EOTB: Linden Lab To Raise Premium Account Price, Lowering Linden Dollar Buy Fee, Sim Monthy Fees

 

Yesterday on Monday June 8, Linden Lab announced some price changes. Good news if you keep buying Lindens or own one or more sims. But if you're a Premium Resident, some bad news. 

 

First the bad news, which the Lab called the reason for "adding more value to paid membership plans." The cost of Premium will be going up from $11.99 USD a month to $12.99 a month. If you pay by the quarter or year, the price will be a little less. If you pay every three months, the price will be going up to $11.99 USD a month or $35.97 per quarter. If you pay by the year, the rate will be going up to $9.99 USD a month or $119.88 annually. There was some fine print at the bottom of the announcement saying that the option to pay quarterly is no longer available "for new purchases."

 

The last time Premium accounts went up in price was over seven years ago from $9.50 a month, in May 2019, which the Lab then called "the difficult decision to make our first Premium price increase in over a decade." Their language back then was more direct than the wording in Monday's announcement. 

 

The price increase is not immediate, but will take place thirty days after the announcement, on July 8, 2026.  

 

The costs for Plus and Premium Plus level accounts. $5.99 and $29.99 USD a month respectively, which were introduced after the previous price increase, are not changing.  

 

Not all of the news was bad. Linden Lab announced that the minimum fee to purchase Linden dollars would be going down from $1.49 USD to 49 cents. 

 

But, there was a catch. The Lab would announce the ceiling rate, the maximum buy fee, was going up from $14.99 USD to $29.99.  The benefit of making fewer purchases of more Linden dollars instead of more smaller ones is being reduced. 

 

The fee changes Linden Lab wanted to emphasize the most is what will likely affect the smallest number of residents (albeit so much of the Grid as we know it depends on them).  The price of maintaining a sim will be going down from $209 a month to $199 a month. Sims whose prim capacity has been expanded to 30,000 will drop in monthly maintenance from $239 USD to $209. For a sim with an education discount, the monthly rate to maintain it drops from $129 USD to $105. This is a decrease of almost a fifth. So good news for those paying for education areas. The setup fee of $349 USD will not change. 

 

Linden Lab would justify it's increase in Premium accounts by saying they were "adding more value to our plans. In the past month alone, we’ve added two valuable new benefits - exclusive early access to some of the hottest shopping events in Second Life and at least 12 exclusive gifts monthly, which is the largest collection of exclusive paid membership monthly gifts ever!" They also stated they were offering "Expanded access to Linden Homes, Premium customer support benefits, more subscriber-exclusive virtual gifts than ever before," and "New partnerships offering early access to some of Second Life’s hottest shopping events and experiences."

 

A thread opened in the official Second Life forums on the announcement.  While there was some praise for making land more affordable, most of the comments were grumbles about the greater cost for Premium accounts. "They're getting greedy again and want to milk Premium a little more if they can, or push more people to go for (Premium Plus)." "'Expanded access to Linden Homes' ... so what, in fact, what does that even mean?" "Given that just about everything in real life has gone up a lot in price in recent times, it's hardly surprising that LL has put its fees up."

 

To see the blog post in full, Click Here.

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Lower Sim Tier, Higher Linden Dollar Purchase/Sell Fees Announced, Residents Can Now Pay Tier With Linden Dollars

Linden Lab had some good news and bad news a few days ago in regards to the fees it charges, good news for sim owners, not so good for the rest of us. 

The good news, if you own a sim, your expenses are going down. The Lab announced it was dropping sim tier by $20 USD a month. 

 

In recognition of our upcoming 20th anniversary, we are ... Dropping the monthly price of Full Regions by $20 for our 20th anniversary – effective immediately, Full Regions are now $209/mo.  

As the chart shows, this is the third sim tier reduction in five years, with sims now being $81 USD less a month than they were in early 2018. 

The Lab would also announce that people could pay for a sim using Linden dollars in what's being called the "$L For Land Beta Program." (see more below).

The bad news, fees for buying and selling Lindens are going up. The Lab would say this was partially due to the expected loss of sim tier revenue, and partially due to inflation increasing their operating costs.

This latest land price reduction, increased development of Second Life features, improvements, and an unfortunate combination of world-wide economic factors including inflation, all bring additional costs to our operations. We’ve spent time considering ways to manage these costs to minimize the overall burden on our Residents. We decided to absorb many of the costs and distribute some by making a change to Linden Dollar buy and sell fees. Effective today, we are changing LindeX fees as follows:

• Increasing the buy fee to 10% with a minimum fee of $1.49 and a maximum fee of $14.99USD per transaction
• Increasing the sell fee to 5% 

This is the latest of several Linden dollar purchase fee increases since June 2017, when they went up from 40 to 60 cents per transaction. Later that year, they would be raised from 60 to 99 cents. In June 2018, they went up from 99 cents to $1.49 per transaction. In April 2021, they went from the $1.49 flat fee to a 7.5% fee that could go no lower than $1.49. 

 

The fee for selling Lindens hasn't been changed as much. They had been 1.5% several years ago, then in Nov. 2017, then went up to 2.5%, and later to 3.5%.

Of the good news that residents can now pay sim tier with Linden dollars, thus for those making Linden dollars able to avoid the cashout fees, there are a few strings attached. The Lab would describe them on a webpage (link). To begin with, it's a trial system that might get canceled after six months. Also, at least for now, only Premium Plus accounts are eligible to take part, and only one sim can be paid for this way. Skill gaming (technically legal gambling) sims are also not eligible, at this time.

Linden Lab would also post a chart of how many Linden dollars would be needed to pay for the various kinds of sim, a regular full sim costing 57,475 Linden dollars a month. To set up these kinds of payments, one has to travel to the "Land Payments" sim, go in the office, find a kiosk, and follow the instructions on the website. 

There's a thread in the official forums to the topic, which as of the writing of this article has 17 pages so far, so discussion has been active.

 

Addition: Although the price changes were supposed to take effect right away, I was contacted by someone saying her sims are still showing the old prices. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab To Change Fees For Buying Linden Dollars, Price Increases For Some

    

For those whom buy Linden dollars in larger amounts, you will soon be paying more. A few days ago, Linden Lab announced that starting Thursday April 22, it will change the way it charges people for buying it's virtual currency for Second Life. Instead of a flat fee for any amount, they'll be charging a percentage with the old fee as the minimum.

Effective April 22, the current flat buy fee rate of $1.49 will be replaced by a 7.5% buy fee (capped at $9.99) applied to the total amount of Linden Dollars purchased in each transaction. The $1.49 minimum still applies. 

So what does this mean? If you buy Linden dollars in amounts of $20 or less, nothing really changes. But buying more than that, you'll be paying more. For instance, someone buying $30 USD worth of Lindens, assuming an exchange rate of 250 Linden dollars for one US dollar, will be charged 7.5% of $30 extra, or $2.25, and so pay a total of $32.25 instead of $31.49. This is an increase of 76 cents. For $50 USD, the fee is $3.75, and paying $53.75, an increase of $2.26.

Linden Lab would explain it was trying to manage having to deal with expenses, such as "Investing in our infrastructure to further improve speed and cadence of update" and "Developing new marketing initiatives and entertainment partnerships to fuel growth,"and wanted to "manage these costs in a way that minimizes the overall burden on our Residents." While it was going ahead and taking some loss, the Lab stated they needed a way to make up part of the expenses.

The fee for buying Lindens last went up in June 2018, from 99 cents. It was the second increase in less than a year, in Novemeber 2017 going up from 60 cents to 99 cents, and in June 2017 going up from 40 cents to 60 cents. Part of the reasons for these increases were the reductions in sim tier charged to residents.

The fee for selling Linden dollars, which is 3.5%, remains unchanged. 

A thread was created in the Second Life forums about the topic, which as of the writing of this article is sixteen pages long. Checking the first few, a few residents complained, "LL are digging their own grave by raising the fee." But most seemed more open to explanations and reserved in their criticism, "It is all a matter of take it or leave it in the end. If you are not satisfied you take your business elsewhere. That is the normal procedure everywhere."
 
Source: Linden blog

Bixyl Shuftan
   

Linden Lab Announces Contest For New Last Names

Last month, Linden Lab announced they would soon be making last names, or changing one's existing last name, an option for Premium residents (provided they pay a fee). On Monday, the Lab announced a contest for suggestions for new surnames.

Sharpen your quill! Get your wits about you! We are happy to declare the Last Names contest is officially open.  What contest, you say? What name changes?

We will make Name Changes available to Premium account holders in early 2020.  It will be possible to change First Name, Last Name, or both. There will be a one-time fee per Name Change. Just like in the olden times, First Name will be freeform, Last Name will be from a list - and here is where this contest comes in: we want your help coming up with the first batch of Last Names! 

To take part in the contest, fill out the contest form (here).  Residents are allowed to make three suggestions for new last names (existing ones cannot be reused). Those who think they have a clever idea should check the list of existing last names, as there are a LOT of them. The five residents coming up with what the Lab sees as the most original and clever names will be allowed to change their account names for free, or choose another account for the change. It wasn't specified on whether or not this could be someone else's account if the winner wanted to give the name change to a friend.

Taking a look at the page for the contest in the Second Life Wiki, there was an estimated price of what the upcoming price would be to change one's surname.

estimated value at US$39.99 plus $11.99 to represent the value of a month of Premium Membership

So it appears the price to change one's name in Second Life will be $52 dollars USD, or $40 for those who already have Premium accounts.

So if you think you have a particularly clever idea for a surname, go ahead and enter the contest.

To read the blog entry in full, Click Here.

Petition To Linden Lab on Change.Org About Cashout Fee Hikes

On Wednesday May 29, Linden Lab would announce significant hikes to both the price of Premium accounts and the cashout fees for Linden dollars. The move has triggered quite a bit of discussion among the residents. While some are reacting by canceling Premium accounts, one person calling himself or herself "Second Life Residents" started a petition on change.org, "An Open Letter to Linden Lab."

While the person thanked Linden Lab for retracting their decision to cut back basic account group limits, "We are, however, disheartened by the other changes that you have announced that are scheduled to be implemented this month, specifically the doubling of the processing fee from 2.5% to 5%. While we understand that Linden Lab is a business that needs to profit in order to thrive, we feel it is necessary to remind you that we are running businesses, too. As you know, many of us are more than just hobbyists, we rely on the money we earn in Second Life to pay our bills, feed our children, and survive. Rather than simply protest the changes you have made, we come to you hoping for an open dialogue to both understand your needs to implement such a drastic and high percentage and possibly come up with alternative solutions for Linden Lab to generate profits without punishing those you depend on the most to keep Second Life going."

"if your creators and other earners in Second Life are not kept happy and confident in your decisions, you risk a great loss that would eventually render Second Life obsolete. We believe that the decisions you make should not be done in a vacuum. The voices of residents have given you guidance in some of the best choices you've made in the last several years. Bento, Linden Homes, new default avatars, animesh... all of this was achieved with input from resident creators. We feel there is a place for resident consultations beyond content creation. Second Life residents understand this platform on a level that Linden Lab employees cannot achieve without becoming immersive residents who shop, live, and love. We are the ones immersed. We are the community. We are the culture. We have a keen insight into our own needs and many of us are competent, intelligent, and capable enough to advocate skillfully on behalf of the residents."

The writer would go on to suggest Linden Lab hire consultants, "residents who can demonstrate competence and expertise in various Second Life areas ... and real life practical areas ..." and "discuss the possibility of negotiating the 5% processing fee. We understand that Linden Lab does have a final say, but we have a long list of innovative and insightful ideas of how Linden Lab might increase profits without relying on land and without creators having to bear such a severe financial burden."

The petition had already reached over 1600 signatures as of the writing of this article.

To read the petition in full, Click Here.

Addition, as of 2PM SL time, the petition had reached 1900 signatures.

Hat tip: Lia, Braelove

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Cutting Land Prices And Setup Fees, Increasing Linden Dollar Purchase Fees, No New Openspace Sims After June

Some big news from Linden Lab, especially if you own a lot of land. Yesterday on Wednesday June 20, it was announced on the official blog , as well as by Ebbe Linden during his "Meet the Lindens" interview yesterday at the SL15B, that starting on July 2, the tier for private sims was being cut 15%. It was also announced that the fees to set up a private sim were being reduced "by as much as 41%." But, there's some "fine print." And to help offset these reduced land charges, the fee to buy Linden dollars is going up.

Effective July 2, monthly maintenance fees on Private Estates are dropping by up to 15%! In addition, one-time land set-up fees are also reduced by as much as 41%.  And remember, the setup fee includes your first month’s payment. Discounts will vary based on the type of land ...


The catch? First, Skill Games areas are not eligible for the tier cut. Grandfathered sims, which the Lab also called "bought down," are not eligible either, "since those are still below the newly-reduced rates." And if you were thinking of getting an Openspace sim, you don't have much time. The Lab announced after June, no more new ones will be available. For those who need a reminder, Openspace sims, also known as "void sims," are "intended for very low-impact scenic use such as ocean, forest, or countryside," and have a capacity of 1000 prims and ten avatars. They cost $150 US to set up and have a $75 US tier each.

The other part of the catch will affect many more residents. The Lab announced that starting July 2, to "help us offset the revenues lost on land," the charge for buying Linden dollars is going up from $.99 US per transaction to $1.49, an increase of slightly fifty percent. This is the second increase in the purchase fee in less than a year, the previous increase in November being from 60 to 99 cents. So in several months, the fee to buy Linden dollars has been raised by almost 150% .

So what's going on? The general feeling is that Linden Lab is trying to transfer the money paid by the residents, so less is made by landowners, and more is made by shoppers, in order to bring a halt to the long slow decline over time in the number of privately owned sims, which while having slowed down in recent months hasn't really stopped.

While some landowners are no doubt looking forward to lower tiers, there has been one critic so far. MarkTwain White posted in the comments under the article in Modem World, "The newly announced 15% tier-rate reduction is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That reduction Does NOT apply to us that have paid incredibly higher fees (200% on average) to have our lands reduced to grandfather rates in the past (thus in one big Catch-22 causing us to pay fees only to be excluded from the new fee reduction. The subtle Second Life 'screw you' here is that we now have to pay 50% higher transaction fees' to cover the our (SL’s) increase in costs for reducing your tie.' ...Experienced land rental companies get none of these discounts that LL is offering to the new companies they hope to attract due to reduced fees designed to increase their income while at the same time building a new tax basis made up of future rental companies that will become the target of new usurious fee increases. LL had done it more than once. This is classic LL policy: squeeze blood from current content providers (developers of properties to sell or lease) but go after new blood to bring new fees (taxes) to LL...."

So will the Lab see more people buying sims? Or will the long slow decline continue while shoppers buy less Linden dollars and merchants end up making less money? Time will tell.

For more information, check the announcement by Linden Lab here.
Additional sources: SL Grid Survey, Modem World

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Announces Option For Private Sim Owners To Expand Prim Capacity

It was a little more than a week ago when Linden Lab increased the prim allowance of private sims from 15,000 to 20,000. For those who want still more, yesterday on Wednesday December 7, Linden Lab began offering the option to further expand it to 30,000, a 50% increase. But there will be a price. The sim owner will need to pay a $30 USD fee, plus a $30 USD fee every month.


Starting today, Full Private Region owners now have the option to upgrade to an even more impressive 30,000 prims! That’s an additional 50% more room for creating, decorating, designing your own store -  whatever you can dream up!

Upgrading to 30,000 prims costs $30 USD per Region and will incur an additional monthly maintenance fee*. For additional information about Private Region management and this Land Impact upgrade program, please visit our Knowledge Base.

To request an upgrade, please submit a case through the support portal on the Second Life website under the case type Land & Region > Land Impact Change Request.

In the case of residential sims where the owners rent out parcels, most will likely request the increase in further capacity only if the renters are willing to pay for more. In the case of the Purrfection Estates, Nydia Tungsten is currently asking the renters how they feel about ding so. No doubt there are similar discussions going on between renters and estate owners across Second Life.

Linden Lab Offering Lower Tiers, For a Price

For years, residents have asked Linden Lab to lower what it charges for sim tier. Yesterday, in a "limited time offer," the Lab announced a chance for landowners to lower their monthly tiers to "Grandfathered maintenance rates." This means lowering the rate for regular sims from $295 USD a month to $195, and homesteads from $125 USD to $95.

But, there's a catch. First, the offer is only good until October 4. Second, to lower the tiers, one needs to pay a one-time fee, $600 USD for each regular sim, and $180 for each homestead. The deal does not apply to sims receiving the non-profit discount or those under it's "Skill Games" policy.

This move comes several months after the Lab's decision in November to reduce set-up fees for private sims.

Ciaran Laval, after a joke that the Lab was trying to make the "protest gnomes" (pictured above) redundant, called it "a good deal," at least for those who have the money up front. Jo Yardley commented, "This offer comes at an interesting time because by the time it ends, Sansar will have opened to a lot more beta testers and if all goes well, we’ll be months away from it opening to the main public. Who knows how things are going in SL by then?" She called it, "A good deal and another step in the right direction, but still, $600 is a lot of money," suggesting the Lab could have done a little better by allowing landowners the option to pay in installments. Hamlet Au was hopeful the move could help stop the long slow decline of Second Life's sim numbers, which have fallen below the 25,000 Level, less then 17500 of which are privately owned. In the thread on the topic in the official Second Life forums, reactions were somewhat mixed, one calling it a "cash infusion" strategy for the Lab, another commenting "if I were a non-grandfathered land baron right about now, I'd be doing one heck of a happy dance."

Time will tell how the move will affect Second Life.

For the blog post, Click Here. 

Sources: Ciaran Laval, Jo Yardley. Hamlet Au, SL Universe, gridsurvey.com.Second Life Forums,  

Another Linden Blunder Hits a Resident

With the harsh treatment Alleara Snoodle got last month from Linden Lab still on my mind, another of my friends came forward with another story. "Thanks to Linden Labs and a accounting error," she told me "I'm going to lose my primary account."

My friend went on, "Thanks to a error in their accounting computer my account got switched from a basic account to a Premium Annual account." I asked if she could switch it back, and she told me that wasn't the big problem, "they locked and disabled the account until I pay the $72 dollars they say I owe." She had never been notified of the account's status change, "I have till the 24th of (June) to take care of it though, or the account will be cancelled and wiped from the server."

My friend requested that her name not be listed, either her primary account or the one she has been using currently, " hate to even think I'd lose the account over something as retarded as Linden Lab."

The friend in question is pretty much devoted to Second Life thanks to a few individuals whose friendships she values, so she plans on sticking around regardless. But what does this say to those thinking of getting land from the Lab, or expanding their holdings?

Linden Lab, how much money can you expect to make in the long run if your customers lose your trust in you?


Bixyl Shuftan