The unprecedented decline of Second Life land area appears to be accelerating according to data from virtual world operator, Linden Lab. The net loss of simulators which totalled nearly 9,000 acres as of midnight on 10 November, has escalated to a net loss of 12,874 acres (52.1 million square metres, or 795 simulators) by midnight of 16 November. At present this represents an accelerating decline, with no sign of it bottoming out.
While a number of users have requested a consolidation of four Openspaces simulators into a single ordinary simulator (which would represent an overall net loss of three simulators per consolidation) there is no data available to suggest that any of the requested consolidations have yet been processed. Linden Lab was not able to confirm for us that any such consolidations have yet taken place, so it is unlikely that they are a factor in this data. The net loss currently represents more than 6% of the total Openspaces simulators as at the time of the new pricing/product announcements.
All of this revolves around void simulators, and particularly the transition of costs and specifications from the existing Openspaces 2.0 void simulator product and the upcoming Openspaces 4.0 and Homesteads 1.0 void simulators products.e
Both of the new products represent reduced customer value over the Openspaces 2.0 product. Homesteads 1.0 has increased costs and reduced operating specifications, while Openspaces 4.0 retains the same cost basis as the 2.0 product, but takes a larger hit to operating specifications.
Linden Lab has indicated that there are no further plans to reduce price or increase the operating specifications for either of these products, but additional reductions to the product specifications (in the form of scripting limitations) are due to be announced before January 5, when the new plans kick in.
At present, many customers owning void simulators under the Openspaces 2.0 product plan seem intent on getting the most out of them, announcing that they will not be closing those simulators until 31 December this year. With so many hanging on until the end of December, that makes the current decline in simulator land-area seem far more pronounced.
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