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Link for full economic statistics?


Ceera Murakami
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LL used to post the raw numbers behind their quarterly economic statistics reports. You could see things like how many residents had a positive monthly L$ flow, and brackets for how much profit per month those profitable accounts were making. Is that data still available anywhere, or has LL declined to make that data public?

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Can you provde the link for the Q3 results?  I have not seen it yet. 

I suspect if they changed the content and structure of the data in the latest report it was because the LL Sr. Management that developed the last report (I believe it is Brooke's boss that writes and publishes these reports and LL's interpretation of the numbers) realized that many of us drove a truck through his interpretation of his numbers.

See my example of how LL's interpretation of the last reported financials were so vague and bogus, i.e. they were trying to paint the reported raw figures as being a sign of good things and turn-around when in fact the numbers said nothing of the kind....

http://toytalks.weebly.com/1/post/2011/08/ll-q2-11-results-bad-hidden-news-with-sugar-on-top.html

Others saw exactly what I saw in the last numbers.  I suspect LL didnt want to provide these raw figures again because they realized we are no dummies and can see right through the Spin Doctoring of the numbers.

Thanks in advance for providing the link to the lastest financials.

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And to add to Toy's response, when I went over them, I couldn't account for nearly 1/3 of their revenues meaning where did it come from if not their standard income sources like retail, land, memberships, etc.  I could only account for two ideas, 1 being their own inner account transfers between avatars or....heaven forbid..Gambling.  Knowing the massive amount of gambling now going on all over the grid and hearing the many stories of people (many friends as well) having left second life recently do to their gambling problems, I'd have to say the later is probably accurate.

Also, how do you loose 50% or more concurrents, 50% of the sims online and maintain the same revenues?

I am sure we will see less and less transparency over the next few years. Don't ask, don't tell right ? :D

 

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Here's the blog link for Q3 2011, but there's no data to back it up:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/The-Second-Life-Economy-in-Q3-2011/ba-p/1166705

Some questions in my mind:

They show a chart that indicates there were between 5,000 and 10,000 more "Daily Completed Registrations" after May 1, 2011. Supposedly we're gaining 20,000 new accounts a day on good days, and 10,000 on the slowest days.  Yet the "Average Monthly Logged in Users" remains almost flat, at 1,046 thousand in Q3, versus 1,010 thousand a year ago.What's happening to all those newbies? Why aren't they logging in, or if they are, why are we losing old residents as fast as we gain new ones? And why is the "User Hours" figure declining?

"Average Monthly Economic Participants" is reported at 475 thousand, down from 488 thousand last year at the third quarter. I would like to know how much of that is actually a positive L$ flow, and not just "This number or people spend money or received money in-world". I would really like to know how many accounts earned more than pocket change each month. I used to be one of the ones that earned a few hundred USD that I could cash out every month. I'm certainly not earning anything like that in-world any more.

The one chart that is certainly going up is "Web Merchandise Sales Volume". Well, they hype SLM every chance they get, at the expense of in-world merchants that may as well be invisible. Where's the equivalent chart for "in-world merchandise sales volume"? My personal experience, and that of every merchant that has been willing to talk to me about their in-world sales figures, is that the in-world graph would tell a very different and much bleaker story.

 

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Rod made a comment during SLCC (iirc) that retention was increasing but the hours they spent logged in was declining.  If that's the case then we're losing a lot of older accounts and the new accounts are replacing them but obviously the logged in hours will decline.

From LL's perspective I'm sure they consider this a win as they're getting people to pay (assuming premium account numbers are growing) but use less of their service.  As always I'm sure they don't actually care about the vibrancy and diversity of the inworld experience, otherwise they wouldn't have done what they have with search, the marketplace, mesh and everything else they've deployed down the years.

hey ho

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What you all are seeing, saying, and puzzled on regarding LL's quarterly financials is exactly what everyone else noticed and spoke about from the Q2 results.  Those Q2 results were actually spoken about at the SLCC although it was spun at the seminars as positively as the reports are spun.

Your right in that its very puzzling where some of these numbers come from without more background to the numbers.  That is one of the highlights of my blogging of the LL Q2 analysis.  The numbers either had little relevance for any useable interpretation (and then spun positively) or they were clearly not good stats but spun to be "not really that bad or even good".

Couldbe... regarding the clear rise of the SLM sales for the quarter from last year or even quarter.... I discuss even that fact and question if it really is a true positive.

The question has to be asked and stats provided to prove otherwise if SLM Sales stats are growing fast but only at the cost of inworld sales declining as fast.  If that is the case - and I am very positive it is the case - then the Net gain in SLM sales is likely being zeroed out and even negatively impacted by equal lost inworld sales which would then cause what we all are seeing as a fact - abandoned parcels of land and therefore abandoned sims from stores and malls that are now money losers and cannot be supported any longer.

As such, significant SLM sales increases are the cause to the corresponding erosion of inworld economy.  So is it really a positive figure? If SLM sales & spending is significantly increasing but the report shows that overall SL spending is among avatars is stable, then that has to indicate that SLM sales are stealing sales from inworld sales.

The Q3 reports do not discuss this issue or possible side-effect of an increased SLM sales.

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PS I tweeted Rodvik a posting of my financial assessment of LL Q2 results blog and asked him to answer (or get one of his officers that wrote the Q2 report) the tough questions I brought up in my blog on LL's financials report.

Guess what I heard from Rodvik.... Nothing.  

But he was more than willing to tweet respond to others on some of the most trivial of topics equivilent to pointing out a cool thing in SL or personal chit chat to those he sees as "friendlies" in Twitter.  LOL... not surprising.

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So looking at the latest Q3 results (and having the past Q2 results up as well), some observationss and puzzlements:

 

  1. Daily completed registrations chart:  LL says that Aug showed the biggest growth month for SL in nearly 4 years.  But if you look at the chart there is a very clear massive spike of 1 day of registrations - about 100% increase of registration in only 1 day of the month.  Clearly its some anomaly of data.  If LL counted this huge single day of 2x avg daily registration, it would explain the stated reason for Aug being such a huge month.  Seems huge only by error.
  2. User Hours in SL... continues to decline.  As 2010-Q1 stats showed 116 million hours, you can see the continued decline of user activity inworld is not good.  Maybe its because a lot a massive amount of SL residents are logging out of SL grid to spend all their time on SLM? lol
  3. The average Monthly Economic Participants chart is doubly unusual.  One observation when compated to last Quarter is that LL now only charts 5 quarters - last reporting period they reported 6 Quarters. Why?  Secondly, all the quarters from last period are different results from this reporting period. i.e  the last reported quarters from last report were: Q4=485, Q1=466, Q2=464, now in this report they are: Q4=482, Q1=468, Q2=463.  Why?
  4. Related to point #3, exactly what does the stat mean and what is in/out of scope for this stat?
  5. Avg Exchange rate:  the previous quarterly results are different between the Q2 and Q3 reporting periods. why?
  6. L$ Supply:  Again the reported results from last Q are different from this Q.  Even though LL notes that they would change reporting from time to time, once the stat is historical, why is it still changing? And the note says that only Q2 2011 is an estimate (in both reports). why?
  7. Regarding Web Merchandise Sales Volume:  I already stated my concerns about this stat in a previous posting in this thread.
  8. World Size is still shrinking.  It would be interesting to know this stat by Number of active sims owned by LL Accounts.  I heard from another thread that in the past year LL has reduced the number of sims by 655.  Is this fact true?

 

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All of the links I've had are gone. I believe the raw feed is still available in more limited form, someone had posted a link a few weeks ago, but I don't see references to that in the wiki any longer either.

On the plus side, it looks like some USD amounts are there that may not have been before, too lazy to look up prior quarterly reports at the moment, and it's good to see Marketplace gross.

On the minus side, there are some residual factors that appear to explain some of the numbers.

One is that Marketplace growth of course is going to grow for a couple years after LL acquired it. A monkey could make sales increase for a year or more after it became an LL property. People are slow to adapt, so for the Marketplace revenue to grow is a slow process for quite a long time. Especially when you factor in an increasingly difficult in-world sales environment due to search, old ideas such as malls growing stale, etc. This is still an ongoing element.

Another residual effect is that new users don't appear to be new users for the simple reason as above with the Marketplace ... users will continue to create alts to make use of the new names. It'll be a continual process for 2 years for people to snatch up those single names since we moved from first name/last name. I know I've created a handful and we're going to create 2 more for business alts in a week or two.

This would explain much of the user growth, the fact that these alts are holding more money in small amounts, increased spending as they outfit themselves with at least the basic non-noob gear and the fact that these alts aren't logged into very often, so I have to wonder how many of these new users are actually alts making use of new names, quite a few I'd imagine. This would explain some of the economic participants increase in the report.

Premium accounts increasing may be good, or it may again be attributed to fresh alts taking advantage of a good deal. How it's determined that a unique user is actually new and unique is a mystery.

Comments are not turned on for that blog post which may or may not be an indicator of "something".

I like to judge whether we're seeing a rash of new users organically, and the forums are one of those indicators. If these new users are in fact a new generation of web-based, short attention span users that don't log in much, there would still be the usual rash of new faces and a surge in noob questions on the forums, which doesn't appear to be more than usual, and much less than other times we've seen an uptick in new faces.

The same names in all the forums, although the new forum signups are there everyday which you can see in the right margin where you see logged in users here.

Can't think of a more useless stat though than user transactions, every time an afilliate vendor pays out, every time an alt transfers L$ to an alt, etc. If LL even bothers using this for anything, they should stop wasting their time.

Of course that's pure speculation, but there it is.

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Could you provide a link to anything you have written ever, where you interpreted an anouncement from LL in a positve way?

You only ever see things negatively, and when you can't you claim LL are lying or have falsified the figures. Where is this leading?, what is it that you hope to achieve from this?, would it be good or bad for you if LL were to say 'actually Toy is right'  everyone is leaving and SL is doomed?. I get the feeling you would be jumping for joy.

Obviously LL paint the rosiest picture possible,  just like any company does, its absolutley what we would expect and really isn't evidence of some great conspiracy theory. 

What is see from these figues, is what I would expect, a small, slow decline. No big drama, no conspriacy that needs to be covered up or falsified, just numbers which are very slightly lower than last years, with one exception - The Marketplace which has shown a pretty rapid increase in sales since its launch, whilst I would agree that this increase has come at the expense of inworld sales, again it is precisely what we would expect to see.  

Because Rodvik didn't bother to reply to your conspiracy theory tweet, really isn't evidence that there is a conspiracy, however the fact that you interpreted it that way is evidence that you are a conspiracy theorist.

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Ziggy21 Slade wrote:

Could you provide a link to anything you have written ever, where you interpreted an anouncement from LL in a positve way?

You only ever see things negatively, and when you can't you claim LL are lying or have falsified the figures. Where is this leading?, what is it that you hope to achieve from this?, would it be good or bad for you if LL were to say 'actually Toy is right'  everyone is leaving and SL is doomed?. I get the feeling you would be jumping for joy.

Obviously LL paint the rosiest picture possible,  just like any company does, its absolutley what we would expect and really isn't evidence of some great conspiracy theory. 

What is see from these figues, is what I would expect, a small, slow decline. No big drama, no conspriacy that needs to be covered up or falsified, just numbers which are very slightly lower than last years, with one exception - The Marketplace which has shown a pretty rapid increase in sales since its launch, whilst I would agree that this increase has come at the expense of inworld sales, again it is precisely what we would expect to see.  

Because Rodvik didn't bother to reply to your conspiracy theory tweet, really isn't evidence that there is a conspiracy, however the fact that you interpreted it that way is evidence that you are a conspiracy theorist.

sighhhhh.....

And this is what I get.  Ohh poor LL.  Heaven forbid that a corporation posts business / financial results with their obvious positive spinning (as you are correct - many companies do) for all to see and review, and how shocking and rare it is that a company's results are analyzed and criticized if they are not glowing by any interested parties to the company.

Ziggy, what I want to understand - truly I want to understand - is why does my posts that critique and critisize LL activities, mistakes, weak quarterly results, spin doctoring interpretations, etc. bother you so personally?  Why?  My posts in no way were attacking you.  My posts were not even addressed to you or directed at you in any way.  But yet your posting - like so many others here that feel they need to be LL's white knight defenders - takes on a tone as if I have somehow personally attacked you.

I am assessing and posting my opinions on the results of a corporation / business. Its fine if you have have cult-like undying love for all things LL, but why are your posts not focused on debating the topic as opposed to taking a fire and brimstone position on trying to shoot the messenger?

PS... this is the same tone and attitude I get from several others in this forum that seem to take it so personal when I am directing criticism on LL and their activities.  Put things in perspective - and try posting on the topic - not attacking me.

If you do, maybe you wont stimulate a thread discussion that spirals into personal attacks.

Just a thought - that maybe some others here should also take.

NOW... back to the topic of this thread.

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Ceera Murakami wrote:

[..] They show a chart that indicates there were between 5,000 and 10,000 more "Daily Completed Registrations" after May 1, 2011. [..] 

One thought did cross my mind about all these new user signups ... maybe they're bot-signups used by the Spammer(s) that are constantly harassing the forums?

Just thinkin' out loud ...

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Actually the reason for the significant increase in Q3 registrations over all previous years is related to that 1-2 100% spike of daily registrations.  As another Merchant in this forum pointed out in her blog, that 100% 2 day spike happened on the SLCC weekend.  Obviously because of the major PR and advertising and media attention on SL from that event, LL lucked out and got a huge spike of registrations.  This would have been a significant impact to the Q3 stats as that was the equivilent of two additional normal days of registration (about 45,000 more registrations over normal).

This was also clearly an anomaly as it happened because of a directed event that caused it.  It was not because there was a trend of increased registrations as LL was trying to imply or brag about.

Sadly for LL, Q4 will likely show that registrations will have declined over Q3 since this anomaly will now not be there.  At this time LL will report that registrations declined but it was within the x.x% range and downplay it.

So in this situation, what comes up will come down.

(OMG... I cant believe it... I am being negative in my posting of the stats.... let me add a positive to my posting.... ON THE GOOD SIDE.... LL was able to report in Q3 that they noticed a major increase in registrations - I have to assume this must mean that interest in SL is catching on in the RL!)

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I'm no merchant, just another interested resident who enjoys reading the merchants' insights on the inworld economy.

Thank you to all the regular contributors here for your thoughtful analysis and keen insights. Please keep asking the tough questions and don't be deterred by the apolo-shills. We can't count on the Lab to give us any straight answers so we must rely on each other.

Let the truth be told though the heavens fall.

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Darrius Gothly wrote:


Ceera Murakami wrote:

[..] They show a chart that indicates there were between 5,000 and 10,000 more "Daily Completed Registrations" after May 1, 2011. [..] 

One thought did cross my mind about all these new user signups ... maybe they're bot-signups used by the Spammer(s) that are constantly harassing the forums?

Just thinkin' out loud ...

That could very well be too. The CEO did express some distaste and a desire to do something about griefers.

Tip for a certain programmer that may have time on their hands related to something I said about the new users that sign up showing in the right margin.

As far as I know, new users are automatically signed up for the forums. An enterprising programmer that knows how to screen scrape might be able to verify if that adds up to 10k+ per day signups, if that's the case, or find an approximation of that total.

Could be wrong about the auto signup though.

Edited to Add: Samplings, not continuous, lest you be DOS'ing.

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Stagnation or Replacement, and what is the marketplace truly consisting off?

I keep thinking mesh and the new names features account for many shifts in numbers that indicate it trending up (I mean, is one quarter increase over a declining 3 a 'trend' up though?) make it all look more like stagnation, as far as how many users are using it enough to count. How many might be merchants from other worlds come to sell mesh here but basically never use SL, log in or care to much? Get premium, put a store down and focus on the web marketplace and done. So, in 6 months we see many items half the price they used to be as faster mesh builders flood the market? Sculpts where slow, mesh is faster and many are already seasoned AND some have literally thousands of items that can be converted, fixed up a bit and then listed. Easier said than done, but not so hard to do. I have more questions than answers, so I can't really help here, but it surely seems more stagnant due to replacement and new people are possibly gong to convert thier TurboOceanWarehouse assets, list it and basically leave lol.They do this at warehouses all over the net, SL starts to look like one to. Since there is very little customer service to do per 100 sales...they might be able to do this easier than some think!

The demographic shift indicates something is happening that is basically replacement. SO, there are new people...they are younger and that is all I know. Not all of them are Turbo3DHouse asset-convert-and-leavers. Besides, many of those people might now be able to finally enjoy SL and might have came back, or decided to give it a shot and enjoy the works of others, use the land, and hang with many people. I don't hang out much anymore, but this is for some other reasons beyond my control.

Maybe older users have played enough, are done and this is more likely to not look like thier world as much as it used to. I have noticed this, a group will be at some place for some time and then they leave, disband or simply figure out no one is on at the same time these days...so, they all join new places. Some discover other games, SL was simply a fun game for a year or two. So, they leave for OpenSim based projects, devote more time to other worlds/games (I remember the hype of BlueMar or are simply more successful at something else and must do that to make money and do not have time. Not to mention the explosion of Facebook based applications and other social stuff to keep a socializer wondering if they really want to try and fight thier ingrained V1.2x mind against the V2.x-V3.x viewer differences? It is usually not that one final drop of water that causes the dams to break, it is all the others behind it as well!

 

I can think of a few more things to write, but must leave. This is anther issue with my reduction from several hours a day to only a few each week....No more socializing, I have mastered a few skills needed and work offline and....well, I have other things to do to pay bills as I try to stay not-homeless. So, of to work at third world wages again and with first world  bills...tippeee! Like I said, can't justify the time...big issue. People support only so many users, and I am not one supported enough...this happened many times this past few years though. Abbots is a prime example. One year a seminar talker helping people understand being a builder and merchant, next the sim is gone and items for free on marketplace....just the way it goes. The Chambered Nautilus was a very interesting poem we had to learn...I laugh when I think of it and work and see the teachers unions fighting to keep things the same lol. I am betting we see more unions, because investing in learning skills to have them be almost useless a few years later is time consuming and time is money! Which reminds me...must leave.

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There is a distinct, statistically significant increase in completed new user registrations, yes. It started at a specific time and has been ongoing since then, and it is demonstrably not the product of the registration of alt accounts.

I am not saying that alt-registrations don't happen, but it is clear from the available information that this increase in registrations is not due to that.

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@ Tateru,

"There is a distinct, statistically significant increase in completed new user registrations,"

 

Since there is an increase, where are they all ?

No increase in concurrency - been slipping all year

No increase in grid size - also shrinking all year

 

With my main AV and with several alts I am in contact with a large number of creators and everybody is saying the same - we're all down approx. 40% - 50% compared to this time last year. These are great creators with excellent and growing product ranges and who are keeping up to date and adapting to the changes happening in SL.

The truth is the whole SL economy is probably down 40%-50% and compared to the 2006/2007 boom it's down 70%

The decline in Secondlife can be attributed to one overriding factor - high tier costs blocking proper use and adoption of the platform.

And still after how many years ?  pffft !!  you still can not buy a Homestead sim without a full sim - another superb way to block your customers from getting your premiere product !

Also of note, my RL mesh content sales from TurboSquid, Renderosity and Daz3D are increasing as I increase my product range. But even though I am increasing my SL product range, my sales here are decreasing

Something is seriously wrong with LL's biz recipe and it's the High Tier Costs that are driving active interested users away

Secondlife is an incredible medium and it would grow dramatically from within if the tier costs were more sensible

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@Poenald,

Do not worry about RL mesh artists flooding the SL Marketplace.

Content is so undervalued here. Creating top quality mesh content is a non trivial task which takes time and in the current price dumped, declining SL economy and ecosystem, the mesh artist's time is best spent increasing their product ranges at RL model banks where they will get a proper return on invested time and skills.

With the current decline of SL  ( low concurrency, shrinking grid, less user hours etc ) and the devaluing of content at the marketplace via price dumping - I will NOT be bringing any of my mesh content to SL. What is the point in supporting a stagnant, possibly dying platform ?

I love SL, it's an incredible medium, it's outstanding in a thousand ways but it's true potential is being smothered by inappropriate, outdated land pricing model.

 

 

 

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You're assuming that completed signups turn into actual logins, which really isn't the case in 99+% of cases.

For example, during the 'boom times', 30% of new signups never logged in at all. Another 30% didn't log in for the first time within six months of signing up. For the remainder, the median time before new users stopped logging in was 48 hours.*

* These are very approximate figures.

Now, I don't see any reason that new-user retention should be significantly improved from that (and actually, I can see quite a few reasons why it should be much worse) - and your own take on economic performance (it seems to me) reinforces the point that retention has slid significantly.

I cannot pin down exactly what user retention (out to seven days), actually is, but I'd be surprised to find it significantly over 0.1%.

The sudden surge in completed (a very important word, that) signups began when the registration process was refit. That is, there doesn't seem to be any noticeable increase in the number of people commencing the registration process, only in the number of people getting to the end of it.

Or, in other words, picking a name, putting in an email address and a password (and confirming it) and making a few other additional choices was simply too difficult or complicated for approximately 40-50% of people who attempted to sign up. Streamlining that process may have gotten them through the signup phase better, but frankly, how well do you think people who found the previous registration too difficult would be coping with their first login session in-world? I'm thinking: Not well.

Attrition of the user-base is inevitable - even if the platform is flawless and Linden Lab does nothing wrong. There are circumstances which may accellerate that attrition, and you can probably think of more than a few.

Assuming those losses aren't replaced with fresh-blood, you'll see... well, you've seen it already, right? That's why we're having this conversation :)

Where are all those completed signups? They're not using Second Life.

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Thank you for your take on things Tateru

It's pretty much what I was thinking. Signups are not being converted :matte-motes-crying:

Unfortunately what seems to be happening is , even the 0.1% of people who are converted are unable to make use of SL because of the high tier cost

There are literally thousands of grand projects waiting to be born, by the core user base,  but tier costs are such a blocker nothing is done and SL continues to stagnate

I'm pretty sure we're getting near tipping point, with a saturated marketplace, declining economy, shrinking grid, slipping concurrency. It really is time for The Lab to reduce tier costs and re-energise the ecosystem otherwise it doesn't bode well.

I can't keep investing my time in a platform that is shrinking and I know several other creators who are feeling the same way

I'm even starting to think about an exit strategy from SL content development and I never thought I would say that:matte-motes-crying:

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One of the major problems with the LL Q reports - that I pointed out in my blog - is that there are so many stats that LL could be providing in the report that would be of much much greater value for more effective interpretation of the healthcheck of LL's SL grid and supporting products (i.e. the SL MP). 

Even some of the stats provided are not exactly clear what they represent or the scope of the stats.  The number of SL Account transactions that occur has really little value.  If I hand you a gift or inventory?  If I transfer funds to my Alt?  If a vendor sends out split pay to multiple recipients?  Are these all transactions that should be counted or counted many times?

A few stats of many that I am sure you all can come up with that would be much more insightful:

 

  • Monthly L$ Buys from $US vs L$ credit processing volumes (i.e. how much RL $US cash is entering the SL economy vs is formally leaving the SL economy by the LL Customer cashing it out)?

  • Tied to New Registration count, % of these registrations that login 1 , 5 , >10 times within the month.  Some kind of factual indication of how many of the supposed 10's of thousands of new registrations are "sticky"

  • Also, somewhat related to new registration but a much larger picture... a running tab on "# of Registered SL Accounts per registered IP address".  This ratio would provide an estimate of how many aALTS are actually on the grid.  (This is an important stat to see it trend because if this ratio is increasing from Q to Q, then LL could actually explain why the Avg. Hours Logged in Per SL Account seems to be sinking.  If I used to have 1 Alt but now I have 5 Alts and since I am only 1 person, 4 of my Alts never login too often.  This would skew the avg hours logged in per user to look like its sinking when its just that there is a growing number of idle "utility" Alts on the grid.)

  • Number of Active SIM paying Teirs to LL per month.  I am sure LL does not want to show this number but it is the strongest indication of the health of the Grid.  We all have seen a visible rise in sims that are closing down / being abandoned.  I would like to see this stat tracked quarterly.

  • I would like to see a bigger breakdown of SL MP sales and traffic stats in addition to the volume of L$ sales on MP.  I would love to see # of Transactions in addition to L$ so that the avg price of an MP item being bought was tracked.  This would show if content value is in the increase or continuing to be on the decline.

  • A breakdown of sales per major category.  GP, Adult, Mature  /  Product Categories  /  Sculpty vs Mesh items  /  etc.

  • A stat I cant see how it would be possible to track is Sales volumes of Inworld vs MP.  I suspect strongly that MP sales have been on a constant rise at the cost of inworld sales.  Hence a major erosion of inworld stores, malls, and closure of sims.  But no actual stat to show that.

I could go on but those would be some stats I would like to see.  Chances are they wouldnt show up in the report.

 

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Ralph,

I do agree that a major factor of what is eroding inworld Grid activity and inspiring several SL Grid customers to strongly consider and actually execute on a strategy of moving more or all of their activities to other open grids like IW is the high cost of SL Teir for sims. 

If land costs were much lower and prim counts per sim much higher (i.e. look at the monthly costs and prim counts on IW vs SL), then this would likely stimulate a significant resurance of inworld activity.  I am very comfortable is saying that if LL has lost teirs for 655 sims in the past year (due to customers closing or abandoning sims) its mostly due to the cost of maintaining them not being worth it anymore AND/OR because they could get an equivelent sim on a competing grid for a fraction the month costs with double the prim count.

The potential problem is (and I do not know this figure - only LL does) is that LL must charge a minimum fee per sim that is tied directly to the RL costs of operating the physical server it runs on as well as all the associated costs to operate that server in their DC.  If they could lower this cost and pass the savings to the customers by way of reduced teir costs then LL could do a lot to stem the flow of their customers migrating their activities to lower cost open grids.

If LL is reducing these per sim costs (i.e. more virtual sims per physical server, faster cheaper servers, etc) and not at least passing down a portion of these savings to the customer (i.e. LL is being blindly greedy) then they are consciously ignoring their competition and causing their own demise as the SL Grid erodes in use.

If LL has done everything possible to reduce per sim costs and their teirs reflect a near break-even pricing, then LL is in deep trouble since that means they are not running a competitive product to their growing competition that can operate their sims at much lower costs and in turn offer sims to us customers at much lower teir pricing.

I think its more option #1... LL is ignoring that they have competition and does not want to pass on any of their cost savings to their customers and basically they are Fiddling as Rome burns.

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:


Ziggy, what I want to understand - truly I want to understand - is why does my posts that critique and critisize LL activities, mistakes, weak quarterly results, spin doctoring interpretations, etc. bother you so personally?  Why?  My posts in no way were attacking you.  My posts were not even addressed to you or directed at you in any way.  But yet your posting - like so many others here that feel they need to be LL's white knight defenders - takes on a tone as if I have somehow personally attacked you.

Quite simply because what you write is often hopelessly over dramatic and neurotic and is never likely to be good for MY business. Posting in a forum where new users may come for information, that everything is going down the pan is unlikely to make one of the situations you complain about so biitterly any better. As for being a white night defender of LL, well us White Knights are very much the minority both on the forums and in SL, the vast majority of posts are complaints or people agreeing with complaints. I think it's important to provide some balance so people get to hear both sides of a story and make their own minds up.


Toysoldier Thor wrote:


I am assessing and posting my opinions on the results of a corporation / business. Its fine if you have have cult-like undying love for all things LL, but why are your posts not focused on debating the topic as opposed to taking a fire and brimstone position on trying to shoot the messenger?

Admittedly I did have a couple of digs at you personally, sorry if I offended you, but part of the point I am making is that you have a cult like undying disdain for all things LL and it would be difficult to put this across without mentioning you personally. It's unfair to suggest I didn't debate the topic, I think the arguments I made in this regard are quite clear.

I am not 'shooting the messenger' because you aren't the messenger, you are a guy who is giving his opinion on the message and without fail this involves you doing precisely what you have accused me of doing, take a look at just a few quotes I have pulled from the blog you reference...


Toysoldier Thor wrote:


...the creative license that the LL author used to sugar coat the bad news or squeeze the most excitement out of the little good news was to the level of embarrassing.

...its incomplete trivia.

...but the LL Report Author took creative license on interpreting the results to make a bad picture look good.

...It just make the Author look like a Propaganda Flinger.

...What you will notice in this section is how the Author saw an opportunity to brag about how the results are better than LL's longer term history, especially for a stat that LL can fully manipulate. The Propaganda Flinger in action.

...you see I don't think its me who can be accused of shooting the messenger!.

Suppose that instead of laughing and saying God! not this nutter again, Rodvik had actually replied to your Tweet.. Damn it Toy you got me bang to rights, everything in your blog is correct, what use would that be? You give the poor bloke a Hobsons choice, either he replies to your tweet and agrees with you and loses business, replies to your tweet and disagrees and is then accused of lying or ignores your tweet and has his silence interpeted as agreement. It really shouldn't suprise you that he didn't reply and you certainly shouldn't be using this fact as evidence to back up your argument.

LL are bound to put a positive spin of their financial results, as you have agreed, all companies do this, it is in the best interest of them and arguably their customers that they do, but what is your excuse for your constant negative spin? I look at LL graphs and I see them almost level with a very slight decline, I read your blog and I could be forgiven for thinking that SL is closing down next week and that all the staff will be arrested and charged with conspiracy and fraud.

I am not afraid to admit that I love Second Life, I love the whole concept of a virtual world, I love the creative opportunities it presents, I love playing the game of business here, I love the fact that I have rubbed shoulders with clever and creative people from all over the planet, I especially love the cash I make. If you want to call this a cult like undying love, thats fine, I always have been at least a little weird, my reasons for being here and for speaking in defence of the place are quite clear, but what I don't understand is, why are you here? you have never got anything nice to say about the place, you constantly accuse the management of incompetence, dishonesty and greed and seem hell bent on proving once and for all that the entire population feels the same way you do and is about to quit, if things are really as bad as you say they are - then leave, if you accept that maybe things aren't quite as bad as you sometimes suggest, then post something positive every now and then.

 

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