Private Land Prices to go lower in Second Life, set up costs reduced, and Openspaces to end

Yesterday, in the interview with Saffia at the SL15B Community Celebration, Ebbe Linden announced major changes in the price of land in Second Life.

Beginning on July 2, monthly maintenance fees on Private Estates are dropping by up to 15% – rather appropriate in the light of the 15th Birthday!

In addition, one-time land set-up fees are also reduced by as much as 41%. These setup fees include the first month’s payment.

Discounts will vary based on the type of land, so here are the details from the Lab on current vs. new pricing:

You can see from the chart a further change – new Openspace Regions will no longer be available after June. However, existing Openspace Region landowners will benefit from this newly-reduced monthly pricing beginning July 2.

These changes will not impact any grandfathered or “bought down” land prices, since those are still below the newly-reduced rates. However, Education/Nonprofit (EDU/NP) discounted full islands will be re-priced to maintain their 50% discount off the regularly priced full islands. The new price of $124.50 will go into effect at the start of that island’s next invoiced billing term.

To balance this reduction in the cost of land (which has long been seen as too high), there will be a counter balance: on July 2, there will be an increase in the cost of buying Linden Dollars to $1.49 per transaction (compared to the current rate of 99 cents per transaction). This increase, the Lab believes, will help them offset the revenues lost on land.

These price reductions in private land follow the changes to the mainland (Linden owned land) in March when the Lab lowered Mainland costs by over 10 percent and doubled the Mainland allotment for Premium Members, a program that has, as Ebbe re-iterated in his interview, proved hugely succssful with Premium members.

The full announcement from the Lab is here: https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/2375-another-15-for-15-lower-land-prices-and-reduced-set-up-fees/

You can see the Livestream of that interview here (it is an hour and a half long, and we cover a range of fascinating topics in addition to the price changes, including demographics of different Second Life projects and diversity at Linden Lab).

Inara Pey is recording the talks, and will be posting transcripts and audio in the near future on her blog, Living in a Modem World: https://modemworld.me/. In the mean-time, you can read her take on this news here: https://modemworld.me/2018/06/20/linden-lab-announces-major-sl-private-region-pricing-restructure/, where she looks in more detail at the current situation with regard to private land, and other historical changes that the Lab has made with regard to pricing.