Linden Lab have released some more details about the new pricing for sims. The most important changes are:
- Openspace sim prices will also drop (to US$ 275, excl. VAT)
- Tier fees will remain the same for all types of sims
- New land store will probably open on April 16th/17th
- Orders for new regions that have not been processed yet, can be cancelled
- There will be compensation for those who bought a new region after March 10th
- First month's tier will still be included in the setup price
It seems that Linden Lab has given in to the many many comments and complaints about these price changes. It is mostly the enormous drop in prices (over 40%) and how sudden this all came to the public at large, that has been upsetting many residents. Especially those who have bought a region not too long ago, but long enough not to get compensated, are very aggrevated to see their investments drop 40% in value overnight.
The post on the LL blog reached the maximum of 150 comments within hours after the details were released. About 80-90% of the comments are negative and critical towards these price changes.
Original post (Tuesday, April 8th):
Linden Lab has done it again! Another very controversial decision that will shake up Second Life completely! Very angry sim owners are screaming and shouting how unfair the latest of LL's decisions is.Yesterday/today, LL announced that prices of private regions will drop from US$ 1695 to US$ 1000 within the next couple of weeks.
Imagine that you ordered a new region yesterday, and that you paid almost US$ 1700 for it, while only a few hours later you read that if you had waited 2 weeks, that you would have gotten exactly the same private region for US$ 700 less! Or imagine that you have invested in 20 sims for your RL business, or that you have started your own business in-world, renting out land. You would have invested US$ 33,500 (or even more if you lived in the EU), and now would loose about US$ 15,000 !!!
It almost seems that with two major top-level managers in Linden Lab gone, things are going downhill very fast and decisions aren't thought through very well.
Of course this decision also has it's advantages for those who were thinking about buying a region sometime soon. They will simply get a huge discount. But that will not weigh up against the tremendous amount of upset sim owners, protests and maybe even law suits against Linden Lab.Another decision that was announced, is to drop the bottom threshhold for mainland region auctions from US$ 1250 to US$ 750, and to 'agressively' sell abandoned mainland.
All we can think of, after the mere flabbergasted feeling fades away, is one question: what is Linden Lab trying to accomplish with this action? Why this enforced rapid expansion over the backs of current residents who will loose 40% of their investments? Has Second Life been subject of some kind of contest over who has the biggest online metaverse? Or did they just get a very good deal on an investment of new servers and do they want to earn that money back very soon?
The article on the LL blog was not very clear on the Openspace regions, on which there has been a huge run since they became a lot easier to buy about a month ago. It is unknown if the price of those 'void sims' will drop by 40% as well. And if so, will LL be sued over it? A lot of people ordered a lot of those sims very very recently!
For now we will have to wait for the new Land Store to open (before the end of April), and in the meantime we will see if this will finally make the economy of SL collaps.
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