Zee Linden Admits Mistakes in OpenSpace Mess
by Alphaville Herald on 15/11/08 at 1:44 pm
Metaverse shocked as game god listens to residents, answers questions
by Curious Rousselot
“…its our fault because we didn’t put the proper restrictions on them and then they were naturally used for more than they were intended. Its our mistake. Really. I mean it. Completely our mistake.” – Zee Linden comments on OpenSpace sim fiasco
On November 12, 2008 Zee Linden, the Chief Financial Officer of Linden Lab posted his quarterly summary of the financial standing of the company. This communication, although a regular event, is astounding for two reasons. First, Linden Lab is a privately owned company and does not have to publicly disclose their financial information in anywhere near the level of detail that Zee does. Secondly, and for most of us more significantly, Zee himself was very actively involved in the conversations that went on in the forums.
To give you an idea of just how responsive Zee was, he posted approximately 34 of the 373 posts in the 2 days that the forum was open for posting. That represents around 9% of the posts. That is pretty impressive considering at times the posts were going up within seconds of each other.
Zee’s involvement actually went quite a bit beyond reading and responding to questions in the forums themselves. He publicly offered to meet residents in-world and talked with several of them about their specific issues, including some issues not directly related to Linden Lab’s quarterly financial standing. Read on for a summary of some of the more significant conversations found in the forum or go to the forums and read it for yourself (if you do go, be sure to skim through all of the entries because Zee responded to people throughout).
Wildcat Furse Was an active participant throughout the tread with strong concerns about getting information that would help in-world businesses be able to plan better for changes that Linden Lab was making. Wildcat started asking for some justification on tier pricing and some details on plans and, while Zee was unwilling to divulge details (and reasonably so as competitors could use this against Linden Lab), they seamed to come to a positive understanding at then end with this little exchange:
Wildcat Furse: Think I will come over to SF, you mind I bring my kids ?
Zee Linden: Wildcat – if you want more detail on our strategic plans than that, then I’m afraid you’ll have to get a job here. We haven’t even shared much more than that with our board of directors and much less with our investors in general. Bring your kids. They can pet my dog avatar.
Wildcat Furse: OK sent me an application form then, I cant wait to start. My kids I will leave here, then U can pet me, cause I have a cat avatar ….. 
…
Zee Linden: {Stares at the screen with jaw dropped} Wildcat, I can’t believe after all your posts that you actually posted something positive. I am definitely going to re-enforce to our exec team how important lots of responses in the forums are. Thanks!
River Ely requested some more realistic metrics related to land sales and open spaces. Pointing out that most of the buying and selling in Nautilus is being done by greedy land traders who add no real value to Second Life and this should not be put forth by the Lindens as an indication of how much resident demand there is for the new Nautilus area. If you have a look at River’s blog, River Rock, you can see some of the same arguements she made throughout the forums. What you will also find there, as her entry from November 13, 2008 is a significant change in attitude that can be directly attributed to Zee Linden’s honest conversations with River Ely.
Something many of the people who have been hurt by the recent open spaces issues have been asking for is an appology. In particular an appology for something said by Jack Linden and quoted to us by Shibari Twine. I won’t go over it here but you can see it in message number 341 in the forum thread. And for those who have wanted to see an honest admission of a mistake made, here is what Zee said in response, “A better way to say it would have been to say that its our fault because we didn’t put the proper restrictions on them and then they were naturally used for more than they were intended. Its our mistake. Really. I mean it. Completely our mistake.”
Numerous other issues were brought up and many of the addressed in this thread. How well problems are fixed and how quickly is not something we should expect to see overnight. We should expect that any changes to Second Life itself that may be needed to implement some of the ideas presented will take several months to complete. Remember that a year ago we were complaining about rapid depolyment of features and wanting stability. Second Life may not be as stable as we would like but it is more stable than it used to be. Many of us hope that this new level of communication and interaction with the residents will be one of the first steps in those improvements talked about.
Serge Mandelbrot
Nov 15th, 2008
“This communication, although a regular event, is astounding for two reasons. First, Linden Lab is a privately owned company and does not have to publicly disclose their financial information in anywhere near the level of detail that Zee does. ”
Uhm…. what level of detail are you talking about?? This communication tells me absolutely nothing about the financial state of Linden Labs… So they are hardly disclosing more than any other company. What is particularly interesting to me is the following:
1. Premium accounts are declining. Premium accounts are one source of revenue… The fact that you get L$ as stipend is no money out of Linden Labs pocket…
2. The cost to own land (read: rent server space) is going up by a ridiculous 67% for more than half of the landowners!!
They are trying to blind us with “science”, throwing around lots of numbers that give no indication of the financial health of the company. As someone mentioned in the forum comments, It makes me seriously doubt whether they have any propensity to run a healthy, sustainable business…
LOL
Nov 15th, 2008
QUOTE – Zee Linden: Wildcat – if you want more detail on our strategic plans than that, then I’m afraid you’ll have to get a job here. We haven’t even shared much more than that with our board of directors and much less with our investors in general. Bring your kids. They can pet my dog avatar.
Not sharing Information with your board of directors and your investors in general, OH YEAH thats another BIRLLIANT BUSINESS DECSION FROM LINDEN LAB! What is your Mission Statement? Treat the board and investors like a bunch of Mushrooms; leave them in a bucket of shit and keep them in the dark? I honestly think Linden Labs makes Romper Room like like the god damn MENZA GROUP. Linden Lab’s combined IQ is less then that of a common house plant.
Orion Shamroy
Nov 15th, 2008
Ever since “M” released one of these financial statements shortly after he joined up with LL I’ve had this sinking feeling. A feeling I’ve had twice before, the first back when Geo Cities was acquired by Yahoo back in the 90′s and again just recently when YouTube was acquired by Google and then went IPO.
It started off with the same pattern of trying to clean up the service, clean up the books, make it more attractive to investors, and then the sterilization of content (removal of porn / adult stuff) began before the deal was clenched. I’m sure all of you have noticed that over the years SL has been changing; becoming less of a medium for content creators, artists, and normal people and more of a tangible product that could be marketed and sold. After they changed CEOs it became even more apparent given Mark Kingdon’s background as a marketing tycoon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_D._Kingdon)
I’d watch out folks, the neighborhood is changing. We blue collar folks are being given then bums rush while the yuppies usher in a new era of coffee houses and cigar bars. Its all changing and honestly, I don’t think there is much that we can do about it aside from moving on to hopefully bigger and better things.
2 cents
Nov 15th, 2008
As the U.S. and Global economies go – so does the virtual rip-off!
/
Multi-trillion dollar devaluation of retirement accounts. About 70% of working Americans have some sort of retirement savings. Many see balances less than half of what they had in Dec ’07/Jan ’08.
Job losses totalling more than 1 million and projected to approach 2 million in the U.S. – just this year alone.
Interest rates (= cost of money) are tanking worldwide. Even saving doesn’t pay anymore.
Personal Savings Rate (rate at which folks save a part of their after tax dollars) in the U.S. is not just zero but effectively NEGATIVE if you consider the lack of saving coupled with the huge amount of borrowing (money borrowed on second mortgages as one example) and now the evaporation of those previously perceived HIGH home VALUES which wipes out the 2nd mortgage VALUE.
Home values in the U.S. averaging 60 – 70% of what they were at the most recent peak; some markets experiencing a greater than 50% drop in value since ’05.
Price of OIL on the slide and projected to hit as low as $30 to $40/barrel in the coming months.
The cost of war = approx. 10 Billion/month to the United States – just for Iraq.
/
~ all in all ~
/
The perception of WHAT is VALUABLE is dramatically changing worldwide.
You’d best re-think your strategy of where to put your money!
You’d best re-evaluate what constitutes VALUE in entertainment and discretionary spending!
You’d best get back to basics and ditch the virtual bullshit!
You’d best GET REAL
and get a f’n grip!
/
/
Linden Research will fail in 2009
Bank On It…
(that last bit was a PROTIP btw)
Prokofy Neva
Nov 16th, 2008
Curious, you are so gullible.
1. Zee getting on the forums and bamboozling you all and telling you “It’s a mistake” is just so much PR flak. The sims still cost $125 in June, or did you notice? Nothing changed. If anything, all the whining, as one wit has already pointed out, led to the prims on the product being reduced. Vive la revolution and all that.
2. LL is not publishing their own business statistics. Nowhere will you find their company’s bottom line or even anything approaching some sort of public financial statement. The statistics given out are only about the world, the inworld economy, how much people buy and sell within that context. But there are many variables we don’t have — how many enterprise level customers, how many discounted educational sims, how many grandfathered tier islands, etc. such as to be able to make a guesstimate to their revenue from land scales.
Curious, aka Zee's PR Flak
Nov 16th, 2008
so Curious, how do those Linden knee-pads feel? Think you’re actually going to get a Linden job outta this?
Sinden Lucks
Nov 16th, 2008
No shit it’s your fault and everyone knows it. You’re not fixing anything by stating what everyone already knows. So why not suck it up and eat the losses. You created the product, you let the people who purchased have the product. You don’t bait and switch after you figured out the issue. Linden is in a sad state of affairs when it comes to business leadership. If I were the CEO, heads would role and people would be losing their jobs over this mess. I would also stop the situation from becoming any worse by stating that there would be no changes whatsover on the product for a period of one full year from a set date with the promise to never again jack a price 67 percent. You want 10 to 15 percent increase on interval and if it’s justified? fine.
miffed
Nov 16th, 2008
An apology isn’t going to keep me here after January.
Baron Frampton Von Higglesworth, MD Esqu.
Nov 16th, 2008
Serge: the content of that thread puts, pull force, the lie to the “official” frame of growth thus provided in the blog entry. Such truth-telling comes from Zee in that thread. In other words, his statements in that thread contradict the official post greatly, and seemingly intentionally. That entire thread is a great read, and delved into detail the financials of Linden Lab along with their base reasoning not just on openspaces, but in general issues. My bullshit detector is only surpassed by the massive size of my balls in efficacy and raw power. The statements by Zee, especially in the latter part of the thread, get at most maximum a rating of 2/10 bullshit points by me. Mostly truthful all around, disregarding the official post. A marked change from the usual bullshit fed to players of the game of Second Life.
As mentioned in this article (the only moderately decent thing written by the clowntroops at SL Herald in years, though it is simply a “look at this bullshit” that requires no analysis), the most striking statement is a complete admittance of blame by the part of double ell.
Whether anything will come out of this marked change is suspect, and the hard-won pessimism of myself thinks it most likely that this is just a temporary gap in the massive piles of steaming bullshit pumped forth from the literal and metaphorical asshole of Linden. Though it is something to watch for.
OpenWhat
Nov 16th, 2008
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/11/what-next.html#more
Pie Psaltery
Nov 16th, 2008
“Its our mistake. Really. I mean it. Completely our mistake.”
…but instead of enforcing the original intent of Opensapce sims to keep the price reasonable, we’re just going to charge you a lot more money to cover the mistake we made.
Admitting you made a mistake is honorable, making someone else pay for it is not.
Sigmund Leominster
Nov 16th, 2008
Is it to much to ask for people to simple uninstall their SL client and move to WoW or Twinity? After doing my head in trying the read through the diarrhea of postings from disgruntled SL residents, I began to notice that a fair chunk of these folks had been here for YEARS! And they also go on about “remember when the assholes did X” or “I was around when the bastards did Y” and so on.
So what came to mind was the classic phrase, “Stupid is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the outcome to be different.” So don’t be stupid. If you think LL represent the Coming of the Antichrist and couldn’t manage their way out of a wet paper bag with scissors, then pack up and leave. What deep-seated streak of masochism keeps you paying money to be abused over and over again? Stop talking about “If things don’t change I’m going to [insert virtual world here]” and fuck off there! The best way to protest against perceived injustice, conspiracy, negligence, and/or mismanagement is with your virtual feet. If you can do better, go ahead and build your own virtual world and make it a haven for disaffected Second Lifers who want to throw off the yoke of Linden servitude. Admittedly there are fewer venture capitalists out there who might want to toss a few million your way, and if your total experience of virtual worlds is a Second Life account, a World of Warcraft character called “Thrungar the Terminally Bewildered” and the general notion that “Linden Lab sucks and I bet I could do better,” then the VCs may not be too charitable.
I have a headache. I see stupid people. Stop the madness. Uninstall!!
J
Nov 16th, 2008
Linden Lab released these Open Space sims, stated quite clearly they were not for rentals/heavy use – and they messed up by letting people do just that.
Meanwhile, all of us full sim owners saw all our renters leave and flock to these overloaded openspace sims.
Kudos to Linden Lab for belatedly trying to fix the mess they made.
As for those whining about the cost increase, cry me a river. I didn’t see you whining when your cheap sims put a lot of full sim owners out of business. So, yes, I will laugh watching you fail.
JB
Nov 17th, 2008
I cryed a puddle, not a river when LL loweed the price. Cause when I got mine they cost $375 and $75 in tier I also had to get 4 at a time back then and also only got 1875 prims. I think they should atleast go back to that amount for an OS and 3750 prims for a Homestead.
Also LL might have stated that the are for forrest and oceans, but we would they double prims, and make it so you could have OS as stand alones, who would put a forrest or ocean in the middle of no where. And LL has stated that it was ok to rent this sims but it might cause a perfoemance issue. This was stated back in 06 when they were class 4 sims. So now the performance should be better with class 5.
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=107206&page=2&pp=15
Just to clarify a little, we’re not saying that folk can’t rent out these areas or live in them – we just don’t recommend it because of the relative performance compared to normal regions.
Jack
So with that said Linden Lab mainly Jack “Ass” Linden should stand up and just admit that he screwed up, rather then saying the residets where abusing them. I would even take the half way point. LL screwed up and some residents were abusing them.
JB
Curious Rousselot
Nov 17th, 2008
Serge Mandelbrot said:
Uhm…. what level of detail are you talking about??
I’m talking about any level of detail at all about anything even remotely financial realted to Linden Lab. It is a private company and as such does not need to disclose ANY financial information publicly; not even vague statements like “we did really well last quarter”.
What impressed me about this, as I said at the end of the article, is that this shows a sign that Linden Lab is trying to communicate more openly with residents. I don’t know if it will continue or not but I am more hopeful because of how much Zee participated.
Pie Psaltery,
Within the full context of all of Zee’s comments, I think his appology was for how they abruptly announced an increase with very little warning. They also did make an effort to correct this by adjusting the schedule, setting a phased-in approach, and adjusting the offering to 2 different products. It may not be what you want but they did show that they were willing to listen to you and try to adjust their approach.
Prokofy Neva
Nov 17th, 2008
Sigmund, stop being such an ass. I don’t unsubscribe to the U.S. when the government goes bad, I work to get a different president elected. Why should I behave differently with Second Life where I have considerable investment? It’s more than fine to criticize the place where you live and try to make it better. There really isn’t any place comprable in terms of freedom — kind of like the US, you know.
I’m finding Curious behaving with incredible gullibility again. You apparently missed this class act from the Lindens before — they’ve honed it now to a science. They pulled the same stunt in the past on the first private island price hike; then the private island price *crash*; they *always* play it this way — make a harsh announcement with a very near deadline, then pretend to mitigate it by relaxing the deadline a bit, to make you think they are liberals, and are moderating their harsh policy, but in fact they change nothing but the timing — the price hike or crash still goes into effect.
They are trying to shake us loose. Let’s not make it easy for them.
Reality
Nov 17th, 2008
Why hello there Catherine Dearie!
I see you still believe you live in a Virtual world as Prokofy Neva – Where is the proof I have asked for that shows you have transferred your very essence over to the Internet?
Oh! That’s right – it does not exist! Silly me!
I see you are still trying to compare Fantasy to Reality – A pity really.
I do hope you wake up soon Dearie – After all, LL is not the United states Government. You do not get to ‘elect’ anyone – all you can do is watch and wait.
Oh – and before you bitch and moan and complain or whatever it is you do Dearie – You do not get to dictate what can and cannot be done with information once it is in the Public Domain. Let us not forget that your Avatar does not type out these responses – you do Dearie and I refuse to talk to an entity that does not exist.
Blah Blah Blah
Nov 17th, 2008
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. You don’t like the price hikes? You can’t run your cruddy little business in SL anymore? Who cares?!? Leave! The *majority* of us are here to have fun and maybe listen to a little live music when the mood takes us. SL will continue along even better without you.
miffed
Nov 17th, 2008
@Blah Blah Blah
Yeah, the grid will run GREAT with a lot less people putting money into the system.
You enjoy your “free” hangouts and “free” music. There’s bound to be a lot of it once half of the business owners shut down and leave.
Quit shitting on the business owners who help provide you your “hangouts”.
LOL
Nov 18th, 2008
Lets face it, no matter how much everyone Bitchs and complains it’s not going to change the fact that they still log into SL and fight over the few pennies they make each day in this game. Looking at the Stats on the SL website page, says that only 211 residents out of god only knows how many actually earn any real money from playing SL. The rest just fight over loose change, lets face it, everyone here is fighting for what looks like less then the adverage min, wage in the poorest african country in the REAL WORLD!
That being said, i have got to ask WHY? Why Log in and subject yourself to this. Why Stay on SL if it makes you so angry and frustrated? Why not just shut up and leave? If you want to Hurt LL as they have hurt you, STOP spending $ no NOTHING! Stop buying thoes 200$L lingerie sets, and the 500$L BDSM gear. Stop paying $1000 usd + Monthly tier for a plot of Digital Land.
Linden Lab is Laughing at everyone, they think it is helarious they can bend all thier cistomers over, Stick it to them w\out any vasoline, and still the residents scream for more land, more Digital sex toys, more…. It is Time the Residents of SL did more then Blog, and Bitch. If you REALLY want to hit LL where it hurts and give them as much grief as they have give you, then simply do not long in, do not spend money on Pixels. Go Outisde in the REAL WORLD, take a deep breath and say “Hello Reality, Long time no see”
To Linden lab it’s all about the dollars. Real Dollars that is, Not thier Fake currency, thier Fake land, or thier Fake residents. Bottom line is the buck stops at Linden Reasurch. The only way to change that is to make the buck STOP with you. Spend your Money on going to a REAL Club, concert, or dare I say a REAL WORLD PROPERTY TO BUILD YOUR DREAM HOME. Why pay close to 300$ usd on a Digital Morgage (Tier) when you could use that same $ to pay off a REAL LIFE Morgage?
In the past few weeks\months Ihave done just this, my time on SL has gone from 8-10 hours a week down to less then 1 hour a week. I have totally STOPPED spending any money in game, as well I have downgraded my account to a FREE BASIC one and gave up that tiny 512 LL lets us have for the 10 dollars a month.(soon I will most likely delete the account totally)
What is the point of this little rant you may ask? Easy IF YOU ARE SO UPSET, ANGRY AND PISSED OFF ABOUT WHAT LINDEN LAB IS DOING TO YOUR SECOND LIFE THEN ALL THAT IS LEFT TO DO IS, LIFT UP YOUR SKIRT, GRAB YOUR BALLS AND GET A FUCKING REAL LIFE! Otherwise you can blog till your fingers bleed cuz linden lab does not give a flying fuck about you… they will jsut continue to ben you over and fuck you nasty with a fake digital chainsaw.
all thats left to say is
A Tout Le Monde – (To all the world)
A tout mes amis – (To all my friends)
Je vous aime – (I love you )
Je dois partir – (I must leave)