money runs out, I'll close the sim. And that will be the end of that. I have student expenses to pay. I personally can't afford the high prices the Lindens charge for a sim. So I'll probably never have another sim. Some of my friends have since closed their sims with others to follow.

[So Many Prims]

Contributions of stop "crying about it" and informing people who are displeased and have have clearly been engaged in business with your 'cold hard realities' of business is discourteous.

People like SL, they're happy to pay LL for the service. It's not unreasonable to be upset about detrimental changes to their service or platform, unfair practices or when they act poorly. Their decisions effect us, even more so depending on how much you've invested.

[MmmHmm]

SL Customers: We've been spending thousands of dollars and devoting thousands of hours to building your business for over a decade. We need a platform upgrade.

Linden Lab: Yes, a new platform. It's a brilliant idea we've come up with. We'll spend our money from your world and your imagination, and get us some better customers. Let's make sure everyone knows we're divorcing these perverts.

Linden Lab to the World: Hey Babe! You looking for a good time? Come and see what Daddy's got for you.

The World: EWWWWW!

SL Customers: What about us?

Linden Lab: You know we always loved your imagination. How about imagining a price increase for us?