Second Life shrinks 5% in November
November 25, 2008 4:00 am
We all know Linden Lab likes to boast about ‘Land Mass’ statistics as as it comes to proving Second Life’s growth. Bad news, they won’t be able to do so at the end of November (or Q4/2008 probably). With a negative growth of “-1420 islands added” on November 24 compared to “26539 Islands Owned” in October that’s a loss of 5% in Second Life’s land mass. Yikes, we’re shrinking! The Openspace Exodus to blame, or are there other issues into play? The saying in Dutch goes “to cut off your own hand”. That might not be the case here, but with the Openspace / Homestead debacle, LL has at least cut off it’s own finger. The one that contained their Resident’s trust.
(On the bright side, virtual land prices have gone up again with an average of “2.0034 L$ Paid Per Square Meter” compared to 1.6023 in October.)
A maths question
If we know that in October there are 26539 Islands Owned by residents and in November 25119 islands (or less) and that each square meter of virtual land is worth 1.6023 L$ in October and 2.0034 L$ in November, then what’s the total value of land mass in L$ for October & November? And in USD? (One island is 65,536m²)
If you want to check the numbers for yourself (before starting to panic), take a look at Second Life’s Econmics Stats page. This is - sadly enough - not a sad parody. Except for the ‘Wounded SL’ logo remake. ;)
4 Responses to “Second Life shrinks 5% in November”
I think it fair to say a net “shrinkage” is to be anticipated due to the openspace debacle; even so, 1420 islands is considerable….could it be that fewer Estate Owners than anticipated are taking up the “four-for-one” “deal” offered by LL?
As to the cut finger…expect it to be patched and healed as LL release more Mainland in to the market now there is a potential “demand” for home space….
Going to be interesting to see what happens if (when) LL forge ahead with current thinking on sim resource capping across ALL sim types. While the case for controls may well be justified (and needed), as proposed, these plans will have serious repercussions for smaller land holdings….
It’s -1650 as of 26th November. The stats don’t tell the full story, there was growth of over 1,000 in October, how many people have put expansion plans on hold due to this? If LL are losing the setup fees on the back of this that will start to hurt.
Then there’s the loss of money for inworld business due to conversion times.
Yeah trust is in the gutter.
[…] fewer people understand what’s going on, the fewer people will complain and the fewer people will drop sims. And the more people will just be surprised if they get billed more and pay […]
[…] to the OpenSpace issue, near the end of November, Second Life land mass was already shrinking steadily with people converting 4 ‘Voids’ - each counting for 1 simulator/island - into […]
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