Linden Lab decommissions over 23,000 islands in 24 hours [updated]
by Tateru Nino 
Dec 25th 2008 at 4:00PM
Filed under: Economy, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds
With the new higher-priced, lower-specification Second Life void simulator packages coming up in the first week of January, we've been expecting a sudden decline in simulator numbers as customers shed their virtual land holdings. From the first of December to midnight on 22 December, we saw a net reduction of only 1,535 which was far from the sorts of numbers we were expecting so late in the month.
The figures for Tuesday, 23 December are far, far different. Linden Lab has decommissioned more than 23,000 simulators in the space of 24 hours. Almost 1,000 per hour. That's a stunning figure -- it quite literally took our breath away there for a few moments. That's a net reduction of over one-and-a-half billion square metres in one single day.
We're expecting further reductions by the end of the month, but we're not willing to speculate on the scale of reductions on subsequent days at this stage.
UPDATE: It's been pointed out to us that this may be due to an error in Linden Lab's statistical system. We've done some more investigation and, yes indeed, the published figure is bunk. Digging back to the source feeds the correct net loss up to Christmas Eve seems to be about 1,630.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
SecondLie said on 2:04PM 12-25-2008
In a thousand years, New Age kooks will talk about a lost continent of technological wonders and magic called "Jacklantis" which sunk beneath the waves.
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Eris said on 4:32PM 12-25-2008
...and the rest of us will talk about the fools that used to run Second Life.
Mouse Mimistrobell said on 5:05PM 12-25-2008
I'm wondering if anyone knows how many sims/islands LL has overall? I have 'heard' its about 33K. If this number is accurate, then they've turned off 2/3rds of the grid?
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Prokofy said on 5:24PM 12-25-2008
Tateru, are you daft? There are about 36,000 simulators in SL. They didn't suddenly decommission *23,000*. Did you make a typo? Did they just make a mistake in how their numbers are reflected?
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TC said on 5:36PM 12-25-2008
Yeah the stats are borked, "islands owned" is zeroed out on the LL stats page.
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Pavig Lok said on 5:56PM 12-25-2008
Either:
1) this is not true, and some kindof stats or other mistake. So not so interesting.
2) it's a massive drop in island subscriptions due to openspace/void/homestead pricing increases. So will cause lots of hand wringing and doom fear.
3) Lindens just happened to have 24k of islands lying around that they hadn't got around to decommissioning. In which case... wait what?!
I think any of those three is about as likely as the others :P
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Yohan Pintens said on 5:58PM 12-25-2008
as of right now there are a total of 27,864 total simulators, of those approximately 4500 are mainland, I don't track openspace vs full estates. So these numbers represent "Unique Regions on the grid" There was a high of approximately 33,270 a month or so ago. 27,864 is actually an increase from 2 weeks ago when there were 26,534 total simulators.
So since the openspace announcement there was a steady decline from 33K down to 26K or a loss of approximately 7K regions however total regions are currently back on the rise.
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FlipperPA Peregrine said on 6:31PM 12-25-2008
I'm curious to see what is actually going on here. Linden Lab does have a history of performing this kind of "maintenance" when they think no one is looking (which makes business sense). The same used to happen with the late Friday afternoon press release. Philadelphia sports teams are notorious for doing the same exact thing. I'm looking forward to the update on what is actually happening - no doubt, land mass will be retracting, the question is, how significantly?
Regards,
-Flip
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Ciaran Laval said on 6:42PM 12-25-2008
Come on Tateru, this just isn't feasible. Now where the real story may well be, is if we now see a drastically different number of island growth than we saw prior to this borked number.
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Arthur said on 7:42PM 12-25-2008
Well, after looking at LL's own stats, the numbers they're reporting do seem to jibe: http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php
The page in question does seem to state that they lost 24562 simulators, however, that figure is exactly the number of simulators owned at the end of November, and the month-to-date figure for December is zero, which makes me think that the number of simulators added or lost is calculated simply by subtracting the last month from the previous month... which leads to unhelpful results until the stats actually update. If I'm guessing right, then LL probably should consider changing the note about the simulators added being "month to date" if the figures aren't some flavor of "live". Footnote 3 (in fine print) makes me think that they're aware of this issue and have encountered it before. Rather than putting fine print in telling us not to believe what we read, they should really consider simply not publishing figures until they're accurate -- perception is all too often mistaken for reality.
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Tateru Nino said on 8:29PM 12-25-2008
I've corrected this. The number looked all-too plausible at 5am.
Definitely should have waited until the next feed update.
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Valiant Westland said on 12:00AM 12-27-2008
A Subject Worthy Of Further Discussion
Based on the original story, I was prepared to publicly post the following comments. Although the dire picture painted from the original information (statistics) has been shown to be inaccurate; I believe the reactions the story provoked in we who read it, as well as the underlying issues are worthy of continued discussion.
My Comments On The Original Story (Edited):
The purging of low-prim (Void) Sims was a necessary step to balance the cost to resource usage (overhead) equation that was out of control. It is unfortunate that the whole process evolved the way it did and was handled in the way it was.
The value of any Software As A Service (SAAS) offering, such as Second Life, is difficult to establish. Especially when you have built it with a social and economic infrastructure that promotes the "free" (non-commercial) exchange of value.
Ultimately, the best hope for SL, or any economy is a robust yet open (information) capital system that puts an emphasis on social and economic progress that is economically profitable for all concerned (win/win). Perhaps the best thing that could happen to SL would be for it to become a publicly traded or private corporation, where the citizens were also shareholders.
As long as you have a minority making decisions, based primarily on their own interests and the "Special Interests" of a select group of people, who are "privileged insiders," you will continue to see a dysfunctional "World" economy.
"If Linden's goal is to create a setting for a stable, growing economy that will provide the most satisfaction to the most residents, it must avoid the pitfalls of interventionism that plague real-world economies." (1)
It is clear that for Second Life to continue to grow and prosper, the leadership of Linden Labs must do a better job of communicating the true state of the Second Life economy and engage its citizens in proactive discussion on how to strengthen both the social and economic value proposition for all of its citizens and stakeholders. I hope the original article and the comments it has generated, prove to be a catalyst for that effort.
-----------------------------
I will close this with a quote by my father, one of the wisest and funniest men I have ever known; who taught me "A war of words is never won with faulty ammunition."
"People use statistics like drunks use lamp posts, for support rather than illumination."
(1) The Coming Second Life Business Cycle
Daily Article by Matthew Beller | Posted on 8/2/2007 12:00:00 AM
Follow Me On Plurk!
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Tateru Nino said on 12:17AM 12-26-2008
Actually, I didn't think it was so much dire as it was industrious!
Tharkis Olafson said on 8:14AM 12-26-2008
Any way you slice it, I can't wait until the end of month numbers.. IMHO SL jumped the shark about 6 months to a year ago. This is just another signpost on the way down.
Now what I'd love to get my hands on is the statistical results of that poll they sent me about premium account usage. (They sent it to current premium subscribers and former premium subscribers.)
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Tateru Nino said on 8:44AM 12-26-2008
Interesting. I didn't get sent one - nor anyone I've sampled so far. Widening the net.
Dale Innis said on 10:13AM 12-26-2008
Rofls, I'd assumed this was sort of a joke posting, and you'd noticed that the "Total Islands Owned" number was zero, thus neatly accounting for the largish negative delta, but you were just playing it straight for the smile value... :)
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TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 12:36AM 12-29-2008
ouch!
hm, can't you put that strike-out effect on the title of the post or somthing?
anyway, thanx for risking embarrassing yourself to get us fresh news *offers a hug smiling*
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Tateru Nino said on 12:48AM 12-29-2008
Alas, no. The system won't let us do that. Nevertheless, the correction in the body seems to be pretty clear.
TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 1:17AM 12-29-2008
I see, okie :)
Zonja Capalini said on 5:34PM 1-02-2009
The figure seems to be nearer to 2000 islands lost in December: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zonja/3161289874/
That would make 15% landmass lost in two months, if my numbers are correct.
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