Linden Lab says figures "misleading"

by Tateru Nino Jan 7th 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Economy, News items, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds

Starting late last month, the published statistic that showed an unprecedented ongoing reduction in Second Life land area was disabled (perhaps permanently, the Lab hints). The raw data is still available, however, and the decline continues.

We've had no luck in obtaining response or comment from Linden Lab about any of this, but Wagner James Au at New World Notes has fared rather better. However the statements from the lab are fairly tangled and unclear.

The Lab claims that the figures misreport, which is technically true. All of the statistical systems give incorrect information at least several times each month, but according to Jack Linden, the numbers are actually sort of correct, and indeed even skewed slightly in the Lab's favor (the reported losses have been far smaller than expected) -- but just misunderstood.

"There have been far more Openspaces converted back to full regions than have been abandoned, which of course looks like a loss but strictly speaking isn't," Jack told Au. And indeed, owners of groups of four Openspaces simulators can convert them to one full region. A loss of 196.6 thousand square metres -- or a reduction of US$5/month in gross revenue -- per conversion, whichever way you prefer to look at it.

Essentially, we think we are to understand that the 75% reduction in land area per conversion does not constitute a reduction in land-ownership commitment in Second Life. That has the bonus of actually being true, as the cost for a single full simulator is only US$5 less per month than a group of four of the Openspaces 2.0 simulators.

However, yes, the numbers -- while still apparently somewhat favorable to the Lab -- are still misleading. That is, there's no indication of the numbers of simulators converted versus the number abandoned, without which almost nothing useful can be inferred. Those are numbers that the Lab must inevitably have to hand (in order to process billing, if nothing else) but is not revealing -- and that's essentially why the numbers are misleading.

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Tags: economy, linden-lab, new-world-notes, openspace-simulators, opinion, second-life, statistics, virtual-worlds, wagner-james-au

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Kalel Venkman said on 1:00PM 1-07-2009

It stands to reason that Linden Lab would simply turn off this report if it showed bad news. And it does. We know for a fact that you can only convert openspace sims to a full sim if you do it in clusters of four. We also know that a great many openspace sims were purchased after they dropped that four-at-a-time restriction. So I think we're seeing a combination of:

* Four-packs being converted to single full sims
* Four-packs being abandoned
* Singly purchases openspace sims being abandoned

Since Linden Lab is not releasing any information at all on what the ratios of these three types of loss are out of the total daily average loss of 55 sims per day, we can assume that if they did release the figures it wouldn't be a good thing for Linden Lab. Otherwise, they'd be forthcoming with the information and wouldn't have any problem with sharing it.

From this we can assume that a much smaller percentage of four-pack conversions are taking place than Linden Lab would prefer us to know about, and that the majority are simply being abandoned. However, we can also assume that because the conversions end up with Linden Lab receiving the same money within $5, that Linden Lab has probably not yet reached their threshold of pain with respect to the fiscal losses, and may not till the middle of spring.

The immediate fiscal impact is only one side of it, of course - whether they're actually losing money right now or not, the fact remains that SL is becoming a less fun place to be, simply because at this writing there are currently 16% fewer places to go than there were at the beginning of last November, with no end to the shrinkage in sight.

Kal

Crap Mariner said on 1:18PM 1-07-2009

Looking at that hole in the reports, my concern isn't the numbers but the fact that either the systems that are supposed to generate the reports or the people responsible for generating and releasing the reports are incapable of generating the expected reports.

Neither of those situations leaves me with a warm fuzzy snuggly feeling.

So which is it? With the pseudoresponse on NWN, the answer appears to be... option number three: the people responsible for generating and releasing the reports are unwilling to release the reports.

If the numbers aren't adequately or truthfully explaining what is really going on, then there must be numbers that do, right?

Fine. Release those in addition to the existing numbers so that a better picture of what's going on is described. (THEN spin them.)

-ls/cm

Moe Greene said on 4:03PM 1-07-2009

*yawn*

Seriously, at this time, who cares? Let's see where we are a month or so after all the 4-to-1 conversions have taken place and people have had to deal with the new billing. Trying to make anything out of the information we get from them in the middle of this rollercoaster ride is pointless. Of course they will distort, hide and outright lie if necessary.

Cincia Singh said on 4:30PM 1-07-2009

LL had said that the Open Spaces as they were before (being abused) were not supportable and a drain on resources and a money-loser. Shrinking back to a manageable land mass which no longer stresses the system and is once again supportable AND is a source of income is a good thing for LL; they ARE a business so the bottom line is the money. Keep in mind that there's a glut of land both mainland and estate, so a slightly shrinking landmass might bring some value back to the land you/I/we own.

Tateru Nino said on 2:54AM 1-08-2009

They contradicted that position later on - which is one of the reasons we've been getting asked to chase it down.

Dex Trenchcoat said on 2:53AM 1-08-2009

Very true Cincia...

but then what would all the bloggers have to complain about?

rightasrain said on 12:53PM 1-08-2009

LL tries to play it both ways--claim growth when OpenSpace are selling like hotcakes in 2008 and then say it is a not really accurate when the sims all get dumped.

They should just report the total prim capacity on the grid which is at least somewhat indicative of content potential. Probably they could even show how much of that capacity is used? Oh, but I forget that LL only cares about hawking virtual land at higher prices.

Ciaran Laval said on 6:44PM 1-08-2009

I'm pretty sure that at tonight's office hour Jack said around 1,000 had been abandoned. That's probably a better figure than LL expected as I'm sure they said early on that abandonments were 1 in every 2.5.

Tateru Nino said on 6:55PM 1-08-2009

That's interesting. A quick bit of back-of-the-envelope arithmetic with that number says the number of 4-sim conversions would be about the same figure: 1000.