So it's the 28th of March, and we're still L$7,000 short of Lismore's monthly tier. This has been a recurring situation for quite a few months. February was no problem because of one HUGE! generous donation, but since October of last year, we've been in trouble.
Let me throw some numbers at you folks who like numbers....
Our monthly tier is L$83,000. That amounts to about US$295-300 every month just on tier. SL can be a VERY EXPENSIVE hobby.
(the donations box lies, it's not L$65k. We put L$65k there because early on it was voted that EIGHTY-THREE THOUSAND was too scary of a number)
My SL sales are what pays for Lismore's tier. If I'm short on sales and donations at the end of the month, I put out my own cash to cover the remaining cost.
(if there's a surplus, it rolls over to the next month. Surpluses have been of about L$3k on average
if there is any).
Sales were steady and predictable for two years, which with market research indicated to me that it wasn't product performance that was causing the decline that started to happen when the Lindens started to mess up with things and RL economy started to go downhill for real.
Since October 2011, SL sales have been declining drastically (and before then, they were declining already, but October marked the "we're in trouble!" date); the whole of SL's economy seems to be collapsing, and LindenLabs isn't making things easier for us old time merchants. In February, my Marketplace sales surpassed for the first time my in-world sales, both in volume and L$ amount. And I am often in contact with other merchants, and they too confirmed that the majority of their sales are coming from the Marketplace these days. The problem with that is that if you are selling from the Marketplace, you don't need land for a store. You don't have the HUGE! overhead that is land/sim tier, so you can practically give your products away for free. I can't do that, I have a US$400/month bill to pay to LL ($300 tier, and more or less $100 on advertisements and classifieds ads and other promotional means without which sales don't happen and my MainLand backup store). I can't sell something that takes me 2 months to make for L$100 on the Marketplace (example of prices of some houses I've seen there).
The bottomline is: I am no longer capable of paying the tier for Lismore on my own with SL sales, and I absolutely can not fund it with RL money.
Don't think I want the RP to end, or to call it quits, no. Not at all. I love Lismore and I love having it for people to RP and have fun there!
But these are the facts. I can't afford the bill on my own.
But like any good business person (or super-villain!), I accounted for such potential problem, and was able to devise options to keep Lismore afloat.
The first option is to find dedicated sponsors.
The pros of this are:
- We keep our beautiful sim!
- Nothing changes in the storyline or events.
- I won't stress myself sick because of the SL bill - Ok, this one is a selfish one.
- Nothing changes. Everything you've come to enjoy stays the same.
The cons are:
- I'm capable of affording up to US$50/month, so that leaves US$250/month for others to pay.
- ...that's it really, US$250/month to be distributed amongst sponsors.
The other option is what I refer to as the Plan B.
Plan B constitutes of moving key RP facilities to my MainLand land, thus enabling us to continue to RP, even though we would be in a smaller, confined space.
I've been preparing this backup plan since October when I started to
really worry about Lismore's tier. You can visit the models for the city at
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lismore/153/119/1560 and for the Temple at
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lismore/151/98/1664. I have a plan for allocating space for the Phoenix faction, and the little outlaw island can be easily copied from Lismore to a new location. We would lose our forest, endless sea, and I haven't been able to come up with prims for the Desert faction... yet, but I have a plan for the Zenko folks.
The Pros of Plan B are:
- I can afford the tier on my own indefinetely if sales/donations don't make up for it, although donations will still be welcome and will help, as always!
- Potential for drastic plot and storyline changes in the RP that could lead to interesting new stories.
- ...some people like floating islands.
The cons of Plan B are:
- We lose our beautiful sim as it is. The floating islands will be installed in the sky, far above where casual pass-byers can stumble upon us, but still, we won't have a whole region for ourselves anymore.
- No more rezzing/sandboxing/building of any kind will be allowed in the land, because simply there won't be any prims to accomodate that.
- Two people will lose their homes they currently have in my MainLand area (I'm truly sorry, but I need the prims).
- No more Desert.
- No more building area (sandbox), which has been shared by pretty much everyone in the staff to build things for the RP and even by some casual players or friends. They will have to use sandboxes elsewhere.
- ...I'm probably forgetting a lot of negative aspects of this move.
Plan B is a last resort option I came up with to ensure those who still want to RP with us would have a place to continue doing the things they did in Lismore. It's not ideal, it's by far not perfect, and it will inconvenience many people, but it's all I can offer if we can not find people willing to sponsor Lismore. These are not choices I present to you lightly. I hesitated a whole month, hoping things would improve, but they didn't. They have steadily leveled out at 'unsatisfactory levels'. I can't hold on anymore on my own. If we are going to keep Lismore up and running as it is, I need help, and not just casual occasional help. I need dedicated help, from people willing to devote themselves to keep the RP going as much as I did for the almost 3 years I paid 90% of the bill on my own.
Please feel free to share your thoughts.
-Ash
Poll
