Boxed In: A Nation of Landlords
by prokofy on 12/07/07 at 11:40 pm
By Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Virtual Estate
The other night I attended an off-the-record meeting of inworld business people who, for some reason I couldn’t fathom decided to use the new outworld Crowne Plaza meeting space (claiming to be the first such private meeting facility in SL!) under the theory that this was “safer” or “more elegant”. What it really was, was a box, with some kind of security system that kept knocking away even everybody who had joined the group. You couldn’t have picked a more apt metaphor for the sad tale unfolding in Second Life: outworld businesses, mainly metaversal developers, are able to make a whopping $33,000 a year per employee average revenue, mainly through servicing companies like Crowne seeking a presence in SL; even $9000 median income. Inworld land businesses, if they can show a profit on the Positive Monthly Linden Flow chart maintained by Meta Linden, are more likely to be making at best about $3000 a year *after tier* (far more research and better math is needed on both categories of businesses).
The Crowne furniture and setting was uninspired, unlike some of the really spectacular rental sims out there these days, like this new mountain waterfall development. I’m a big fan of Lilith trees, but seeing the flat palms one too many times arranged in exactly the same way begins to wear on you. Still, sitting in a box with Trumanville surroundings — what better way to contemplate the fool’s errand called “mainland rentals” which to one extent or another, form the bedrock of most SL businesses?
Many people have a misplaced notion of “land barons” based on the myths perpetrated by the media (including the inky tabloid you’re clutching in your hand) as fat, blinged-out money-grubbing, greedy capitalists bent on rapacious destruction of innocent newbies in threadbare rags. The fact is, all of us in SL are owners or accessors of high-end graphic cards and DSL lines here, people. If we’re going to weep, it should be for a couple of hard working gals who charge only $280/200 prims a week, who, when you do the math, make only…$50 US a month which they usually have to blow on houses, or buying out ad farms or grief parcels on the riotous lands outside their manicured Damani prefabbed sims.
Have you done the math?
A casino and mall landlord only makes enough to keep himself in flip-flop bling, not the butter-soft pimped baby furry skin boots favoured by tabloid editors.
THE SAD MATH OF MAINLAND
Let’s say you spent US $2200 on the auction for your flat, grassland nothing-special new class-5 sim with a hard-to-pronounce name like Mkhachkala (I swear the Lindens did just name a whole continental area after every Russian province *but* that one). You decide to go “fancy” and divide up to only 16 parcels, leaving one for a commons area with some casinos, freebie dumpster-diving or other money-soakers in the middle, which means 15 x 4096 m2 for which you can *try* to charge $25 US each a month ($6756/mo or 1689 Lindens/wk).
But…you’d be wiser not to try to get that as everybody else has the exact same idea as you, you discover as you stare out over the steppes of Krasnoyarsk and Ulyanovsk. So you go with $1500 and try to offer some extras, maybe some free furniture or a TV (that runs $999 at least). Let’s say by a miracle of charming personality and SLevents with sploder balls you get 100 percent occupancy and $333 in rental revenue (never the case). $195 immediately goes out the door in tier for the sim — oops now you have only $138 left per month, and that means it will take you 16 months — a year and four months, to make back your $2200 “investment”. But…let’s say your occupancy this month is 60…or 40…you are facing the grim prospect of having to bail.
The game of Second Life basically consists of about 50,000 people or so trying to beat the odds of those grim numbers each months by all kinds of ingenious methods. So let’s say they buy a sim, but they sell off part of it to a friend 4 x 4096 x $60,000 — they can then get about US $880 recouped on the purchase price and make the wait less painful, if they can be sure that friend will keep those parcels nice, possibly with a store those newbies in the rentals need. Or perhaps they’ll group their land and get about 6,500 m2 of tier generated from the 10 percent group bonus, and use that tier to flip land for sale around the area, or perhaps buy a few lots on the margins to protect the view and reduce their risk — because at any moment, on all four sides of their flat kingdom of money-making dreams, chaos can break out in the form of a ridiculously laggy texture store, newbies barn, sex palace, or just plain stupid giant chicken. Lag on another sim infects yours due to the “child agents”; clubs and malls are not only blighty, they add to traffic and that means griefing. The landbaron — that caricature of a man who is usually a woman in SL — in fact means sitting on their front porch with a shotgun trying to keep themselves awake to take care of tenants 24/7 so their rentals are filled, keep griefers at bay, and stay one step of the landbots if they’re trying to run their land-flipping tier on the side as well.
ISLAND MATH
Do the math on the islands to understand why no one in their right mind goes into mainland rentals: there, if you terraform your island nicely, you can sell each of the 15 4096s for even only L$25,000 (you won’t get more given the competition)– and still make US $1387 in the first month, making back almost all or all of your purchase price of US $1695. And now you can still charge US $25 and make US $375 a month in rentals — or if you have really nice landscaping and build your own pretty prefabs, even $30 or more per 4096 — and still have US $80 in the clear after tier of $295 is all paid. Not much of an income, eh but get a couple islands going, maybe a commercial strip and a club area where you can pump out more revenue, and as long as you can keep full occupancy, assure yourself of say, US $2400 a month income for 30 islands.
A SUMMER SLUMP, MMORPEG STAGNATION OR AN MLM?
Of course, occupancy and sales were what everybody was groaning about at this Crowne meeting and several others I’ve attended or hosted in recent weeks at the Sutherland Dam — but people had a hard time figuring out how they could cooperate when everybody competes — sure, when they get to 90 percent occupancy they start referring to colleagues, but now, everybody’s scrambling. At all of these type of meetings lately, there’s talk about a “summer slump” and trying to reassure themselves it’s nothing — but they’ve been talking about it since St. Patrick’s Day and here it is really summer and the slump is the worst it has ever been in SL for many people. Occupancy is at 0 or 30 percent for many. People are eating a US $75 tier level, a $780 tier level — it feels like the over-expensive inventory and maintenance you pay in an MLM. Even Ancient Shriner of Coldwell Banker, with all kinds of RL business backing and blighty ads peppering the mainland landscape claims only 30-40 percent occupancy, and high turnover (something he seems proud of, strangely, but given their scheme of holding deposits which they can invest for interest, it may make sense).
More people are online, but fewer people are buying or renting. Many business people are noticing that the problems with billing that numerous Second Lifers are experiencing and the problems in purchasing Lindens from inworld are taking a terrible toll on their sales. A customer poised to pay a month’s rental, or buy a big, expensive vehicle suddenly jams and can’t access the $5000 or $10,000 he needs to get started, despite having a valid credit or debit card onfile. Frustrated, but addicted to SL, he gives up and goes back to that free living arrangement with a friend and stays. Some people wonder if *their* economy is tanking, but maybe other people’s aren’t (SL always makes people jealous that way). If you are a new German player flush with stronger currency making interesting prefabs and building a lovely-looking rentals sim where you can talk to your customers auf Deutsch, you’re simply going to do better than somebody from Bayonne, even if they’ve learned to put “grundstucke” and “miete” in their classified keywords.
WHY MAKE TIER?
Many landlords are not making tier and trying to talk themselves out of ever making it. Indeed, curiously, the more I talk to them the more I marvel at how many women especially are willing to go into this business and not make tier. And that’s because their mindset is completely different from that of someone who simply must obtain a bottom line or get out. They’re proud of themselves if they just manage to pay for their game. They come to SL primarily to socialize at first, and maybe try their hand at making clothing or furniture. Yet it’s so competitive, and so hard to meet the right people, that they turn to rentals as both a side income and a way to socialize. The typical rental emporium often contains not only housing, but a club and stores with vendors and some kind of theme that helps generate content and experience, whether it be South Pacific or Country Western or Hotlanta, and keep people interacting, talking — and buying, which is what they’ll do when they reach a comfort level, socializing. The hours logged on most are by people who own or rent land and create or socialize on land; the people willing to not make tier back are holding up the Lindens’ entire empire.
LAND GLUT END TO LANDLORD DREAMS
These mainly high-school educated people, who perhaps went to community college and even work in real-life hotel management or sales in large chains like Wal-marts, buy into SL almost like into Amway, paying a little more to resell something that most people know they could get for less, hoping they make a little income and the people paying a little more get a little better social and customer service experience. But they wind up frustrated and angry at the Lindens land-glutting, popular stereotypes of landbarons, and deadbeat tenants, many of whom bail out of SL merely becaue they can’t get their game working.
The gravest problem for the nation of landlords now is that cheaper land — prime waterfront is down as low as $10.9/11.9/meter — means people go off and buy their own land. And as much as they may gloat that they are the winners of Second Life by helping to make losers of other people, those other people — by liquidating, abandoning, cashing out, drive down the value of the Linden, deplete the business core willing to keep engaging in this utter folly of investing unpaid labour for risk-laded virtual sales. They make the MLM — sustained largely on belief — collapse.
To be sure, those gloaters are merely the next generation of frustrated land-sellers as long-time observers can confirm, as their pristine new mainland beachfront becomes uglified with clubs and malls by other eager new landlord-nation members without much aesthetic sense (some of whom were driven out of nice residential rentals into the more lucrative mall business because land prices plummetted *cough*).
So the newly-blighted then sell out to liquidators at $8 or $9/m or less and go back to island renting in the never-ending SL drama cycle that depletes the pockets of mainland landlords, delights and then frustrates and impoverishes short-term end-use landowners, fills up the coffers of especially themed island owners and finally makes a quick buck for small-time landbarons. But don’t be too quick to scorn people with names like Buzz and companies with names like SLeaze-By-Night Liquidators and profiles that say THIS LAND IS OUR LAND, YOUR LAND IS MY LAND. You will thank your lucky stars they are there to pay as much as $8 or $9 per meter on your now-uglified formerly $18/m prime waterfront. And don’t start hatin’ on those island barons either — they’re often screaming in the Concierge queue with islands that are down, won’t work, crash, or don’t let people rez objects, and their vacancy rates are nearly as low as mainland vacancy rates now.
THE BETTER MATH OF MALLS
Why do so many of the nation-keepers turn to clubs, malls, and casinos? The math here is better if you can squeeze, say, 120 vendors on to your shopping sim, extract $450 US in rents (say L$1000 per month per unit), pay the $295 tier, and have $155 US recouped to help pay back your island purchase in 10 months. Hmmm. Better go mainland, have $255 left and not think about paying the $2200 initial cost back so soon, or at least put in some camp chairs, casinos, soak out more income to shorten that to a less painful 4 or 6, or you begin to wonder: why didn’t I just leave the same money in the real-life stock market or money-market on PayPal???
Now can you see why there are malls and casinos everywhere? It’s a cycle that begins with the never-ending glut of $1000 opening-bid mainland auction sims; following through to the $2200-$3400 auction buy and frenzied chop and sell or develop-and-rent — and leads inexorably to the feeding of the Lindens’ bottom line and the conclusion by the now hardened landlord that he has to open a mall or a club with sexy clothing in vendors to make ends meet.
The tipping point for getting out of the cycle of fearfully watching vacancy rates plummet, never having enough land to satisfy period surges in demand, seems to come at about 32-38 private islands, after about 6 months — those barons that cross that threshold seem to assure themselves income, if they can avoid the temptation of putting all that income into “growth” which equals “over-exposure of risk”. But with the growth and competitiveness of SL, this threshold number is likely to double inexorably — at what point does it become madly risk-laden?
DESTROYING THE LAND BARON CLASS=DESTROYING THE ECONOMY
So why is it a good thing if land prices plummet? It’s temporarily a good thing for those people who fly around shopping and then finally wish to find their dream 2048 or 4096 to put down their McMansion and cyber on. But by impoverishing the “landbaron” class that can no longer rent or sell, the socialists, the airheaded shoppers, the cybering masses who hate paying a lot, are gutting out the only form of income production in SL available for the unskilled long-hours-labouring middle class — the equivalent of Korean deli owners sending their kids to college. Not everyone can script, design, build, and make beautiful prefabs for $3000 or $10,000 a pop or sex beds selling for $45 US per unit. Content makers, unlike rental agents, can put out a vendor inworld and leave it to ka-ching all day while they play WoW or do RL jobs. Many people turn to rentals work because it’s *what there is* — until the economy becomes far more rich and diversified it’s not only what keeps the Lindens’ bottom line fed, it’s what keeps the engine of the inworld economy fed. Don’t forget that the “landbaron” you’re renting in fact may not even make a profit; in fact he may barely make tier and is actually *paying for* the privilege of playing store. And content-makers can’t forget that they can’t live off third-party shopping sites — they really the presence in world to get sales, and that means owning or renting land for stores and vendors — and facing high rents, and the same slump everybody else faces.
If land barons see that this already really thinly-margined highly risky business venture is made even more ridiculous by plummetting land prices, problems with buying Lindens, and less log-ons, they sell and pull out. That reduces investment in SL and purchases on the auction; but it also leaves the now highly diversified and reasonably-priced market to be seized by only 2-3 large oligarchs — which was exactly the story back in 2004-2005 when land only cost $6-7/meter. Then mall rents skyrocket in high-trafficked areas, island tiers increase, and there’s a slowing in sales, especially for people who can’t pay higher rent to display their stores and vendors . If it’s an impossibly hard balancing act for the Lindens, who have all the server-side data we don’t about real sales and peaks and slumps, for us, it really begins to look like an MLM scam.
“…MLM programs are set up to make most distributors fail, as there is a continued incentive to continue to recruit distributors even as the products have reached market saturation, thus causing the average earnings per distributor to continue to fall.”
Levi Anansi
Jul 15th, 2007
>No, Levi, spare me the little homilies. Try defending principles and standing up to trolls *yourself* once. In fact, the very notion of “trolls” and “not feeding” them is born of a sophomoric, moronic Internet geeky culture that is cynical about evil and thinks it can always be muted, ignored, banned. Not so. All that’s needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. And that’s what happens here again and again; and you are to blame as much as anybody. Attack the vicious trolls, for once in your wimpy life, man, instead of lecturing someone who knows right from wrong and draws the line. They do go away when people stand up to them. Try it, you’ll see.
I would like to congratulate you for your energetic dedication to the Ann Coulter philosophy of polite discussion. I also apologize for being somewhat of a Quaker, which leads me to making passive points rather than stooping to a level of throwing insults like the U.S. gives tax-breaks to the oil industry. We obviously have a different idea of what it means to be sophomoric and wimpy. We also have a different idea of what defines a troll. Fortunately, it seems most people agree when it comes to the best method by which to quell them. You effectively called me a wimp and a moron in a single paragraph, well done. You yourself appear to be the vaulted anti-griever we love so much in our metaverse. You know, the one that shows up, blasts half the sim into the sky, because someone else made a derogatory remark to their in game love interest?
You are right, they do go away when someone stands up to them, but they are trolls, they find another thread to pound hoping to attract a response similar to the ones you write. However, they go away faster if no one responds to them. When they are acknowledged, they have a habit of taking a once interesting thread and turning it into nothing but the equivalent of male-enhancement email spam. It ruins the discussion. It ruins the point of why we bothered to read the thread in the first place (ie interesting topic). You wrote an interesting article. I was just stupid enough to read the comments. Trust me, won’t happen again…
Prokofy Neva
Jul 15th, 2007
Fortunately, it seems most people agree when it comes to the best method by which to quell them.
No, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s not “most people”. It’s that sophomoric, geeky, Internet culture that has agreed. And that culture is merely the early adaptor culture of the Web, which isn’t really that old in terms of human culture.
Persistent debate; polemical debate; strident debate; even debate with rich rhetorical flourishes and name-calling, even — these are all rich traditions going back thousands of years.
There has never been such an attempt to force conformity and tribalism as there has been with this geeky Internet culture accusing “trolls” of “disruption” and telling everyone “not to feed them”
To be sure, there are troll types that you can try to ignore, avoid, get rid of with one-liners, etc. But they don’t go away. Then there are people who are serious, strident, determined dissidents. I see no reason to mute, ignore, not feed them. I see that they must be fought. After all, they see me that way, and fight me.
It’s ok to fight; we’re not all pacifists; pacifism isn’t something you can force on people through coercion.
There is a determined group of people harassing me in the comments. And there is an equally determined group of people among the readership telling me to stop biting the bait, stop feeding the trolls, stop responding to the most heinous, libelous attacks.
That would be fine if it worked. It doesn’t. And it occurs because people refuse to stand up to them in larger numbers and put them in their place.
I don’t blow up sims. And I didn’t call you a moron, I said that to invoke the concept of “troll” is to invoke moronic geeky culture. Don’t do that, if you expect to be taken seriously.
In fact, what you did FIRST, *asshole* is call ME sophomoric directly. You called me a “tween” and other names. What a fucking retard. A pious liberal fake asshole, coming on here, lecturing me about not feeding the trolls, *trolling yourself* and being a total fucking asshole calling names and making arrogant condescending dweebie little name-calling attacks, then saying, gosh, your articles would be better if you didn’t feed the trolls, but let ME get away with trolling because my shit doesn’t stink. Here’s what you said:
“In one moment you sound like a reasonable human being, yet in the next moment you sound like a complete tween with an axe to bury *in someone’s head*. You have sound arguments, you make positive points, and then you stoop to calling everyone and their brother an asshole. Somewhat like the scew askew points of J & SB. The former is productive, yet the latter is sophomoric.”
What on EARTH do you think people should do when they are told:
o they are not reasonable human beings
o they are tweens
o they are violent loons ready to bury an axe *in someone’s head*
o they stoop to calling people assholes (sure do, when called names FIRST, DER)
o you are like skew askew
o you are sophomoric
Just um WHAT THE FUCK do you think is the PROPER response to something TROLLING AND ASSOLISH like that? Seriously, I rest my case.
Levi Anansi
Jul 15th, 2007
Well like you Prok, I didn’t “call” you anything. I said you “sound” not “are.” You really did rest your case with your above comments, and mine right along with your own. I don’t follow you by the way. I don’t know those people you claim follow you around with a cult like fervor. You also missed the point where I said you debate like Coulter, perhaps that was a compliment considering I am a “pious liberal fake asshole.” You seem to enjoy ripping apart the symantics, without take 1.2 seconds to consider intention. Case in point would be that you stated I said you were like skew askew, when the statement was an obvious pop-culture reference to Jay and Silent Bob’s search and destroy mission to those who dissed them on the internet. I am sure you got that part, but you seem to want everyone to accept you as sensitive, and dismiss your abuse by taking the stance of a victim. You are smarter than that, your articles make that clearly apparent.
But, since you want to play the victim card here and label me the “wrong” in your clearly defined sense of right and wrong, allow me to paraphrase my first post:
This was a good article. It was well written and researched by someone who obviously has an interest in the subject. Unfortunately that person cannot maintain the same professionalism when encountering dissension to their opinion. You cheapen your point (and I am not calling you “cheap” since you need disclaimers to each and every statement) when you stoop to playground level tactics in responses to things which do not even deserve response.
As to your cute list up there. Read the post again. You seem to like to attribute much to me that is not there…
But, as a victim will do? Everyone is the enemy, even those that compliment them…
Prokofy Neva
Jul 15th, 2007
Uh, no, dearie-pie, you *did* call me the names I just listed. And I responded by explaining that unlike you, who made personal attacks and personal name calling, I originally was making a *generic* reference, as follows:
“In fact, the very notion of “trolls” and “not feeding” them is born of a sophomoric, moronic Internet geeky culture that is cynical about evil and thinks it can always be muted, ignored, banned.”
Oh, the shoe fit, did it? Then wear it.
Um, gosh, I got that pop-cult ref to Jay ‘n Bob. Wow. That was, like, special. And…I’m no victim. I fight back. Victims don’t fight back. You’re used to leaving victims to lick their wounds. I’m *not* a victim, deal with it.
Unfortunately that person cannot maintain the same professionalism when encountering dissension to their opinion. You cheapen your point (and I am not calling you “cheap” since you need disclaimers to each and every statement) when you stoop to playground level tactics in responses to things which do not even deserve response.
No. And I’ll say this with as much power, force, and determination as I can: No, you fucking illiterate mediocrity.
That’s not what it’s about. It’s not about “dissession of opinion”.
You simply CANNOT be allowed to get away with such evil fucking conniving bad faith and claim it’s about “difference of opinion” when you do not a) state an opinion or b) cite argumentations but c) do the following, and say this about a person (me):
o they are not reasonable human beings
o they are tweens
o they are violent loons ready to bury an axe *in someone’s head*
o they stoop to calling people assholes (sure do, when called names FIRST, DER)
o you are like skew askew
o you are sophomoric
Um, that’s showing dissent? Fuck, no. That’s dissent? No, it’s mediocre comment-fisking without a scintilla of a thought behind it, typed merely to let the world know that you’re a superior son of a bitch.
I don’t have to “attribute,” asswipe, to read what you wrote, and note that you indeed called names:
o not a reasonable human being
o a tween
o ready to bury an axe *in someone’s head*
o stooping to calling people assholes (sure do, when called names FIRST, DER)
o like skew askew
o sophomoric
Um, fucking HELLO???
Seriously, why do you think you can get away with this kind of completely crass, sinister lying on a forums? Anybody can read what you wrote, and can see what you put, and can see what you’re up to?
I’m seriously fucking tired of this shit. If you have a dissenting opnion, write it already, and can the bullshit. If you have an insult and you’re anonymous, you’ll have to give an SL name and get 2 other posters with SL names before I’ll answer you. If you put an SL name and insult me and pretend that’s “opinion,” expect to get it served right back up at you.
IntLibber Brautigan
Jul 15th, 2007
Actually Prok, while I have some quibbles with the article, its a fair analysis of the whole rental market. I’d make two comments about the why:
a) Why Rent When You Can Own: I generally don’t rent land to people, I sell land and charge tier (1.94L$/sm monthly tier in my new sims in the Ancapistan continent). People without enough money up front can finance their land purchase with several SL banks, including My Second Bank, Midas Mortgage, OurBank, and others. Tier is much less than rent, and owning land via financing is cheaper than leaning on your landlords credit plus markup. It also gives you more rights wrt the estate owner in some estates.
b) SL Marketing Is Incestuous: How many of you out there have ever advertised your SL business in any markets OUTSIDE the SL media? What are you doing to bring new players into the game, to bring new capital into the game? Few readers here do, if any. This incestuousness makes for a closed market to a degree, and reduces the growth of capital and consumer markets. The result is people keep chasing the same money around.
We at BNT are breaking this vicious cycle and are starting to advertise in RL media, we are opening our Orientation Island Aug 1st, and have our own SL registration system coming online on our website (much as ACS and ESC do, which is why they continue to grow). Those who work to grow SL in general will reap the benefits.
BTW: We are seeking persons interested in joining our Mentoring program for our OI. Experienced mentors are preferred, but individuals interested in learning mentoring are also welcome. We expect our OI in North to be the most advanced of its kind, serving as an example to others, even to LL.
Levi Anansi
Jul 15th, 2007
Okay. Since you feel the need to repost what you already wrote, instead of (again) addressing the issues I attempted to write about, I will play your Narcissistic game for 1.2 seconds.
o not a reasonable human being
I said sometimes you are, other times you “sound,” I assume you know the difference.
o a tween
Which leads is the same as #1…But you conveniently ignored this…Awkward…
o ready to bury an axe *in someone’s head*
You said: “Alyx, you’re a 20-year-old asshole griefer; I’m a 51-year-old accomplished writer, among other things. Shut the fuck up.” – So where is that axe going? You need to declare your age to make a point? Maturity is maturity, as a good community in an mmo is a god community. At this point you are contributing nothing…But I am starting to believe you are more self-serving than righteous.
o stooping to calling people assholes (sure do, when called names FIRST, DER)
I said you “sound,” one of many points you have ignored over and over (and over). You can discern the difference, right? I mean, you are such an accomplished enough writer to give us illiterate mediocrities a stretch…
o like skew askew
Jay and Silent Bob…The slackers for a generation…or at least recognizable by such. Thanks for your admission of stupidity to the reference, the least you could do is admit your ignorance and stop calling it skew (view) askew….
o sophomoric
Again, one that “sounds”, and again, one you refuse to acknowledge in the way it was used.
Your shoe does not fit, your generalizations are misdirected, an your arguments hold no weight with me as far as this conversations is concern. You want to pigeon-hole me, yet you have not addressed a single point I have written on…It seems all you want is a fight (read post one) and you have no issue with using any type of insult or expletive to make that happen. Again, I am not stooping to your level, I just made a comment. That comment, by the way, is only enhanced by the manner with which you replied. You can fight all you like, but the funny thing is, you seem to have nothing to fight for other than semantics.
On the issue of anonymity? I met Uri 2.5 years ago in Jessie. I still live there. If you want to know who I am, where I live, what I stand for, and even my email address, freaking ask. Just because you are all over google for issues that have nothing to do with nothing does not mean I do the same…Anonymity has nothing to do with this, a true sense of fellow value does, but you seem to have missed that part….
Prokofy Neva
Jul 15th, 2007
Thanks for that infomercial, Intlibber. Next time pay the classifieds section of the Herald real money, and then have a bracketed ad appear up to the left or right in the ad spot.
As I noted at the comment at Metaversed, where Onder has thoughtfully provided a Prok’s Lite to what was already kinda light lol, most landlords reading a hard-hitting realistic assessment of their industry in SL can’t resist telling the world that they actually do better than all the sad sacks who are lumping it out with low occupancy.
Owning on an island isn’t really owning. We’ve been over that. There’s just enough of a fraud percentage, there’s just enough of a no-show or lather-rinse-repeat fraud element on resales that make people worried. They race to buy good, solid mainland they can pay directly to the Lindens *with a credit card, not PayPal to a stranger* — when they can. Otherwise, mainland wouldn’t sell. And there are some nice mainland sims, that’s for sure.
I charge $1.31/m for tier, on something like a 4096 m2 for mainland, and on islands, 1.49/m. I’m slightly lower than what many others are charging; you’re definitely in the higher range that not everyone will pay. Lindens charge 1.69/m or so for 4096, but of course you get $1200 rebate in Linden stipends and 515 m2 tier, which in my rentals you can contribute to get $250 off the rent (and I see others copying this practice now, which is a great thing, it’s an excellent idea to help encourage premium accounts and make use of fallow 512s not being used).
If rentals on islands are more than Lindens tier, they have to offer very high value; most landlords do not charge more than the Lindens charge; that’s the whole point. Now that tier on islands is $295, it’s changed the landscape. My figures are for $195 tiers.
I’m definitely queasy about this mortgage stuff. This really starts to look like the company store. The island parcel costs should be low enough to be key money, $5/m, not so high you need a mortgage. If you need a mortgage, it seems to me to be out of your price range. If you are willing to pay back a mortgage, why not save real-life money and simply buy land out right, or find the rental of your dreams at a higher price?
I’ve had some good experience with mortgages, specifically with Buck Spinnaker’s company and even with Wrestling Hulka who has rented me just-in-time tier. I think it’s interesting to have mortgates in SL, but I do have to wonder about how this area is being monitored and about the dangers of fraud, which are like the stock markets.
I’ve placed ads on other publications outside of SL and even on Craig’s List, which I think isn’t quite ready yet for SL prime-time. Let’s face it. It’s a small pond.
Nothing brings as many sales as the basic SEARCH ad for $30.
I think the growth of capital and a consumer market can occur when the Lindens separate the world from their own interests, and stop glutting land, and begin to make their revenue from other things besides land-glutting. They objectively feed the oligarchic system in this way.
I think that when there can be bonding of avatars, age and identify verification, notarized/true copies of accounts from avatars, some precedent cases that establish the value of virtual land — and less fraud and greed from stock markets and investment companies — then we might begin to talk about things like capital markets. It’s far too premature to being doing so, and only grafts living tissue on to necrotic failed organs.
Built by Alyx Stoklitsky of known griefing groups and others, helped by Tizzers whose partner is a banned gridcrasher, I expect the Orientation Island of BNT will be a carnival of sound and particle blasting, large penises attractively deployed around the area, and frequent crashes.
I don’t think the objective of LL and mega-corps like BNT should be to drive all the mom-and-pops out of business. They are like the bed and breakfasts, if you will, the small hotels, the Motel 6s of Second Life. Others are like refined suburban enclaves that resist the cookie-cutter McMansion treatment. So there should be diversity of the market, and not just largeness of a few companies, even if it means 6 intead of the 2 we’ve had. Not everyone should justify having their own registration page — it’s not advisable unless you have cash to pay staff.
As for this kind of statement, “Those who work to grow SL in general will reap the benefits,” I don’t see that we have to jion the Kool-Aid Korps here and rah-rah for SL and LL in general just to pursue our businesses or whatever imaginative enterprise we wish. The platform has to avoid that kind of parochialism.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 16th, 2007
Levi, when you’re ready to be a man, and stand up to griefers, and see that it’s not those who fight them that are the problem, but the griefers YOU have wimped out on, then you’ll get it. You’re not ready to get it.
Alyx Stoklitsky isn’t just some accidental commenter here. He’s a member of a concerted, systematic, hands-on, conspiratorial griefing group that has repeatdly, month after month, for years in Second Life, crashed the grid, my sims, other people’s sims, and caused irreparable havoc. He’s tried to deny this; he’s tried to lie and cheat and fake his way out of it, but he is indeed in this movement and is indeed an apologist of these people. You have nothing to say about that. You can’t stand up to it. So you don’t get it.
You think it’s about snapping back to some 20-something with a fact that is already well known to everybody who has google witch-hunted me for 2 years. It’s not. It’s about standing up to this persistent movement with its spin-off groups in SL that so causes havoc all over, and everybody constantly gives the benefit of the doubt to — you are merely the latest one.
For as long as he has been in SL, Alyx has harassed me with notecards, taunting IMs, harassing IMs, forceports to sims where the goons hang out, etc. etc. This is not something that started here, on this thread. And somebody like Alyx, frankly, needs to figuratively get an axe buried in his head, the way he and others have treated me inworld and on the comments. You are apprently unaware of the history.
Your Chomskian superficial parsing of my sentences doesn’t add a thing or prove your point — you are either unaware or wilfully ignoring the track record of these groups, these people, and their griefing of me and others.
Um, I didn’t admit anything of the kind, fuckface. I’ve seen all the Jay and Silent Bob movies, dickhead. Yeah, Alanis as God. Yeah, fingercuffs. Yeah, you loser little dweeb, I can’t believe that a) you’d hold this up as something everyone “should know” and b) that if I’ve twice explained that I *do* know it that it would still evade you. I guess you are one of the drug-addled crew that watches this stuff.
>On the issue of anonymity? I met Uri 2.5 years ago in Jessie. I still live there. If you want to know who I am, where I live, what I stand for, and even my email address, freaking ask. Just because you are all over google for issues that have nothing to do with nothing does not mean I do the same…Anonymity has nothing to do with this, a true sense of fellow value does, but you seem to have missed that part….
I didn’t claim you were anonymous, as you posted with a SL name, but anyone in SL is basically anonymous. And if you live in Jessie, then accusing me of fighting for the sake of fighting is the last thing you should be doing.
Solar Legion
Jul 16th, 2007
Prokofy apparently you are the one that needs to do a bit of growing up. You are the one that needs to ‘get it’.
if the average Second Life user, myself included, can go about the grid and not run into griefing above the usual twits with cage guns or particle spammer types (easily handled by the by) and someone such as yourself is getting SIM crashers and the like, well that ought to tell you something.
I’ve been around the internet long enough and used enough services to know that it is the actions of an individual that can bring about this sort of crowd. No one else is to blame for your misfortunes.
Now get over yourself and don’t ever speak for me, for the general user base or anyone else but yourself.
Solar Legion
Jul 16th, 2007
Oh yes, I just thought I’d add something here for Prokofy:
Prokofy, you said “They do go away when people stand up to them” in reference to trolls, which are the internet version of a schoolyard bully.
Guess what? That only works on some of them. I should know. If there is one thing I have learned in my life thus far it is to be smart and choose my battles very carefully.
Yep, when you stand up to a bully of any kind they might back down, however it is just as likely that they will give you the beating of your life.
Now I cannot be certain but from the way you preach this force makes right policy of yours … You sound as if you’ve never suffered a single beating at the hands of another human being. You sound to me in fact to be exactly like those you fight back against.
As to other of your comments in the past and to information you’ve let part with … remember: God sends the weak to confound the strong.
Levi Anansi
Jul 16th, 2007
So, basically Alyx is a perfect example of what you have been feeding with your energy and insults? Have you fought him and his worthless cronies, alts, and groups with the same language and fervor with which you have been fighting me? Did you ever step back for (again) those 1.2 seconds to ask yourself why these people exist, and continue to follow you on this path? Could it be because you have fed them from the first word, or every breath from their mouths? Some people are eternally offended by being called weak, fuckface, illiterate, dickhead, loser, dweep, drug-addicted? I am strong enough to know that the above are false, a 20 year old on a mission? who knows…Were you ever strong enough to know when to back down to a text argument amongst an anonymous crowd?
And Chomsky? Where TF did that come from? You must be projecting…
Grievers, anti-grievers…I put up with neither. They both stand for the same drama. Drama you seem to fuel, and be fueled by. You seem to be a text-book AG. It seems to keep you running (because according to your article, it can’t be land holdings). I do stand up to grievers, in my own way, on my own land. It’s pretty simple and painless where I am. It just be somewhat difficult for you to lead this forum personae and still try to keep those at bay in world, because inevitably they spill into that world, and you cannot protect the projected break even sim holding, and watch them all 24/7 at the same time. To a point I wonder if this is the chickens coming home to roost…You just happen to have a lot of roosts, and too many pissed off chickens. My guess is this is not a situation that is going to change soon considering how you treat those around you…You might want to think of a new form of in-world business…because I don’t stand surprised that you a reaping in world what you so outside…
And, I know you got the reference to that flick, you just seem to be intelligently oblivious to why it was used.
As for my place in Jessie, it’s where I started, it’s where I own land. Spin Martin owns half the sim, but I assume you aren’t going to blast him for doing so. You know the place has been dead for 2 years. Herald owns 2 parcels there, so I would guess you are in the know? It should be as obvious as the Smith comment…
Prokofy Neva
Jul 16th, 2007
Yeah, I step back, asshole, I step WAY the fuck back and I swing hard and hit back hard.
You’re suggesting that everyone should sit back, and let these assholes take down Second Life. Never do anything about them. Not report them and risk thus being targeted by them. Let’s not forgot how they began to harass me — I stood up on the old SL forums and said that it was wrong to ridicule the victims of the 9/11 on a sim – that’s all. Nothing special. That led them to come on my sim, wearing a mock-up of the WTC, and bash into me, and use fake-Arab-named alts to crash planes into my restaurant. That’s the sort of thing they do. Over and over again. Ignoring them doesn’t change anything. What, you’re not *allowed* to express your opinion about their tasteless and indecent “art”? You’re supposed to ever and anon shut the fuck up over their obscenities, to ignore them, even if they come on your sim?
And totally by accident, I was flying around one day and saw Griefer Overlord staging a giant penis parade and rezzing other crap like my *real life picture* cut into particles and blasting around on Ansheland for sale. I abuse reported it; I summoned Lindens. What, that’s ok? That can stand? I’m supposed to shut up and never respond to shit like that? I have no idea while they singled me out for griefing then, as I had barely written a thing about them way back them; it’s “just because” I am a public critic. So, it’s ok to rez giant harassment busts of people in RL and harass them and do obscene things with them? This is ok? When do you think it’s enough?
Only by slapping you in the face verbally and using words like “fuckface” or “dickhead” can I speak to your LEVEL, so that you might grasp the magnitude of how these people put a chill on expression in SL, in the name of freedom of expression. How they spread death and nihilism. How they end people’s second lives. If you can’t see the moral issues at hand here, then you lack the moral compass that many of your type seem to lack these days. I’m not the problem. They’re the problem. YOU should be standing up to your geeky peers perhaps a decade younger and YOU should be telling them to knock it off – not me.
You cross the street to delivery a homily, a blast, and a personal attack on *me* — yet never, in your fucking entire life you lame pussy Jessie shooting weakling, EVER stand up to griefers in public and do *the same thing* to them.
Ever wonder why that is?
I deal effectively with griefers. They are a tiny percentage of problems in SL. They aren’t at all as widespread as people believe, and they know it. Sure, they make alts, but it’s not always instant, and they often give up.
By standing up to these people, by documenting what they do, by abuse reporting, I’ve been part of what has removed the major ringleaders from SL. And now what you see are petty foot-soldiers and wannabees who sometimes grief harder to get attention. *Shrug*. It doesn’t faze me. My SL doesn’t consist of them. On forums, they have a larger-than-life projection because a few of them on many alts post over and over again — and people like you don’t stand up to them.
Um, I got the goddamn skew/askew reference. In the Sims Online, there was a girl who ran a parcel called the View Askew that everyone visited and if they didn’t get it the first time, they got it the second 100 times. Spare me.
Yeah, I know Spin owns half the sim now, and that Uri owns some, and that’s it’s for playing shooting games and war games. YAWN.
IntLibber Brautigan
Jul 16th, 2007
Prok sez: Thanks for that infomercial, Intlibber. Next time pay the classifieds section of the Herald real money, and then have a bracketed ad appear up to the left or right in the ad spot.
Why should I? You give me all the free publicity I need on the Herald. The idiots who believe what you say will stay away from my estate, and the intelligent people who know you are full of crap will be attracted to us, so its a nice selection effect going on. It may not get us many intelligent customers, if only cause few intelligent people read your stuff.
Prok sez: Built by Alyx Stoklitsky of known griefing groups and others, helped by Tizzers whose partner is a banned gridcrasher, I expect the Orientation Island of BNT will be a carnival of sound and particle blasting, large penises attractively deployed around the area, and frequent crashes.
Actually, Tizzers is in no way involved. We are employing a number of reformed griefers who are staying clean, not greifing, and are starting to enjoy SL as it was meant to be, building, being creative. Our OI has no particles, penii or otherwise, and will have very tight security against griefing, it will even ban people who regularly use words like “fucktard”, “leninist conspiracy”, “word salading”, and other common griefer phrases… he he.
Prok sez: I don’t think the objective of LL and mega-corps like BNT should be to drive all the mom-and-pops out of business.
Thats funny Prok, cause until we IPOd on the stock exchange, you had more sims than me. Does that make you merely a very poorly performing megacorp, cause you waste your time writing trash for the Herald rather than working to build your estate and service your customers? 14 sims is certainly not a ‘mom and pop’ operation. Stop blaming others for your terrible business management.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 16th, 2007
>Why should I? You give me all the free publicity I need on the Herald. The idiots who believe what you say will stay away from my estate, and the intelligent people who know you are full of crap will be attracted to us, so its a nice selection effect going on. It may not get us many intelligent customers, if only cause few intelligent people read your stuff.
Actually, it works great for Ravenglass Rentals, in fact, as people do indeed sort out what I say, and make intelligent choices : )
>Actually, Tizzers is in no way involved. We are employing a number of reformed griefers who are staying clean, not greifing, and are starting to enjoy SL as it was meant to be, building, being creative. Our OI has no particles, penii or otherwise, and will have very tight security against griefing, it will even ban people who regularly use words like “fucktard”, “leninist conspiracy”, “word salading”, and other common griefer phrases… he he.
Um, well, I’ll be fascinated to see how that works, with these griefers who are “staying clean”. And putting censorship on ordinary words in a mature region is downright creepy. Doesn’t sound like the libertarians *I* know.
>Thats funny Prok, cause until we IPOd on the stock exchange, you had more sims than me. Does that make you merely a very poorly performing megacorp, cause you waste your time writing trash for the Herald rather than working to build your estate and service your customers? 14 sims is certainly not a ‘mom and pop’ operation. Stop blaming others for your terrible business management.
Actually, I have more than 15 now. Poorly-peforming or not, I do well enough to keep in SL, support of land preserve of some 50,000 m2, and support 5 newbie communities with subsidized rents, sandboxes, etc. and I create public spaces for people to meet in SL. My business pays for it all. I can’t think of anything more dull than putting out 16 pancakes to bake in the sun, turning them once, and collecting only a few hundred bucks. I’d rather translate a few pages of text or write a consulting report and make far more per hour.
I’d also be embarrassed to IPO my company through one of these poorly managed and dubious “stock exchanges” in SL. I don’t think I could keep any promises to investors under the conditions they operate in.
Writing for the Herald doesn’t take up very much time; my rentals take more time but it’s only a part-time job. I like to have a variety in life.
Levi Anansi
Jul 16th, 2007
It seems very clear to me that you want to lump anyone who challenges your you into the file labeled griever. This makes it easier for you to call them a fucktard, asshole, pussy, weakling, etc. The only thing you said in your last post I agree with is the point of filing abuse reports and herding Lindens when they are needed. The rest of your insult infused tripe has nothing to do with me or the way I play SL. You are projecting…Your experience with 9/11 griefers, not my problem, not my action. Your online stalkers, not my problem, not my action. Your problems do *not* in any way apply to this conversation. I don’t condone them, nor do I personally care how they apply to you given your manner of conversation. I can say that I am not surprised they keep coming back given that you lack think you are appealing to their “level” when in truth you are only feeding their anger/geekyness/pathetic existence/whatever. They are riding your coat-tail, which in my opinion makes them even more pathetic. You tell me to tell them to knock it off? Funny, they are not after me, and I live in Jessie in relative peace.
They are not my peers, the never have been. You are not speaking to my level, you are speaking to your own. They are your peers, at least you seem to have made them as such since you get such a charge out of addressing them the way you do…What you don’t seem to realize (and probably never will from what I have gathered) is that you charge them right back. They are assholes. They need attention, and I am so glad you provide it for them, because it keeps them stuck to you and away from me…
Keep up the good work Prok. Perhaps they’ll construct an ice sculpture in your honor at the next SLCC, but I somehow doubt it…
/cheers..
Prokofy Neva
Jul 16th, 2007
Um, well that’s retarded, Levi, I haven’t called everyone who disagrees with me a griefer. Griefers don’t just disagree with me, though; they bully and harass me and I call them griefers if they are inworld griefers, yet. You may be a harasser and a shooter in Jesse, where it is turned to “unsafe,” but you aren’t a griefer AFAIK.
I think it’s good to expose alts, and draw out the poison. People think I’m a fun target to poke a stick at, and that I shouldn’t make myself a target, but I just do my thing, am targeted, and I document it. It’s virtuality, so being on “ground” that “sinks” and crashes as a server doesn’t harm me per say, although I do lose some tenants’ business sometimes. It’s not enough to make me pull out of SL.
I don’t see why I need to curb *my* freedom and be the way people want me to be, change my behavior, and do something in SL differently, ducking, cringing, fearing, hiding, and letting people do evil without comment. Why? It’s just not my nature.
These assholes aren’t kids; they’re conspiring adults. There are very much organized adults behind the kids. And different people buy their services with various sinister agendas. I think you have to keep striking for what is right, and not worry what some shooter NIMBY in Jesse says about SL or your actions with in it.
Um, is war in Jesse upon us?
Reality
Jul 17th, 2007
Dearie? You harass anyone that does not agree with your viewpoints as well as anyone that demands you provide real proof of your claims.
The most amusing part of it however is that you constantly point to your own posts as ‘proof’ or to ‘counter’ a comment such as this one.
Why is it so amusing? anyone can go back over all of the comments and find instances where a person is nothing but polite to you … and you turn right around and give them a bile filled response – for no reason whatsoever.
You Dearie are nothing but a child pretending to be a mature and reasonable adult – your physical age is irrelevant, your world views are irrelevant, you moral code is irrelevant … Everything about your life is irrelevant Dearie.
Oh – I know you’re either going to ignore this comment or attempt to come back with some BS attempt to be witty (sorry Dearie, your ‘answering machine’ messages are little more than a coward’s dodge). Failing those two you’ll attempt to brush it off with your usual cowardly way – citing of BS ‘personal rules’ of a type that give you a cop out.
Welcome to the Internet – where only a fool gives out personal information tot he masses.
Martin Squeegee
Jul 17th, 2007
Prok,
I’ve not made a comment for a while about your writing. This article was great, back to your form, demonstrating that you do understand the market. It’s a shame that people have as ever deviated off the topic so to try and drag it back let me add my comment.
I used to be (past tense) one of the bigger barons holding over 300,000m for sale plus some for rent. I have tiered down to 65536m and flip it like crazy, offering I hope good value land for a resonable price. The reality though is that I am losing the battle and my desire to keep prices down is probably only shared by Joep Buckler who sells his newly purchased sims at cost. Life is getting tougher for us down here – especially if selling 512m plots. I made some good money even as recently as december but since then the rollercoaster market has made some barons give up and many have retreated back to high cost waterfronts only using the 512 market as mere advertising space.
I don’t expect any sympathy, I am beyond that and happy to fight my own way. But just imagine for a few seconds a land market dominated by Linden (remember in the main they only sell whole sims at auction – can everyone afford that?) and a few big players who will own the market from 512 and up selling at a price they want to with competition. For all the pain of dealing with people like me you need me to be there to fight your corner and at least give you the choice to by a 512 or not. A 512 I might add that will aim to be the cheapest available.
Good to see you Prok, Talk Soon.
Martin Squeegee can be found in his office in Reignier but is moving soon.
SqueezeOne Pow
Jul 17th, 2007
“…then the rollercoaster market has made some barons give up and many have retreated back to high cost waterfronts only using the 512 market as mere advertising space.”
So you have to resort to ad farms to make a profit off of 512m2 plots? Is that what you’re implying? If not then you may want to clarify that.
If so then you’re adding to a problem that I hope is solved by this land “recession”.
Low land prices are good for the economy in my opinion. I’ve been able to buy considerably more land than before to help expand my room to build and sell my builds. I’ve been able to expand my business and entertainment pursuits because of my store’s success coupled with how much farther my earned money will go.
The only thing holding more people back from going premium and buying land for themselves is the performance issues that disuade people from jumping in.
Maybe if these “landbarons in distress” were to get creative or hire people that could be creative for them with their land maybe more people would be willing to rent space. The cookie-cutter “C.E.O. Barbie” houses with an ocean view only take you so far now that there are so many of them!
Martin Squeegee
Jul 18th, 2007
SqueezeOne Pow,
Sorry you didn’t understand. The 512m plots are in many cases being used as large adverts to sell bigger water plots and/or rentals. As a responsible land baron I support the Arbor Project, reclaiming ad space where and when I can and actively fight against ad farms.
So no i’m not adding to the problem. But don’t forget cheaper land means more adspace. People like Umnik Hax have started to buy 512m plots and cut them into 16′s because they can now afford to do so. These new ad farms normally appear in the nicest of sims with a few taunts from umnik saying he can do what he likes. Any suggestions on how to stop this will be gladly welcomed – unlike a lot of barons/traders I am always willing to put my money where my mouth is and take action.
I also think you have missed what the major part of the land market is about. People don’t want value add, they don’t want a house that I or someone else has created they want a flat, easy to build on piece of land that they can create their own things on. The resetting of the market (it’s coming) as happened earlier this year isn’t good for people. Sure you can buy more land and I hope you business continues to grow – you are in the minority. Reseting the land prices just as in RL makes people nervous, they will hang on to their land because they don’t want to see at a loss. Land barons like me buy at market peaks and troughs allowing a spread of risk – and if push comes to shove I can always dump 100 or so 512′s at a long way below market rate. But it won’t be you that buys any of them instead the top 3 traders will buy them (sadly I am not among them anymore) to hold and increase land values. Again this is not good the more land held by fewer people increases prices because of a lack of competition.
I would also like to challenge you – there are loads of creative landlords renting out good properties – but clearly you can do better…I’ll lend you some land for free for a month and you can show me what you can do and demonstrate just how easy it is.
Martin Squeegee can be found in his office in Reignier or building his new one in Mun Saari.
Lexapro.
Jun 13th, 2009
Lexapro.
Lexapro. Lexapro withdrawal.