Second Life

Things about SL

Taxes Closing Regions?

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I saw a discussion on SLUniverse about a number of regions closing without notice. The discussion centers on the closing of Beach Front. See: Beach Front Realty Closed?

It seems the land owners collected the month’s tier from tenants and then closed the regions. Correspondence with Linden Lab revealed the closing was ‘deliberate’. I suppose that means the region owner contacted the Lab and scheduled the closing. Not having seen the actual correspondence I cannot tell if the phrasing is nuanced spin that might indicate the Lab closed the owners regions for some reason.

The tenants may be able to get their money back via PayPal. The Lab generally considers these things a resident-to-resident matter and stays out of them. 

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Second Life Tier – Again?

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Hamlet has an article on New World Notes about the loss of revenue we think the Lab is experiencing. See: Second Life’s Private Sim Revenue in 2013 Forecast at $48M, Down From $61M in 2010. Hamlet points to an article by Ener Hax: Second Life’s private sim watch, which is based on Tyche Shepard’s Grid Survey.

From the information we have it is pretty easy to surmise that 2011’s revenue from private sim leasing was about US$60 million. Using the same type of data we can surmise that 2013’s revenue is about $48 million. This is only region leasing fees income. That is a loss of about $12 million per year or about a 20% loss. Do you think management might notice that? For sure.

There are some other factors to consider in the overall equation. Wizard Gynoid points out in Ener’s article’s comments; in 2009 the Lab’s income was US$80-100 million with a 50% profit margin and roughly 2/3’s if the income was from region leases/tier. 

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