Recurring problem in SL Fashion

[Unregistered]

(This message is intended for LL's orgchart and people who are actually in a position to work on it. Please no deferments or fashion suggestions.)

Hello,

I am writing this as a concerned citizen of SL for 9 years now. I am seeing a disturbing trend of progression toward a more and more greedy/gacha form of marketing amongst the build community, and as it stands, the current market structure would appear to be unsustainable.

It has been become more and more controversial over the last year or so, that gacha schemes are pushing in the direction of preying upon the same neural pathways as gambling, and this is seen to be manifesting in the Second Life community as a whole.

We have gone from having pretty much no presence of gacha schemes in SL,  to a large percentage of lindens changing hands coming from these machines in a 3 year span of time. As they evolve, the win mechanics are not shared with the public and are manipulated without the payer being informed. At any given moment, the chance for the desired item could be zero, and they would not know it.

Not to mention that SL is a multi-cultural community in which gambling is forbidden in some cultures, and some of those cultures, specifically those of Muslim origin see gacha schemes as gambling. For those people these items are unobtainable except by second hand unregulated gouge sales on the Marketplace.

As a second point of note, it seems that the hard work of Bento creators, to develop new items for compatible bodies has been reduced down to creators choosing one body to build for, and then pleading lack of time for all others. This results in a lack of fashion support for many bodies, as this results in a feedback loop of creators creating a larger same-y marketshare of body support, and ignoring all others with other bodies. As the market then becomes more homogenous, creativity, and uniqueness of avatar appearances go by the wayside.

THIS ESPECIALLY AFFECTS ETHNIC AVATARS.

Please, someone within the regulatory body of SL, look into this. I'm not sure what the solution is. But you have to make it so everyone can still enjoy SL. I see all of these MAITREYA EXCLUSIVE events popping up, and it's making it impossible for me to find new things to wear. This is only the middle stage of this homogenization, and it will continue to advance until there is little variety in body choice in SL. (Yes I own a Maitreya body. No, I do not want to look like you.)

Thank you for your consideration.

[Love Zhaoying]

[Rolig Loon]

53 minutes ago, Unregistered said:

(This message is intended for LL's orgchart and people who are actually in a position to work on it. Please no deferments or fashion suggestions.)

If so, then you are posting in the wrong place. Lindens rarely come to this section of the forums and even more rarely join in any conversation here.  If you have suggestions for Linden Lab, you should submit a new feature request through the JIRA.  If you are interested in starting a debate among residents, you should probably post in the General Discussion forum. This forum is basically for "fashion suggestions."

[Unregistered]

I don't see how any of what I said was suggesting a new feature. And I don't see the request for a debate either.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Unregistered

[Cindy Evanier]

6 minutes ago, Unregistered said:

I don't see how any of what I said was suggesting a new feature.

Possibly this 

1 hour ago, Unregistered said:

(This message is intended for LL's orgchart and people who are actually in a position to work on it.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

I thought the gist of it was 1) gacha culture and greed are bad for SL, 2) creators do not focus enough on ethnic avatars. Have you thought of becoming a creator?

[Unregistered]

 

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

I thought the gist of it was 1) gacha culture and greed are bad for SL, 2) creators do not focus enough on ethnic avatars. Have you thought of becoming a creator?

Are you assuming that I'm not?

That would be a mistake.

[Unregistered]

1 minute ago, Cindy Evanier said:

Possibly this 

 

Sorry, no. Request for oversight is not a feature.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Unregistered said:

 

Are you assuming that I'm not?

That would be a mistake.

You could recruit / convince more creators to focus on ethnic avatars. LL won’t help with that (unless you convince them to start some campaign), nor will they change gacha/greed culture as it drives sales thus increasing LL income from their percentage.

[Rolig Loon]

9 minutes ago, Unregistered said:

I don't see how any of what I said was suggesting a new feature. And I don't see the request for a debate either.

I don't either, so I'm truly not sure whether you can get the sort of attention you want for your concern.  That was my point. This is clearly not the place to get Linden Lab's attention, and it's probably not the best place for a general discussion, if that's what you wanted to do.  I wish you good luck.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Unregistered said:

Sorry, no. Request for oversight is not a feature.

So you want LL to “oversee” content (ethnic avatars) and commerce (gachas and greed) in SL? Do I understand you correctly?

[Claireschen Hesten]

2 hours ago, Unregistered said:

We have gone from having pretty much no presence of gacha schemes in SL,  to a large percentage of lindens changing hands coming from these machines in a 3 year span of time. As they evolve, the win mechanics are not shared with the public and are manipulated without the payer being informed. At any given moment, the chance for the desired item could be zero, and they would not know it.

Not to mention that SL is a multi-cultural community in which gambling is forbidden in some cultures, and some of those cultures, specifically those of Muslim origin see gacha schemes as gambling. For those people these items are unobtainable except by second hand unregulated gouge sales on the Marketplace.

As far as i am concerned Gacha's aren't gambling as you get a prize every time even if it isn't the prize you really want. They exist in RL and are specifically aimed at children with toys, figures, stickers etc. of what ever cartoon or comic book character is popular at the time. when i was a kid Gacha's used give out a gumball, rubber ball or flimsy piece of jewellery pressed of a sheet of metal that would turn your skin green

 

[Unregistered]

Those machines are regulated by local regulations. They require a certain percentage probability to be tested and demonstrated by a quality assurance department, and their mechanisms of action are easily searchable on the internet.

SL's gachas are secretive boxes that contain scripts that may or may not be following a set of rules established internally by anyone who has access to the source code.

That isn't the same.

Also, deferments were not solicited in the OP. Furthers will not be acknowledged so as not to tangent from the subject.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Unregistered

[Alwin Alcott]

perhaps better to remove the specific brand name from your OP... you'r ranting about a lot, but only mention one.

 

If i were the M*** owner i'd report you for abusing my brand name in a public rant, where i as brand have nothing to do with.

 

[Unregistered]

Only reason that would be a valid AR is if I cite them as the source of the problem. I do not. Nothing wrong with citing examples. I don't even reference a Maitreya product. I reference the things made for that body, which is fine. There is a problem with reaching for that as an excuse for censorship.

It would be erroneous in no small part to dismiss this call to fairness and impartiality in business practice as a 'rant'.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Unregistered

[Tazzie Tuque]

I agree with what has already been said, if this is a topic you want LL to pay attention to, then this likely is not the forum for it.  

I do have one little thing I want to add:  LL gave us all the freedom to create and contribute to our community as we see fit within their TOS agreement.

Having said that, it makes sense to simply avoid those areas we don't want to be involved in.. i.e. gachas,  don't play them.. simple.

As for "ethnic"  ..  skins are more likely to represent any ethnic group rather than mesh body (which can be adjusted to size if desired),  so perhaps we need more skin makers to focus on ethnic appearances?   

[Love Zhaoying]

50 minutes ago, Unregistered said:

deferments

What does this mean? I only know the usage as it applies to military service. (“Donald Trump got a deferment due to his bone spurs.”)

Edited March 6, 2018 by Love Zhaoying

[Unregistered]

2 minutes ago, Tazzie Tuque said:

I agree with what has already been said, if this is a topic you want LL to pay attention to, then this likely is not the forum for it.  

I do have one little thing I want to add:  LL gave us all the freedom to create and contribute to our community as we see fit within their TOS agreement.

Having said that, it makes sense to simply avoid those areas we don't want to be involved in.. i.e. gachas,  don't play them.. simple.

As for "ethnic"  ..  skins are more likely to represent any ethnic group rather than mesh body (which can be adjusted to size if desired),  so perhaps we need more skin makers to focus on ethnic appearances?   

Just as someone is not forcing you to ever speak to people, or enter a sim where people gather. No one is forcing you to enjoy the things of SL. This kind of negative reinforcement is a form of deferment, and is complicit to the fact that discriminatory acts are being committed by the community at large.

There are elements of each body which are best suited to specific shapes, and anyone who builds an avatar with a target shape in mind does know this. Curvature of the hips and spine, shape of the neck, things which cannot be edited are locked in once you choose a specific maker, and the current bone adjustments do not allow for deviations from it. To make a homogenous market, which only allows shape editing in the limited fashion SL technology is capable of doing is not freedom to make the avatar of your choice. To capitulate to this reality, and conform to what vendors are compelled to build for is regressive, and closes doors on entire avenues of creativity.

[Unregistered]

I have no intention of honoring any statement that "LL will never hear this." Because they will certainly never hear it if I say nothing at all, and remain complacent to these regressions.

[Love Zhaoying]

If you personally know any lindens, you can tag them in your post by typing @ followed by their name. Then, they will get a notification and probably read it. 

 

[Rolig Loon]

3 minutes ago, Unregistered said:

I have no intention of honoring any statement that "LL will never hear this." Because they will certainly never hear it if I say nothing at all, and remain complacent to these regressions.

I quite agree, and I was not advising you to be quiet.  I was simply pointing out that if you meant your message to be heard by Linden Lab, as you stated at the start, then this is not really the place to put it, since Lindens don't come here much (and almost never say anything).  Sadly, I cannot think of any other place either unless you have a particular solution to recommend.  If you did, then it would be appropriate to submit a JIRA with a new feature request.

[Janet Voxel]

Sadly the op is right about gatchas and it’s very much become a me too thing among creators. There was a time when the only real difference between what you got was a rare color. Now many machines are outfit based, so it takes several plays to get enough of the outfit to be wearable. It is a bit predatory.

The unfortunate thing is people continue to support the practice. That’s a continuous theme with most things that are predatory in SL. People continue to support them.

 

As far as the other things mentioned....well some people have really figured out shoppers in SL. Slap “exclusive” on something and just watch them go. Even if the product selection is marginally better, if all you do is shop at events, like a lot of people do. That marginal amount becomes amplified into “by far”. Then fiction becomes reality.

I’ve challenged a couple of people to compile a list of designers that create for “other” bodies. I’d imagine the list would be very exhaustive and quite long. On the other hand, the list of mainstream “exclusives” is probably much smaller than it appears to be.

As far as ethnic products. A few friends and I have talked about this and it’s one of those things that have definitely improved since my first Avi back in 2009. Skins have definitely improved and some ethnic heads have been made. It seems like SL supports multi ethnicity much more than it did in the past.

[Alyona Su]

I could be misinterpreting it, but Gacha is a game of chance, which is (technically) against TOS. bahahaha.

I *never* play Gachas or do breedables or do LIFE 2 HUD because they are all money-sinks designed to quickly and efficiently separate you from your money. The reason they are successful is that regarding those they prey on: stupid is as stupid does and as mean as that sound I say what I mean and mean what I say.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Janet Voxel]

I wouldn't say people that play them are stupid. I'd say they prey on people's impulses and compulsiveness. 

They were pretty harmless when they were 50 linden knick-knacks and doodads and some still are like that. You'd get something cool and move on. The problem is now you don't always get a cool thing, you get part of a cool thing with no chance of getting the whole thing without sinking a whole bunch more lindens into it. A pair of pale blue shoes, no harm no foul...that's worth about 50 lindens. A pale blue sleeve...what are you going to do with that?

What I've noticed is some seem to give the rare items more frequently, while some have so many items that the odds are stacked firmly against you to the point where it is gambling.

 

[Callum Meriman]

11 hours ago, Unregistered said:

As a second point of note, it seems that the hard work of Bento creators, to develop new items for compatible bodies has been reduced down to creators choosing one body to build for, and then pleading lack of time for all others. This results in a lack of fashion support for many bodies, as this results in a feedback loop of creators creating a larger same-y marketshare of body support, and ignoring all others with other bodies.

There is a simple solution. You can learn blender and become a creator too! Then you have the complete ability to create anything you like for your preferred market and body

The best part is, once you become a creator and start selling your clothes into your market, you won't have anyone telling you "Nope, you can't make only that, you must spend the many, many, many hours rigging for x, y, z bodies.

What am I saying? SL creators are not your slaves. They have the absolute right to do what they find is fun and make what they find appealing - even if that's spending 40 hours rigging clothes for only one body and not 120 hours rigging clothes for three.

They also have the absolute right to earn as much money as they can for those hundreds of hours they spent working for US$1 a sale.