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
   

RFL Announcement: Carnival of Dreams and Screams,, Oct. 1 - 31st.

Moonshadow Rising Horde presents- Carnival of Dreams and Screams benefiting MSABC of SL Sim opening October 1st(maybe earlier) thru October 31st. Landmark coming soon!

p.s. October 5th @6pmslt Moonshadow Rising will have a kick off formal event. Landmark to come!

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 Raising Fees to Buy Lindens, Will Raise Fees to Sell

By Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life is getting more expensive for it's residents. On the Linden blog yesterday, they announced that they were "making multi-million dollar investments in Second Life that will benefit Residents in the near and long term, while also ensuring that the virtual world’s bright future ahead is even more awesome than its 14+ year history has been. Exciting times!" This was followed by an announcement that there would be "Updates to LindeX and Credit Processing Fees."

Underlying SL’s user-to-user economy and the ability to buy and sell L$’s for real currency is a significant amount of ongoing work to ensure that everything remains compliant with applicable laws and regulations, while also preventing fraud and money laundering. This work comes at a cost, and we are adjusting related fees in order to help cover those costs and enable us to continue to invest in Second Life’s future.

Starting yesterday, the fee for buying Linden dollars over the Lindex rose from 60 cents to 99 cents per transaction, an increase of about two-thirds. Starting on January 3, the fee for selling Linden dollars will go from 1.5% per transaction to 2.5 percent, and the $25 USD cap on fees per transaction will be removed.

At least one Second Life businessman has responded to these increases. Oobleck Allagash, a co-owner of KraftWork and PocketGacha, commented in New World Notes that the Lab had "attacked those who work to create the SL economy by raising the fees to process payments nearly 67% overnight, but more importantly, removing the $25 cap which will, for larger brands, result in exorbitant additional costs." He questioned the reason for the increases, "what work has changed specifically that will require LL to generate millions more a year annually? Sounds a bit more like those that drive the SL economy are in fact now paying for the failure of Sansar."

The Lab did mention one way it had been trying to protect inworld businesses, "Recently, we closed an exploit that fraudulent gacha re-sellers had used. Our governance team can now catch them when they attempt the cheating method that we have already fixed." Though this alone isn't an explanation for why such a large increase.




To read the Linden's blog post in full, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

One Billion Still Rising

Last weekend, Gemma Cleanslate attended a discussion about last month's One Billion Rising event at Virtual Ability Island, where Saffia Widdershins talked to an audience. Gemma looks back at both the discussion and the event, and what she felt was accomplished.

Read Gemma's article in People.

SL Video: One Billion Rising in Second Life

"Tena Clark & Tim Heintz have given us the incredibly powerful song, "Break the Chain," that we hear in this video. As women from around the world in Second Life, we wanted to do our part too. Gorgeous settings, amazing women-behind the avatars, and a bit of fantasy make our video a beautiful addition to the tide of support that's sweeping the globe. Visit our blog, "One Billion Rising in Second Life" to find out more!"

http://www.onebillionrising.org/