Boxed In: A Nation of Landlords

by prokofy on 12/07/07 at 11:40 pm

Crowne_001

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?

Bling 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.”

71 Responses to “Boxed In: A Nation of Landlords”

  1. Peter Stindberg

    Jul 13th, 2007

    I never understood why anyone would like to have virtual real estate? I’m not even a premium member. I’m one of those who go to SL for fun and who are happy when the game pays for itself. For certain situations I need an office, and I rented a beautiful penthouse with a great view for 50L$/week. It only comes with 50 prims, but for an office that’s enough.

    Good article. I know you don’t care but you made up a lot with this article from the bad impression I had of you since you accused me of being a griefer several weeks ago.

  2. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Most people want more than 50 prims in an apartment, it’s simply not enough. Most people can really only use an apartment for a storage/meeting place because there’s no privacy with conversations carrying 20 m2 and no dedicated media access.

    Most people don’t belong to a raft of RP groups with sims that have shooting games or scenes that they can go perch at while somebody else pays the tier. If you were “accused of griefing” maybe you were shooting or doing something that was griefing *shrugs*.

  3. Zal Chevalier

    Jul 13th, 2007

    An interesting article. I have been speaking to quite a few people who wander through my mainland residential sims, some of which are new(ish). The general concern is ‘why is SL so empty of people’, presumably its straight maths of land mass versus population.

    Ad-farmers vs land barons… (i think i am an evil land baron) so this might be biased. The ugly spinning cubes which purport to be a business model. How many of them actually ever sell the advertising space? Whats the sales ratio of pitches with paid advertising on them vs the ratio of ‘associate free click through id banners’. At 1000 / 16 sqm i assume the business model is land extortion from nearby people who dont want to look at it. When will ad farmers go bust?

    Recession always happens in economies that keep printing their own currency. Amount of land for sale = high, activity declining, land(cash) still being printed. Recession is for sure.

    Also with WSE, so many land/rental owners floated, how many sims can they hold as stock now? 400? 500? When will that bubble burst?

  4. Kahni Poitier

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Prok, finally an article that I’ll stand up and applaud. Well done.

    And 50 prims?

    My god, I’ve only got 14 left in my house, and I’ve got over 900 to work with there.

    I’d go insane with 50

  5. Ian Betteridge

    Jul 13th, 2007

    An interesting essay, Prokofy, and one which deserves more thought-time than I can give it now. Thank you.

    One thought though: I’m not sure that your view of land as “the engine of the economy” stands up. Most money for land rental comes in as US dollars and quickly goes out the same way – it doesn’t circulate much. Most land barons, as you point out, don’t make much in the way of profits (and probably spend even less than that in world). Doesn’t that mean that, in terms of the SL economy, transactions associated with land have little effect?

  6. Nacon

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Good god… enough with your whinning bullshit, Prok.

    You’re just farting out of your mouth because you’re STILL unable to do any great job as a land baron.
    It’s not destorying anything but merely making it harder or maybe too different but it’s not impossible, I don’t care how much more bullshit estate has become just because you don’t know what you were doing in the first place nor how to actually make any income with any estates.

    Try doing a good job, but you’re still an idiot.

  7. shockwave yareach

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Are you claiming that I should weep for poor Anshe Chung, who owns more land, made more (real) money, and has more employees than I shall ever have, real or virtual?

    Economies have cycles. We are just in a downturn right now. But I’ve more sympathy for the lady who has a clothing store and can’t make her tier payment than I have for a millionaire in China.

  8. SLaddict

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Everybody sing it! “THIS LAND IS NOT YOUR LAND… THIS LAND LINDEN LAND… IN CALIFORNIA…” rotfl Prok

    “I marvel at how many women especially are willing to go into this business and not make tier… 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…”

    OMG that’s me. lol. I figure i’d pay more to the evil cable company if sat around watching soaps via “push media”. Tho sadly i thought cable/telephone companies has terrible customer service only to find that you can’t get LL on the phone unless you have trouble paying them.

    When was the last time you went into a membership-based social space like a gym for example, and the owner said “We can’t fix all the damn equipment. So if you fall on your arse cuz the treadmill went wacky, but we can commit to making ‘progress’ cuz Second Gym is sooo, well ‘you-driven’ so come to our triage meeting if your arse hurts.” ROFTL not. LL should stop using the blog as there own personal sounding board. It’s abusive and pathetic.

  9. Nicholaz Beresford

    Jul 13th, 2007

    I’m entirely not into land (second or first or real for that matter), but one thing I was wondering about four weeks ago was the way Linden Labs ignored those payment/credit card problems.

    I mean, if I had rented and wasn’t able to push in money (I’m just converting real to second dollars as I need them) I’d been out of my house pretty quickly. And I wasn’t able to convert any cash for about two weeks with nothing on the Linden blog and support requests ignored.

    Basically I think that was a huge money drain on the economy. The receivers (shop owners, landlords) were still able to cash out, but no new money coming in. And unlike the real economy, in SL you can survive just nicely without money and even without a house.

  10. Obscure Doodad

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Possible typo or mistyped?

    “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).”

    I may not have understood this — and I have never been 100% clear on Meta Linden’s text below that explains PMLF — but it suggests the numbers in question above are BEFORE TIER, not after tier.

    “PMLF (Positive Monthly Linden Flow) looks at the flow of Linden Dollars into a unique user’s account BEFORE Linden Lab Charges are applied to the account. These numbers EXCLUDE payments or receipts related to the sale or acquisition of land (since theoretically these represent investments and not business receipts). ”

    This has always astonished me. If we believe LL has 80K premiums, then Meta’s data sheet says only 1/2 of them — who have GUARANTEED STIPEND INCOME — manage to get positive linden flow . . . because she clearly says all of her data is BEFORE LL extracts charges (like Premium monthly payment).

    Per the article in general, only 40ishK residents in Meta’s data have positive monthly linden flow — pre tier, pre payments to LL of whatever kind. And pre the impact of eliminating about 50% of residents who will refuse to age verify and thus be excluded from adult sims selling whatever.

    LL has some significant problems to solve or as soon as the now somewhat overdue RL global recession arrives, they will be a casualty.

  11. Khamon

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Are you thinking that we’re close to a point that there *won’t* be somebody else to buy the land?

  12. Onder Skall

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Genius Prok, I’m writing it up for Metaversed.com now.

  13. Alyx Stoklitsky

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Nice to see you writing something that’s not a load of bull for once.

  14. tp

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Lindens got smart after people started flipping alts for first land accounts then basically buying up an entire sim from the neighbors dirt cheap.

  15. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Obscure, yes, Meta Lindens’ figures are definitely BEFORE tier; that’s why I look at them — and merely eyeball them but not crunch them — and I make a wager that AFTER tier, the average business doing well then makes only some $3000 US per year or something AFTER tier is paid up — tier is a huge expense for land businesses.

    That’s exactly my point — take her numbers, and once you subtract the tier, you have half or less businesses making a profit in the real-world sense — but it’s hard to know because this chart doesn’t show you how many of the businesses are land-related, and how much land so as to calculate how much tier. I wish they’d be honest about that. They probably can’t be without it looking bad.

    The idea that 50 percent of residents will leave when asked to age verify isn’t backed up by any data whatsoever except 50 percent more forums ranting by the 2 percent forums posters. I don’t buy it. I don’t because I’ve done sample polls on the subject myself, and I see a large percentage of people saying either they will verify, or they won’t check off their land as adult and will ignore the call to verify. This issue is largely generated by forums hysteria and the hard left. Once the Lindens put in some reasonably secure ID verifier and possibly add a European company that can deal with Europeans who have in my view excessive concerns about this to assuage their fears, they will set it in motion.

    People are used to providing the last four digits of their Social Security number, telephone numbers, and more to get software or credit cards or other services on the Internet.

    Khamon, if the history of MLMs are true, then the redistributed product saturates the market and then the new distributors expect less returns.

    People go into islands, run the current numbers of say, $50 US per unit x 16 x 30 x 12 and say wow, I can make US $288,000 so even after I subtract 30 x $1695 or $50,896 for my initial investment of 30 islands and pay $295 x 30 x 12 in tier annually or $106,200, I’ll make $130,904 per year even if I just rent (and I see that’s how some of the new island kingdoms are working it, making really nice rentals for $50 US per 4096 per month).

    Yet all you have to do is inject reality on the grid to these figures to watch them diminish. Let’s say you can’t charge $50 US because you don’t have builders to pay thousands of US dollars to landscape and build to get that; or there is so much competition you can only get away with $30 per unit because people won’t pay more than what they could pay Lindens on the mainland if they bought their own land, which is $25 US per month. Then it rapidly diminishes to an income of $15,704 per year. Or add up 60 percent occupancy rate to the better figures, and wind up in the hole, -$13,096. The plummet is very rapid, with the least bit of failure on occupancy. Island owners, especially the larger ones, like to brag they have 80 or 95 percent occupany. Upon close observation, I see how they do this: extending out the MLM. They get a set of reseller agents to buy and pay for their tier on a steady basis. Then they let *those* resellers struggle to sell the land — and let them eat the 60 percent occupancy rate.

    The landlord business contains the fiercest people in the universe: amateurs who have taken on doing a professional business, hobbyists who are trying to prove they are small businessmen. They will explain away these numbers by saying that someone doesn’t know how to manage an estate and they pride themselves on knowing better, but not saying. The fact is, they are racked by doubts and insecurities and have the same vacancy rate as everybody else.

    Of course, selling the first round of parcels — and even getting to resell those who default on tier, which is a goodly percent — makes the numbers work far better, if you can then eliminate that $50,896 initial investment figure rapidly — but then you can see how the temptation to grab people’s land and resell it is enormous, and why this is getting to be a more common sort of fraud.

    shockwave, this article isn’t about Anshe Chung, and you even stereotype her. She and her husband worked their way up to get the empire they have, used a lot of swift and savvy methods to make good, and hold a lot of their earnings in land they can’t liquidate without devaluing it — so sure, ultimately I think you *can* weep even for Anshe Chung, but the fact is, she owns some 550 islands — and then there’s everybody else who owns the rest of the some 8300 islands (or is it 11,000? we keep hearing the Lindens differ on this). And many of those other owners are landlords to one extent or another, and their math is poor, and yet they stay in this business.

    Ian, the land business is the engine of the Lindens’ economy, that’s for sure. And it is definitely the engine of the inworld economy for these reasons:

    o landlords’ willingness to work only for tier, or below tier, and work very long unpaid hours
    o willingness to create the space and hold the space (even at half occupancy) where everybody else displays content for sale, socializes, runs other businesses or non-profits
    o often keeps Lindens out of circulation a month or more to accumulate enough to pay tier or to watch for better rates on the LinDex
    o on the contrary, landlords generate enormous amounts of other transactions: they buy houses, furniture and services of other people (security and door scripters, rentals agents, etc)
    o landlords supply a huge category of jobs in the economy — from greeters and bouncers to sales clerks and rentals agents
    o landlords are among the chief buyers of endusers’ land

    There’s a prejudice operating here that says landlords are all quick-sale cashout artists. While that’s undoubtedly the case for some who keep cashing out in part to be able merely to buy MORE on the auction with US dollars (!), most landlords *renting* not buying and selling land in fact keep Lindens inworld for longer periods and also spend significant amounts on their businesses.

    Nicholaz, I think the cash problems for credit card and billing issues and problems buying directly from inworld are huge, not being acknowledged, and perhaps don’t matter as much to the Lindens if ultimately their goal is to have large corporations buy a lot of islands and take on the entertainment, care and feeding of other people. Your notion that you don’t need land or a house to have fun is common to a small portion of people in SL but it’s not common to the majority. Most people need at least some space to put out a decent-size house, decorate it, and socialize in it.

    If I knew more about what makes for MUDflation, or MMORPG stagnation, which all the books about games and worlds in the past and present talk about, I’d be able to see whether the pattern in SL fits that pattern of currency devaluation and economic stagnation or staglation. But I think we’d be distracted looking at MUDflation — the pattern to look for lies in Amway and other MLMs.

  16. Khamon

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Okay well, you know, you’re breaking Jarod Godel’s second rule of Second Life which states “Don’t tell anybody it’s a scam.”

    His first rule of course is “Don’t tell anybody it’s a scam.”

  17. Curious Rousselot

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Prok,

    When you can write an article without insulting others, I’ll start to take you seriously.

    It’s really disappointing that you can’t avoid the insults. I’m sure that your experience and insight would be much more respected if you avoided insulting others.

  18. Anonymous

    Jul 13th, 2007

    >Prok,
    When you can write an article without insulting others, I’ll start to take you seriously.
    It’s really disappointing that you can’t avoid the insults. I’m sure that your experience and insight would be much more respected if you avoided insulting others

    Curious, next time you write an article on the economy you might 1) research it a bit more and talk to people about whom you are making assumptions or just read some back issues of the Herald; 2) don’t make gleeful statements like you made about “the winners of Second Life” and the losing landlords. When you do that, you incite hatred. Expect consequences; expect people to call you on it; expect people to *report it* and *criticize it*. That’s not being “insulting”; that’s calling you on a hateful statement.

    Here’s the essence of what you wrote — flippantly, and gleefully, rubbing it in with the usual undertone of “Unlike those other greedy people or fools who are in it for the commerce, I’m just here to have fun, and boy am I glad that I get to stick it to those greedy bastards now because finally I can get cheap land to do my thing which is the authentic thing of SL and they are inauthentic and too bad for them”.

    Your text:

    “Those of us, like myself, that are in Second Life for the fun of it are going to get the opportunity to win and win big. When the land barons can’t cover tier because rents are too high and enough people move out, they are going to sell. If they all sell, the land market is going to crash. We get cheap land. We’ll pick a small plot and setup our hobby house or store. Maybe we even see First Land come back just so Linden Lab isn’t stuck with all that abandoned land.”

    My comment:

    Sigh. I always have to wonder why the Herald is publishing this kind of brainless incitement of class warfare by airheaded shoppers.

    Curious, do you realize that these “landbarons” you hate are just dumb girls like you? The lion’s share of them. The ones actually on the mainland, buying at the auctions or from the handful of actual landbarons. Just girls who want to rent out some land, make a dollar or two to go shopping? They are not in it for some big cashout;

    Because it *is* brainless incitement; because you’re celebrating “girls who just want to have fun” and juxtaposing them with people having businesses — and frankly that *is* airheaded. And dumb. And witless not to realize that the other people doing this “landbaroning” are just essentially like you — there’s here to have fun, they just pay for more of their fun with a rentals than you do, maybe they’re not as rich as you are. That’s a huge percentage of the non-Anshe “landlords”.

    Don’t like being called “dumb” and “airhead” and “a girl”? Then don’t write statements like you wrote, inciting hatred, and taking great glee in the crash of the land market. Don’t imagine this is some socialist paradise dream; it isn’t. It can’t be. First Land led to crime, like all socialism does. It was gamed; it was corrupt. People farmed it and intimidated and extorted others with it. It was like all social welfare projects that don’t have a built-in way to end dependency; it only led to more and more and more dependency and crime. It’s a textbook case, in accelerated fashion, of what people spend years trying to illlustrate in real life.

  19. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 13th, 2007

    >Nice to see you writing something that’s not a load of bull for once.

    Alyx, you’re a 20-year-old asshole griefer; I’m a 51-year-old accomplished writer, among other things. Shut the fuck up. You cannot control me by needling little posts like this, imagining that you can behaviourally modify me by left-handedly praising me for certain articles, and claiming my other articles exposing your little kiddy griefing groups are “all bull”. They’re not. Expect to be hit hard, over and over again, when you do this.

    Those of you who don’t like me to bite on the bait in the comments, and don’t like to see me hitting back hard, can do one of two things:

    o ignore the baiting and biting
    o defend me, or at least defend the principles involved.

    If you are not prepared to do either, I can’t help you.

  20. Ananda

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Interesting article, if in a self-serving way.

    However, I don’t think land barons can rightfully be called the “engines of the SL economy”. You are merely the players of Linden Lab’s artificial feudalistic game of Monopoly. You are the symbiotic bacteria that helpfully finish the digestion of the overly large chunks of resources that Linden Lab dumps into the system as a part of THEIR engine of the economy. I would not vilify you or accuse you of evil intentions simply for taking advantage of the conditions created. Like all such bacteria you are simply filling a niche in pursuit of your own survival interests. Nor will I sympathize if those conditions aren’t always to your liking.

    No, I have always vilified Linden Lab for creating an artificially skewed system, where the unit of commidity – the sim – is too large and expensive for the average player to pay for. It is this factor that makes land barons necessary. I look forward to the day when Linden Lab ends their monopoly on virtual space and everyone who wants a private building space of their own can do so, and can work with real market forces in determining the cost of their hosting and bandwidth.

    Only at that point will we have a real “economy”.

  21. SqueezeOne Pow

    Jul 13th, 2007

    I think everyone realizes it’s stupid to rent from these generic-ass gated “communities”. From what I’ve gathered places like the Wastelands, Caledon, Norsim, Median City and other thematic/RP sims with living space are doing well and have plenty of people living there. They seem to keep adding sims!

    Maybe if these rental owners gave people a reason to live somewhere other than the chance to pretend they’re in Malibu then they’d have more customers. Build an imaginative space port and hire a scripter to set up a zero-gravity system there! I’d live there and I already own land!

    And what’s wrong with just wanting to have the game pay for itself? Some of us have real jobs that give us our RL income. Not everyone wants to “work” in a video game because it makes the experience more of a chore and less enjoyable. We have RL for that!

    And yes, it’s a video game to the more sane people out there. Fortunately I’m not one of them.

  22. Obscure Doodad

    Jul 13th, 2007

    “The idea that 50 percent of residents will leave when asked to age verify isn’t backed up by any data whatsoever except 50 percent more forums ranting by the 2 percent forums posters.”

    We’re not on the same page on this at all. They don’t have to leave. They just choose the rational course of not submitting themselves to a pervert database that has such potential of damaging their RL lives in the future. It is a zero effort choice to make, to not verify, and eliminate that risk. Do not verify, and you do not wind up in the pervert database.

    But you also are cut out of adult sims, and the owners of those sims do not get sales revenue from you. As for whether or not 50% will refuse to verify, one does hope at least 50% are rational human beings that can do the math of zero risk vs substantial risk. And as for whether or not that 50% will have lindens burning a hole in their pocket and demanding to be spent, maybe they will be — outside the adult sims.

    In which case the non adult sim owners make some more money. But LL only gets the same tier from them they always did. And less or no tier from the adult sims as those sim owners choose not to fund it out of RL pocket.

    But we are in agreement that Meta’s data is at least worth looking at. It is a tad surprising LL allows it to be published. They have nothing to gain by doing so, and they pay her salary to spend her time doing so. Looks like a loss center to me.

  23. Brent Recreant

    Jul 13th, 2007

    “51-year-old accomplished writer” – Why don’t you work for a real paper where you would get paid a REAL salary? I laugh at that.

    “When you can write an article without insulting others, I’ll start to take you seriously.’ -True

    “It’s really disappointing that you can’t avoid the insults. I’m sure that your experience and insight would be much more respected if you avoided insulting others.” -True Again

  24. O.o

    Jul 13th, 2007

    “If you were “accused of griefing” maybe you were shooting or doing something that was griefing *shrugs*.”

    Or he just belonged to any group that you titled as griefer groups, Prok.

    “Alyx, you’re a 20-year-old asshole griefer; I’m a 51-year-old accomplished writer, among other things. Shut the fuck up.”

    Ever wonder WHY people take offence to your articles and replies beneath? You say you’re 51, but you sound like a twelve year old who cannot get their way. Calling names is something kids do. And now I will have to stoop down to your level to get my point across. Brace yourself, Prok.

    You insult people at the drop of a hat, you have crazy theories about whole conspiracies against your person, you slander and throw dirt without showing ANY kind of proof whatsoever.

    In short, you’re the biggest bitch I have ever met, or heard about/from on the entire planet. and that says alot, if you know my sister and grandma. It says A FUCKING LOT.

    Maybe, just maybe, if you tried to keep your insults to yourself, get that nose out of the air with that “I know everything and YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING” attitude that is simply OOZING out of every single post that you make, maybe if you just open up to the possibility of the notion that you might be, possibly, supposedly be wrong about something, and let that shine trough, maybe if you can refrain from calling names and accusing people without one single shard of actual proof from the most horrific of crimes, in short, if you could get your FUCKING HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS FOR ONE SECOND you would see that people would be open to what you say, stop griefing your ass continuously and stop calling you a crazy cat lady.
    It’s all because of how you write, not what you write or even what you do. And, calling someone griefers because of belonging to a certain group is the stupidest thing I EVER heard. Ask Intlibber, he can explain to you exactly why. It’s even more stupid then calling me everything you can imagine just because I’m part of SC. Which you know very well what you have called on many many occaisions without knowing even who I am, let alone having read anything I ever posted. I’m SC, so I’m bad. Someone likes manga artwork from 4chan, so that someone MUST BE
    a griefer.
    Tell you what; I’m a 4 and 7 chan regular. By your theory, I must be a griefer. AND I’M A FUCKING FURRY. I have suffered griefing more times then you can even begin to imagine.

    You say you are a Christian. I haven’t seen a SINGLE POST by you that is not showing how much hate you have for just about everything concerning SL…

    My God preaches the opposite: love.

    And yes I know, with this particular post I haven’t shown very much of that, but noone is perfect. God knows I have tried to be nice to you in earlier comments on your posts, but never gotten a positive, friendly answer, if any at all. Just wanted to get this off my chest.

    God be with you.
    Positive thoughts, lady. Positive.

    PS; if the editor doesn’t let this post appear as comment on this page, I understand completely… Just do me a favour and let Prok read it. -.-

    (this has been a very angry post. I will return to my normally cheerful nature now, it has helped greatly. Thank you for your attention.)

  25. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Re: “Why don’t you work for a real paper where you would get paid a REAL salary? I laugh at that.”

    I do? I’m a published writer. I work for real publications and have for years. Sorry to disappoint you on your gotcha goof.

    So, Brent, and what are you? and what have you accomplished?

  26. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 13th, 2007

    >Tell you what; I’m a 4 and 7 chan regular.

    Says it all! Thanks for sharing!

  27. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 13th, 2007

    >They just choose the rational course of not submitting themselves to a pervert database that has such potential of damaging their RL lives in the future. It is a zero effort choice to make, to not verify, and eliminate that risk. Do not verify, and you do not wind up in the pervert database.

    You’re calling it “the pervert database”. Yet millions of Americans submit their credit card information and extra personal info to porn sites to download porn movies, or rent porn movies in hotels or at video stores using credit cards, and they don’t believe they’ve joined a “perv list”. There are no cases where the government has used these lists to harass people or monitor them; if there is a belief that a lawyer in a divorce proceeding, say, could try to get a warrant to get these records, how would they be able to do it?

    I’d like to see a really demonstrable case of a government or a lawyer or judge successfully somehow exposing or gaining access to the records of a verification company. The much-ballyhooed case cited by the Wired reporters 3 years ago remains murky to me.

  28. DaveOner

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Wait…Prok says she’s a Christian??? Wow I’d keep quiet about that if I had the reputation she does! Jesus doesn’t need the bad publicity!! It does explain why so many people don’t go to church these days, though…

    As far as the article…Land Barons are what’s holding SL back imo. I wouldn’t be surprised if LL was adding so much land and adjusting things to get them out of their entrenchment and make it so everyone can get land at reasonable prices again…especially since the dissappearance of first land because of how easy it was to game.

    If land was cheaper then there would be more of a reason to get a premium account which means more money for everyone…except the bacteria (as Ananda so beautifully put it).

    Maybe LL has the rubber gloves on and is looking to scrub behind the toilet a little!

  29. DaveOner

    Jul 13th, 2007

    “PS; if the editor doesn’t let this post appear as comment on this page, I understand completely… Just do me a favour and let Prok read it. -.-”

    Don’t worry…their editor doesn’t actually “edit” anything. If (s)he did then all of Prok’s (and many of the other) articles would be filed as “Op/Ed” since so many of them are just opinions with facts and figures presented in a way to serve the “writer’s” purpose.

  30. Curious Rousselot

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Prok, you said, ‘… next time you write an article on the economy you might 1) … 2) don’t make gleeful statements like you made about “the winners of Second Life” and the losing landlords.’

    Looking back, it could be interpreted as trying to incite hatred. I was thinking it was sad that the landlords would lose but you are right, that is not how it comes across. I will work on that in the future.

    Would you be willing review the next one before it is published? Just promise to not be insulting.

    >Expect consequences; expect people to call you on it; expect people to *report it* and *criticize it*. That’s not being “insulting”; that’s calling you on a hateful statement.

    It can be insulting depending on how you write your criticism. When you use words like “dumb” and “airhead” it is more than criticism, it is also a “hateful statement”. I did expect consequences. I did expect the article to get criticized.

    If you expect me to pay attention to what you have to say and maybe even change my mind on some issues, then don’t use phrases like, “…just dumb girls like you?”

    I didn’t intentionally try to “incite hatred”. You did intentionally call *me* “dumb”. Not the article or conclusions but *me*.

    > ‘Don’t like being called “dumb” and “airhead” and “a girl”? Then don’t write statements like you wrote, …’.

    You can call me “a girl” all you want. I might even take that as a compliment. The rest was hateful. Isn’t that exactly what you are criticizing me about?

  31. Alyx Stoklitsky

    Jul 13th, 2007

    “Alyx, you’re a 20-year-old” True.

    “asshole” True.

    “griefer” False.

    “I’m a 51-year-old” True. Enjoy the few remaining decades you have before your mortal shell expires. Meanwhile, I’m still young.

    “accomplished writer” False. Why the hell would you be wasting your time here if you were an ‘accomplished writer’?

    “You cannot control me by needling little posts like this, imagining that you can behaviourally modify me by left-handedly praising me for certain articles, and claiming my other articles exposing your little kiddy griefing groups are “all bull”.” I can do this because I neither hold grudges, nor am I biased. You should try these things some time, O almighty ‘accomplished writer’.

    “Expect to be hit hard, over and over again, when you do this.” LOL. Way to go, internet tough-guy.

    “Those of you who don’t like me to bite on the bait in the comments, and don’t like to see me hitting back hard, can do one of two things” You don’t hit back, you just fuel the fire. You’re prime trolling material, Prok.

    “o ignore the baiting and biting
    o defend me, or at least defend the principles involved.” O the dramatics.

    “If you are not prepared to do either, I can’t help you.” Не верь, не бойся, не проси.

  32. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 13th, 2007

    >Looking back, it could be interpreted as trying to incite hatred. I was thinking it was sad that the landlords would lose but you are right, that is not how it comes across. I will work on that in the future.

    You weren’t sad. You were happy. Ecstatic. You wrote that. So I’m glad you’ve come to see how it comes across, and that you’ll work on it. No, I don’t wish to review your work. You’re a big girl.

    >It can be insulting depending on how you write your criticism. When you use words like “dumb” and “airhead” it is more than criticism, it is also a “hateful statement”. I did expect consequences. I did expect the article to get criticized.

    When you write with the degree of assurance and glee that you did, *expect consequences*. Everybody thinks they can just write what they want and it has no consequences? I’m here to tell you: *expect consequences*.

    >If you expect me to pay attention to what you have to say and maybe even change my mind on some issues, then don’t use phrases like, “…just dumb girls like you?”

    I’m afraid that the level of your knowledge on display in these pieces just doesn’t invite respect. And your facile hatres and jealousies on display don’t either. I feel sometimes it’s best, when you have someone putting over such a fait accompli as you do, to call names — that helps clarify what has been done. You may not wish to pay attention but…you did, didn’t you?

    >I didn’t intentionally try to “incite hatred”. You did intentionally call *me* “dumb”. Not the article or conclusions but *me*.

    But..you are dumb when you write tripe like that? Expect some backlash. It’s not acceptable. The only way it’s going to stop is when the people being stereotyped can fight back hard enough and loud enough and persistently enough.

    Like invites like. Don’t expect otherwise.

  33. wootz

    Jul 13th, 2007

    Who, special olympics win!

    You wanna have a well populated sim, don’t rape everyone price wise. These 44,000 L$ lots of 3000 meters are rediculous.
    Go find a private sim that charges ya 1500 or so a month for 1024. No premium account required.
    And less fucking lag.

  34. Levi Anansi

    Jul 13th, 2007

    It’s funny prokofy. 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. I don’t get it…You say like invites like, but those of us who walk in mid-statement think it’s mostly bunk. Try focusing on the message for once without feeding the trolls.

  35. Myrrh Massiel

    Jul 14th, 2007

    …i’d be glad to see the middlemen go – their blight and burden on the economy only weighs down the creative classes, the consumer classes, those in the business of *living*…

    …value-added developers are one thing, but the folks expecting something for nothing and bloating the machinery of civilisation – good riddance…

  36. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 14th, 2007

    >The former is productive, yet the latter is sophomoric. I don’t get it…You say like invites like, but those of us who walk in mid-statement think it’s mostly bunk. Try focusing on the message for once without feeding the trolls.

    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.

  37. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 14th, 2007

    >…i’d be glad to see the middlemen go – their blight and burden on the economy only weighs down the creative classes, the consumer classes, those in the business of *living*…
    >…value-added developers are one thing, but the folks expecting something for nothing and bloating the machinery of civilisation – good riddance…

    Yes, more evidence of the class warfare and hatred and sheer empty-headedness that the Herald helps spawn in articles like Curious’.

    Um, I’ve just finished explaining that in fact these middlemen you loathe so much are actually women like yourself. In fact, often, they’re possibly just a little more poor, and a little less educated, and I’ll bet this — a little more ethnic or black or Hispanic. I often think that if we could take the top off Second Life and look down, we’d see how many minorities are running the rentals, clubs, malls, and people who seethe with hatred against them might be embarassed to find out that class, and race, and taste were about their hatred — not anything real. I’m absolutely convinced of this.

    And whatever their race or background, the point is, people taking on the hateful, thankless task of keeping the land market liquid are hard-working; they work very long hours; their margins suck; if they’re on the mainland, they’re insane. None of them make anything near what a content creator makes. Just as some of them who left flipping and went into weapons or lighting sales. Far more lucrative.

    The idea that people working to buy on auctions, cut up land, sell it and keep the tier until you’re ready to buy prim land are somehow “not living” is one of the deep fallacies of SL. It’s deeply fucked.

    This horrid notion that I hold Philip Rosedale *personally* responsible for perpetrating — that of the “value-add developer=good/arbitrage/flipper=bad — is one of the deep shames of Second Life. *He* makes his money off flippers buying on *his* auction. YOUR customers and friends and fellow SL residents buy this cut-up land that somebody goes to the trouble to retail for Philip Rosedale.

    There is no “blight” or “burden” that comes from middlemen; they make SL thrive. On the other hand, there’s way too many content creators and sailboats, eh?

  38. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 14th, 2007

    You are the symbiotic bacteria that helpfully finish the digestion of the overly large chunks of resources that Linden Lab dumps into the system as a part of THEIR engine of the economy. I would not vilify you or accuse you of evil intentions simply for taking advantage of the conditions created. Like all such bacteria you are simply filling a niche in pursuit of your own survival interests. Nor will I sympathize if those conditions aren’t always to your liking.

    Ananda, it’s this kind of chilling, evil tekkie arrogance that really make Second Life the spiteful, awful place that it is.

    This sort of haughty attitude could never prevail in real life, where retailers and “bacteria” make democratic and liberal markets thrive.

    No doubt you’d enjoy living in the market-sanitized Soviet Union with Bread Store No. 1024 to queue up at.

    As I don’t flip land, I can make a claim to fit into the more sanitized ranks of “developers” and escape the harsh wrath of the technofascists and creater-fascists who perpetrate this class warfare.

    However, I see no reason to take such a corporativist view. Land flippers are important. If they are bad at what they do, the market and the harsh conditions weed them out. The ones with could reputations have all kinds of value add. Most of them combine multiple activities in SL, whether newbie freebies or help or clubs or whatever — they make SL thrive.

    The SL system is artificial, but that’s because it’s not a system set in motion by dispassionate forces that can truly balance supply and demand.

    It’s an artificial system set in motion by hands that are greedy to feed themselves and have to keep land glutting. That’s the tragedy of Second Life; it sets up the whole paradigm of the tragedy.

  39. Io Zeno

    Jul 14th, 2007

    “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.”

    lol, I wish.

    You seem to assume that the slump in the SL economy only effects the poor, downtrodden, land owning class.

    Anyone who has two thousand US dollars to throw away on a gamble of playing pretend land baron in Second Life is hardly someone I am going to weep over and I couldn’t care less what their gender or race is. If they couldn’t afford to lose that money, they shouldn’t have invested it in virtual “land”. It’s a gamble and mostly a losing one.

    Land, aka server space, in SL is overpriced, way overpriced and the tier is absurd.

    LL doesn’t care about the mainland, it’s nothing but a revenue generator for them, for people who can’t afford an island. I think it’s a scam, myself. For those just looking for their little dream plot they will find themselves surrounded by blight and spinning 16×16 plots which LL refuses to do anything about. Unless they try to buy up the whole sim. And for the same amount of money they could be renting a lovely private estate, without the anxiety of the neighborhood going down the tubes and the fear that they won’t break even when they have to sell during a “slump” or after LL has opened a ton of new sims for sale.

    Anshe got into the game when it was new, it would be hard to build an empire like hers now without thousands and thousands of dollars in initial investment. That is who owns the game now, people with enough money to buy a number of islands and make them extremely attractive to renters, and keep their prices lower than LL charges for tier.

  40. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 14th, 2007

    Io, I know where you’re coming from — Second Citizen.

    >You seem to assume that the slump in the SL economy only effects the poor, downtrodden, land owning class.

    Not at all. I made it clear in this article that sales for everyone were down — and all the other articles in the Herald make that clear. We all realize that.

    >Anyone who has two thousand US dollars to throw away on a gamble of playing pretend land baron in Second Life is hardly someone I am going to weep over and I couldn’t care less what their gender or race is. If they couldn’t afford to lose that money, they shouldn’t have invested it in virtual “land”. It’s a gamble and mostly a losing one.

    I think that’s utter bullshit. I don’t “throw away $2000 dollars,” I *earn it by working*. It’s damn hard work. I run a business where this fee is *paid for*. So it’s hardly like blowing it at a casino, something I’d never do. You’re yet another class hatred inciter, part of the content-creation class hating on land barons and imagining it’s some “gamble” with no work involved.

    Content creators work hard too — even harder, some of them, like dogs. But it’s also the case that you can put out a US $45 bed and have it sell like hotcakes and rack up a fortune while you go do other things. Landlords don’t have that luxury.

    >Land, aka server space, in SL is overpriced, way overpriced and the tier is absurd.

    Tell it to the Lindens *shrugs*.

    >LL doesn’t care about the mainland, it’s nothing but a revenue generator for them, for people who can’t afford an island. I think it’s a scam, myself. For those just looking for their little dream plot they will find themselves surrounded by blight and spinning 16×16 plots which LL refuses to do anything about. Unless they try to buy up the whole sim.

    I think a lot of us in the rentals business work hard to keep the blight away, even buying up some of this junk at times. But the 16 m2 scourge is indeed a problem.

    >And for the same amount of money they could be renting a lovely private estate, without the anxiety of the neighborhood going down the tubes and the fear that they won’t break even when they have to sell during a “slump” or after LL has opened a ton of new sims for sale.

    Rental sims don’t go down the tubes. Once someone like me or many of the new agents you see springing up take on a sim, they zone it and keep it good-looking. I’ve “bought the view” more times than I care to remember. Despite the idea that island life is better, people are still buying mainland by the bunches — and it’s generally looking better.

    To be sure, as my article explains, there’s a basic underlying racket here, rooted in the conflict of interest between LL needing to sell land for its revenue and the land barons needing land not to be so heavily glutted that it makes no sense for them to be in business. It’s a balance – and not one LL always bothers to keep for arcane reasons.

    Island life is more expensive. With $295 tiers to pay now, people simply have to charge more — and the best sims now have $50 lots, not $25. Sure you can find an IHOP franchise somewhere, but it’s actually likely to acquire as much blight as mainland. I’ve found some of these sims to be as bad as mainland in terms of junk in the air, red lines, ugly builds.

    >Anshe got into the game when it was new, it would be hard to build an empire like hers now without thousands and thousands of dollars in initial investment. That is who owns the game now, people with enough money to buy a number of islands and make them extremely attractive to renters, and keep their prices lower than LL charges for tier.

    Anshe built up her empire over time; other people are doing the same thing, especially from Germany, Japan, and Brasil.

  41. Io Zeno

    Jul 14th, 2007

    Prok, I only know of a single person who can charge $45 dollars for a bed. The average “content maker” in SL makes enough to cover their tier and some spending money, only the top 5-10% at best make any more.

    Buying land in SL costs money, was my point and anyone who has the two grand or so to “play” with in a virtual world, is hardly the poor ethnic female trying to make a buck that you portray them as. (tell it to the girls working the strip poles for tips).

    It is a gamble. Hell, even the best thought out business plan in RL is a gamble and the majority of entrepreneurs fail. This is nothing compared to that.

    Anshe started out with a small plot on the mainland, try to build an empire with that now.

    I have no issue with land owners who try to make the mainland livable but they are rare and the mainland cannot compete with the private islands anymore. I can pay cheaper rent for more prims in a lower lag, nicer environment on an island.

    That is obviously what LL wants. It is only because people still buy into the idea that mainland isn’t some gamble, that owning it means anything anymore, that they continue to build it and rake in the cash.

    And lets not forget that small plots are a thing of the past, from LL, anymore. They sell to other people to rent. They ensure a middleman. Is that something that is fair to the average user? I think that depends on your business in SL. The turnover rate on the mainland is dizzying for a reason. As soon as people can get out or try buy up the whole sim, they do. I think it’s sad because there should be a place for small land owners in SL but that is vanishing.

  42. Alyx Stoklitsky

    Jul 14th, 2007

    >> “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”

    Oh dear god, Prok. When will you learn? The whole POINT in trolling is to get people to react the way you do!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28internet%29

    Read it and learn why all the trolling groups go straight for you.

  43. O.o

    Jul 14th, 2007

    >>Tell you what; I’m a 4 and 7 chan regular.

    >Says it all! Thanks for sharing!

    Yes, it says a LOT about you and what you know, you just showing it with that comment…

    Not only hatefulled, a bitch, but also a prejudiced and bigoted, and clearly not in posession of any reading comprehension, if you think that makes me a griefer. I’m as much a griefer as you or Robin Linden. You missed the part where I continued to eexplain that not everyone visiting a few message boards in search of anime porn and cute captioned kitten images is a griefer, presenting my own case.

    I visit those image boards and I get griefed by the PN more often then you ever did.

    I’m calling you on your “Everyone from the chans is a griefer” bullshit, and I even want to go as far as to compare it with the notion that every single Texan is an oil grabbing, white trash KKK member.

    FUCK YES there are griefersb there, as well as there are members of the KKK living in Texas. And you are a fucking bigoted old hag. May you get griefed a LOT more. I’m sure as hell happy with the distraction from our venue you provide us with. A little breating time is welcomed by all my furry friends.

    I’m just sorry to hear you have kids. The world could do without the likes of you breeding.

    (and if you’re curious: I never listen to what others say about people: I formed my opinion about you completely based on what I read that you wrote and nothing else.)

  44. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 14th, 2007

    Prok, I only know of a single person who can charge $45 dollars for a bed. The average “content maker” in SL makes enough to cover their tier and some spending money, only the top 5-10% at best make any more.

    So? The point I’m making isn’t about percentages; it’s about how a top-ten or even top 50 can make something, and put it out inworld in a vendor, and not have to worry about labour and tier *further*. That’s the whole beauty of SL content-creation — you can make up a portfolio of stuff, and even if you never make another thing, you can rest on your laurels and keep selling that stuff until the heat-death of the sun. Now, to be sure, the best and most popular try to keep coming out with new things. But everybody knows about weapons-dealers and vehicle-makers and pre-fab makers who no longer have to make a single thing or can go for long stretches without having to stir their mouse-clicking fingers. It’s easy, once the initial learning curve and labour of creation is crossed, and the item is made.

    Land dealers cannot afford to do any such thing. If people think they can just cut up a sim and leave it out to sell in the sun and go on their yacht, they’ve never tried to sell land. It needs constant hustling, angling, advertising, holding hands of potential buyers, etc.

    >Buying land in SL costs money, was my point and anyone who has the two grand or so to “play” with in a virtual world, is hardly the poor ethnic female trying to make a buck that you portray them as. (tell it to the girls working the strip poles for tips).

    That’s absolutely UNTRUE. YOu just don’t get out much! Fly around the goddamn grid as I do all day instead of perching and sniping on Second Citizen.

    I see sim after sim owned by females or couples, parts or wholes, with rental businesses where people pay $75 tier a month — not $2000. The girls working for tips are the working class, but I specifically mentioned the labouring middle class, the kind who aspire to send their kids to college and work hard, but aren’t at the lowest end of the totem pole. People running rental islands or clubs or malls have to work very long hours.

    *Fly around the goddamn grid*. Click on every single mall, club, rentals sim, fly especially around the new sims. These people are not rich. They are not paying huge tiers. Their tiers might often amount to less than the $195 per sim. Seriously, you’re completely out of touch with reality.

    People work there way up, as I did, starting with first land and with a first auction buy. And their initial purchase of a sim that is $2000 may seem like some huge expense to you, but if it is on a credit card, they may pay it off over time. They may start only by buying $50 or $100 US worth of land and working there way up. And yes indeed, it is still possible to do that. I see it all the time.

    It is a gamble. Hell, even the best thought out business plan in RL is a gamble and the majority of entrepreneurs fail. This is nothing compared to that.

    >Anshe started out with a small plot on the mainland, try to build an empire with that now.

    People are doing this *all the time*. They start with mainland; sell that; move to islands, add one island, five islands, 30 islands. Fly around and look at how people do it. Anshe, Dana, Desmond, and many more now could arguable be said to be well on their way to empire-hood beyond the 30-island point.

    >I have no issue with land owners who try to make the mainland livable but they are rare and the mainland cannot compete with the private islands anymore. I can pay cheaper rent for more prims in a lower lag, nicer environment on an island.

    The mainland does handily compete with the islands. People buy it constantly. They buy it because they want their own land. There wouldn’t be DOUBLE the size of mainland in the last year if that were the case; instead, it would be dwindling and empty and the Lindens would be thinking of pushing some sims on the edges out to sea. You’re totally wrong about this. It’s just the usual snotty, haughty attitude that people adopt to justify their own actions. Mainland indeed gets bilghted. And yet thousands of people do buy it and keep it nice and it keeps growing. Why? Because they want their own, diggable land. They do not want to be calling a landlord to turn on terraform, or not terraform at all; or change anything else on the land menu the landlord may not allow them to. They don’t wish to risk that island landlord may skip town, as a fair number do.

    >That is obviously what LL wants. It is only because people still buy into the idea that mainland isn’t some gamble, that owning it means anything anymore, that they continue to build it and rake in the cash.

    People want their own land to manage — it’s a powerful incentive. and you will continue to see that. They also want land that is more quickly resellable and dividable if they are stuck.

    >And lets not forget that small plots are a thing of the past, from LL, anymore. They sell to other people to rent. They ensure a middleman.

    Actually, another incorrect statement. Lindens still auction of a fair number of recycled parcels that are smaller, for Lindens. And they still sometimes divide up new sims. To be sure, since starting the whole-sim market in June 2005 opening at $1000, they encourage more middlemen. THEY encourage them. So suck it up. Deal with it. It’s part of your beloved Lindens’ plan to save themselves staff time and customer service.

    >Is that something that is fair to the average user? I think that depends on your business in SL. The turnover rate on the mainland is dizzying for a reason. As soon as people can get out or try buy up the whole sim, they do. I think it’s sad because there should be a place for small land owners in SL but that is vanishing.

    Of course it’s fair. Because the alternative is to have Lindens to continue to spend staff time cutting up parcels for 1024 and selling them on the auction for that amount — and they aren’t willing to do that and it doesn’t scale. Get a grip. YOU aren’t looking at the map and seeing what is required here, which is more than just keeping you and your little feted clique of content creators in cheap land for yourselves and your little girlfriends.

    There are many small land owners all over SL. Again, fly around the goddamn grid. Seriously, I should not even talk to people who never fly around, but sit on SC.

  45. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 14th, 2007

    >You missed the part where I continued to eexplain that not everyone visiting a few message boards in search of anime porn and cute captioned kitten images is a griefer, presenting my own case.
    I visit those image boards and I get griefed by the PN more often then you ever did.

    Thanks! that says it all! Case confirmed!

  46. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 14th, 2007

    >Oh dear god, Prok. When will you learn? The whole POINT in trolling is to get people to react the way you do!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28internet%29

    In fact, the very notion of “trolls” and “not feeding” them is born of a sophomoric, moronic Internet geeky culture”

  47. Alyx Stoklitsky

    Jul 14th, 2007

    >Thanks! that says it all! Case confirmed!

    lol wut?

  48. Nacon

    Jul 15th, 2007

    Prok said “Alyx, you’re a 20-year-old asshole griefer; I’m a 51-year-old accomplished writer, among other things.”

    I took my time to get my grandfather, whom is 86 years old, retired, has master degrees in writing, science, health and other bunch of crap I didn’t wanna listen to him ramble on and on and on…. and clearly look at me in the eyes and asked me “This is garbage.”

    OMG Prok…. your life must be ruined by a older person’s opinion about how much of a garbage you are.

    Guess age don’t make a big difference whatever person’s opinion might be, cause I’ll just simply say this… You’re still an idiot and that’s NO FUCKING excuse for that. A big ego don’t make you any better, Prok.

    Now he’s a bonus plus zigger for you. What Alyx actually saying that this report is much better, you took it as a insult and diss him off? You are officially retarded. You should have known how much of crap you write everyday and FOR ONCE you got a reader admits youre writing something better this time.

    ….whatever, I’ve thrown your name on a “R” list. (short for retards)

  49. Coincidental Avatar

    Jul 15th, 2007

    I have started to calculate does it make sense for LL to close the “creative” part of the economy.

    Since Bragg has been whipping their ass, they haven’t liked the landlord business either. And they feel terrible envy to Anshe Chung, who is better in business than they are. Intblubber is a slime ball and Prokofy is a military class grandma. The greed must be a great motivator in LL and those people must really hate their jobs.

    “a millionaire in China”

    In Germany.

    “But we are in agreement that Meta’s data is at least worth looking at. It is a tad surprising LL allows it to be published. They have nothing to gain by doing so, and they pay her salary to spend her time doing so. Looks like a loss center to me.”

    Well, LL started to publish the data a couple of months ago when LL was sure that speedway to the stars is open and direct. Before the recession their mantra was “how predictable the growth numbers are from year to year!”

    They will stop publishing the numbers “for the best of community” when they start to believe that the game is over.

    “Why don’t you work for a real paper where you would get paid a REAL salary?”

    Actually Second Lie & Heresy (of Linden Gods) seems to have plenty of traffic. I will have more fun to watch when LL will try to steal the business of Second Lie & Hearsay. Then The Register will sue LL for stealing their format.

    “democratic and liberal markets”

    I do economics in RL and don’t know what these are. But you just told that you do joining words in RL.

  50. Dvora Tardis

    Jul 15th, 2007

    re “not feeding them … sophomoric … culture”

    So, when argumentative people of differing opinions start shooting their mouths off in real life, I should lose my patience and speak to them intemperately? Admittedly, it is good to stand for principles, but repeating myself in *ahem* a “louder” voice will not help either party, and might hurt my argument.

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