Kitely recently announced that they will be removing metered worlds and introducing premium worlds. The change is explained in the blog post :
The change that we’re announcing today is that from now on only users with a Premium Account will be able to create Premium Worlds. That’s the reason that we renamed them (from “Metered Worlds”): to emphasize that having Premium Worlds is a benefit that is reserved for users with Premium Accounts.
Despite this change, there are still ways that users with a Regular Account can end up with a Premium World. E.g., if they created the world while they had a Premium Account, but later they downgraded to a Regular Account. In such cases we don’t delete the worlds: they remain in the users’ accounts. However, only users with a Premium Account will be able to visit them: Regular Account and Hypergrid users will be prevented from visiting a Premium World that belongs to a user with a Regular Account. Note that this includes the world manager herself.
However these Premium Worlds remain much the same as the old metered worlds in other regards, if non-premium or Hypergrid visitors choose to visit your Premium World, a 1KC (Kitely Credit) per minute fee is billed to the Premium World owner. However other Premium account holders can visit another Premium World without extra charges.
Visitor costs in Kitely have always been problematic when such charges do not exist in Second Life. Originally, visitors had to pay these fees, then Kitely switched it so that region owners paid the fees. The problem with the fees for region owners is of course that costs can be unpredictable, so I’m not sure how attractive an option Premium Worlds will actually be or how attractive they were. Now if you are only allowing Premium members to visit your Premium worlds then they remain a bloody good option. As part of your USD$19.95 you can create up to five of these Premium Worlds without incurring any costs.
So what of worlds who do want Hypergrid and regular account visitors? Well you’re probably better off opting for a fixed world option. A starter world costs USD$14.95 a month and supports 10 concurrent users with no charges for visitors. For USD$49.95 a month you can have 1 or 4 worlds that each support 40 concurrent visitors with no extra charges. An advanced worlds costs USD$99.95 a month and comes with choices of 1,4,9, or 16 regions. All of these options will not incur visitors charges. For full details read the services page on the Kitely website.
I’ve long been impressed by the Kitely team and their bold moves. Unfortunately any change of service will generate a mixed reaction and this is no exception, the comments on the blog post are mixed. However Kitely continues to offer relatively cheap virtual world options and more importantly, they offer a variety of choice along with those options.
Whereas this does of course mean that regular account and Hypergrid visitors may have difficult visiting some Kitely worlds, there are still plenty of worlds in Kitely they can visit. The model is different to Second Life, but we did for a while have parcels that would charge a fee to visit, this wasn’t a popular option but we do have to remember that there’s no such thing as a free lunch in Kitely or Second Life. Whereas free accounts do exist in both virtual worlds, they can only visit places because someone is paying for it. This is the correct model and one I fully support and the term free can be misunderstood. Regular accounts in Kitely and basic accounts in Second Life can spend a hell of a lot of money, which helps sims to survive and even prosper, they play an extremely important role in the success of any virtual venture.
However one issue in Kitely that stands out like a sore thumb is that Premium Worlds aren’t really a viable option for a virtual world landlord. Fixed worlds on the other hand do offer opportunity for virtual world landlords and at extremely reasonable rates too. Kitely’s challenge remains attracting enough of those casual users who will engage with the economy, it’s a tough challenge but Kitely are still making good efforts to offer cheap alternatives to the likes of Second Life.
Whereas I do feel the tier in Second Life is too damn high, it is unfair to make a direct comparison with Kitely as Second Life has far higher operating costs and far more employees. I believe both virtual worlds can prosper and I hope they both do for some time to come yet.
Even if I dont get a premium account I can run a 16 Sims world – full estates and not homesteads – all just by 99.99$ per month – Im building a whole virtual 16 sims city at Kitely when at SL I couldnt dream of having 1 single Sim for 295$ a month – Kitely will drain SL cause is Hypergrided and people are flowing in