New homes, new price

[Theresa Tennyson]

21 hours ago, kiramanell said:

Hmm, a +25% fee increase for Premium. That's actually pretty stiff. It looks like the plan is to do away with quarterly fees ("Quarterly plans may be renewed, but are no longer available for new Premium Memberships"). 

At the beginning of 2018 the cost for the equivalent of owning one of the new Linden homes would have been $132 a year ($72 for premium plus $5/month for the necessary tier.)

Edited May 30, 2019 by Theresa Tennyson

[Beth Macbain]

23 minutes ago, Coby Foden said:

How do you know for sure?

I've been on the phone all days starting with the A's in my super secret second life subscriber phone tree. We've managed to make it through the V's and 99.9973% of those we've spoken to have said, "Meh, they were overdue for a price increase. Happy to pay it."

[MoiraKathleen]

17 minutes ago, Evangeline Arcadia said:

Plus it's usually only a small percentage of users that will bother to visit the forums and post anything. So I would say the majority of users will probably just say 'hey ho' and pay the increase, accept the changes etc., and are probably fine with it in the sense of feeling that's just how it is.

I also expect that at the time the increase takes effect, there will be an increase in the forums of new-to-the-forum people asking why they hadn't been notified of it, and how come they didn't hear about the period for 'locking in the current rate for another period' until it was too late to do that.  So I imagine that this topic will remain as an active discussion topic for a while.  

[Beth Macbain]

18 minutes ago, s2Pandora said:

Can't really say most are for or against it, because we can't see how "most" actually feel about it.

We can see that they don't actually care enough to post a message of disgruntlement on the forum or give a sad face emoji to Grumpity Linden's post. 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

6 minutes ago, moirakathleen said:

I also expect that at the time the increase takes effect, there will be an increase in the forums of new-to-the-forum people asking why they hadn't been notified of it, and how come they didn't hear about the period for 'locking in the current rate for another period' until it was too late to do that.  So I imagine that this topic will remain as an active discussion topic for a while.  

THIS. I was about to point out that based on how the roll out of new homes went, and how many people say they had NO IDEA, we surely can't say with any possible certainty what people do or don't think about the new rates. It's much safer to say that most residents have no idea it's coming!

[Beth Macbain]

Just now, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

THIS. I was about to point out that based on how the roll out of new homes went, and how many people say they had NO IDEA, we surely can't say with any possible certainty what people do or don't think about the new rates. It's much safer to say that most residents have no idea it's coming!

You're right about that, they probably don't know, but I really doubt we're going to see a mad influx amounting to even a sizable chunk of the SL user base. If I'm wrong, I will happily eat my words. 

Even now, the people complaining about the homes amounts to something like maybe 2%-3% of the premium subscribers? If that?

 

[s2Pandora]

6 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

We can see that they don't actually care enough to post a message of disgruntlement on the forum or give a sad face emoji to Grumpity Linden's post. 

I don't always care to leave an emoji on something, but that doesn't necessarily mean I give or don't give a crap.

Forum users are a small margin of SL's playerbase.

[Beth Macbain]

Just now, s2Pandora said:

Forum users are a small margin of SL's playerbase.

That is exactly my point.

[anthonytorino]

Considering how rarely they have increased premium, and there is now double the base land allotment, $2.49 more a month is not a big deal. (12 for the year if paying ahead.)

Part of the increase has to do with funding allotments to the Cloud server transitions. It has benefits but There is a period of balancing off. We did this with charity network venues and game venues and right off there is a good cost, after a year it pays itself off in performance and maintenance (like not needing as many on site employees and they end up working from home to lower building and utilities costs).

Everyone has increased prices this year, from Netflix, Hutu, and others.

The yearly fee is now the same cost as amazon Prime.

. Until next years drops with the cloud emergence, people will still not come back to SL for homesteads and sims until the discontinue the primary sim ownership to get a homestead, base setup, and other high costs. SL is aiming to cut costs to them, and cut costs to sim servers to get people back. There are other competitors on the horizon, including microsoft retry, and VRonix.

 

 

 

[Gryphon Ronas]

3 hours ago, anthonytorino said:

Considering how rarely they have increased premium, and there is now double the base land allotment, $2.49 more a month is not a big deal. (12 for the year if paying ahead.)

Part of the increase has to do with funding allotments to the Cloud server transitions. It has benefits but There is a period of balancing off. We did this with charity network venues and game venues and right off there is a good cost, after a year it pays itself off in performance and maintenance (like not needing as many on site employees and they end up working from home to lower building and utilities costs).

Everyone has increased prices this year, from Netflix, Hutu, and others.

The yearly fee is now the same cost as amazon Prime.

. Until next years drops with the cloud emergence, people will still not come back to SL for homesteads and sims until the discontinue the primary sim ownership to get a homestead, base setup, and other high costs. SL is aiming to cut costs to them, and cut costs to sim servers to get people back. There are other competitors on the horizon, including microsoft retry, and VRonix.

 

 

 

This is the first time they have ever increased the price of premium, I believe.

Edit to add : Amazon Prime had a price increase too, it's $119 a year now

Edited May 31, 2019 by Gryphon Ronas

[LittleMe Jewell]

14 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

I think it means if you can pay now, you'll essentially get an extra year and a half (remainder of your current sub plus a year) at the lower price.

Very good for those who are near the beginning of their current sub, a bit frustrating for those like me who are due for renewal anyway. At least it's another year for me to figure out if the increased fee is financially viable. I'm very grateful annual doesn't bring on VAT. VAT + the increase would be more than I can justify.

I'm pretty sure your take on this is correct.   If your Premium comes due in Sept, you'll pre-pay that $72 now and your membership gets extended to Sept of next year.  

And yes, for those like Lil, whose Premium renews on June 30th, she doesn't gain as much as the Premium alt that just renewed this past April.

 

 

9 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

That requires paying for all those alts at the same time (by June 23 or whenever) to "grandfather" them, no? That's a huge chunk of change, so something has to give.

Not on the same day, but definitely within the same month.  I have exactly 4 Premiums that I'm keeping.  I plan to do the advance renewal of one on June 3rd, a week later on June 10th, one a week after than on June 17th and then the last one on Sun, June 23rd.  That at least lets me spread the cost across 4 weeks.

 

 

5 hours ago, Evangeline Ling said:

It might not cost to switch from group to a single because of the grace period... when a land no longer has the correct number of land tier to support it you get a warning (ie... a group member that was donating pulls out etc...) at that point the land does not immediately go back to Linden Labs but you have a window of time to get it back in order... so in theory you could pull all your tier donation out of your own land, then tier down with all your alts, tier up with your main, then sell it from group to yourself... Again this is just a theory... there may be a restriction applied to selling land that does not have enough tier currently covering it.  You would need to research that out or possibly ask one of the land barons who knows more about these things... I do remember a long time ago having to do something similar to this when I needed to change my land from one group over to another group.

It totally works the way you described it.  I downsized to get a Linden Home, however I actually pulled the tier before the land sold.  So when the land finally sold, the land group had been negative in tier for about a week.

 

 

5 hours ago, Lizbette Tearfall said:

Well since all the new homes got taken up …...have they set a date when more new linden homes will even be released?

Based on the fact that we know a new theme will be previewed at the SL16B Bash, my bet is a batch of the new theme along with a few more Traditional houses and some Houseboats will all get released near the end of the Bash or very shortly afterwards.

 

 

4 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

THIS. I was about to point out that based on how the roll out of new homes went, and how many people say they had NO IDEA, we surely can't say with any possible certainty what people do or don't think about the new rates. It's much safer to say that most residents have no idea it's coming!

Though this time, there is a lot of discussion (or ranting) in group chat, so there is a bit larger percentage knowing about these changes.

 

[Fiona Nova]

8 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Though this time, there is a lot of discussion (or ranting) in group chat, so there is a bit larger percentage knowing about these changes.

Well, the price increase is discussed since yesterday morning in many also german group chats. Opinion is unanimous: "*****, money-grubbing. First you get 1024 sqm land, then the new Linden Homes and now you are asked to pay."

[Diane Soulstar]

On 5/30/2019 at 5:29 AM, karynmaria said:

 

I agree.   This is my entertainment and I don't mind the increase.  For me it is still worth it for what I get out of it.

I also think this price increase is fine. Everywhere day by day cost increase. Everyone in RL also get Salary hike at work  Accordingly Linden employees also deserve same. Same time looking at the infrastructure cost, maintenance cost to maintain a game like this, I feel its fine to hike price some....

[Gryphon Ronas]

6 hours ago, AngieRath said:

Well, the price increase is discussed since yesterday morning in many also german group chats. Opinion is unanimous: "*****, money-grubbing. First you get 1024 sqm land, then the new Linden Homes and now you are asked to pay."

IKR?  Having to pay for what you get?  What a concept.

[Blush Bravin]

19 hours ago, anthonytorino said:

Part of the increase has to do with funding allotments to the Cloud server transitions. It has benefits but There is a period of balancing off. We did this with charity network venues and game venues and right off there is a good cost, after a year it pays itself off in performance and maintenance (like not needing as many on site employees and they end up working from home to lower building and utilities costs).

I have been wondering about the offer to pay ahead now as a way of a creating a fast influx of cash. This makes perfect sense if they have to pay up front costs to do the migration. If as many people take advantage of the offer to pay ahead as I suspect, and even possibly go annual as a means of saving even more money, the lab should see a nice boost to profits next month.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Blush Bravin

[anthonytorino]

On 5/29/2019 at 8:07 PM, CoffeeDujour said:

The prem membership bump is painful, but not unexpected. If anything we're paying for years and years of mismanagement when the premium cost didn't change. How LL made any money at all from annual subs is beyond me. Really shows just how much of the can estate owners were carrying.

What we need to see now is movement on teir payments so that simply rolling multiple premium accounts isn't the best value option for owning a little more land (and even with the bump, it still is).

The big question is what they have in mind for the "super premium" account coming later, it's clear that it simply wont be a few more IMs, groups and a little extra L. If they start gating what could be considered a core aspect of the service (creation of EEP assets, Script functionality like BoM or Exp Tools, etc) behind a fat payment then we're in prim tax territory.

I also want to see some movement on tech from Sansar being back ported to SL. We paid for it thus far, and we're sat here watching it tank, still paying for it.

 

WHo knows , at a tech show i went to Linden labs discussed the later 2019 begging change over to the cloud, and weanign out their servers and server house used for the l side. 

They stated improvements to opengl and the engine (whether just working non current or another sl rehash to bring it up to the newer open gl standards).

They discussed the new homes then before a full announcement, but also changes to mainland costs, and a new premium tier with a homestead option (hinting a full sim would not be required). 

 

It was somewhat vague. Lower costs will pull more back, but who knows what the final decisions will be. Interesting enough other companies announced new similar virtual worlds in 2020. So at the same show I expected linden lab to talk about more.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

UPDATE!

 

 

[Sum Littlepaws]

2 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

UPDATE!

Thanks Sylvia! Good news for basic accounts.... Kudos to the Lindens

[Holger Gilruth]

My Home will become available when premium ends for me. I am not willing to pay this huge price

[Fiona Nova]

12 minutes ago, Holger Gilruth said:

My Home will become available when premium ends for me. I am not willing to pay this huge price

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

<<To help with the transition to the new pricing, starting June 3, we’re offering a limited-time opportunity for existing Premium members to lock in their current rates for one more billing cycle, including extending an existing monthly to use the current full year rate by upgrading now to annual.>>

[Chic Aeon]

15 hours ago, anthonytorino said:

WHo knows , at a tech show i went to Linden labs discussed the later 2019 begging change over to the cloud, and weanign out their servers and server house used for the l side. 

They stated improvements to opengl and the engine (whether just working non current or another sl rehash to bring it up to the newer open gl standards).

They discussed the new homes then before a full announcement, but also changes to mainland costs, and a new premium tier with a homestead option (hinting a full sim would not be required). 

 

It was somewhat vague. Lower costs will pull more back, but who knows what the final decisions will be. Interesting enough other companies announced new similar virtual worlds in 2020. So at the same show I expected linden lab to talk about more.

Interesting. Can you tell use WHICH "tech show" and when?  Thanks. 

[anthonytorino]

4 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Interesting. Can you tell use WHICH "tech show" and when?  Thanks. 

 

Houston Texas Tech Expo discussion with Ebbe Altberg.

California PC Expo event sponsored by ZDnet 

Amazon AWS Cloud Services meeting (I work with the Western Division 3 days a week Houston and Dallas Primarily- California secondary. 

Edited June 1, 2019 by anthonytorino

[tootsiepop1]

I am sorry you should not increase prices for a feature that is limited and that is mainly why they are change the premium cost, if I am not able to take advantage of these new features I should not be paying the increased price when I have exactly what I had before. Land price reductions are laughable and not a huge savings so what is the incentive?

[Gryphon Ronas]

13 minutes ago, tootsiepop1 said:

I am sorry you should not increase prices for a feature that is limited and that is mainly why they are change the premium cost, if I am not able to take advantage of these new features I should not be paying the increased price when I have exactly what I had before. Land price reductions are laughable and not a huge savings so what is the incentive?

Premium has gained a lot of benefits since I first started it, which was, well, back when it first started. And this is the first time they have ever increased the price.

[LittleMe Jewell]

15 minutes ago, tootsiepop1 said:

I am sorry you should not increase prices for a feature that is limited and that is mainly why they are change the premium cost, if I am not able to take advantage of these new features I should not be paying the increased price when I have exactly what I had before. Land price reductions are laughable and not a huge savings so what is the incentive?

Many folks think that the only justification for the price increase is the new Linden Homes, but LL has actually added many benefits to Premium accounts over all of the years and never once increased the price.