Second Life Accounting Holes

A recent post on the Second Life forums opened my eyes to what is perhaps a main reason why Linden Labs is not yet profiting. Let me show you a few of the ways that Linden Labs appears to actually be leaking money.

First of all, you can start your Second Life for free. You don't need to spend a dime to exist in this world, ever. I believe that this "world" is rich enough to sustain a large community without a permanent free handout. Why not make Second Life free for 30 or even 60 days? This is way more liberal than the average MMO experience available today, where the norm allows only a 7 or 14 day free trial. By giving a permanently free experience away Second Life seems to be attracting freeloaders which in my opinion is an unneeded load on the system and throwing money away.

Second point. If you want to own land in Second Life, you must have an account. The price on a Premium Account starts at $9.95 per month and comes with the ability to hold 512m² of land, and a free L$2000 monthly stipend. At the current L$/USD conversion rate, that is equal to about $6 of free money per month. This means that Linden Labs is still making about $4 per month on the monthly paid Premium Account. This is good.

The next step up is the quarterly paid Premium Account. For the equivalent of about $7.50 per month, this includes the same land and stipend allowance ($6 per month). This means that Linden Labs ends up making about $1.50 per month. A slim profit, but a profit nonetheless. This is good.

Here's where it gets weird. If you pay for a year in advance, you get your Premium Account for the equivalent of $6 per month. The same land and stipend allowance are in effect so this means that you actually get your $6 back. This means that you pay the same as a Basic subscriber (nothing) but with the ability to own 512m² of land!

Lots of companies offer better and better deals to entice their subscribers to outlay the most possible money. It's just smart business. But I don't believe it's good fiscal responsibility to allow players to not pay you anything. In my opinion, the Annual Account should be the one priced out at $7.50/month ($90 as opposed to $72) to allow for a small profit. Make the Quarterly Account $8.50/month ($25.50 as opposed to $22.50) for a little better profit and keep the monthly account at $9.95. Over the long haul this should bring in more money bringing Linden Labs closer to profit.

I believe that Second Life should indeed have a free trial, but not indefinitely. When I joined the Second Life community, I was hooked the first week. A 7-day trial was all I would have needed to become a paying customer, and even if I would have prepaid an Annual Account for my suggested $7.50/month, Linden Labs would still be profiting from me.

Contrast this with what is happening now. I could have never become a paying customer. I could have freeloaded forever. As long as I didn't want to own land, I could have been a member of Second Life, taking up resources just like any paying member. Except for free. I could have built my items in the sandboxes and sold them through vendor rentals. All while taking resources and L$ from the system and never paying Linden Labs. Oh, and I could have also upgraded to an Annual Account, and played for free as well as own land, taking even more resources!

And it's all happening right now. People are playing for free with basic accounts, and people are playing for free with Annual Premium Accounts. The only customers Linden Labs is collecting money from every month is the Monthly and Quarterly Accounts. When 50% of the ways you offer your customers to play winds up in you not making any money, it can't be a good thing.

My theory is that Linden Labs has a very strong addictive environment that would still attract and retain customers (especially with the media frenzy they are enjoying right now) as well as bring them in a profit from each of their customers every month. It's not a crime for Linden Labs to profit for providing us with an environment that we enjoy every day that we log in.

Emergency Cheese Order...We're Drowning In Whine!

Back in early May 2006, Jesse Linden of Linden Labs and Second Life posted a warning to the players of the popular online meeting place to stop spamming their events calendar with non-events. You see, just like the regular web, the metaverse is just as susceptable to spamming to certain types of listings.

His request was for people to stop posting the same event over and over, by posting only a different time. He also warned people to stop posting events that had no host, ie yard sales with no one running them, and for the commercial advertisements to cease on the events calendar as well.

Well, apparently there are still quite a few people who don't get it, and keep on posting repetitive junk to the events calendar. So today Jesse Linden posted yet another warning as a first step before starting to charge players for event listings.

This has led to the wambulances arriving on scene protesting even the thought of having to pay for listing an event. These folks have it within their power to keep the events listings free by simpling stopping the idiocy of posting the same event over and over or posting non-events, such as commercial products, with the thin disguise of calling it a "product launch".

They are going to have to come around, or be prepared to deal with the consequences which seem to be quite clearly stated. I guarantee that none of them would be happy if the game stopped tomorrow. I believe that most of these folks doth protest because their properties just aren't interesting enough to attract people on their own merits.

I've seen lots of places in Second Life. Some are very, very interesting. And I'm sure that I've earned some pretty good dwell for some of the owners of these places by touring their properties.

But some of them have also been downright putrid. Folks, if I can't make heads or tails of where I'm supposed to go, or can't see a clearly defined purpose to your property, the very next thing I do is plan another teleport. No amount of event post spamming will keep me on your property if you don't have interesting content.

If you think releasing a new product is an event, then you are either out of touch with reality or are quite aware that you are bending the definition of the word. Either way, you are the exact type of person that should be paying to post events.

And don't pretend you haven't seen...

Tringo 1pm
Tringo 2pm
Tringo 3pm
Tringo 4pm
Tringo 5pm
Tringo 6pm
Tringo 7pm
etc...


Folks if it's an event that you are splitting into seperate hours just so you can have multiple postings on the events listings then you are gaming the system and it's you're fault that this policy is being considered.

Yes read it again...they are still only considering...it's a warning. Relax...and stop trying to beat the system. Post real events.

Many of the violators are demanding that Linden Labs state their rules more clearly. This is, in my opinion, a stall tactic worthy of a lawyer. The rules have already been spelled out with a simplicity a child could understand. When Linden Labs decline to treat it like an episode of Sesame Street, brought to you by the letters W, G and the number 5, the violators will claim that Linden Labs never told them the rules.

No action was taken today by Jesse Linden short of a warning. It's up to the players to decide what happens with this. If Linden Labs does go ahead and charge for event listings, they will have done so with just cause.

When or if it happens, there will be much shouting and screaming on the Second Life forums as there always is anytime a policy is changed. The complaints will be from the same folks as are gaming the event listings today. A lot of them are playing on free accounts which gives nothing back to Linden Labs to improve the community.

If it happens, it'll have been deserved and Linden Labs will have another stream to try to get profitable with. The future of Second Life probably depends on it.

Linden Labs And The Silent Majority

Let's start today with a quote from an article I wrote on the downfall of the MMORPG "Star Wars Galaxies":

"Sony Online Entertainment had lost touch with what was fun by listening to the complainers. They had fooled themselves into thinking a great overhaul needed to happen to save the game, but nothing was further from the truth. The game did not need "saving". They had a great game. The game needed a few bug fixes, specifically for the Smugglers, but in other areas too. Nothing more. Instead we got a completely different botch of a game that was not fun to play."

I believe that SOE heard a certain amount of whining on their forums and thought that their game was not any fun. It turns out that the opposite was true. A large number of folks did enjoy their game. This was discovered when they changed the game so much that most everyone quit. It was a hard lesson to learn.

The fact is that complainers speak up most often. Those who are happy rarely feel the need to jump up and proclaim their happiness. This leads to an easy assumption that the world is full of bickering and complaining when in fact actually only a small percentage is doing this. They are, however, the most vocal.

Think about it. Let's say you buy a dress at the mall. When you get it home, you find out it has a black stain on it. You take it back and complain. What would have happened if you got it home, wore it, and absolutely loved it? Nothing. You wouldn't have gone back to the store to tell them how great their products are, or how nice the salesperson was. Why is this? Why do we only speak up when we are unhappy?

This being said, I am really hoping that Linden Labs does not take the whining on their forums to heart. It comes from a very small minority who probably don't speak for the masses. If Linden Labs catered to this small group of people, you'd find that in the end Linden Labs would have ended up creating a game that the same minority likes. And the majority will move on to seek a game that they actually like.

Forums are a great way to build community, because of its inherent property of allowing easy self expression. The problem is that it leads to the impression that everyone is unhappy because only the complainers are inclined to speak up. I am really hoping the smart people at Linden Labs realize that this is the case before it is too late. They've got a game that a large number of people enjoy. Let's hope they don't alienate this large group of people by catering to the minority.

I will leave you with a reworking of the quote I used above. I hope it is a quote that I end up writing in a couple of years from now.

"Linden Labs has not lost touch with what is fun by listening to the complainers. They did not fool themselves into thinking a great overhaul was needed to save the game, because nothing was further from the truth. The game did not need "saving". They already had a great game. The game needed a few bug fixes, specifically for the interface, but in other areas too. They fixed them and nothing more. In the end we got a game that was extremely fun to play."

Second Life Doomsayers Are Not Productive

Due to the recent flood of negative activity on the Second Life Forums, I've decided that I needed to talk about it.

If you check the first post of this blog, you'll see that the whole reason I am in the Second Life community, is because my previous online community, Star Wars Galaxies changed so much that most of the main core of the game that gamers left to find other things.

The reason I mention this, is because the actions of Linden Labs and the actions of Second Life players are starting to mimic the exact situation that occurred between Star Wars Galaxies owners Sony Online Entertainment and their player base. The players wound up complaining so much that it became impossible for SWG's programmers to do anything right. No matter what they did, it was wrong according to the more vocal of the community.

This I why I believe the powers that be over at Star Wars Galaxies appeared to be so unattentive to their players...they were going to be raked over the coals for anything they did. It led to them thinking that the game was broken as-is and needed a major overhaul to secure its future. In the end, it was this major overhaul that killed the game. Yes there are still people playing it, but the numbers are far reduced from what they were even just a year ago.

This whole article is a warning to my fellow players of Second Life. If you continue to rant and rave, you will force the repeat of history, only this time the death will be dealt to Second Life. Creators of online games are usually only attentive if they know they will be treated fairly. Do you notice the Lindens backing off in terms of communication? King Philip has been mostly absent lately. Do any of you wonder why?

I believe it's because no matter what they say or do recently, they are repeatedly attacked by the community. I don't know about you, but I don't hang with folks that don't treat me with respect. Do you think they don't know what the bugs are? Do you think they are sitting back sipping espresso? Did it ever dawn on you that they might just be overworked?

Imagine you owned a company. You ran it with just you and another person. Your whole job was to maintain a website, and answer the questions of your visitors. You offer freebies on your website, but you only make money if someone buys something. Depending on your traffic, you could probably handle it very easily.

Now imagine that News.com, Wired, and Newsweek all post articles about your website. Your traffic spikes intensely, and your workload as well. Since you offer freebies, that is what most of your millions of new visitors pick up on. You make no money from the freebies, but the questions about the freebies and the amount of work involved to maintain the website are all no longer in your ability to keep up with.

Since you run a forum where anyone can say anything, your visitors start to make little comments here and there about your slow response. Slowly but surely a gang mentality builds up, and before you know it everyone is slinging dirt about your lack of support, how you are running the website wrong, how you should be running it and while your workload has increased exponentially, your cashflow has increased only somewhat.

Would your enthusiasm for the website increase or suffer? Ultimately, no website will survive without the enthusiasm of the one running it. Star Wars Galaxies went through everything in the above example. The freebie was the first Starter Pack (SWG+JTL+ROTW). But then it died. I'm seeing Second Life following the same trend. Since I was there when it happened to SWG, I can instantly smell when the gamers are killing their own game.

Second Life Community...there may not be a second chance. Do you want to play ActiveWorlds, or Second Life...the choice is yours.

Let's treat the creators of our favorite online experience with some respect so that their enthusiam spawns the game of our dreams.

Second Life Stuck On Me...Or Is It The Other Way Around?

Originally posted May 7, 2006 in my Pop Culture blog, Current Event Views.

I'm officially addicted to the game that is Second Life.

My activity in Entropia Universe has all but ended, due to being bored, but I know there has to be something to that game that I'm missing since it's a fairly active world with many of the same elements of Second Life with more of a MMORPG wrapping. Maybe I just haven't given it enough time.

But it's official, all of my gaming time is being spent with Second Life. Now, to address my original quest, that is to see if Second Life can replace Star Wars Galaxies Pre-CU as my game of choice.

The answer is...so far. The reason I am hesitant is that I've only been playing with it for a few days. The reason I think it can replace Star Wars Galaxies Pre-CU is that I am as addicted to it as much as I was SWG Pre-CU.

Will all SWG Pre-CU refugees like Second Life as much as I do? That depends...did you play SWG for the economy? For the social aspect of hanging in clubs, gambling in the casinos or just chatting with those in world? For owning your own house? If you answered yes to any or all of these, Second Life could be the fix for your SWG habit as well.

Ok, so who wouldn't like Second Life as a replacement to SWG Pre-CU? Most everyone who played SWG for the hunting, PvP, and combat-related acitivities probably won't like SWG, if that's what they look for. Although you can program your own games and such in Second Life (or visit other people's games), it doesn't fill that particular void specifically enough for hard core PvP or combat gamers.

But the fact is, if you played SWG Pre-CU and quit after CU or NGE and you are looking for an alternative game with similiar qualities, there is a free trial available.

Second Life Still Intriguing

Originally posted May 4, 2006 in my Pop Culture blog, Current Event Views.

I've been messing with the Entropia Universe a little bit, but I'm still developing the land I got in Second Life.

In Second Life you can earn money by creating items, giving classes on how to play, giving tours, or just about anything you can think of.

You also have the ability in Second Life to fly. What?!?!?!? Yep, you can fly. Now today I'm thinking, doesn't that take the fun out of selling player-created vehicles? Wouldn't it be a bit more fun if you had to take a bus to get around? This would open up a lot of possibilities for players to earn money as a cab driver, or bus driver. Then you would see car lots spring up, with another way to make money, because those with vehicles would get around faster.

As is it right now with players able to fly around, I just don't see the point of vehicles in Second Life other than a decoration for your yard.

Entropia Universe A Little...Different

Originally posted May 4, 2006 in my Pop Culture blog, Current Event Views.

I'm discovering that the Entropia Universe is a little, er, weird.

You can move forward and backward with the arrow keys but to turn, well, you need to click both mouse keys. What happened to the left and right arrow keys? That's a little weird.

I'm also hearing comparisons of Entropia Universe to a slot machine. Apparently a year or two ago the game was rigged so that you can't get anywhere without putting money into it, even though the game is marketed as a 'free' way to make real money.

I'll keep trying it out and let you know.

Project Entropia Discovered

Originally posted May 3, 2006 in my Pop Culture blog, Current Event Views.

I'm toying around with Second Life, and I've got some land there that I'm developing. It's a huge open ended world where anything can be built or created. You can even sell your creations for a profit.

Although I'm not quite sure if this is where I'll hang my gaming hat, I've found another virtual world called Entropia Universe (formerly Project Entropia). This one sounds closer to a game as you are located on a sci-fi planet called Calypso, and you can mine and hunt in addition to building your creations. It sounds like it might be closer to a replacement for Star Wars Galaxies than Second Life but I've only just looked at their website so far.

I haven't tried it yet, but it'll be interesting to see if you can get as detailed with your creations as you can in Second Life, what with the item scripting abilities that are available there. I'll be messing with Second Life for at least a few more days, but Project Entropia is definitely on my must try list.

Second Life Grabs My Attention

Originally posted May 1, 2006 in my Pop Culture blog, Current Event Views.

The game Second Life is grabbing my curiosity as I've now heard it compared to Star Wars Galaxies' economy-type play several times now.

As you know from several of my previous posts, this was the part of Star Wars Galaxies that I miss and loved.

Vehicles, the marketplace, the economy, the opportunity to make money in game.

I think i might sign up for a trial and report back on what I find for my fellow Star Wars Galaxies pre-cu fans, and even for everyone just curious as to what this Second Life is all about.

My Re-Introduction To Virtual Worlds

This is a reprint from my other blog called Current Event Views, originally posted on April 25, 2006. It is a blog that focuses on Pop Culture and briefly got sidetracked talking about virtual worlds such as Second Life, ActiveWorlds, There and Extropia Universe. Because it is a topic that entirely devoured the blog as its own, I created this new blog specifically for talking about virtual worlds. I post this as the first post to give you an idea as to what initially propelled me into exploring virtual worlds for a second time. My first time? Back in 1996, I played around with ActiveWorlds for a few weeks. I stopped because realtime 3d rendering over dial-up with a 28.8 modem and a stock 1996 video card was choppy at best. It was an idea that was about 10 years before its time. Finally, in 2006, virtual worlds have now become a realistic reality.

Star Wars Galaxies Lament

In November 2004, Star Wars Galaxies was my first experience with a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. MMORPG for short. It was the first game to grab me and pull me into the gameplay as no other game could before.

In fact, my entire history of playing PC games (or platform games when I had my 8-bit Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Sega 32X, Sega Saturn and finally Sony Playstation) was to rush out to buy the newest, hottest game, play it for a few weeks and then get bored of it. The cycle would then repeat with me going to the local games store looking for the newest, hottest game.

Star Wars Galaxies changed that for a whole year. When I first started playing, it was absolutely amazing to me that I was standing in the middle of a Star Wars city. Players were scurrying about doing who knows what, and still others were standing around chatting. The coolest part was that when each player spoke, you could see what they said in a voice balloon so you could see who was saying what...instead of having to match a name in the chat box with a name on the character.

This was the way I learned how to do a lot of things in the game, as sometimes you'd catch a player explaining how to do things easier, where to go for certain items or other general game tips.

Before long I chose to be a medic. The reason is because I understood Star Wars Galaxies to be a game where you could live in the Star Wars universe, and have jobs and just...LIVE if you wanted to. You didn't have to get all caught up in the griefer battles that plague most online games. You know the ones, where people who have played for a while go around and kill newbies just because they can?

I loved the medic profession. I loved that you could go to the medical center and heal the other players who were wounded from battle. The best part was hearing the stories about what they were doing or how they were wounded. The game had a great social aspect to it. Even when my medical profession called for me to practice making medicines, I would do it in the medical center because I loved the social aspect.

Soon enough (say a few months) I made it to Master Medic, and then to Master Doctor. It was a long journey but I was now at the top of my profession. By this point I was doing a little adventuring too, so I would go to the cantinas to get mind buffed (an increase in stats to make adventuring/battles easier) and healed. Yeah, I could have healed myself, but like I said...I loved the social aspect. And besides, only entertainers could heal mind damage. The cantinas were always packed with people dancing and playing music. You could listen or watch and get healed while chatting with other players.

While dancers and musicians could buff mind, Master Doctors could buff the body. I soon learned that the Spaceport at Coronet on the planet Correllia was where most people went to get buffed so often times that's where I set up shop, but there were lots of Spaceports to buff at, and you could also buff at the medical center.

All of this was fun to me because I was living a life, interacting with other people, each of us helping the other through our own professions. I was healing Teras Kasi Artists, Crafters were creating furniture for my house, (oh yeah did I mention you could own your own house and place it in a player-city? I had neighbours!), Shipwrights built my spaceships, and every one of them had shops in their player cities.

It was the best player driven economy in a game I had ever seen, because each profession supported the other professions. I couldn't make good medical supplies without the meat that the Marksman or Brawlers brought back to sell. They needed to hunt to increase their skills but didn't need the meat (or at least that much of it) so they would sell it to others for a profit and it would supply me with what I needed to be a good Doctor! The economy worked great and forced people to interact without them even realizing it.

Crafting was not a click and create system, at least not like it is in other games where if you craft a widget, it'll be the same quality that Billy Joe crafted. Everytime you crafted something it had the potential to be a real stinker based on the quality of the resource spawns that you used. This was awesome! This meant that the most patient crafters were able to find the best resources and therefore craft the best crafts. When you went shopping, if you didn't need a Super Duper widget, you could save a few credits by buying just a cheap widget. This is called a real working player driven economy folks. It was a very cool part of the game.

Have you noticed that I haven't even mentioned battling the Rebels or Imperials yet? That's because this game was not about that to me, and I think it was the same for a lot of people. If you wanted to go out and battle the Imperials, there was plenty of other Star Wars games out there where you can do that. This game was about living in the Star Wars universe...a sort of a Second Life for Star Wars fans.

At the beginning, I think that SWG really did a great job making this a reality. Sure there were bugs, but it was very playable and very addictive. But then they got the idea somewhere that Star Wars Galaxies wasn't Star Warsy enough. I have no idea where they got that idea, but it ruined the game. First, did a botched overhaul of the combat system in April 2005. They tried to make it twitch-based instead of skill-based, but in the process they made it neither because it wasn't fun. It also included a level system like World of Warcraft. You know, I played Star Wars Galaxies for many reasons and one of them was that it was NOT World of Warcraft. They also killed the buffing system. No more buffs as we knew them. Suddenly thousands of people didn't know how to play their favorite game...and for what?

At this point, because of the buff death, you would go into any medical center and find it empty. No healing, no chatting about the day's adventures, no community. Go into the cantinas...same thing. The spaceports were barren.

Then, in November 2005 they killed the 32 professions in favor of 9 iconic professions. So instead of being one of many professions that supported each other in the universal economy, you had 9 professions that all ran around doing basically the same thing...killing each other. There was little to no support between the professions anymore. Oh and get this...medics became the game's uber PvP characters. Instead of being known for healing, doctors were now being created because they were the best fighters. So in a battle, the doctors would not be hanging back and healing, they'd be tanking.

This was the final straw for the majority of the players. After this second overhaul, you could go into any city, and find it empty. A couple of folks ran back and forth doing whatever it was that they had found to do...but the cities were empty.

Sony Online Entertainment had lost touch with what was fun by listening to the complainers. They had fooled themselves into thinking a great overhaul needed to happen to save the game, but nothing was further from the truth. The game did not need "saving". They had a great game. The game needed a few bug fixes, specifically for the Smugglers, but in other areas too. Nothing more. Instead we got a completely different botch of a game that was not fun to play.

It's a sad ending for the first game that ever addicted me, and convinced me to pay $15 a month to play. Today, in April 2006, the game is still run by Sony, but it's dead. No one plays anymore. And there's nothing like the original SWG out there to switch to. Oh well, that's $15 still in my pocket...but anyone who could make a game like the original SWG could have it.