Dear Arsheba Family and Friends,
Since July of 2006, Club Arsheba has captured the imagination of the residents of SL, new and old, and through good times and bad, managed to achieve the impossible, and that makes us mighty.
We have helped to fuel the “boom” that brought Second Life to its peak activity and popularity, and always strived to improve the way we serve our staff and customers, and that makes us survivors.
Sadly, Second Life is now six months into a crippling economic depression, fueled partly by Linden Lab deliberately crashing the real estate market, and partly by their refusal to do away with a corrupt traffic rating system that no longer serves the best interest of the residents of Second Life.
The practical upshot of all this is simply that I can no longer afford to maintain the club at this present large scale of operation. In order to survive this drought and emerge alive on the other side to see better times, we need to lose weight.
The largest overhead we have is land, and we are using a lot of it. Land costs money, and lots of land costs lots of money. Money we don’t have at the moment.
That means I’m left with no choice but to sell off Jendragon and Galadriel regions. Right there is $600 per month in region fees that isn’t paying for itself. Anyone currently living there will have the opportunity to move to land on White Shores, the four-region island.
Furthermore, I must give up my home and make that coastal land available for rental. And as the website matures and more of our internal operations are moved to it, it means sacrificing our beautiful campus as well, and the large parcel of land that houses our escort rooms. Escorts will need to maintain their own private places to take clients.
On top of that, there is the matter of our Club, which currently occupies an entire region. The current economic climate simply cannot support operation on that scale, so I’m forced to look carefully at the idea of moving our club to a smaller parcel of land. The mini-club, originally created for the SL 4^th Birthday expo exists, and with a few modifications, it could serve us well during these difficult transitions. I have rezzed it in Belith region in order to take a closer look at how it might be made to serve our needs.
No decision has yet been made about the disposition of the Arsheba2 region. We may be forced to sell it outright, or convert it to additional beachfront residential and light commercial real estate.
None of these steps do I take lightly, but we have endured periods of great transition before, and always emerged stronger. We have a strong team and a strong name, and working together, we can and shall survive.
Contrary to popular myth, running a club is not a profitable enterprise. I have poured many millions of L$ into our home, and absorbed losses that I would prefer not to quantify, all in an effort to maintain a continuously improving standard of employment and organization, and a home for us all. If I was in this for the money, I would have quit a very long time ago. It is my responsibility to you, my family, that has kept me going this long, and that is what drives these proposed changes, with our survival foremost in mind.
What matters now is that you do not think of this as the end of Arsheba. It’s only a new beginning for us, and that is a far brighter possibility than the inevitable decline we’ve been watching over the past six months, trying to survive at our current scale in the face of the downward spiral of SL in general.
Some of you will quit. Some of you will stay. Those who have the courage to remain, look to each other. Embrace. Revel in what we have built together, and don’t give up on each other or our home.
I would like to thank our amazing Staff, and especially our VIPs and Arsheba Friends, Residents and Merchants, for all the support you have given over the past year. We would not have made it this far without your effort and sacrifice and encouragement. That is what will see us safely through these dark times, leaner and meaner than before.
Our goal right now is to modify and move into the mini-club, get things rolling there, sell off the regions we can’t maintain, and fill the rest with residents to help pay the crippling bills. If you want to be a part of the solution, then stay on, help each other, buy some of our land and make a home, and let people know about it. Talk to people looking for residential or commercial land. Tell them how easy it is to obtain. Direct them to http://arshebaparadise.com . If we can get the four or five remaining regions to 100% occupancy by mid-October, we will survive. If you are a Friend or VIP, visit our main site at http://arsheba.com . Sign in. Express yourself and show your support and enthusiasm. Forums are coming online for non-staff to be a part of the magic, so let our staff know that their work is appreciated.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Ten Book
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Ten Book's Open Letter on Arsheba
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This is what happens when you have one company holding control of The Grid.
ReplyDeleteThey can manipulate the economy in whatever way they feel comfortable doing so for their own benefit.
If the grid were independent of LL it might be as simple as running a SIM on your local machine and hooking to the grid.... no tier fee, no being beholden to Linden Lab.
We really need to do two things:
1) Focus on the OpenSIM project and
2) Focus on the Architectural meetings LL is having.
We need to face the fact that LL is not our friend anymore and that it's quickly becoming necessary to look for other, friendlier, worlds to inhabit.
Anony Mouse
"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." ~ Unknown
I came accross this blog lately.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry to see that Arsheba
is going down.
To my opinion it is not LL to take
all the blame. Other regions are
crowded and are highly successful.
User hours are growing and newbies
are growing with a steady pace of
400 - 500k eacht months (i keep
stats).
Since a long time Arsheba does not
attrack newbies anymore, and can
hardly be found in the search due
to migration of traffic to other
places.
This might be due to the lay-out
and a narcistic/tiranic management so it seems. I have the owners
seen acting from some kind of
ivory tower and totally not in
touch of what's going on in sl and
in rl.
Land still sells like crazy, but a
sharp analytic and committed mind
is necessary, and... these days
people expect added value services
like in rl.
This means... as a business owner
in sl you must be approacheble,
available and friendly.
A sim also needs to add an
experience, and Arsheba simply
does not provide that anymore.
Nor does it provide friendlyness.
When I came in SL in Jan. 2007
Arsheba was a very strong meeting
and chatting place where many
friendships had been formed.
A lot of traffic was outside
chatting.
It is very true that LL has a very
weak in economic control and have
crashed the land busisness, but
Arsheba also seems to do exactly
the opposite of what's necessary.
2007 Was a hype. In a few months the residents doubled.
The bubble bursted and we are now looking at a realistic economy.
The world we can't change... We can however decide to adapt to it
or not. Not adapting... means out
of business sooner orlater.
I will not disclose my name since
the owners can't handle critical
minds.
Ps
In July and August Europeans have
a 3 week summer holiday.
This is highly noticable in sl.
Well I am so pleased that place has shut down. It had appalling policy's and it also wrecked my first SL marriage as well. The management where openly fur racist as well and it was shown to me even more so by the clear factor of one banning me because I had the nerve to speak to a so called "escort" in a way in which was the truth and she did not want to hear it.
ReplyDeleteI think that it was a club that should have had the words "Human only" since I was made the butt of a lot of jokes in there at first I thought it was to do with them not knowing what a fur or shapshifter was but the more I was there the more obvious it was it was run by racists. That club is not one that should be mourned as it goes it also was openly discriminate against me as someone who has a learning disability they banned me for having Asperger's Syndrome but they did not say so but the way of in which it was done told me other wise this dump should not be even remembered and I am glad it's gone.
Furs where never welcome there nor was anyone not in "normal policy" that so called "gentleman's club" had so good riddance to it.
I hope it is never used as a brand again period.
Lazurus Wolf Writer.
Sorry you feel that way as i plan to re-brand it in SL as I was the stage manager and then general manager for years-8 years later, it's time-however i am not a racist nor anything else-doubtful you are even still in SL.
DeleteI am in SL and ironically you dipshit I spoke to someone on your so called facebook page and they tried to talk me down about having grudges and so on but the thing is people sometimes have better memories of bad experiences than good ones.
DeleteThe fact is you did not bother to look me up on SL and thus it leads me to conclude you do not give a shit about people you may have wronged in the past with your human only policy your clearly a fucking coward because you lack the guts and decency to speak to me in world in the first person and that gives me a clear indication of what a parasitic person you are who assumes things about people which are wrong and then makes offensive comments to them on a blog post I've not looked in years and just so happened to come back to see if anyone has taken and heeded my advice to stay the fuck away from any club with that tainted toxic racist association.
That making my fucking views clear?
EBH/GG/Mojo As you can see this person is a Bullshitting piece of shit who talks utter shit and then stays silent wonder why...Well fuck you!
Delete