A brief note on pricing changes, which ran long.

[Mollymews]

33 minutes ago, Sarralie said:

I understand price increases coming with innovations and I really like to pay for my favorite hobby 
(at least as long as I can afford it financially) but the only explicit reason to the topic 
of free account reduction is  are quite a strain on our back end? 7 groups are 
deducted for free player and 10 for premium added. I like to quit on 7 and take only 3 more 
groups so that the free players can keep their conditions! also in offline IM's it will be 
deducted 10 for free members and 30 added to the premium members. here I say increased by 20 not 30 so that the 
free players can keep on their existing conditions.

i like this. As a Premium account I would support this

[Sammy Huntsman]

27 minutes ago, Angelina Sinclair said:

I thought the move to amazon servers was going to help reduce operating costs. This hit on basic accounts is going to hurt communities and in general make people more cynical and spiteful. You give with one hand and you take with another. Honestly, this is not how you make premium account more attractive.

What I see happening now in response to this folks being online a lot more. First people will leave themselves online through their phone or tablet just so they don't miss any messages or notices. This will put a drain on linden systems as there will be online zombies lingering about hogging network data and resources. Secondly, people will slowly stop using groups and just use discord which for the short term might look good but these communities will no long be tied to SL, they have discord to keep them connected. So the moment SL pisses off the majority of said community they'll leave all at once to find a new place together. Groups in SL kept people in SL with their communities that only exist in SL. This group limit reduction is shooting yourself in the foot.

I get that LL wants to making premium accounts more attractive but this isn't doing it. Not at all. I have a free account and I choose to stay free because there is literally nothing attractive to me on the premium account that makes it worth the cost. Instead I spend that money on lindens which goes to pay land owners and content creators who in turn pay LL. So to me I don't get it.

But you know to avoid sounding entirely negative. Here's some ideas to make premium more attractive that you could immediately implement:

1) Zero upload costs... limited to say 20? uploads per day/week or whatever before the upload costs return.

2) Actual good customer service that deals with griefers and drama, especially when there is a track record of it.

3) Higher min group requirement. Make it like 20? 50? people minimum otherwise you pay fees.. 10L per week? UNLESS you are premium.

4) Reduced fees for buying lindens while premium. You got them on the premium hook, do you really need to milk every transaction? Lower fees, means more impulse buying.

5) Allow private sim owners to expand sim size. Just literally make it bigger. LI can be the same. This way people could do races, or more indepth RP layout instead of stacking sim builds to skyboxes at various heights.

6) Promotional deals. Pick a content creator to promote, and on their marketplace page do a limited time discount. LL will ensure the creator still gets the full value of their products (ex: 1,000L) while the customers pay a discount amount (like 10%) so customers pay 900L, Linden labs pay the missing 100L, the creator still gets 1000L. All this to encourage impulse buying and improve brands and creators LL support and like.

Long term changes LL can do to make premium more attractive:

1. Allow sims to hold more than 40 avatars! This right here is killing your land business anyway. When Truth, blueberry or other stores do sales, it is jam pack for days and it does turn away some people from dropping in and buying stuff. Fix this.. some how...

2. Inventory preview wear option? Some wardrobe window maybe? So I don't have to wear the outfit just to see what it is cause the creator didn't include a photo. Plus then others won't have to render my outfit nor the sim.

3. Better notice system. Seriously why do notices count as offline messages? This should be client side, entirely. When did you log out? Ok now check for notices that popped in afterward... bam here you go.

4. Add a dating service for premium users? Silly, cheesy, bad taste.. I know.. but you know there's a market for it.

5. Give away outfits. In a game where there are no monsters to grind for gear and no way to generate cash without spending cash (upload costs and all). Most new players have 1 or 2 outfits at most to use and relying on freebies or anything extra which is just terrible. They get shunned, ignored and usually not welcomed without a remotely decent avatar. So for new arrivals let them pick an outfit from the marketplace (from a list you approve of) and make it free (aka you, LL buy it for them). Do this every 5 days for 30 days to keep them logging in regularly. Hey mobile tactics are profitable use'em.

Secondly, by implementing a system where you give new players a free outfit you can now put this as a feature for premium users! Add it to their weekly stipend.

6. Share (some) premium benefits to friends! Maybe your 3 best friends can now also access premium areas. Or get virtual gifts. Priority access to sims (at least from other basic accounts but not premium) Maybe something I mentioned above but reduced. Either way, share the benefits!

 

I'm sure the community here can come up with other ideas of how to make premium more attractive to people. In general, don't assume every listed benefit you create or I listed will be used by everyone, all the time. Some get premium for one reason (like support) and that's it. So if you can share the benefits, friends will get it just to give something to someone they care about.

Don't forget what makes people log back into SL everyday is the communities and people they met. Sure some are in it for the money, to create content, but majority of people are here to make connects with others, make friends and be apart of a community. Promote that, build around that and you'll have more retention which means more money casually spent. You don't have to force. Some of us drops $50 or more on a weekly basis without a second thought for ourselves and for our friends. So please, be considerate of the communities you are impacting by this move.

 

Another big one, that I gotta add. Allow for users to be able to back up their inventory to the cloud, so if something happens. They can do it right from home. Also, now would have been the time to implement the changing of users names. That would have been a big selling feature.

[Evangeline Arcadia]

13 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

 

 But the thing is, making something incredibly beautiful and new, and its inevitable scarcity, are part and parcel (pun intended) of the same deal. So, either they resolve to never make anything new and desireable, ever again, or they continue to really make wonderful improvements -- at which point scarcity will kick in. I don't see this working any other way.

I don't personally believe LL are aiming for scarcity for homes. I don't see why there needs to be scarcity for anything new, not in a digital environment, when it's easy to replicate.  Just doesn't make sense to me ( unless they do deliberately want to create the hype, but I think it'll more likely just piss people off).  There is scarcity at the moment just because they were rolling out what they have rather than wait till all the homes were finished.  They've already said more houseboats and houses are coming soon plus new themes.  I really do hope that it will be be enough for current demand (why do I have a nagging doubt that it won't?) and that all members will be able to get whichever theme they want. I can't see scarcity benefiting LL in the long run, especially with the premium hike...

Edited May 30, 2019 by Evangeline Arcadia

[Kira Balestra]

Spend money and so much effort to learn to do something and keep it for 3 years, seeing that now the future is very gray ... It was difficult to maintain a store without having an original mesh in SL, but now, I do not know where this will go , without having my own original mesh.
Spend money on having a place to put your inworld store, spend money on buying "legally" Mayan templates to do your job honestly, spend money on paying a course in RL to learn to use Maya, (ok, we all do not find it so easy to learn to use those programs, and I am not willing to pay others to create my mesh, I want to get it myself!), Spend effort, hours, illusions ... in trying to do things that others like, just for to be able to win a few lindens that to some of us, pays us bills in real life.

What is the point of continuing with the effort and investment in working in SL, if only all of you are the ones who will benefit from our effort?

And if many of the creators and designers of SL forcibly abandon our work in SL, you will also have economic losses ?, surely, yes

What a damned frustrating and incredibly demotivating!

and ofc, with all my respects, especially for the rest of the merchants within SL, both small and large businesses! all of us also increase your benefits continuously, respect should be mutual.

 

this is not good, for neither side

[Angelina Sinclair]

16 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

 

Except, of course, 'giving' is perhaps where your whole argument falls apart. They're not a charity. Much as I'd love to have everything for the cheapest price possible, with the most perks and latest innovations, in a real-world economy, someone's gonna have to pay for all of that: aka, us.  

Well... how much profit is enough profit? I get they are a business but they are doing a terribly poor job of running said business.

-Useless old search results

-Utterly terrible new player experience

-TP lag from avatars entering leaving sims to the point it is detrimental to have a popular sim.

-Sims that can't handle 40+ people

 

Good knows what else I missed. However this idea that not giving to the community is not profitable is far from the truth. Just look at other F2P games or the mobile industry. Look at fortnite in where they regularly give away outfits to new players just for playing their game. LL can do that (well after the update the avatar model *coughs*). LL can SOOOO do that to try and keep players coming in for more and more.

[Kendra Parfort]

I agree with @Cain Maven as well. This is gonna be a bit salty but it is honest and I only complain because I care about this platform.

Again, creators are getting hit the most. The process credit fee was just raised last year. Now it got doubled. It's not as much as the raise that bothers  me, but the pattern. As a creator it worries me that LL will keep increasing the fees until it isn't profitable enough for us to keep creating.

Independent creators have put a lot of work into SL, improving it and making it more appealing to the public, therefore increasing the nr of transactions and people who play sl, therefore boosting the SL economy. Yes, we are grateful that we have been offered a platform to create and sell our products on, but in exchange we did help this platform become what it is today, and that's an understatement.  No one wears/uses anything LL made. The sl base avatars haven't been changed since 2004, no one wears them anymore, no one cares to join the platform because of them. People use mesh heads/bodies, skins, hair, clothes everything designed by independent creators, as well as buildings, decor, basically everything in sl. Not to mention designers offer many free products. We already do a lot more for this platform then LL care to admit and this is how LL thanks us. Without the independent creators, sl wouldn't have celebrate it's 16th birthday.

I don't want this to come out as me bragging about how important creators are. Of course most important are the general users, who bring most money into SL. But my point is, those users are in SL and invest so much money in it, because THEY HAVE WHAT TO SPEND MONEY ON.. 

Even if you look at the ad pictures on the SL official page, they are using products made by sl residents and not LL. You're welcome for making your platform look more like 2015 and less like 2005. ( i said 2015 because we can only do so much, we're people too)

Here is what we already paid to LL: (before the new update)

2.5% cash out fee

3.5% selling L$ fee

5% / marketplace sale fee (which i think was said it will be raised too at some point)

10 L$ / per each upload (more for mesh) - trust me it is a lot when you have thousands of products with multiple textures each

land (depends on size)

 

I don't buy the excuse that you are not making enough money to support the platform. To me this looks like we have to pay for the failure of sansar or a new project you are planning.. you should just start a gofundme. 

[RozaeR]

Those agreeing are sheep this is absolutely a knife stabbed in the back from LL what bothers me more about all of this is the Cash out Fee 5% Come on your squeezing me already with the overpriced Membership and Land Pricing, Even Selling oh and don't forget you take 1.45 from me as well when we want to buy Lindens ill be checking on them online declines from 30 k to 25k.. im sure of its just absurd Me looking forward to get on SL also declined thank you. You sure are draining the Swamp for the 1% and I absolutely did go their politically because anything that has to do with my hard earned Money I take seriously and all of this is the same Game being played. 

Edited May 30, 2019 by RozaeR

[kiramanell]

12 minutes ago, Evangeline Arcadia said:

I don't personally believe LL are aiming for scarcity for homes. I don't see why there needs to be scarcity for anything new, not in a digital environment, when it's easy to replicate.  Just doesn't make sense to me ( unless they do deliberately want to create the hype, but I think it'll more likely just piss people off).  There is scarcity at the moment just because they were rolling out what they have rather than wait till all the homes were finished.  They've already said more houseboats and houses are coming soon plus new themes.  I really do hope that it will be be enough for current demand (why do I have a nagging doubt that it won't?) and that all members will be able to get whichever theme they want. I can't see scarcity benefiting LL in the long run, especially with the premium hike...

 

Oh no, they're not aiming for scarcity, of course: it's simply the natural result of creating something desireable. And these new homes are in such high demand, in no small part, due to he fact that very unique landscaping accompanies them. Which means hundreds of Moles, diligently working very hard, to landscape these scenes individually. And that simply takes time. A LOT of time. They could do a cheap 'copy & paste', of course, but then the desireability of these locations would be greatly reduced. Ergo, if they want to do it right, scarcity is simply inevitable, as there are, what, like 60,000 Premium account holders? Enough at least not to be able to accommodate them all, instantly. Sad reality of human limitations.

Edited May 30, 2019 by kiramanell

[Sammy Huntsman]

3 minutes ago, Kendra Parfort said:

I agree with @Cain Maven as well. This is gonna be a bit salty but it is honest and I only complain because I care about this platform.

Again, creators are getting hit the most. The process credit fee was just raised last year. Now it got doubled. It's not as much as the raise that bothers  me, but the pattern. As a creator it worries me that LL will keep increasing the fees until it isn't profitable enough for us to keep creating.

Independent creators have put a lot of work into SL, improving it and making it more appealing to the public, therefore increasing the nr of transactions and people who play sl, therefore boosting the SL economy. Yes, we are grateful that we have been offered a platform to create and sell our products on, but in exchange we did help this platform become what it is today, and that's an understatement.  No one wears/uses anything LL made. The sl base avatars haven't been changed since 2004, no one wears them anymore, no one cares to join the platform because of them. People use mesh heads/bodies, skins, hair, clothes everything designed by independent creators, as well as buildings, decor, basically everything in sl. Not to mention designers offer many free products. We already do a lot more for this platform then LL care to admit and this is how LL thanks us. Without the independent creators, sl wouldn't have celebrate it's 16th birthday.

I don't want this to come out as me bragging about how important creators are. Of course most important are the general users, who bring most money into SL. But my point is, those users are in SL and invest so much money in it, because THEY HAVE WHAT TO SPEND MONEY ON.. 

Even if you look at the ad pictures on the SL official page, they are using products made by sl residents and not LL. You're welcome for making your platform look more like 2015 and less like 2005. ( i said 2015 because we can only do so much, we're people too)

Here is what we already paid to LL: (before the new update)

2.5% cash out fee

3.5% selling L$ fee

5% / marketplace sale fee (which i think was said it will be raised too at some point)

10 L$ / per each upload (more for mesh) - trust me it is a lot when you have thousands of products with multiple textures each

land (depends on size)

 

I don't buy the excuse that you are not making enough money to support the platform. To me this looks like we have to pay for the failure of sansar or a new project you are planning.. you should just start a gofundme. 

Creators are getting hit? How about the consumers, who are also gonna get hit with a price increase?  In a perfect world, a business wouldn't expedite its costs onto the consumer. However, to make ends meet, pay overhead and to essentially be able to live, since I know some cash out to RL. These costs will be expedited to the customer, in a price increase on goods and services, within SL.

[ZennyRose Balhaus]

I have been a Premium Member since joining SL in 2006....I am also a sim owner. The premium gifts are a waste of time to me, never taken that up...don't need a linden home as I have  sim..Yeah great they are dropping tier prices. But how about LL address the issues that many have, like dealing with griefers and phishing accounts quicker. Also as a premium maybe make it free for premium member to purchase lindens as a perk, to offset the yearly increase of premium membership. I think LL are wrong to penalise the free accounts with cutting the groups, you are biting the hand there...free account holders spend money inworld and contribute so much. I do wonder if these increases are to prop up Sansar in some way

[Evangeline Arcadia]

8 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

 

Oh no, they're not aiming for scarcity, of course: it's simply the natural result of creating something desireable. And these new homes are in such high demand, in no small part, due to he fact that very unique landscaping accompanies them. Which means hundreds of Moles, diligently working very hard, to landscape these scenes individually. And that simply takes time. A LOT of time. They could do a cheap 'copy & paste', of course, but then the desireability of these locations would be greatly reduced. Ergo, if they want to do it right, scarcity is simply inevitable, as there are, what, like 60,000 Premium account holders? Enough at least not to be able to accommodate them all, instantly. Sad reality of human limitations.

Interestingly although there are supposed to be about 60,000 premium members Patch said in an interview  (https://thebellisserian.wixsite.com/news)  that there are about 38,000 homes to replace (well, he said 'over' 38,000 but didn't say something like 'over 55,000' so I would assume it's nearer 38,000). Many of those old 38,000 homes aren't taken, from what I've seen,  so hopefully, including a bit of rise in new premium accounts caused by the new homes hype, by replacing that number there should be enough for all, yeah gonna take some time though. I just hope enough of the themes people want most.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Evangeline Arcadia

[RozaeR]

truly sucks 

Edited May 30, 2019 by RozaeR

[RozaeR]

7 minutes ago, ZenCho Balhaus said:

I have been a Premium Member since joining SL in 2006....I am also a sim owner. The premium gifts are a waste of time to me, never taken that up...don't need a linden home as I have  sim..Yeah great they are dropping tier prices. But how about LL address the issues that many have, like dealing with griefers and phishing accounts quicker. Also as a premium maybe make it free for premium member to purchase lindens as a perk, to offset the yearly increase of premium membership. I think LL are wrong to penalise the free accounts with cutting the groups, you are biting the hand there...free account holders spend money inworld and contribute so much. I do wonder if these increases are to prop up Sansar in some way

Absolutely 

[Kendra Parfort]

6 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

Creators are getting hit? How about the consumers, who are also gonna get hit with a price increase?  In a perfect world, a business wouldn't expedite its costs onto the consumer. However, to make ends meet, pay overhead and to essentially be able to live, since I know some cash out to RL. These costs will be expedited to the customer, in a price increase on goods and services, within SL.

I am not saying customers aren't. I know I won't raise my prices and probably many others won't do it either. Because a price increase would actually make people buy less, or not buy anything at all, affecting the economy. Less transactions would also mean less money to LL, and that will lead to LL increasing the fees even more (because so far we have learned, anyone looses, but LL).

[kiramanell]

Just now, Evangeline Arcadia said:

Interestingly although there are supposed to be about 60,000 premium members Patch said in an interview  (https://thebellisserian.wixsite.com/news)  that there are about 38,000 homes to replace (well, he said 'over' 38,000 but didn't say something like 'over 55,000' so I would assume it's nearer 38,000). Many of those old 38,000 homes aren't taken, from what I've seen,  so hopefully, including a bit of rise in new premium accounts caused by the new homes hype, by replacing that number there should be enough for all. I just hope enough of the themes people want most.

 

Does it matter, really? Even replacing 38,000 homes is an incredible undertaking! I'm not a Mole, but having done a bit of landscaping myself, I can assure you that this is a pretty time-consuming business (if you want to do it properly).

And many of these old 38,000 homes weren't taken because, well, they're crappy.  These new homes are of an entirely qualitatively new order, really, and thus, clearly, suddenly in very high demand. That's what you get for making something beautiful. 😋

[Kyrah Abattoir]

15 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

Creators are getting hit? How about the consumers, who are also gonna get hit with a price increase?  In a perfect world, a business wouldn't expedite its costs onto the consumer. However, to make ends meet, pay overhead and to essentially be able to live, since I know some cash out to RL. These costs will be expedited to the customer, in a price increase on goods and services, within SL.

Most creators will eat the cost, as they have before. Raising prices is not something we can do without consequences.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Most creators will eat the cost, as they have before. Raising prices is not something we can do without consequences.

I'm just more worried about the people who use SL as a means of financing RL, and I know some creators do that. Especially when you have people who are not within the US, and with those fees, on top of Exchange rate, and in the EU VAT. It will be much more expensive as a creator, to be financially set. That is my one big concern, especially with the people who use SL to make RL ends meet. 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

2 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

I'm just more worried about the people who use SL as a means of financing RL, and I know some creators do that. Especially when you have people who are not within the US, and with those fees, on top of Exchange rate, and in the EU VAT. It will be much more expensive as a creator, to be financially set. That is my one big concern, especially with the people who use SL to make RL ends meet. 

Oh I know, I'm worried about that on a personal level. But I've been worried about that for 10 years now so... I guess I'm used to the idea of impending doom.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

@Naria PantharDevil's advocate here, it's actually 10 groups and twice the land holding, remember.

[Pamela Galli]

8 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Most creators will eat the cost, as they have before. Raising prices is not something we can do without consequences.

Of course. I have thousands of products filling four sims. Imagine what it would take to reprice everything inworld,, then on the marketplace. Not happening.

Not happy with the incremental shift of the income burden to creators. “Tax what you want to reduce or get rid of.”

[RozaeR]

1 minute ago, Naria Panthar said:

Just gonna leave this here for people to enjoy : Thats the opinion on FACEBOOK of most people and creators right now! Been reading other posts but the opinion is pretty much the same. I mean if you increse premium at least offer something with it - 10 groups is nothing and not really needed. I think Second Life is expensive enoug and I never in my life heard of more expensive game then this one ... people leave 1000 upon 1000 of dollars in this game and thats how you are gonna do us?

Thank you I had even posted on them posts LL wont even see this lol.

[Kat Linden]

Hi! So, I am very afraid of pitchforks - please be gentle.

I just wanted to briefly address groups maths. It's true that the groups of Basic accounts are being lowered by 7, and the groups of Premium accounts are being raised by 10 - and if you look at that math alone, it might not seem to add up. However, most residents have at least one alt. Technically, you can have up to 5 alts, and many residents are not entirely limited by that technicality. But let's you had one Premium Membership and 4 Basic alts - the number of groups you could have on your main account would go up by 10, but the total number of groups you could be a member of would go down by 18. This is important because all members of groups contribute to lag, even inactive group members. This is especially true for group chat. There are residents who have a lot of alts that they have not used in years that are still part of groups, and they are slowing those groups down. Lowering the number of groups for Basic accounts will not be a quick fix for this issue, but reducing the number of groups Basic members can join could help keep it from building further as we go forward.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Oh I know, I'm worried about that on a personal level. But I've been worried about that for 10 years now so... I guess I'm used to the idea of impending doom.

Could you please explain to me how a +2.5% increase in credit processing is going to put your SL-based livelihood at risk? Sincere question. I mean, you were already paying for all the other fees, VAT, etc. What is the income-deadzone where a slight increase will make your situation unbearable, and how are you not in it already?

[Kira Balestra]

6 minutes ago, Naria Panthar said:

Just gonna leave this here for people to enjoy : Thats the opinion on FACEBOOK of most people and creators right now! Been reading other posts but the opinion is pretty much the same. I mean if you increse premium at least offer something with it - 10 groups is nothing and not really needed. I think Second Life is expensive enoug and I never in my life heard of more expensive game then this one ... people leave 1000 upon 1000 of dollars in this game and thats how you are gonna do us?

FB is boiling all over now with this, a lot of post about this... and absolutely no one agrees or happy with the LL changes

[Cain Maven]

30 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

Creators are getting hit? How about the consumers, who are also gonna get hit with a price increase?  In a perfect world, a business wouldn't expedite its costs onto the consumer. However, to make ends meet, pay overhead and to essentially be able to live, since I know some cash out to RL. These costs will be expedited to the customer, in a price increase on goods and services, within SL.

That's exactly right. Even if the direct impact is on the creators, in many if not most cases the extra cost will be passed on to the consumer. That's how it is in any life.