With a struggling economy and an uncertain market, economic times are tough all around, but not just in the real world. Virtual worlds are feeling the crunch as well, as Second Life netizens are unable to escape their first life financial troubles.

News outlet Silicon Alley Insider reports Second Life's base of paying customers continues to decline. But that's just the beginning. Prices for virtual land have bottomed out, the site says, and Linden Lab hasn't been able to introduce new land into the virtual environment for months.

The inability to sell new land is bad for Linden Lab, who's business model largely revolves around this source of income as opposed to selling advertising. It's also bad for existing players, as Linden Lab just announced a revamped pricing model for its "Openspaces" virtual land. Beginning January 1, 2009, the monthly maintenance fee will increase two-thirds from $75 to $125 per month (those are U.S. dollar signs, and not Linden dollars).

For those not familiar with the game, "unlike normal regions that effectively get a CPU to themselves on the server, there can be up to four Openspaces on a single CPU (so 16 on a quad-core machine), sharing the resource." Linden Lab says that these Openspaces were originally intended for light use - ocean and green spaces - but they're instead being used with more content and heavier traffic than expected, hence the price hike.

Is Linden Lab justified with its price increase, or are existing customers footing the bill in what Silicon Alley Insider says is Linden Lab's Bailout Plan? Hit the jump and sound off.

Image Credit: Flickr Pathfinder Linden

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games, second life, linden lab, Videogames, economy

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