Schlagwort: Business

What’s next on Lindenlabs‘ agenda? Ban prostitution, of course!

If you take a look at the recent ban of gambling, you may wonder what’s coming up next to be banned or limited. If Lindenlab would be consistent with their intentions, one things really pops up mighty in my mind: prostitution.

Sex and, yes, prostitution, though most people prefer to call themself in an euphemistic kind of way escort and not prostitute, is one of the big driving motions behind Second Life at all. And, yes, like gambling it’s prohibited in many countries Second Life is available.

So if Lindenlab is really consistent about establishing a somewhat "cleaner" Second Life this must be next on their agenda: the containment or even shutting down of most prostitution happening in Second Life.

Either that, or as another consequence building up a new strictly, clean, separate corporation grid without this kind of business at all, like the Teen Grid is today. But then again, this would hurt their land sales, since it would depend on how many residents of course would like to visit this clean grid and you got more possible visitors on the main grid than on an own corporation grid. But for strict in house usage such a grid would be a heavy, good asset for Lindenlab to have.

This would of course hurt the in world economy great lengths since most of it is built upon sex, sex, sex, and many people come into Second Life to get laid and many females are working as escorts or dancers at least.

But it’s the next logical step in the development of Second Life at all. In my opinion the question is not if it is going to happen at all, but how and when it is going to happen. This is bound to happen sooner or later if Second Life should still appeal to big real world companies. A cleaner grid could mean better land sales to such companies and in the end it’s all that counts for Lindenlab. Sales, more sales, more and better income and profit to be alive.

Slowing down on the economy

When you take a look at the recent development of Second Life, then there are some things different compared to earlier developments:

  • There are still no key metrics available for August 2007. Those tend to get published later and later over the months.
  • The exchange of Linden dollars has reached a peak in the 1st quarter of 2007; since then it has been slowly decreasing, so Q1 is its peak (take a look at the last graph here).
  • Premium residents have reached their peak in June, there have already been less again in July.
  • The number of new residents entering the game has slowed down.
  • Business people are complaining in world about a lack of sales, meaning those are going down at the moment. There is for example being rumored that 70% of the Plush sims are unused right now.
  • Many Europeans are pissed off that they now have to pay VAT in most cases. This is not LL’s fault at all, but could lead to more in world payments again and/or higher prices on their products.
  • Many markets tend to be sated after a while, so it goes with many in world markets when the rush of newbies tends to be over.

So what does that mean? Well, for now the hype is over in most countries. If Second Life should prove its worth as a tool, it now needs to improve to appeal more for business usage and to be more stable to sustain the established in world economy and returning residents.

Premium residents are not enough in numbers to sustain SL at all, so most of the money Lindenlab makes has its origin in land sales and main land tier fees. The borders of growth have been reached for now, as it seems, so now it’s time for a consolidation of Second Life at all.

Since all are dependent on Lindenlab, this means of course more stable sims and clients, which is on the way according to them, a better scalable grid, too, better customer service – face it, most think it’s as bad as it can be and slow, slow, slow – and getting more in touch again with the community.

For many residents the relationship with Lindenlab is kind of love/hate. Love, that they made Second Life possible and hate, because of the high land prices, not stabilizing the client/server enough, being dependent on Lindenlab, slow customer service and many more of such things. Oh, and since you can’t see the Lindens in world often anymore, they became something like the spooky people running all of the stuff in the background.

Also the main focus of Lindenlab shifted from promoting Second Life to promoting the technic behind it, the grid. This is perhaps a good move for them, but of course also means that they’re now focusing more on the technic behind it than on the well established community in Second Life.

Stuff and all

  • There is now a blog from Charity Colville in which she tells her side of the story about "The rise and fall of Phat Cat’s". The events around Phat Cat’s have been going on for quite some time now, I still wonder that they haven’t come to an end, yet. In the end it’s a story you cannot find out on your own, if it’s right or wrong, so it’s about whom you believe more.
  • Metaversed has been running an article about a LL-function that has been disabled by the Lindens without notice and has broken many seats and other sitting furnitures. Ouch. It has been undocumented, but widely used all the time, the Lindens considered it a hack instead. And, oh well, one of the residents even got wind before it happened weeks ago and told them that it’s a bad idea at all. No reaction. Bummer.
  • Want to ger rid of the "missing from database" error? Vote for the according error over at JIRA!

Braggs‘ lawsuit settled

You can read this on the blog of Second Life now:

Linden Research, Inc., Philip Rosedale, and Marc Bragg have agreed to settle the “Bragg v. Linden and Rosedale” lawsuit currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The parties agree that there were unfortunate disagreements and miscommunications regarding the conduct and behavior by both sides and are pleased to report that Mr. Bragg’s “Marc Woebegone” account, privileges and responsibilities to the Second Life community have been restored. For the benefit of the Second Life community, the Parties have mutually agreed that the terms of their resolution shall remain confidential. The Parties ask that this confidentiality be respected.

So this is lawyer speak. What does that mean in real speak? Something like this from Lindenlabs point of view: we would have lost the case! So better agree to restore Braggs‘ account and properties in world and see if this is enough for him to drop the case before our roof really starts to burn and we’re losing big money!

It’s that easy.

What if…

…too many residents would try to cashout all of there L$ at the same time? Would Lindenlab still be able to pay them? Or would the value of the L$ go down so quickly it wouldn’t hurt LL at all?

Just a funny thought that popped up into my mind after reading an article about a similar problem – bonus mile programs of airlines.