inKLine Media

By Bill Kaye

When the longstanding real estate company Royal Properties went out of business this October, it simply went offline and never came back, former residents said.

The shutdown left residents locked away from their land and objects and with little to no prospect of recouping losses on advance tier payments.  Royal Properties, which at one time owned around 146 sims, simply left this message on its website. (The site has since been taken offline too).

“Sadly, due to so many avatars not making payments as promised, Royal Properties has had to officially close its doors. Enjoy your journey… I only wish it would have worked out for me to…”

While the situation highlights one of the inherent dangers in participating in a system of commerce that lacks regulation, interviews with former residents and employees reveal that the company had slowly started to disintegrate over a period of months.

In an interview with SLBR, Polgara Llewellyn, the former General Manager of Royal Properties, explained that the company had slowly shed sims during her time there.  Since May, the company’s owner, Relic Starbrook, had taken a less active role in the company, shifting much of the workload to Llewellyn, she said.  Llewellyn herself resigned from the company in September, pleading:

“[Y]ou need to come on and manage your sims,” she wrote in an e-mail to Starbrook.

Three days after she left the company, RP had reduced its reach to 22 sims.  On the day it closed its remaining sims, Llewellyn noticed that she was still able to access the company’s hippo account.

“So I flew from sim to sim,” she said.  “returning as many tiers as I could.”

At that point, according to Llewellyn, current management was simultaneously withdrawing hippo rental boxes into their personal accounts, she said.

The current general manager, Clive Hissop, did not respond to an interview request with SLBR at the time of publication.  An in-world request for comment has been sent to Relic Starbrook, the owner of Royal Properties.  A request sent to his listed e-mail address bounced back.

Around 10:00 PM on October 14th, a “region restart” warning alerted CC Manen’s sim.  Hours passed with no response from the region.

Manen learned the next morning of RP’s closure and immediately scrambled to retrieve his objects and move his two nightclubs and wedding service to a new location.  To double the blow, Manen had paid seven weeks in advance on his tier payments, translating to a loss of about $600 to $700 USD.

“Needless to say, it was rather devastating particularly given that I’m disabled without source of income,” said Manen in an interview.

Now working as an Estates Manager for Alliez Estastes, Llewellyn stepped in to help displaced residents and business owners like Manen, file support tickets with LL, find new land and offered free terra-forming services

Although she no longer worked for RP when it finally skipped the grid, she felt an emotional attachment to help her former renters.

“It breaks my heart,” she said.  “I wrote over 60 support tickets to LL to bring sims back up so people could get their items.”

She commended Linden Lab in their efforts to accommodate her requests to unlock the sims so residents can retrieve their items.

“They have been wonderful,” said Llewellyn, “not one complaint not one support ticket denied.”

Linden Lab is not responsible for compensating monetary losses in SL, but former residents have expressed concerns over the vulnerability to a similar situation.  Heavenly Villa, who had to move her Home and Garden Market from its two sims with RP, hopes this serves as a cautionary tale for renters.

“People need to know there is a risk here in SL,” said Villa,  “and that this can happen to anyone.”

Of course many residents reacted, quite within their rights, with shock and anger to their loss, but it’s important to note the extreme outpouring of technical and logistical support that resulted.  Within a little over a day, Manen and his crew of about 25 managed to get operations back in place for the Quasar Country Saloon.

“[You] find out fast who your friends are at times like that,” said Manen. “I still get offers of help hourly from people that don’t get online real often.”