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 

 

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
 

Grumpity Linden Tries to Explain The Price Increases, Group Limit Cuts

The news of Linden Lab's Premium account price hikes, basic account group limit cuts, and cashing out fee increases on Wednesday May 29 got quite a number of reactions from the residents. In the early morning of Thursday May 30, Grumpity Linden decided to start a thread on the official forums, "A Brief Note On Pricing Changes," to explain why the Lab made these decisions.


Of why the Premium account prices were rising:

We looked. We hadn’t raised premium prices in the history of premium prices in SL. Crazy! A lot of value has been added to premium over the last few years (new Linden Homes, double tier, reduced mainland prices, premium access, more offline IMs, more transaction history, more groups, more animesh, experiences, and yet more to come) and we are raising prices to reflect that. 

Of why they were lowering the group limit of basic account members:

We’re not lowering limits out of spite, groups really are quite a strain on our back end for a variety of painful historical reasons, including overloading group functionality instead of having other tools.  This subject alone is worth a novel liberally sprinkled with tears. So anyway, we don’t hate basic users, and in fact we work hard to retain our free-to-play offering as one of the most generous across many industries. But yes, no big surprise, we do want to nudge active residents to become subscribers, because we think it’s a great value, and - as many have noted - we’re also running a business. 

But no, we're not shutting our doors to non-premium residents. Rumors of our insanity and villainy have been slightly exaggerated.  

Of the credit processing fee hike:

Fees to process credit are going up, effective June 24.  L$ buy fees are not. Yes, this is another step in rebalancing the economy.  It’s also the right step, because the regulatory climate has evolved dramatically since SL first started out, and in order to continue to offer a platform for creators to actually make money, we have a lot of ongoing work to keep up with those regulations. Compliance is generally no fun (shh don’t tell our compliance people I said so - they’re wonderful and actually think it’s fun!) but it keeps all of us in business and the bad guys out. If we weren't doing this work, we would literally have to stop offering the ability to process credit.

Grumpity would go further to explain why the Lab felt these moves were necessary:

We’re making lasting investments into SL in infrastructure, features, and content.  While we set aside some special morsels only for premium members, the work we are doing benefits everyone - region crossings, attachment reliability, marketplace improvements, inventory stability, land auctions - are just a few examples.  No one project will please all of our residents, but we make an effort to address the needs of all communities in turn. We can’t get everything done immediately, but we’re focused and determined to keep SL successful and evolving. It’s a unique and thriving world we work hard to support.

Look, this is obviously a bitter pill.  We can't keep slashing land prices at the rate we did last year.  We can’t raise other prices and yet keep everyone happy.  But we sincerely believe this is the best path forward - and hope you will come around too.  

P.S. we haven't given up on Last Names either. 

Grumpity did get credit from some residents for her willingness to come forward and speak, but few were convinced, content creators and merchants saying the Lab was making it very hard for them to do business inworld. Jo Yardley suggested if the cashing out fees kept going up, some residents might start dealing directly with each other via Paypal than use Linden dollars.

The debate is almost certainly to go on for quite some time. Readers are invited to made comments and send reader submissions. How will these price hikes and group limit cuts affect you?

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Raising Price of Premium Accounts, Reducing Group Capacity in Basic Accounts

Yesterday on Wednesday May 29, Linden Lab announced "Land Price Reductions, New Premium Perks, and Pricing Changes." But it's the "Pricing Changes" that are getting most of the attention plus The "Premium and Basic Account Changes."

The Lab announced "the difficult decision to make our first Premium price increase in over a decade." Their monthly rate was going up by over 25% from $9.50 USD a month to $11.99. Their quarterly rate was going up by almost 50% from $22.50 every three months to $32.97. And their yearly rate was going up by almost 40% from $72 a year to $99.

The Lab did say on June 3 they would be offering a "limited time offer" until June 24 for Premium account residents to renew at the old rate for one more cycle, including for those being billed monthly to switch to quarterly or annually and for those billed monthly to go quarterly. For basic accounts going Premium, being billed quarterly would no longer be an option. That option would remain only for existing Premium accounts.

Linden Lab was also increasing the credit processing fee for selling Linden dollars to Paypal and Skrill accounts from 2.5% per transaction to 5% (with a minimum fee of $3). In Nov 2017, it was raised from 1.5% to 2.5%. The Lab gave "increased regulatory and compliance costs" as the reason.

The good news for Premium account residents, Linden Lab announced that effective June 24, their group limit would rise from 60 to 70. The number of stored offline IMs would rise from 50 to 80. Unfortunately, Basic account residents would be taking a hit. Their group limit would be cut from 42 to 35, and their stored offline IMs would go down from 25 to 15.

This is the first time that group capacity for residents has been trimmed back. In October 2010, the limit for all accounts was raised from 25 to 40. In January 2011 it was raised to 42. In June 2015, it was raised to 60 for Premium residents, with regular ones still having a limit at 42.

The best news was for landowners. Linden Lab announced that the tier for full sims was going down again, effective June 3. For most, it would be from $249 USD to $229. The rate for grandfathered, or "bought-down", sims was also being cut, from $195 USD to $179. The $30 fee to add to the prim limit was unchanged.

The residents were quick to react, numerous comments in two threads in the Discussion Forums, "$99 Problems," and "What Are Your Opinions ..." There's also one in VR Universe. Needless to say, there were many expressing disappointment and anger, with accusations the Lab was acting out of greed.

For the blog post in full, Click Here.

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

Breaking News: Mainland Tier Reduced By 10%, Premium Residents' Free Land Doubled

For those who say "the tier payments are too darn high," some good news, at least those who live on the mainland. Earlier today, Linden Lab announced "Effective immediately, we’ve reduced Mainland costs by over 10 percent." They have also doubled the small amount of free land that Premium accounts get, from 512 square meters to 1024 square meters, or about a quarter acre.

This news does not directly affect those on private sims or free accounts. What it looks like is Linden Lab is trying to encourage people to buy up mainland parcels, of which much is empty land, and encouraging more residents to go Premium. How successful will it be? Time will tell.

Bixyl Shuftan