Mainland supply rates for early September 2007
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 7:40 AM by: Jack LindenFurther to the previous post announcing the rate of mainland supply, our rate from 1st September until 14th September will be slightly reduced, down to no more than 8 regions per day from 10 per day currently. In addition, there will likely be smaller parcels appearing for auction as we recycle mainland back into circulation.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:50 AM
Just curios, how does mainland get recycled? Is it just the land that has been abandoned, or it is the ‘protected’ land being reconfigured?
August 29th, 2007 at 7:55 AM
Hello.
Good, Price and Value of Land is depending of demand. But I think otherside, it is slowly time that all regions have rules how to build. Many regions look not like good.
Arwid Allen
August 29th, 2007 at 7:56 AM
Question is: Is there a chance for someone not with that money or time as ACS to get hold of land? Tried so often I gave up.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:05 AM
I love land.
If you don’t, you must be doing it wrong…
August 29th, 2007 at 8:07 AM
Can someone tell me where all the abandoned land has been going for the last 8 months? I know people that have left and their land never sold and was never reclaimed, so how can abandoned land be suddenly put up for sale by someone when it was never in the auction or was ever sold to the new person now selling it. How did that person claim that land?
At the end of Dec 06 there used to be loads and loads of parcels in the auction every day. Seldom see even one in the auction nowadays.
Really, I would like to Know, IM me inworld………
August 29th, 2007 at 8:09 AM
I have land with a dubious sim owner.
I AM CONVINCED THIS SIM OWNER WILL STEAL MY LAND.
I would not know, what I can do then against it…
That is Second Life 2007
August 29th, 2007 at 8:36 AM
So let me get this straight, you push the cost of land street value below what you sell it for wholesale. you have to go through well over 1000 listings before you hit land that is being sold at cost and that’s just for mainland. On top of that the mainland sims now cost less than privet sims some by a few hundred $$s, and the monthly tier is less. You have stunted the growth of all privet sim owners who do a ton of work to get where they are and offer nothing to compensate.
Are the 45,000 plots of land for sale not enough selection for people looking for land? In doing all these releases you have made thousands of peoples land investments in second life worthless, do you have a plan to stop doing this to your current customers? Are you going to level the playing field or manipulate the land market again to make peoples investments at least worth what they paid for it? I think once people start to realize that what they are paying wholesale is worthless than what people are paying on the street (so to speak) the value of land will plummet even faster than it already has.
My Question to you Jack, is when are you going to stop de-valuating your current customers land investments in favor of new players who are poor and cater to the people who have dumped tens of thousands into Second Life?
August 29th, 2007 at 8:37 AM
In the Dalarna sim there is a group that is owned by nobody and has no members (since March), but it owns 4096m2 divided into 5 lots. When are the Lindens going to reclaim and auction that land? It is full of junk.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:38 AM
@4 land can’t be truly abandoned. They’d have to pay the monthly fee, if failed to pay on time, they lose those lands.
If youre seeing a land that was abandoned but still there… it means the owner is still paying for it from OUTSIDE of SL.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:40 AM
@6 Go read the law in San Francisco about gambling before you think you can crack your mouth at LL. (idiot)
August 29th, 2007 at 8:47 AM
Can’t thank You enough for helping us all out by giving us fair warning of whats to come in the land market. You Rock Jack!
August 29th, 2007 at 9:00 AM
@8 If the account is closed they can’t be paying. Also who is paying for a group with no member?
August 29th, 2007 at 9:02 AM
I own six private regions. If I sell all the land in a region then I need to make at least L$7.25 per sqm just to break even. In the current climate that is very hard to do.
Of course as a private sim owner I put a lot of effort into terraforming and offering added value in the form of personal support and events for my residents, which does help a little. But it is still hard to convince someone to pay around L$10 per sqm when there is so much mainland being released every day.
I do wish you’d slow down the release of new mainland so we sim owners have a chance to make some money from our investments. I fear that you’ll get a lot of people deserting private sims if they can’t make them pay.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:12 AM
I’m new to the land owning element of SL, so bear with me. This whole sense of property and service being devalued in favor of the new customers, to the detriment of the long time, deeply loyal and invested SL residents/customers is a major dejavu. Can you say AOL?
How many times did those of us who had been with them from day one feel the frustration of seeing the store being given away to get new customers, while we were stuck at the same rates and service levels? And what happened there? I think there are damn few people actually paying for AOL anymore… and the product suffers.
SL is like a living, breathing thing, and if Linden Labs doesn’t treat the members who have co-created this microcosm well the relationship can not remain symbiotic.
Dead, empty sims, everywhere I wander. And as Tolkien said “Not all who wander are lost.”
August 29th, 2007 at 9:13 AM
Dorian, its Abandoned Land (probably as Vincent says non-payment of tier), Bimbo for a long time LLs were only auctioning new sims then 2-3 weeks ago about 12 abandoned parcels went on sale (I bought one for a group). Vanessa/Vincent, once a group has less than 3 members for I think its 72 hours it is closed, and its assets go to LL, including land. That does not necessarily mean that the LLs are prompt at setting it to Gov Linden. They have got better in recent weeks at tackling junk on abandoned land, because a lot of the junk is wagering machines.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:28 AM
Bring new land to 2 a day and well talk
August 29th, 2007 at 9:40 AM
@ 4
@ 5 “you have to go through well over 1000 listings before you hit land that is being sold at cost ”
You finding a plethora of land being sold at cost is never going to happen. People dont invest 2 grand into a sim so they can break even.
“You have stunted the growth of all privet sim owners who do a ton of work to get where they are”
The cost of mainland going back down to a reasonable price isnt a bad thing unless you were one of the land barons who jacked prices up close to 300% and, as a result of those over inflated prices, started paying way more for land than it was worth and are now stuck with tens of thousands of dollars of land thats worth maybe 1/2-3/4 of what they paid. I rent an island and pay nearly double what I was paying in tier for a sim on the mainland. My SL and my Business on a private sim has not suffered in the least from the playing field once again being leveled…even when I’m paying 400US a month to rent rather than buy!
@ Jack & LLs
Keep up the good work…theres still much room for improvement, but ya’ll have been much more transparent and open about whats going on which is a little encouraging for the future of SL. Thank you!
August 29th, 2007 at 9:42 AM
There’s still good reason to “buy” private land instead of mainland — covenants. I got tired of having my mainland plots surrounded by ads and spinning for sale signs and other stuff, so I took a loss just to move to a private estate.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:43 AM
Personally I think they are Breaking the pravicy act… What about OUR RIGHTS TO PRIVACY???
Creativity: Second Life provides near unlimited freedom to its Residents. This world really is whatever you make it, and your experience is what you want out of it. If you want to hang out with your friends in a garden or nightclub, you can. If you want to go shopping or fight dragons, you can. If you want to start a business, create a game or build a skyscraper you can. It’s up to you. Going against the very consept of what SL started out. They are going to be cutting their nose off to spite their face is all they are going to end up doing. Seen this happen too many times with games that started out being great… then they start changing the rules & gimping the players to where they end up leaving & the game dies… Then WHO will they have to make money off of ??: you think the big wigs is going to patrinize other business they are in compition with ?? I don’t think so !
I undertand sl wanting to portecting them self
and the childen that come here as well , time for sl to make the parent take some of the reponsaible for the action of their children . like making sure they stay in the teen gide
The Following is taken directly from http://secondlife.com/whatis:
What is Second Life? Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 9,168,792 Residents from around the globe. From the moment you enter the World you’ll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you’ve explored a bit, perhaps you’ll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business. You’ll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow Residents. Because Residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other Residents. The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges.
I for one Love second life I dont want to see it Die what about You ?!!! STAND FAST be counted .
August 29th, 2007 at 9:59 AM
@12
I think you did not understand, there are over 1000 plots of land being sold BELOW the wholesale cost.
Land barons did NOT jack the price up 300%, the average they were making was about 12.5%, maybe check your numbers and know the market a little better before you start spouting off things you have no idea about.
On the L$ sell rate a privet sim at cost is about 30k per 4096, the current market ava for land is around 22k per 4096. It’s less than what LL is selling mainland sims for wholesale and a ton less that privet sims cost.
Also, just FYI, I have almost 20 sims and sell the land at cost, I think maybe you need a better understanding of the land market.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:09 AM
Open the land to third world countries, invent a system for the South & Central American * African users to veryfy account, allow them to buy some land and verify age, and you’ll suddenly find out that your main land has MORE paying customers, MORE decent spots in main LL Land, and LESS abbandoned areas and Ads Farms.
This prejudics of LL really sucks.
Always finding a way to restrict SL to rich countries users only.
(And Im Euro, mind you. But they need a voice of solidarity too.)
Lane
August 29th, 2007 at 10:10 AM
lol JS…I have a very clear understanding of the land business. I’m refering to the land prices jumping from a reasonable 6-9/sq m to 20-30/ sq m in less than a month….if you would have a better understanding of how to read you would see what I’m saying and not get your panties in a wad so quick.
And if your selling/holding 20 sims at any given time and selling at the same price you purchased then you would be forking over nearly 4000US a month in land tier fees and if this is the case maybe its YOU are the one who needs a better understanding of the land market and business in general. I highly doubt your flipping your land at cost
August 29th, 2007 at 10:11 AM
@14
I could justify the cost of my private estates to people, even with the cost of the monthly fee being higher - it was still worth it. However, now with so much mainland available, and at a lower tier cost, it’s near impossible to get people into my sims. I have to agree with you on this, and I’ve been wondering why more private sim owners haven’t had anything to say.
I say raise the monthly tier of mainland to be on par with private sims, since mainland is all class 5 sims now as well. Maybe then the field will be level for awhile again.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:11 AM
I am having no problem selling my estate land at 8000L per 1024.
@14 To break even on a sim you only have to sell for 29000, and with the first month free it could be even lower.
I welcome the lower mainland prices as it is essential to attract new buyers to the market, and get more people interested in owning land on an estate that is managed and zoned.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:23 AM
I’m excited that soon a lot of abandoned mainland parcels will be auctioned. This should be a great buying opportunity. I have 2 private island sims but only about 3000 sqm of mainland prop in 2 parcels. Private sims are great because I have so much control over them! But I also like mainland prop, it’s a completely different type of land use. So I’m looking forward to browsing through the auctions and bidding on these “recycled” props. I’m sure I’ll have fun buying and using and re-selling a few of these abandoned parcels. May not make a profit on it .. but won’t lose much either
August 29th, 2007 at 10:24 AM
I’ve been in SL for almost a year, and whenever I look at land sales they are all over the place. Some lands are dirt cheap and total crap. Some lands are dirt cheap but have a high tier, some lands are just plain over priced, some lands are set for a quick sale. I don’t know enough about the land market, but it seems that there are always over priced and under priced lots out there. It all depends on who is seling and why.
Oh and @ 17 .. just because he sells the land at cost, doesn’t mean the people he sells the land to don’t pay tier. It is very easy to sell at cost, it just means you don’t make a huge profit off of your land.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:30 AM
ok FallinMy Webb, try to sort your land search by price and start with the lowest first, have fun getting to anything that’s 20L$/sqm LOL it may take you a few hours. People who list high like that are not land barons and 99% of the time it sits there for months at that price until they figure out it’s not worth anything close to that. Once in a while someone might pick it up if there’s something special about it but for the most part, no. The highest price on the low end was about L$12/sqm and that was almost a year ago, all the people who bought than have now lost a ton of money, in fact people who bought 2 months ago have lost money.
I pay over $4k USD a month and I have a very good understanding of how things work in the land market and make my little profit a month, the case here is that people like me have their business stunted because the market prices is below what I’m paying for a sim.
In a healthy market 8-10/sqm is right on the mark for balance, the ONLY way to truly keep that balance and have it at 6-7/sqm is for LL to lower what they charge for land on mainland and privet sims.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:32 AM
Oh, Lane I want you to do a little experiment to test the market over there. Goto a international trading site like Alibaba and make some business contacts in Africa. Buy a couple things, I’d suggest small things, and when you are done you can come back and answer your own question ^_^.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:40 AM
8 per day is still too many. There is a huge glut of land. This effects both private and mainland SIM developers and parcel owners equally as the inworld prices are substantially below the wholesale purchase price. The only people who benefit from a falling land market are those who do not own any land - even little 512k plots.
..but then even those who do not own land but wish to buy it are ultimately effected, because every dollar lost in a land trade is a dollar not spent on stuff in-game purcahsed from content makers, and the bad press attracted to the land / businees problems in SL reduce the rep of SL as a business/lifestyle alternative - all of which discourages players with money from joining or staying.
8 per day is too much. JS is entirely correct.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:41 AM
There are too many mainlands now that aren’t being sold. LL wants to drive the land prices all down to 12L$ per meter so people who don’t have land & go to prem. membership. Also LL wants everyone to up their land tiers. Its pretty sad when you cant sell land at 10L$ per meter anymore.
LL don’t care about us all they are doing is making more ways to stuff their pockets with $$$$$
August 29th, 2007 at 10:51 AM
“ok FallinMy Webb, try to sort your land search by price and start with the lowest first, have fun getting to anything that’s 20L$/sqm LOL it may take you a few hours”
You mean after you get past the private estates that are listed for 1L-6L and come with covenants?
“People who list high like that are not land barons and 99% of the time it sits there for months at that price until they figure out it’s not worth anything close to that”
Plenty of big names,including the biggest land baron of them all Anshe, were selling many parcels on the mainland at 20+ per sq m for a good while. When LLs raised tier and initial costs for private estates mainland was selling for 6 on the low end and 12/sq m on the high end. Me and my wife immediately purchased close to half a sim mainland @ 10/sq m because I had a feeling that land barons and others looking to make a quick buck were going to do exactly what they did, jack prices up to outrageous levels under the pretense that it was neccesary to keep up with increasing overhead. Within a week I couldnt find a parcel within our sim or any neighboring sim for less than 20/sq m. I also saw a majority of those parcels change hands at those prices.
And turning a profit every month isnt selling at cost so you must be doing something right:)
August 29th, 2007 at 11:00 AM
I am increasingly of the opinion that LL is managed by engineers with absolutely no knowledge of economics, politics or business.
From October 2006 to January 2007, when thousands of new residents were pouring into SL, new land was created at an appallingly slow rate. Limited supply and increasing demand drove up land prices accordingly. Meanwhile, LL was letting in thousands of anonymous, unverified residents (with the inevitable consequence of a media spotlight on abuse). Then, LL panics and dumps land on the market and sets up a ridiculous age-verification system. Then they ban gambling and issue dire warnings about sex. Turmoil.
The residents are screaming blue murder as the grid remains unstable and these new measures ruin the SL experience for just about everyone. Now, LL announces a cutback on new land in reaction to the massive losses suffered by landowners - PAYING residents who must now prove they are over 18 while for over a year, anonymous, 15-year-old griefers could fly about for free.
Obviously, there needs to be a method of supplying new land in line with population growth. Obviously, the anonymous accounts should have been terminated in January 2007. Obviously, the grid needed proactive design work to enable it to handle the increasing load.
LL needs to hire competent strategists before it loses control of its own creation.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:00 AM
You need to slow it down further, prices are in for another tumble with id verification.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:03 AM
FallinMy Webb,
In the land search window select the “mainland” option so you don’t see the privet estate plots for sale.
I sell at my cost and if market prices go above my cost I think that’s great because I will sell even faster and have no need to raise my prices. I’m not going to go over how I make my profit but it’s not off the land sales. I’ll show you tho in game if you want
August 29th, 2007 at 11:05 AM
I really don’t understand people who talk as if a covenant was bad thing. Covenants are there to protect the resident’s investment. They prevent you logging in one day to find an ad farm or a club with 40 avs sitting next to your house. Renting land in any sim that doesn’t have a covenant is a game of russian roulette.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:06 AM
The land barons inflated the price by running up the auctions, we did not. Linden needs to release at LEAST 20-30 sims per day to get it down where it belongs. There are 9 million of us and 5-10 greedy land barons running up the prices. Now whats wrong with this picture ?
August 29th, 2007 at 11:09 AM
Deltango Vale, the age verification thing is like going into an AOL chat room And havening your RL age name country/state in your public profile (I mean really all someone would have to do is google search and get your address/phone), there are about a million websites that have inappropriate things and no age verification and no one is screaming about that, parents should be responsible for watching their children not LL.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:11 AM
I wonder HOW LL will manage to keep up with the security of these data collected from the users. A good source for CIA and FBI - or worse - some criminal minded hackers.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:15 AM
@28: You’re so right. It becomes critical, when someone third party gets hold of your data.
ABSOLUTELY right about that children-thing. BUT: not all parents care - some don’t even know. :((
August 29th, 2007 at 11:19 AM
I am completely OPPOSED to the new age-verification scheme. It is the ‘Nopey’ (No Payment Information on File) accounts that should have been terminated in January 2007.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:22 AM
Lol…I dont even know your name:p
You do have a more compelling argument than most who are just looking for a reason to call names and type in all caps…I understand where your coming from on the wholesale prices vs market value but my opinion still varies a bit.
Anyways agreeing to disagree is more fun than going back and forth. If your way of turning a profit involves advertising gimme a shout in game:)
@ 27
I dont neccesarily think covenants are bad things. Many people do prefer to pay more monthly to live on the mainland for thier own peace of mind however. Not having abandoned land covered with lag reaping junk is nice…as well as knowing a giant graphic image or ad farm isnt going to pop up all around you is nice:)
August 29th, 2007 at 11:25 AM
@10
They are not getting better at cleaning up land, at least in Dalarna. There is a wagering object that shouts get your bets in every 15 minutes.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:26 AM
I was looking at buying mainland sims for resale a while back when land prices had not tumbled and it simply didn’t make sense financially then, I’m sure it makes less sense now. I find it extraordinary that LL can sell any mainland sims at auction right now unless its to developers who have a project that needs a whole sim. If people didn’t buy LL wouldn’t sell. It must be very tempting for them though: they make money on the auction and then make tier on the new land. Limitation of sales means they are starting to realise the problems.
Looking at the stats over a while I have noticed the log-ins in the past 60 days figure falling recently, whereas the concurrency seems to be edging up. I think that the number of committed users has probably been increasing while the number of new and churn-through users has been dropping off. This has meant for a while that the land buying population has been increasing slightly but I suspect now it will be static or falling back. I think LL could stop selling sims now and the land market would given a bit of time fall further.
I agree with @24, LL are somehow managing to do everything wrong in terms of anyone wanting to run an in-world business. They have banned the gambling areas, simultaneously damaging the clubs that were making a little income on Sploders, and destroyed the land market by releasing too much land. Although sculpties are nice they have made established content made with normal prims look second rate and in need of redesigning with tools that are beyond most content creators. They are not providing the basic necessity for setting up a business: a stable infrastructure.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:29 AM
I think one of the most curious things about all this is that Linden Lab has stated that they want to reduce land prices but they raised the low bid on new sims. I’m not quite sure how to resolve “more = less” unless it has something to do with “new math”, or maybe the U.S. Congress redefined the way basic arithmetic operators work. I think Linden Lab needs to seriously reconsider their business model, here.
I agree with some other posters that there is a problem with the division between land costs on the mainland and for private sims. While some of this might be reflected in the additional investment that Linden Lab puts into each new island, I can’t justify the huge jump in sim prices however I try to wrap my brain about it.
JS, I’d love to see how you make a profit on land that you’re selling at your cost. The problem is that “JS” isn’t a valid SL name so there’s no way to contact you in-world for a demonstration.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:30 AM
@10 Its less than two members not 3.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:30 AM
“Tony Says:
August 29th, 2007 at 11:00 AM PDT
You need to slow it down further, prices are in for another tumble with id verification.”
So… in other, better words: it will be a buyer’s market.
Woohoo!
August 29th, 2007 at 11:35 AM
I’m kind of laughing at the responses here. Whatever the rate LL adds to main land, if it sells, then someone felt they had reason to plunk down real $ and buy it. If LL offers it and the glut of land is so high that no one buys it, then it won’t get sold. ECON 101.
Yep, there are a lot of folks that purchased only to see their investment go into the tank. This is just like 1st life where you by in the market and take your chances if value of what you purchased will prove out to be smart or foolish. When prices were way up, it was a time to sell and not buy. There was no way to sustain that and crying that LL is responsible for losses in laughable. That’s like crying about paying too much on EBay because you bid the price up too high.
When I started in SL I purchased a modest main land plot of just over 2,000m2. Worst choice I ever made. A club pops in days later and a giant flower for the place next door. Took a bath to unload it and gladly gave it up. Now I pay the price for a nice place. I rent a 1/8th of a sim in a residential only sim. Lag is low. The next door plots are well done I think in part because if you pay that much for a place, you take care of it. The covenant is not overly restrictive and actually in my view helps protect my experiences as much as it does my landlady.
Buying a main land sim is more like playing in the commodities market, the line between riches and going bankrupt is a very thin line.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:43 AM
well, I have no doubt that mature land will be worth less now with age verification, hmm weren’t the people on this grid supposed to be 18 and over anyway? So how can I be liable for someone else breaking the law, and why do I have to put up with ID? Oh, I remember it was the europeans complaints that caused the ID thing to happen, imagine that. I have a feeling there will be a lot of abandonded land to be recycled soon, I bought mature land because I wanted to cater to adults, now it seems I will have to be chastised like a child in order to play. well , in this game I will begin turning in people on PG land for such things as adult language and marginal nudity, it’s gonna require age verification to change clothing in SL now-and the land sales seem to support something other than LL’s good business practices- wait a couple months and see what land devalues to after the ID is required- the worst thinbg is that Linden Labs may be constructing a legal format for future virtual worlds, which will become a web format. MY stand will always be- whether I approve or dissaprove of someone’s behavior is less important than a person’s right to do it- as much as 1 liberty or privacy is infringed upon is a disgrace-if I find a behavior unsuitable I don’t need to partake, I also don’t need to limit anothers enjoyment - I have an idea, in orde5r to make SL more harmonius why doesn’t linden require Jews to wear 6 pointed stars so there is no mistaking what religion they are, I’m sure that will help commerce and breed better social relations.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:50 AM
@35 if buyer’s aren’t buying at current rates they’re hardly likely to flock when it goes lower, tier fees aren’t dropping in price
August 29th, 2007 at 11:56 AM
First Ginko kills the economy, now your killing the land. Keep up the good work.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:58 AM
FWIW - some of us aren’t looking for land for investment. Some of us are looking for a little piece of land they can experiment on, terraform and build on and keep for their own. But when I see the prices that go by day after day after day, I know that someone won’t be me because I can’t ’sit’ online for hours and hours at a time watching prices go by that I can’t afford, being outbid time after time, etc.
There is no room for ‘the little guy’ anymore. If you aren’t a big buyer, you’re nothing.
It would be nice if some form of ‘First Land’ came back what only a person who had *never* bought land before could be a part of. But I’m the first to admit I can’t think of a way to do this that someone wouldn’t take advantage of.
Sad.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:07 PM
I have no clue why everyone is surprised about this. Linden labs, has never cared about current customers. They took first land away and left allot of ppl paying for a worthless account. There is no value anymore in land period. I am not a land baron just a simple account holder who bought a few parcels to make some money off rentals. Now they are worth nothing. Angry yes i am, surprised never until the day any of us can compete with the land barons your thoughts opinions and this blog are just a way to vent end of story.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Bottom line is that SL control the supply; more supply lower price. They could supply for free to drive up demand and subs. Not difficult to understand why they would not want to see land price inflation in SL. They want content generation from as many as possible.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:33 PM
Ignore these people. More land is good .
I find those who make profit buying and selling land despicable. The majority are simply leeching off the economy, buying low, and selliung high.
More, cheaper land, means more people can have a place to create their dream.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:34 PM
how can you play a game when they write the rules
as it goes. affraid of what tommrow brings in sl.
you can’t we are there lab rats when i came into this game last year land was at 3500 per 512 meters
that was in dec. and the way they handled first land
all the new players didnt get any. more linden lies….
ll controls the market. they blow it bigtime
you can see the numbers drop everyday……
if there are 10 million residents in sl
but there is only 25 to 40 thousand on at a time
where is the other 9 million +
im ready for my third life now
August 29th, 2007 at 12:59 PM
WarKirby Magojiro,
So.. buy low and sell lower or you’re despicable and a leach? let me know if you have anything for sale
Take a look at the statistics, LL released 18 million more sqm of land this month than last month but user to user sales were 15million sqm less than last month. Less people are buying land and creating their dream even with the great new low price.
On top of that because of the L$/sqm being much lower than the cost of a privet island at wholesale price has caused privet estate sales to go down by 317 sims compared to last month (approx. 24,115,000 sqm less)
As you can see from the numbers LL sold less land than they would have if they had not dumped all these sims out and stunted the market.
August 29th, 2007 at 1:02 PM
I’m a newbie. So I can’t speak to the history of past mistakes that LL has made. What I do see here is a group of people who miss the point of this communication. LL is telling us what is going to happen for informational purposes. Aren’t we in effect shooting the messenger for giving us news. If they said nothing we’d have people complaining that they don’t tell us anything. Just my .02L worth.
August 29th, 2007 at 1:13 PM
Well I personally think it’s a shame that SL isn’t a FREE market…meaning…quit manipulating the markets….get your hands off…let the markets regulate themselves…pure supply and demand…I know you love trying to play the benevolent gods…you’re blowing it…how can you inspire trust when you keep making these arbitrary decisions…which , in my opinion, are ruining what this game has the potential to mean socially..Give us the tools….Let US make the worlds…I was kind of hoping to find a cool place that would allow people to create whatever they wanted…and let me say this…because there’s good and bad in everything…and there’s plenty good with SL…and I’m hoping for the return of the original dream…I liked that SL the best! With much Love…Armando
August 29th, 2007 at 1:17 PM
Drive the prices down, I say! Cheap land for all newcomers! Keep them in the game, and boost the economy with triple current players online at any given time!
August 29th, 2007 at 1:42 PM
Don’t you think it’s silly to base an economy on “land” and game tokens when both have no value except an arbitrary amount set by LL?
What happens when a clone (like hipihi in beta) comes along and sets different arbitrary levels?
GINKO
No World Platform will use some backwards private companies game tokens as currency.
P.S
GINKO!
August 29th, 2007 at 2:01 PM
Responce to post #5. Devaluing land?! You seem not to know the history of SL too well. In the last year land prices have gone threw the roof, because of litterally millions of folks joining SL and wanting land. Now that the amount of land is surpasing demand, the prices fall. Now with the plight of 16M farms, values go down even more. Privet islands are more expensive because the owner has compleate controle of it, from the sun, to the +-100 taraforming limits, to the ground textures, to handiling abuse reports personally from the island.
BTW when I first started in the land business, the low end (snow at the time) was going for $L3.5 a meter, and high end (+-40 taraforming) was going for $L20 a meter.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:37 PM
To add to my other post, I like cheep land, because I can develope projects, such as well designed malls, and clubs. Also when low end land was at $L3.5 per meter, Chung was the major land barron, selling land for $L12 per meter. She made a killing in 2005.
Also at that time, mainland sims were $1,000 USD, and not a lot of them sold. Probly 3 or 4 a week.
Now LL has become a big company. If someone leaves the game, so what. Someone else will replace them. (that is their thincking now.)
LL even cut out all their special inworld services, and extras. I was mad that early 2006 all road construction stopped, and mid 2006 all railroad building stopped.
Later on they cut out the inworld help, and killed funding for orginizations, and persons that taught basics to new players.
This year LL broke their promice that they’d keep the origional Telehub/infohub locations protected, and sold the land.
Sadly it seems like LL’s policy is “as long as someone owns the land, and pays tier, we are happy. Who cares about the users.”
I personally use a competitor of SL for building, due to LL’s stupidly high tier cost. Activeworlds = $6 a month for unlimited land, and unlimited perminate objects ((this is not an ad, just making a price comparison)). In SL I’d have to pay about $240,000 USD a month for the space I take up in AW.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:38 PM
Hey Lane, isn’t Brasil in South America? and how many people in Africa
have computers w/broadband? You must be from Holland, smoking
way too much weed.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:45 PM
Get rid of Hippiepay, camping, ad farms and all the other crap polluting our environment. And someone slap some sense into these ID10Ts that constantly “hog the blog” from others… It’s really sad some of you have to post 1/20th of the blog with your rants and raves. I rarely repost, and if I do; it’s for a good reason, not like some dumb script kiddie trying to create the last post saying “Last post; PIE” or “HAHAHAH, I got the last post”.I post once to ALLOW others to post (novel concept). Maybe one day you blog hogging script kiddies will need advice from a forum or blog, and some UNSCRUPULOUS heel will fill it to its capacity thus preventing you from seeing what you NEED to read
(serves you right 
August 29th, 2007 at 2:55 PM
i have land that i have been tringtosellfor over about3 months and with all this new land opening up it has not sold i evne put the price downto less then what i orginal paid for it i wish sl would not open new land for a few months and only put out abandon land for sale
August 29th, 2007 at 3:22 PM
just wondering but do the lindens actually look at the map and see how much land is for sale already before opening up more? if there is already a surplus of something why produce more? land priceshave tanked lately because so much is out there. any lindens heard of supply and demand?how many bloody sims do they need open before years end? how much yellow blotches does there have to be before the lindens realize half the bloody world is for sale while they keep expanding it? guess they really don’t give a flip about the little guys who own land, as long as the big business/land barons keep buying from them they ignore us. nice way to take care of your regular joe customers. thanks lindens for showing us how much we really matter to you.
August 29th, 2007 at 3:44 PM
I am in search of a type of Guru that can help me establish a start in land sales or rentals. Anyone intrested in helping, feel free to IM me in-game.
August 29th, 2007 at 3:45 PM
For those of you championing cheaper land for the new resident, keep in mind that the purchase price is nothing in the long term compared with monthly tier.
The unrelenting release of land hurts every long term resident who ever wants to sell his plot at near what he paid for it. Not seeing why continuing torrent of sims has to continue. Do the three people who are buying most of them really need more?
August 29th, 2007 at 3:58 PM
Sorry to post this here, but i have a problem understanding age verification and especially this section:
“• What personal information will you store? Linden Lab will not store any specific, identifying information. Our verification provider will assess the consistency of the provided information and return a match code; at that point, a Resident becomes verified. The entire process takes less than two minutes, and will be available internationally. Our verification provider will only use information to provide a match code and the only information stored by Linden Lab will be whether or not there was a match.”
If you don’t store specific indentifying information, what are you going to use to check the information I give for verifying, obviously someone somewhere has to check to see if the Passport number I give is true or false and that it is associated with my name, my real life name, for sure it’s not associated with my SL name. So thats givining personal information that nobody can check, because they don’t have the legal rights to hold that information anyway and then you don’t just pass that information on, you pass other information you promised would be confidential when I joined Second Life, i.e. my Real Life name.
So please do I have the right to know what other information you will pass on?
But I’m still confuse, now you have passed on my RL name and my passport number, if not further personal information to someone who isn’t suppose to able to verify this information in the first place?
August 29th, 2007 at 4:24 PM
“obviously someone somewhere has to check to see if the Passport number I give is true or false and that it is associated with my name, my real life name”
Who says they can actually check these details now? However once you’ve provided that information, they may be able to check it at a later date as you’ve provided them voluntarily with that information.
Passport numbers can’t be verified by just anybody, I think there may be a bit of a ruse going on here to placate people whose extra personal details can be checked. I’m not at all convinced that Integrity have the authority to check passport details from people all around the world, but if they have authority to check SSN’s, then Americans would be up in arms at having to provide extra proof of identity to other international residents.
Back to land and Raymond Figtree is spot on. Tier fees are the bigger barrier to land ownership than the initial costs.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:56 PM
For what it’s worth, I tried the verification process. It didn’t work. Sigh.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:02 PM
3 blog posts in 3 hours, 1 really controversial, 2 shortly after, not even timely. And the first time I post this, LL delete it. Anyone would think they couldn’t take criticism about their poor communication.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:15 PM
I think you are missing the point on the land pricing etc. Phil Linden made a public statement this week at the SLCC that the biggest source of revenue for SL far and away is the Land sales and Tier fees. Lowering the price of land serves several purposes and in fact you could argue that the price of land was in a bubble due to the growth surge that we just experienced. Land *should* be lower than it was a couple of months ago.
A lower land price enables everyone to have more fun, because as land owners know the more land you have the more you can do and build and the more fun you have! Just as important, is the fact that you become more integrated into the society. This integration is critical to our future, because it creates a ’stickiness’ and will cause our society to grow. We have a problem with people coming to SL and leaving. Stickiness is the solution and that can come about in many ways, but owning your own space is powerful.
LL makes their money on teir fees and land sales. The most powerful economic strategy for them therefore is to sell lots of land cheap and collect the tier fee annuity that is created. In RL and SL, land ownership is a risky proposition. No one guarantees land prices. While I understand that many land owners are upset, who complained when prices were rising? Just like RL, things go up and down. With another surge the prices could rise again, but it is in the interest of the future of SL for land to be affordable and owned by all. I’m surprised that LL did away with the First Land program, but in a bubble you can make decisions that make sense at the time but need to be re-evaluated down the road.
Lower land prices will help the economy long term by giving LL more money to invest in the future, and by capturing the enthusiasm of many more residents who will own land and feel that they belong.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:16 PM
What it comes down to is that every sim that is sold at auction is a guaranteed minimum of 195 USD a month in tier for LL. For those screaming at the supposed ‘Land Barons’ well if they don’t like it, they can buy the sims themselves and sell at cost - wait - don’t forget to figure in tier costs, not to mention time spent splitting up the land, keeping records etc. Sure, there are those who mark up land to ungodly prices, but it is a market driven economy, as long as people are buying, they will keep selling at that price.
I personally don’t mind the price of land falling to a somewhat more affordable level for most people (although it sucks for all those people who thought they had a good investment when they bought their own personal plots a within the past months), but what I do take issue with is the new land is just downright UGLY. The textures are the worst I have seen - come on LL, take a look at some of the incredible textures people are using on private islands, look at how nice some of the older continent sims are - make something besides this horrible grey rock that only sells because it is so cheap - and then usually ends up ad cut to heck. What ever happened to land with character? Sure there are more waterfronts on Corsica, but even then, those beach textures are ugly compared to some previous ones. Please, if you are going to mass produce the land, take a bit more time with the templates to make something people would really like to own.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:21 PM
This blog update was a short, simple post about land supply for September.
I must have missed the hidden age verification propaganda the off topic posters are commenting on. I don’t see how age verification posts apply to a post about land supply. Thank you for your opinions but they would be better placed in the proper blog post or forum.
These blog updates are here to let us know what’s going on and not for the showdown of the century concerning what you do or don’t want.
Like it says right at the bottom of the page (directly above the window you type into guys) “We value free expression. However, stuff that’s off-topic, abusive, or otherwise busts the rules will be removed without comment.”
Let’s stay on topic, please.
Thank you.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:32 PM
Dear Jack,
“Glasnost” (transparency) is a Great Thing, Congrats
8 SIMs a day is still absurd!
SL is not “really” growing to “require” that. It’s too much!
Oh BTW VERIFICATION was bliss
August 29th, 2007 at 7:46 PM
I can’t think of a surer sign that the active SL population is imploding!
I keep talking to people who’s only participation any more is to run 100+ “bots” for camping. Obviously 90%+ of them run invisibly to LL.
Notice that the total economy has stalled for most of the year as well.
Great time for a land grab?
I don’t know, (a) no one really “needs” a place in SL and (b) LL CAN make lots more land at any time.
Personally I am buying up all the RE I can in RL, but NONE in SL!
August 29th, 2007 at 8:35 PM
@12 fallinmyweb: “The cost of mainland going back down to a reasonable price isnt a bad thing unless you were one of the land barons who jacked prices up close to 300%”
Or if you were like me, one of the thousands of SL residents that slowly bought land around their first land to get more PRIMS! I just dumped over 11,000m2 for L$5.86m2. I paid as much as L$23m2! Plus almost L$20,000 a month in tier fees to LL.
A word of warning as well about group land. If you set your mainland to group and then later sell it all, LL will continue to charge you tier on land that you and group no longer own.
You have to go to the group in question in world, and manually set your contribution to zero because even though the group owns no land and you own no land, that “contribution” counts for your tier.
I only found out about this from one of LL’s billing support people. I found in the knowledgebase how to fix it, but LL is still going to nail me for an extra US$75 next month even though I sold the land a week before the start of THIS billing cycle.
This same thing will kick your tier higher as well. Say you own 20,000m2 of mainland. Your tier is US$125 a month. You set it to group which means you’re contributing the tier for 20,000 to the group.
Come back next month and decide that your group no longer needs to own the land. So you set it to sell to yourself for L$1.
As far as LL is concerned, you do that and you now own 40,000m2 and your tier will be US$195 a month.
This is because you now own the 20,000m2 plus the group contribution of 20,000m2.
I can find no way around it because LL’s stated policy is that your tier is based on the peak amount of land you ‘owned’, even if it was just for a few seconds.
Now that I’ve dumped my mainland and dropped two of my three accounts to BASIC. I’ll probably be dropping this one as well. After subtracting the L$300 a week of ‘free money’, I’m still paying US$5 a month for access to tech support.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:44 PM
BTW, Growth surge doesn’t really mean what it sounds like.
Ten months ago, there were ALMOST 1.5 million residents on the books.
Ten months ago, concurrency peaked at about 18,000
Ten months ago, about one million US dollars changed hands in Second Life every day.
As of right now, there are 9,181,559 total residents, an increase of 6X
Concurrency peaks (i’ll be generous) at 45,000, an increase of 2.5X
US$ spend in last 24 hours, one million and small change, an increase of 0X
So SL had a flood of new residents, of which most seem to not be logging on very often and don’t seem to be spending any money.
Sorry folks, the above (combined with land prices in the toilet) sounds like either an imploded economy or numbers games to fool the gullible, press or sponsors/stockholders.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:49 PM
@60 Whack Oh asked “While I understand that many land owners are upset, who complained when prices were rising?”
I did as land around me soared from L$7,000 for 512m2 to L$12,000. There’s still a plot in Toowoomba that was a guy’s first land, that is still for sale for L$20,000 and it’s 512m2. That lot was right next to mine. The guy obviously left SL and paid for a year as LL hasn’t reclaimed it yet. It’s just a bare 512m2 first land lot with ugly plywood prims on it where the guy was learning how to build I guess.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:28 PM
NO LONGER PROVDING METRICS? ARE THEY THAT BAD?
August is almost over, and we still don’t have any Metrics for July that I am aware of, did the metrics stop getting published? I have asked a couple times that the metrics include the retention rate of premium accounts so some of us business people could understand just how much of the SL economy is truly vital. Or how fast that vitality is bleeding off, But now we can’t even make a round about guess based on the data in the Metrics. As you release less land how will we know if there is a corresponding rise or drop in land value? Part of being transparent is providing data like that to those of us who are trying to plan the course of our businesses.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:37 PM
@65 - This is an interesting observation. If the daily turnover is the same as it was a year ago, and average land prices are still 20% to 30% higher than they were then, even assuming the volume of land turning over has not increased (although I suspect it has substantially increased) then the money spend inworld on content built by residents has in fact collapsed by at least 20% to 30% on a year ago. If that happened in a RL economy we would be saying we had a depression. Yes, I know it requires 3 consecutive quarters down turn for a RL recession before any one jumps on me, but a 20 - 30% down turn in cash flow is a death spiral for a RL economy.
Of course, this is not an RL economy and has the advantage of continued imigration from RL, so the fix would seem to be to curtail the flood of new SIM’s much more than is currently planned, underpin the land prices.
By my (admittedly rough) calculations based on the total sqm of sims and the drop in SIM values over the last 2 months (i.e not the peak but 30% less than the peak value of early this year), the SL community - NOT the imagined “land barons” - has collectively lost some $US 7.8m.
Where has it gone? I can tell you where it came from: the pockets of every little parcel holder, every premium account holder and every business owner of any sort. You can not transfer 7.8 m from an economy of this size without it being funded by the community as a whole.
Those of you who think it is just the SIM developers’ paying for this are surely very mistaken. Think about what happens to a RL economy when the value of land collapses. That is what is happening here.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:59 PM
RC, Elizabeth, thank you for your observations. Some things about SL that I sensed over the past several months have now become crystal clear to me.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:04 AM
Thank you Elizabeth, JS, Deltango and others !!! - At leats someone is taklikg some sense here - the problem is however if anyone is listning. We can all babble as much as we like but unless someone is going to do something about is this whole world of us is going to implode. Many ppl here have invested literally millions of $US in this game over the past couple of years - The memberships have almost trebled over the past year but the amount of ppl online have only showd a steady rise. Since I joind about a year ago the ppl online were sometines touching 30K (and then all hell broke loose) to less than 40K on average every day (don’t quote my stats but give and take about 10%) Than mean a extra 6million people joind but only a additional 10K were activly playing. Now it only takes a fool to realise something does not add up and with more than halh my paying account holding friends leaving I’m really getting worried and have to make a decision - do I cut my losses and sell up everything … My BDay is coming up soon - should I renew my membership for another year …??? Will SL last another year and how much more do I have to loose b4 I quit.
Problem seems we are all farting against thunder as we have no legal foot to stand on - there is only one way to get LL to listen and you all know what it is - I won’t mention it even and don’t even know if my msg will get posted - LL seems to have become the big school bully stealing from the ones that can’t protect themselves. It was a very long time since I heard something positive - Sometimes I don’t even feel like logging in - like today ….
Virtual economy - based on which country ??? … Buy a dictionary LL …