Linden Lab announced several changes to Openspace sims in Second Life causing a bit of an uproar in the Second Life community.  Unlike many people I think that these changes are for the best. The changes in the new policy can help land owners, and recreate larger mainland communities. Before I delve into my thoughts of these changes, lets revisit what exactly is a Openspace sim.

Linden Lab has destroyed credibility with its latest surprise announcement to "jack-up" the prices on more than 50% of the grid's monthly fees. They claim their own incompetence in setting the void sim ("openspaces") features and their own mis-management as justification to bring monthly tier fees from $USD75 to $USD125. This poorly considered annoucement will send the hardcore SLers into panic. New landowners will feel very betrayed.  Frankly this step looks like suicide for Second Life.

Where to start? About a year ago Linden Labs started selling ‘openspaces’, which are also known as ‘void sims / voids’ or ‘baby sims’. As 4 voids are hosted on 1 server, you get less prims, less script/computing capacity and a cheaper price & tier - the monthly maintenance fee - rate. Lindens never really specified what those sims should serve for, only that they should not be heavily stressed. Of course, give people ‘land’, a prim allotment and scripting functionality, and they will start creating things. Be it residential areas, oceans sights, yacht harbours, shops, … . The sales of these void sims were responsible for the major ‘land mass growth’ in Second Life we witnessed the last few months, and that Linden Labs liked to boast about, a lot.

Openspaces? We haz underestimated!

But now? Jack Linden announced on the Second Life Blog that ‘… sadly there is a twist. Unfortunately most of the Openspaces are being used for much more than light use. Openspaces are being used about twice as much as we expected, in other words being loaded with double the content/avatar load than we’d expect for a region that is supposed to be light use. Because they were never intended for that level of load this is causing problems. For some people this has meant a less than great experience with performance fluctuations. The overuse of Openspaces has also put additional strain on some of our network and database infrastructure at a much higher ratio than is reflected in the current pricing.‘

The results? A ‘pricing change’ for voids effective January 1st. Lindens will increase the monthly maintenance fee from USD$75 to USD$125 per month. That’s a 66% increase! Purchasing an Openspace will become more expansive too and ‘educational use’ discounts will be no longer available for Openspaces.

Residents infuriated over new openspace pricing policy

It’s no surprise that Second Life residents are enraged about this news: the same Linden that only weeks ago encouraged them to stock up on voids, saying how lovely those are, now increase the maintenance fee for exactly those voids with 66%. Although there’s still some debate if Linden Lab did this intentionally - lure residents to buy and only then raise the ‘upkeep’ fee - or was blatantly stupid, underestimating the effects of voids on their network and database infrastructure to begin with. Regardless, all agree, that Linden Lab’s move is ‘not done’.

As Jeanricard Broek writes in the comments of Linden Lab betrays consumer market: ‘The latest announcement by linden Lab will create another killing blow to the Second Life Real Estate (e)Economy, the whole business economy and impact all residents directly or indirectly. Again Linden Lab is screwing it’s customers (the users/the residents), for sake of short term profit and change over sustained growth. I am getting angry now….. At a time when Linden Labs should be increasing performance, lowering prices and growing, it instead shows it cannot support growth, its customers or a secondary market/economy. In the past year servers have become cheaper and faster, technology across the internet has reduced costs of business, look at your phone bill, email & Amazon cloud storage costs. Folks this is going to be a hard year, and not a time to raise prices or devastate a user base. Linden Labs has its business model ASS BACKWARDS and it’s management is incompetent, lets be frank about it.‘

Resident Protest

As this effects mostly the ‘middle class’ Second Life Residents, there are a lot of ‘active players’ hit by this new policy, which clearly shows from the - negative - response and blog coverage on the announced pricing for openspace tier, as well as by the amount of ‘protest initiatives’ already present and in the make:

Protest Initiatives

1. update: JIRA issue MISC-1776 ‘OpenSpace Sim Prices SHOULD NOT Be Going Up! VOTE To Stop This ridiculous increase!’ (Hmm, the title could have been a bit more less serious, imho, but that’s just me.) Go vote there! (If you don’t know how, here’s a short explanation).
2. The Flickr ‘Openspace / Void’ Group call out to add photos of opensims you love. Tagline: This group is for snapshots from Openspace/void sims to show Linden Lab what they may be losing when they price these builds and residents out of ownership.
3. Homeless.inworld.sl, a group blog for those rendered without homes by Linden’s new pricing policy.
4. File for a position as ‘Billing Support Representative’, Lindens will need help now they are charging more money, as suggested by Crap Mariner.
5. The Official SL Forums - Not really a ‘protest’, but +800 +1000 comments should tell the Lindens something!
6. Revolutionary Beret by GaZov Designs on Onrez.

Residents blogs

1. Avoid the Voids - Lessons in Lindenomics by Zoe Connolly
2. Josue Habana writes Linden Labs make another f*ck up on pixelscoop.net.
3. … I am Jack’s overloaded infrastructure. I break. The grid dies. as written by Crap Mariner.
4. Ravishal blames Lindens for destroying Sailing and Aeronautical interest in SL
5. Tateru over at gives us a ‘neutral’ report as we are used to - and so much appreciate, btw! ;)
6. Linden Lab instigate price rises: backlash plus is the title run by the Metaverse Journal. They also note this increase is more heavy on Australians, cause to exchange ranges. You mean, you’re _lower_ than the USD?!!
7. Linden Lab Screws Estate Owners, Again kinda sums it up all.
8. For the better is what Nexeus Fatale thinks.
9. Lillie Yifu talks about this in the larger picture of SL changes, but ends with saying her goodbye’s to SL.
10. Thanks LL (no extra charge for irony) is what Ali K thinks about the price change.
11. Sarah Nerd feels screwed over by ‘Linden Lands’, a thing we can’t blame her for.
12. ‘Is this a sign that more price increases are on it’s way?’ is what Melanie Kidd ponders about over at Grid Expectations.
13. That-what-shall-not-be-named (except for now) has some Good suggestions on ways for Linden to solve this, and remarks that they should either get the grid stable, or their pricing, but preferably both.
14. Radar Masukami summarises Openspace in your face.
15. The fear that Much Beauty will be lost forever is what Wildstar Beaumont is writing about.
16. Famous SL photographer & content creator Prad Prathivi: ‘that an early casualty of the new pricing will be my Scorpio sim.‘ That and more.
17. Erbo Evans writes ‘Drop Dead, Part Deux: Openspace Sim Owners, BOHICA.’ and kindly explains ‘In case you don’t know, that last word is an acronym for “Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.‘
18. Eladrienne writes WTF LL of the Day: Openspace Sim Smackdown and reports on this being a serious blow for Caledon. More news on the Caledon emergency meeting by Hotspur O’Tool.
19. “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Oh, and btw, Openspace is falling by Elle Maxim.
20. Also having his doubts - and a huge *sigh* is Bailey Longcloth.
21. The Podmafia mentions an Openspace Catastrophe.
22. Raul Crimson calls this another Linden mistake and has the cutest lolcat ever seen!
23. New World Note’s Hamlet Au quotes and writes about Lost In The Void: Unexpected Virtual Land Price Hike Leads To Anti-Linden Protest, Self-Immolation. I need to look up what ‘immolation’ means.

Post in the comments if I forgot about anyone. I’m sure more blogpost - and actions - are ‘draft’ and ‘pending’ at the moment. And me? I just hope cute kittens will fix this for us. Feel free to use this to get your own message across. =>

Rosie B wants to make sure we all know about the existence of the Federal Trade Commission, the Bureau of Consumer Protection. No idea what you would base your claim on, though, as Lindens are giving you a 2 months advance notice… . Crap Mariner published the transcript of an in-world emergency meeting with Jack Linden, discussing the new pricing policy on void sims. linden lab, openspace, policy, second life, void