Second Life : A letter to Linden Lab

Linden Lab, the company which owns and operates the popular 3D virtual world known as “Second Life”, announced changes to pricing and policy for its OpenSpace virtual land product on October 27th of 2008.  This may sound familiar, because I have blogged about it before:  “Ethics on Second Life support.”  Users of Second Life, known as residents, reacted with outrage and frustration over the proposed changes due to the drastic increase in price for the OpenSpace product.  The reasons given for the price increase have been called into question, and accusations of misrepresentation and fraud have been swirling arround Linden Lab since the announcement.

On October 29th, Linden Lab released another announcement on their blog stating that they were receiving quite a bit of “feedback”, and would be posting another statement related to the OpenSpace issue in the relatively near future.  In this announcement, they reiterated that the OpenSpace product was not being used as intended, and that heavy usage rather than the prescribed “light use” was to blame for the increase in rates.  What was omitted from Linden Lab’s October 29th blog entry, was that Linden Lab had INCREASED the resources residents had to work with for the OpenSpace product on March 7th, 2008:  “Announcing changes to the Openspace product.”  Take a look:

Finally, we are going to increase the prim count for Openspaces. They will become exactly a quarter of the normal 15000 prim limit for a region, so they will be set at 3750 (to date they have been limited to 1875 prims).

- Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 4:45 PM by: Jack Linden

The heavier usage which Linden Lab describes as being the major factor for increasing the price of the OpenSpace product was enabled by increasing the “prim count” for OpenSpace regions, effectively doubling the amount of objects which can be placed in an OpenSpace region.  Linden Lab has been reasoning that OpenSpace regions are intended for “light use”, and the current use by residents exceeds Linden Lab’s expectations of usage.  What they fail to realize, is that by increasing the prim allowances for OpenSpace regions, they have redefined what “light use” is.  A regular “full region” offers residents a 15,000 prim allowance.  OpenSpace regions currently allow for 3,750 prims.  Wouldn’t you consider 1/4 the allowance of a full region to be light use by comparison?  And if overuse was an issue, why raise the prim allowances in March?

Resident protests have been ongoing since the original announcement, and many groups are working with legal experts to consider possible action against Linden Lab, especially after their latest statement.  On November 5th, 2008, Linden Lab posted a blog entry entitled “A Letter to Second Life Residents,” detailing adaptations which have been made to the pricing and policy change previously announced, in which a new product called “Homesteads” were introduced, and the current OpenSpace product has been modified.  Basically, OpenSpace regions are to have their prim limits reduced to 750 prims per OpenSpace region, and a new limit of 10 avatars will be introduced.  The Homestead regions will be allowed 3,750 prims, with a limit of 20 avatars per Homestead region.  OpenSpace regions will remain $75 per month, with an initial set-up fee of $250.00, while the Homestead regions will cost $95 per month until July of 2009 where the price will increase to $125.00 per month.  The set-up fee for Homestead regions is slated to be $375.00.

Most of the specific details for the new version of OpenSpace regions, and the new Homestead product are in the Second Life knowledge base, which you must log in with your Second Life account to view.  The link to the knowledge base article is barely noticeable in the November 5th blog announcement of these changes, but the knowledge base is where you will find the current breakdown of what each product will be when the changes take effect.  Take a look:

When examining this chart, I noticed two things which I found rather unsettling.  Script Limits and CPU Ratios are left as TBA (To Be Determined).  Both of these parameters will greatly effect the quality of service with each product, and yet there is no indication of what they will be.

It seems that Linden Lab, in response to the community outrage over the proposed changes to the OpenSpace product, has decided to punish the community rather than work with it to resolve this conflict.  Personally, I would not recommend Second Life as a serious option for operating a virtual business, or establishing a virtual location for an existing business.  Over the years, Linden Lab has shown me that deception and disregard are tools of their trade.

Fortunately, there are a plethora of alternative virtual world platforms in development, many of which look rather promising.  I, for one, cannot wait until they begin to reach production quality.

Similar Posts:

• Ethics on Second Life support
• Bailing Out a Sinking Ship
• Built to last? In the past.
• Linden Labs Loses Focus… Again.
• Why Walmart is Bad for America Series