From Linden Labs - The Second Life Economy in Q3 2011

[Domitan Redenblack]

"August was the biggest growth month for Second Life in nearly four years, with Q3 averaging 45 percent more completed registrations per day than Q1 before the new reg flow was implemented..."

Yet in the same report, user hours have dropped by 4% ...

Clearly LL are doing something wrong if more people are joining, but user hours are going down.

What do you think?

 

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

A better question, I think, would be what do you think?  You're the one who said Linden Lab is doing something wrong so surely you have some facts to base that on.  Let us know......don't keep us in the dark. 

 

For me.  I don't know........I don't often think about those things.  I also don't think how many computers are sold with Mac operating systems installed on them.  Or Windows systems.  Or linux systems.  So I wouldn't know if or what any of the big three might or might not be doing that either right or wrong........do you?  I mean, what do you think?

 

Linden Lab is a business just like Apple or Microsoft or Dell or Hewlett Packard or Sony........all of those businesses have a plan for growth.  The users (or customers) either accept that plan or move on.  If they accept the plan then they are just alone for the ride......if the ride gets too rough, then jump off anytime.  Enough jump off then maybe the users can affect the plan.....maybe not.  And even if they affect the plan, would it still be to the users liking?  That's what businesses think about...including Linden Lab.

 

Now that you know a little of what I think, how about enlightening us on that "Clearly LL are doing something wrong if more people are joining, but user hours are going down."  I wonder if the arrival of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere might have anything to do witth the hours spent in SL.  Seems every Summer we get these threads about how the hours spent in SL are spelling some kind of trouble on the horizon for LL.   I use to think of Chicken Little every time I read one.......I don't anymore because it's so old it's like watching re-runs of Fear Factor on the Chiller Channel (you know those marathons where 10 or 12 Fear Factor episodes are run back to back).  It just gets old and not even funny anymore.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Nothing is clear about it.  There could be many explanations that have nothing to do with what LL did or did not do.  For instance Q3 of the year is a busy time in RL for many people.  In the US most people take their vacations then, they are more involved with outdoor activities and they are busy in the latter part of it getting the kids back to school, so they may just not have the free time to spend in SL like they did in Q2.. 

A four percent drop from Q2 to Q3 is small and not any indicator anything is being done wrong.  Compare the numbers to the same numbers of all prior years to see what the trend is and if there is any significant variation in the trend this year that could indicate there is cause and effect.  If there is you then need to examine all the possible causes in RL and SL that could account for it before drawing any conclusions.

[Setekh Ichtama]

With 45% more registrations and still a 4% drop in total user hours? I don't see how that can be a good sign.

About the only thing I watch now as far as statistics is how land is doing (since certain key statistics are not being reported anymore) and that is dropping consistently between 30-70 regions per week so, I'm not sure how low is too low but I'm sure they're watching that closely as well.

I'm happy they did provide us all some insight into what's ahead and although I did expect more for the condition I feel they're in, at least they are making a concerted effort and soon we'll see if that's enough because timing is everything and if you wait too long, it could easily be too late so, here's to good leadership saving the day this year. 

[Domitan Redenblack]

As for user hours, steady decline since at least Q2 of 2010.

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

 

[Perrie Juran]

Ummmmmmmmmmmm

I'm slightly confused here.

That was old news from last October.

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

Unless there is an update to this that I am missing.

It will be the 4th quarter that may be of greater interest and I think Rodvik has given us a glimpse that it could be a better report.  But we will have to wait and see what the actual numbers are.  Many who upgraded to Premium could be of the "take the money and run" mentality when LL offered the 50% discount.

 

[Domitan Redenblack]

I do know from personal experience that many of the sims and communities that I visited over the last two years are either gone completely, or this Christmas are running at about 1/4 of what they were in 2009.

1 Yes, the economy sucks, and many may be working two jobs or otherwise occupied...

2 Yes, many are more worried about school exams, etc.

3 And honestly, I have only met one or two avatars or sims using Mesh, so that's not it, either, I don't think.

4 I do see many people now who have purchased new PCs or laptops, which "seemed" like a good deal but only included Intel HD 3000 built-in graphics, and this can be greatly disappointing, so that may be a factor.   (I have a lower end (but not as low as HD 3000) graphics "card" which runs High Quality pretty well, leaving out Atmospheric Shaders and using up to 3000 particles only; all the rest at max and 2x anti-alias.)

5 I have heard of other grids/spaces etc which sound appealing technically, but the community here is so much better; so not sure if that is a factor.

6 I have seen some improvements in rezzing and bandwidth server performance, but this seems very patchy and not related to in-world traffic, time of day, or USA-UK net loads. Lag, slow rezz, etc were amazingly good for all spring and summer and most of autumn for me, but starting about 5-6 weeks ago got much worse again with no change in my ISP or USA-UK bandwidth or Sim traffic.

 

In the end, 45% increase in sign-ups should translate into increasing hours, and increasing land use.

That's my take on it now, and I am puzzled as to why things seem to be fading so much. So I ask here.

 

[PeterCanessa Oh]

While this is old news there is a contemporary reason for the increase in new accounts:

• The new account process has been made prettier
• LL have tried to appeal to the twit-face crowd
• SL is being talked of as a game (more than it was before)

...along with decreasing user hours:

• A lot of new residents sign-up without reading ANYTHING (viz; "Where do I find my avatar?" type questions)
• Nothing works consistently, as expected or well - everything from (service fault) "can't accept terms of service", billing issues, marketplace non-delivery, intermittent voice, etc. to (resident's fault) inadequate computers/broadband/graphics
• Many seem to be expecting The Sims / Farmville / WoW and leave immediately when they don't find it
• There is NO easily-found relevant help or assistance unless you already know where to look
• Most of what is online is out of date (the more 'official' it is the less likely it is to be any good)
• Welcome Areas
• Basic Mode in the viewer (thank Bob that didn't last long)
• Having to think (in order to build, animate, script, etc.) puts a lot of people off

There really needs to be a simple, short explanation of WHAT SL IS to get people started.  Several bloggers have pretty good introductions, LL has to make sure they are shoved in new residents' faces rather than have so many people not even understand that they need to download a viewer to be in SL

... and install it

... and run it

[in fact I have tried to stop myself responding in ANSWERS just because so many questions seem screamingly dumb.  Some of them are, of course, but for the rest it must be false expectations and lack of information.  Mustn't it?  PLEASE let it not just be incredibly stupid people flooding in.  Is the whole of twit-face like this?

You couldn't make it up:  This Does my kindle meet the requirements to download second life has just been posted on ANSWERS

]

[Dilbert Dilweg]

You Might see user hours increase a little. about 2 server updates ago they removed logging out users for being afk too long..... Wonder if that would make a difference

 

[Setekh Ichtama]

To your gaming point, RPG gamers are losing their interest to those first person shooters, which is why Blizzard is offering WoW discounts and Aion is free to play in the UK now so, for games as popular and as wildly acclaimed as these, Second Life does not stand much of a chance in this arena or "realm", as it were. It may just be enough for a handful of people already here to keep them online more but I don't see large groups of gamers downgrading their experience; maybe in 5 years Second Life will be more capable in this area but I wouldn't count on it. 

 

[Alicia Sautereau]

To be honest, people have been yelling the sky is falling for aslong as i am here

Heck, even i said it when everything went downhill, but after a year absence of sl, i can see some very big improvements since the new ceo is in charge, it even made me realize how bad my "home" was on the other grid

 

Everything has ups and downs and we are still in the crisis that started in 2007, don`t forget that as europe could still take a nosedip into a recession in the coming months

 

On the plus side, you never have enough prims, my landlord is happy

[Setekh Ichtama]

---

Alicia Sautereau wrote:

To be honest, people have been yelling the sky is falling for aslong as i am here

Heck, even i said it when everything went downhill, but after a year absence of sl, i can see some very big improvements since the new ceo is in charge, it even made me realize how bad my "home" was on the other grid

Everything has ups and downs and we are still in the crisis that started in 2007, don`t forget that as europe could still take a nosedip into a recession in the coming months

On the plus side, you never have enough prims, my landlord is happy

---

What other grid were you on because OpenSim does support Mesh.

To your first point, no one said the sky was falling, not yet at least, but it's sort of just ..hanging there.

 

[Setekh Ichtama]

What I really want to know is why daily transactions in USD are not being reported anymore?

To all those in these forums who think we're doomsayers for questioning what we're being told and wanting to know as much as we can, that's fine, but your replies are mere conjecture as far as I am concerned without some sort of statistical backing.

Remember, it's not just Linden Lab who loses, it's the rest of the community who loses if and when things go belly up so, it's important for anyone who has a stake in this virtual world to find out what's really going on for our own individual interests because I don't think any business or corporation is inherently honest with their customers when perception is often as good as reality. 

With that said, everything about this world is building up for a big crash and either no body cares or those who would have cared are already long gone because never has there been such poor community involvement as this. In addition, I do think many of the posters in this forum are infact Linden Lab employees and while I want to be clear that I do not know this to be the case and I can never know this for certain, my intution says its happening and I mean, why wouldn't it be happening, any company would do the same especially during hard times, as I think anyone who has any finger on the pulse of the economy here would know.

So, to my first line, unless there is a good reason why a business would want to restrict critical economic statistics to the public, other than the obvious which is "hard times ahead", then I would like to know because I invest my time and effort here as many merchants do and if we're heading into a downward spiral, I obviously won't be making second life much of a priorty this new year, I mean, who would? I would prefer not to be left in the dark and the last to know. 

[Alicia Sautereau]

Was in openlifegrid as back then it looked the most promesing, tho that`s all it was, promises lol
Also tried opensim, but that`w even a bigger letdown the olg...

Sky falling or not, LL going to close sl next week, next year or in 10 years, i don`t care tbh as i`m just here to have some fun with creating stuff for free (give me a couple of weeks )
 

[Domitan Redenblack]

Personally, I would like to see a daily graph of:

 

1. Number of residents logged in per day (multiple logins count as one)

2. Average sim traffic per day

3. Number of parcels active (at least one visit per day)

 

Of those, #1 is by far the most important.

 

Note: LL might never allow this data out, as it might cause a shareholder stampede. (Selling)

 

[Phil Deakins]

---

PeterCanessa Oh wrote:

You couldn't make it up:  This 

Does my kindle meet the requirements to download second life

 has just been posted on ANSWERS

---

LMAO! It *has* to be a wind-up lol

[Phil Deakins]

---

Dilbert Dilweg wrote:

You Might see user hours increase a little. about 2 server updates ago they removed logging out users for being afk too long..... Wonder if that would make a difference

 

---

They did? It's a sneaky way to increase user hours so they can pretend that things are looking up.

[Ima Rang]

---

Setekh Ichtama wrote:

What I really want to know is why daily transactions in USD are not being reported anymore?

 

To all those in these forums who think we're doomsayers for questioning what we're being told and wanting to know as much as we can, that's fine, but your replies are mere conjecture as far as I am concerned without some sort of statistical backing.

Remember, it's not just Linden Lab who loses, it's the rest of the community who loses if and when things go belly up so, it's important for anyone who has a stake in this virtual world to find out what's really going on for our own individual interests because I don't think any business or corporation is inherently honest with their customers when perception is often as good as reality. 

With that said, everything about this world is building up for a big crash and either no body cares or those who would have cared are already long gone because never has there been such poor community involvement as this. In addition, I do think many of the posters in this forum are infact Linden Lab employees and while I want to be clear that I do not know this to be the case and I can never know this for certain, my intution says its happening and I mean, why wouldn't it be happening, any company would do the same especially during hard times, as I think anyone who has any finger on the pulse of the economy here would know.

So, to my first line, unless there is a good reason why a business would want to restrict critical economic statistics to the public, other than the obvious which is "hard times ahead", then I would like to know because I invest my time and effort here as many merchants do and if we're heading into a downward spiral, I obviously won't be making second life much of a priorty this new year, I mean, who would? I would prefer not to be left in the dark and the last to know. 

---

 

4.2 Second Life exists only as long as and in the form that we may provide the Service, and all aspects of the Service are subject to change or elimination.

Linden Lab has the right to change and/or eliminate any aspect(s), features or functionality of the Service as it sees fit at any time without notice, and Linden Lab makes no commitment, express or implied, to maintain or continue any aspect of the Service. You acknowledge that your use of the Service is subject to this risk and that you knowingly assume it and make your decisions to participate in the Service, contribute Content and spend your money accordingly.

[Parhelion Palou]

---

Domitan Redenblack wrote:

Personally, I would like to see a daily graph of:

 

1. Number of residents logged in per day (multiple logins count as one)

2. Average sim traffic per day

3. Number of parcels active (at least one visit per day)

 

Of those, #1 is by far the most important.

 

Note: LL might never allow this data out, as it might cause a shareholder stampede. (Selling)

 

---

LL is a privately held company so they don't need to worry about shareholder stampedes. The three items you list have little effect on LL's revenue anyway.

[Setekh Ichtama]

I would bet that 5-15% of log-ins are actually bot accounts, just from personal observation but, it could easily be 20-25%, try teleporting to large gatherings and you will typically find a lot of bots underground or a lot of idle people so, very hard to know really but these numbers are surely included in the final statistics.

To the other post, sure, if they want to keep their paying customers in the dark, they can, that is their right, just as it is my right to publicly express my interest in knowing more about what's going on in the Lab and plan my virtual world future this year based on what they are willing or unwilling to share.  It's a double-edged sword really since the community decides their fate in part based on how responsive they are to their needs.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to run a successful business, just leadership that is willing to listen, share and adapt and I don't think that's asking too much.