MaukaShowers

Thanks everyone for all this great advice! ❤️

Times are tough. Have you noticed fewer shoppers in SL's in-world stores recently? The pandemic economy is forcing many of us to pay more attention to how, when, and why we spend money. With that in mind I looked at the cost today to upgrade a system avatar to a bento one. Maitreya body - L2750 Lelutka Evolution head - L3990 Stealthic hair - L300 ItGirls shape/skin - L990 That's a total of L8030, which at today's exchange rate would cost USD $35.67. Some people add personals, which would cost: Lotus nipples - 299 VAW ***** - 825 or 1200, average 1013 Bringing us to a new total of L9342, which today would cost $41.50. THEN add new clothing, because some of your system avatar clothing may no longer work. These are just examples of some options used by me and my alts, so of course the cost to you can vary widely given your individual choices. Whatever our choices, in the end this is a lot of money. For many of us then we must also add rent, house, furnishings, and more. Things are really beginning to add up in an ironic art-imitates-life sort of way. What have you done to lower your expenses in SL?

For those who don't know, Linden Realms is an old-school adventure game the Lindens built within SL, and is accessed via Portal Park. Completion of the game rewards the SL resident with L$50, and this reward can be received once per week. Over a year this amounts to L$2600 that residents can spend on clothing, tier fees, whatever they like. This has been particularly handy for new residents, and for anyone with no payment info on file. Recently LL changed Linden Realms rules to now require that residents who play the game have payment info on file, and must use that to buy L$, before the game will provide that L$50 reward. This cut the number of players significantly - and presumably then the amount of funds spent by the impacted residents. Now another change. Several days ago LL halved the game completion reward from L$50 to just L$25. The effect on Linden Realms has been chilling: the place is now essentially a ghost town, as lonely as most of the rest of SL. I suspect that LL may have changed these rules for three reasons: 1) to cut losses created by the massive number of game exploiters / cheaters; to force an increase of the Tilia user base, and 3) to increase the amount of funds being handled by Tilia. Maybe this fiscal clean-up operation will allow SL's new owner to reinvest, and we'll see improvements inworld. My fear though is the other impacts: residents with no credit card who are now shut out of a way to make L$, residents with payment info on file but who cannot buy Linden Dollars during the pandemic economy, and the negative impact this indirectly creates for those who normally would have received those funds: the makers, sellers, landlords, etc. SL's new owner already increased the SL MP commission charged to retailers, forcing increased prices. Some shops have closed; others advertise reduced prices at their inworld stores. I hope this all works out for SL in the long run. But in the short term providing residents less money to spend, and squeezing more out of makers/sellers, may make SL less attractive to residents, makers, and property investors. So much of SL is already a ghost town; I hope that turning Linden Realms into a ghost town too will be the end of their cull. The impacts of these steps taken by SL's new owner will likely be felt widely by the inworld economy, and I have to wonder what's next? With any kind of luck these efforts to increase SL profitability don't end up killing it.