Elf Clan, a popular Second Life group with over 2,000 members announced that they would be ceasing operations in Second Life on May 18th and that a sim called Elvenmyst would be closing on this date due to billing difficulties. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of these sort of announcements as the billing issues with Linden Lab are becoming absurd, one of my tenants hasn’t been able to buy Linden Dollars for a while now and these issues have been acknowledged by Linden Lab in this blog post.
However there are deeper issues behind the Elf Clan unhappiness, the openspace fiasco, of which I was an extremely vocal critic and still believe that you don’t treat customers the way Linden Lab did back then. LL employed great spin to try and deflect the decision back on customers who had been abusing resources, but first of all the abuse was pointed out to LL during the explosion, secondly people reported that they had asked LL for permission to use those sims in that fashion and LL had apparently agreed, the only warning against Openspace misuse had been that you would not get support for performance issues on your sim if it was found that you weren’t using them as suggested, nowhere did they state you could not use them for purposes other than open waterways and forests, who on earth was going to put an open waterway or forest in the middle of nowhere?
However that’s all ancient history, the puzzling thing about the Elf Clan issue now is their response to Linden Lab’s response. Rod Humble got wind of the billing issues via Twitter, billing contacted the person responsible for paying tier and it turns out they’ve been offered two months worth of free tier, as posted here, and Elf Clan are still stamping their feet.
I have a lot of sympathy with Elf Clan over some of the issues of operating within Second Life, as I mentioned above, and tier is costly for those who want to roleplay, but, they could try the unthinkable and charge their members for participation, one sim in Second Life split between 2,000 members would be covered by a fee of L$50 a month per avatar, two sims by L$100, there should be a little bit of spare change. If they have other means of income these fees could be lowered.
However in Second Life it’s not quite that easy, some people have other financial commitments, I have rentals on my roleplaying sim, we also have donation jars which are used to raise funds and my team also self fund entertainment on the sim, they raise the money for performers to appear via their own little committee. The simple fact of the matter is that tier is cheaper in Inworldz and Avination, if people want to roleplay there however they will still find the challenges of paying tier, there are less people on those worlds, that means less income opportunities and far less reach overall for new members. I’m not trying to discourage people from trying Inworldz and Avination, indeed I visit both grids from time to time and feel the more the merrier when it comes to virtual worlds, but the reality is that Second Life is at the top of the pile.
However what I find odd about the Elf Clan situation is that they seem to be demanding their sim is grandfathered at USD$195 a month, my roleplaying sim is grandfathered so it may seem a tad hypocrticial of me to say that I think it’s an unreasonable demand, but I do think it’s an unreasonable demand, when I purchased my sim the fact that it was grandfathered was factored into the purchase price, I have another sim that isn’t grandfathered, indeed the vast majority of full sims aren’t grandfathered and we’re talking by a massive majority here, it’s not 55-45 or anywhere close to that.
When I first got my roleplaying sim I rented it and paid USD$300 a month in rent, I didn’t know the sim was grandfathered and it wasn’t any of my business, I struck a deal with the sim owner that saved me money each month because I was not required to pay VAT on my rental, therefore making the monthly tier fee cheaper for me personally, it was a business arrangement that worked for me. Those were the terms that suited me, when they told me they wanted to sell the sim I came to an agreement on price which factored in the grandfathered status, now it was even cheaper per month but I still have to work towards ways of covering tier.
The Elf Clan deal would give them the equivalent of six months worth of grandfatered tier status, it seems churlish of them not to accept this unless part of that agreement is tied into accepting a long term contract, they could still leave at the end of six months or even sooner if they choose, but to not accept the deal because Linden Lab didn’t respond to a letter from someone other than the sim owner seems somewhat odd.
There are issues with Linden Lab and I’m not shy to point them out, but when they open a dialogue and work with you, the best option is to keep that dialogue going, we’d all like to see lower tier prices if they’re feasible, but it’s really not feasible for Linden Lab to cut USD$100 a month off sim tier at this moment. I would like to see Linden Lab opening up more revenue streams, one of which could be advertising on the login screen. This may make some people squeal but if they find extra revenue from elsewhere then they can start looking at lowering tier prices, they simply can’t afford to cut such a massive amount off their tier income across the board right now, they need other revenue streams before they can do that.
At the end of the day it’s upto Elf Clan to decide what’s best for them, but if I were in their shoes I would grasp the nettle and keep the dialogue with Linden Lab open.
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