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

EOTB: Linden Lab Lowering Price of Event Regions, Offering Two Levels, Sim Rollbacks Now Cost $25 USD

 

On May 2, Linden Lab announced they were making special Event Regions available for residents. While they boasted higher performance, such as a capacity of up to 175 avatars and up to 30,000 land impact, they were expensive. Following the introductory period, they would require "a set-up fee of US$999 (includes first month), and a rate of $899/month after the first 30 days." Compared to private sims having a monthly charge of $229 USD and a setup fee of $349 USD, expensive.

Last Thursday, Linden Lab announced they were lowering the price, and offering two levels of Event Regions. The lower priced one was called "Event Region Pro." It cost $449 USD a month "with no additional setup fee." They have the 175 avatar limit, more than 20% improvement in script performance, and upon request extended chat range. Three more options were available for fees. An increase to 30,000 Land Impact would cost an extra $30 USD a month. An Instancing Service, or cloning of an Event Region, was $50 USD per request. And rollback services, done within 48 hours, were $25 USD each.

The more expensive level is "Event Regions Elite." Besides having the features of Pro, the Land Impact is raised to 30,000 with no fee. Niether are there fees for rollbacks or cloning of event regions, and "White-glove concierge service." The price is "$599 per month with no setup fee."

It would then have this to say about region rollbacks:

In addition to these new product offerings, we are pleased to announce region rollbacks as a service. This service is now available to all private region owners. If you make a mistake with region content, or want to restore a previous build, you can now request to roll the region back to a specific time. Please note that rollbacks will still be at Linden Lab’s discretion and are not guaranteed. Rollback services are available at $25 per request.

A rollback of a sim was once done without a fee, but at the discretion of Linden Lab, which cautioned to treat them as "a safety mechanism to be used only when something goes very badly wrong," and one could only roll back a few days.

For more information, check the page on the Linden blog.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

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,