DISAPPOINTED AND ANNOYED - "FREE SIMS FROM LL"

[Melita Magic]

Thank you, Faithless.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Why on earth would anyone buy a sim from LL? It's far cheaper to just buy sims off someone eager to get rid of it.

Aside from that, tier for Estate is simply too high. The benefits don't justify or outweigh the drawbacks, in my opinion.

Oh and StarSong? You've done a great job on VT over the years. I doubt this sale will make you lose tenants, though who knows I might be wrong.

[74Theo74]

Hi..im fairly new to all this. I have read through all the previous posts..My thoughts are there seem to be alot of doom and gloom about this "promotion" Iam still trying to work out the exact reason? Is this mainly because sim owners have missed this offer? maybe purchased recently or some time ago and paid the full set up fees ?

Please do not think im trying to offend people with the paragraph above...as i say im trying to understand..after reading 3 pages of posts im not much clearer.

If the $1000usd is waived with you paying $295 up front there is still a substantial saving right?

Am i right in thinking...if I wanted to buy a sim should i not look for somebody who is desperate to sell? therefore giving them some cash rather than them handing it back...with the buyer getting a good deal instead of ANY $1000usd set up fees?

[Ciaran Laval]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

 

Granted, there are some savings:  No setup fee saves US$1000, offset by the US$295 advance tier that ordinarily would be billed in arrears.  So that sounds like a US$705 savings, but in fact hardly anybody is buying directly from LL now, with so many sims on the secondary market going for little more than the transfer fee, plus tier.  So, call it half-off, maybe.  I just doubt that's going to be enough to spur many folks into an immediate purchase.

I guess we'll find out in another week, when Tyche releases the stats.

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Estate tier is paid in advance, the setup fee includes tier for the first month. This is why when it comes to a second hand sim people want to know when the tier due date is, the person selling won't pay tier to LL again if the transfer is completed before the tier due date. The person buying works out how much they think the purchase is worth based on how long it will be before their first tier date.

The second hand market has been greatly improved since LL made if far more secure, so it is a healthy market.

[Qie Niangao]

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74Theo74 wrote in part:

Am i right in thinking...if I wanted to buy a sim should i not look for somebody who is desperate to sell? therefore giving them some cash rather than them handing it back...with the buyer getting a good deal instead of ANY $1000usd set up fees?

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Yes, but that depends on the availability of sims in the secondary market (not usually a problem these days), and the fact that the transaction needs to cover the US$100 transfer fee that is paid to Linden Lab.

@Ciaran: Yeah, I shouldn't have said "billed in arrears."  As you point out, that's not the accounting.  The thing is, the first month's tier was included in the US$1K setup fee, so the first time a buyer would pay that fee directly would be after the first month -- sorta like being billed in arrears, but not.

[MarmelaGramela Doesburg]

You sure are right here. but I fear we will see it again...and again... LL has overtime basically run every kind of businesses down in SL with their actions.. I have 3 of those myself alone. Not to mention the casino owners that suffer under every 5 minute changes to the rules... it has all just started to look like a bad joke to me...

[Melita Magic]

I regularly see estates offered for $250 USD just before tier is due, in the land resale group. I hope that won't ever be outlawed. Sometimes they even pay the transfer fees. Basically they want to dump tier.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Melita Magic wrote:

I regularly see estates offered for $250 USD just before tier is due, in the land resale group. I hope that won't ever be outlawed. Sometimes they even pay the transfer fees. Basically they want to dump tier.

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This is the market who will be most afraid of this promotion, initial reports, with a few hours to go, suggest this has been a successful promotion. If LL extend this, the bottom will fall out of the second hand sim market.

LL could waive the transfer fee or drop it to a much lower level, say USD$25 instead of USD$100, it is in LL's interest for there to be a second hand sim market.

[Melita Magic]

I'm wondering what this weekend's sale is all about also, and what might come in the future. Not in an alarmist type of way, but just I agree that it is some type of experiment. As well as, of course, a cash injection.

As a possible future buyer of an estate sim (well I can dream), it would be bad news if LL never did this again AND tier reduced so that secondary prices shot sky high again. I remember grandfathered estates, just before the cutoff, going for 2500 USD.  It would be a while before that paid off, even for a landlord, which I'm not.

I still do wish tier would drop to 195 a month for an estate.

[Qie Niangao]

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I guess we'll find out in another week, when Tyche releases the stats.

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No need to wait a week.

Also, I was full of crap.  These things sold like hotcakes.

[161488303349]

the reason that mainland parcels held their prices for so long was bc of speculation and land-cutting and ad farming. was a game for most people who were doing it. people complained and complained and in the end LL made it a crime to cut and adfarm mainland. so those guys stopped buying land and the price started to fall

then the speculators who werent cutting but were buying the cut land hoping to score, or buying land in regions that werent cut hoping to score even more, couldnt get the prices they were getting before so they stopped buying as well, and the price fell more.

after all the speculators and adfarmers and landcutters were out of the market then it showed that there werent all that many geniune mainlanders anyways wanting to buy land to actually use. so that put a big squeeze on the mainland real estate firms and lots of them went to the wall and stopped buying. prices fell even more

and the only people who were genuinely interested in living on mainland were left and they didnt have to buy back the view anymore so they stopped buying land they didnt need to and down the price went again

the other effect is that mainlanders who live in the wopwops and the backblocks are mostly solitary people, like they mostly tool about on their own or with just one or two friends over now and again. they quite a bit dif to linden homes people in what they do

if you a social person then the mainland places where there are communities are quite few compared to all of it. if you cant get into them places then can be quite lonely living on the mainland, like isolated. so social people like that tend to drift off to the islands bc is way more communities on them that are more affordable for them to get a parcel on

sometimes people say there is a mainland glut and get quite upset and LL should do something like reduce tier or make everyone pay premium so they have to have  land to play and  other stuff like that.

if LL did reduce tier then I wouldnt pay more tier. i would just get more land up to what Im paying in tier now. even if i didnt have any use for the extra land. i would just get it bc

 

 

 

[Malinson Bloobury]

Linden Labs is suffering an erosion caused by a number of factors including rising operating costs and decline of high end spenders. Moreover, they are forced to find safe haven alternatives to raising the costs of their regions which would assuredly bring about a rapid downfall in favor of promising competitors.

The region discount offered a short term boost in revenue sales but I doubt that this this was the intended purpose. In my estimates, many of the sales of the discount offer are to those who could not have otherwise afforded. If you can’t save it you can’t keep it.

It is my belief that there will be a dramatic increase of incredible land sale deals, lands offered at or even well below cost. This will create a vacuum in an already flat real-estate market, resulting in stagnation of sales, even on lands offered below cost.

Within three months of this discount I believe two-thirds of all the regions sold in the discount will be abandoned, many of which would have unsuspecting tenants. By that time many of the already struggling real-estate business would be facing a prolonged trail of stagnation and decline of sales which, if not prepared, would result in complete loss…

Within a year of this discount, Linden Labs will probably see its worse decline in regions in its history, but they already know that for by that time they should have a much greater incline of premium membership accounts. It would be of those who got shafted by the unstable market, seeking mainland living as a safe haven for troubling times.

With the added income of membership dues, they will be able to weather the decline in private islands, thus relieving them of the massive operating costs they were facing. I believe that this is the first stage of a restructuring that will make them more resilient in the long run..

 

-Malinson

 

 

[NicholasWhite]

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Malinson Bloobury wrote:

Linden Labs is suffering an erosion caused by a number of factors including rising operating costs and decline of high end spenders. Moreover, they are forced to find safe haven alternatives to raising the costs of their regions which would assuredly bring about a rapid downfall in favor of promising competitors.

The region discount offered a short term boost in revenue sales but I doubt that this this was the intended purpose. In my estimates, many of the sales of the discount offer are to those who could not have otherwise afforded. If you can’t save it you can’t keep it.

It is my belief that there will be a dramatic increase of incredible land sale deals, lands offered at or even well below cost. This will create a vacuum in an already flat real-estate market, resulting in stagnation of sales, even on lands offered below cost.

Within three months of this discount I believe two-thirds of all the regions sold in the discount will be abandoned, many of which would have unsuspecting tenants. By that time many of the already struggling real-estate business would be facing a prolonged trail of stagnation and decline of sales which, if not prepared, would result in complete loss…

Within a year of this discount, Linden Labs will probably see its worse decline in regions in its history, but they already know that for by that time they should have a much greater incline of premium membership accounts. It would be of those who got shafted by the unstable market, seeking mainland living as a safe haven for troubling times.

With the added income of membership dues, they will be able to weather the decline in private islands, thus relieving them of the massive operating costs they were facing. I believe that this is the first stage of a restructuring that will make them more resilient in the long run..

 

-Malinson

 

 

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Well, three months has passed. Almost 500 sims were bought in this deal. However, this deal blind-sided the larger land barons who lost big and cancelled sims right, left and center for a period, as well as medium sized estate sim owners. The estate sim grid is now about 800 sims fewer than it was just before the deal. I guess this deal backfired on the Lab a bit. The decline seems to be continuing on.