New Gacha Policy Discussion

[Qie Niangao]

1 minute ago, Stella Davros said:

 (arcade will be really arcade 😀)

Yep!

And yet, for the fun some folks have with gacha and the extra revenue merchants extract using gacha, it's pretty small beer compared to L$-based gambling skill games.

[Innula Zenovka]

2 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

they think this means they are finally going to be able to get their hands on the goods easily for the same price (being under the wrong impression that the true price of the item is that of the pull on the machine).

The "true price" of the item is one which the customer is willing to pay (in both L$ and time combined) and one which the creator/merchant is prepared to accept.

Certainly there are plenty of items I've seen in gachas for which I'll willingly pay a couple of thousand L$ (possibly more) but I've very rarely seen any that I want so badly that I'm willing to spend however long it is paying the vendor instalments of L$50 or L$75 until it decides to give me whatever it is I want to buy rather than spamming me with stuff I don't.

Other people have different ideas about how much they're prepared to pay (and how much time and effort, if any, they're prepared to devote to reselling unwanted items).  

However, whether people like or dislike gachas is not particularly relevant.   LL has apparently been advised that they represent a legal risk sufficiently grave that LL want to be rid of them.    That's all there is to it.

[Stella Davros]

3 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yep!

And yet, for the fun some folks have with gacha and the extra revenue merchants extract using gacha, it's pretty small beer compared to L$-based gambling skill games.

Exactly

[Maryanne Solo]

[Innula Zenovka]

6 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

And yet, for the fun some folks have with gacha and the extra revenue merchants extract using gacha, it's pretty small beer compared to L$-based gambling skill games.

I suspect that, in the UK at least, people might be able to compromise for the loss of gachas by buying scratch cards, or playing the low stakes/low pay-out fruit machines in bars and takeaway food outlets, and then using their winnings to buy L$ to buy whatever it is they want.

[Stella Davros]

22 minutes ago, LemmeStore said:

Hello, Im the owner of a store called LEMME. My store is half gacha based. This message goes to creators and events looking for new solutions to this big change.

I had an idea inspired on Epiphany exclusive item to the next possible fun-sale system. I just wanted to share it to see what you think and if it can be one of the possible proposals.

What if we (designers) keep creating complete sets, like we used to do in gacha. Then , at the events or mainstores, we release them by selling all the separate items, so the customer can cleary see and choose what to buy. But in adition of making this more fun , every "common" item gives you points, like in Epiphany. Every common gives you 1 point, and then you get RARE for free, as a "gift", only if you buy and complete the whole set. Once you have all the points (if the set has 12 items, then 12 points) you click on Rare and you get it. Can be the rare or can be another second "rare" ...who knows, just thinking out loud.

And we can value the commons prices by its complexity etc having a range prices based on that. I mean, is just one idea for some sets, and we can still sell some others as fatpack or individual and give the chance to buy a "rare" directly.

Maybe is a silly proposal but I think we need to start thinking on what to do, specially the stores like mine, based on gachas.

Im not trying to iniciate a discussion based on negative reactions, so please just reply if you think this could work or if you can make it better, or why this wouldnt work at all comments are ofc welcome too. But Im not in the mood to read if gacha is gambling or is not. Gachas are gone, we move on looking for creative solutions that work in a fun and also legal way

Yes is a good idea...but like this will be lost the fun of the gacha like resell/trade as like this they have to be no transfer...for me woulb be better to implement gacha into a skill game machine as I said before....you go in the event or region and you will sit,play and instead to win money you will win itams , the bonus will be the rare and the Jackpot all the set, all the item will be transfert like this can be traded or resold....everybody happy and is legal as in this way gacha (obviously must to be calle in other way) will be skill game ....i sayd zyngo but can be also no devi or wathever 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Stella Davros

[Elysienne Nebula]

I don't feel strongly about it but it would be nice to have MP not cluttered with so many gacha item resell listings. To be fair, I've purchased a few gacha resells when there were no other options. I've also played gachas from time to time when they had really cool (at least to me) creations on offer. I've also tped into a store, seen a row of gachas and no ordinary vendors, and promptly tped out. So I have a sense of both sides of the argument, at least from the customer point of view. It's tempting to take a strong side either way but that doesn't matter. Gacha is going away, regardless. 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

3 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

the actual gacha players are underrepresented if at all.

Is this a "silent majority" argument?

[Ted McGregor]

52 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

However, whether people like or dislike gachas is not particularly relevant.   LL has apparently been advised that they represent a legal risk sufficiently grave that LL want to be rid of them.    That's all there is to it.

QFT

[Candide LeMay]

@Patch Linden I would like to see an official statement about what combination of randomness and permissions is allowed under the new rules. Let's say you have a SL game where you can acquire crafting materials (which are no-copy/trans) by playing the game or by trading with other players (including buying the materials for $L). You can then take those materials to a crafting station where you can combine them to acquire a new item. Which of these combinations is allowed and which is not:

assuming all input materials are no-copy/trans

a) you put in material 1, material 2, material 3 => you get an random choice of item that is no-copy/trans

b) you put in material 1, material 2, material 3 => you get an random choice of item that is copy/no-trans

c) you put in material 1, material 2, material 3 => you always get the same item in a deterministic way based on inputs. e.g. mat1 + mat2 + mat3 = item1. mat2 + mat3 + mat4 = item2, etc. resulting item is no-copy/trans

d) you put in material 1, material 2, material 3 => you always get the same item in a deterministic way based on inputs. e.g. mat1 + mat2 + mat3 = item1. mat2 + mat3 + mat4 = item2, etc. resulting item is copy/no-trans

Thank you.

[Stella Davros]

9 minutes ago, Candide LeMay said:

@Patch Linden I would like to see an official statement about what combination of randomness and permissions is allowed under the new rules. Let's say you have a SL game where you can acquire crafting materials (which are no-copy/trans) by playing the game or by trading with other players (including buying the materials for $L). You can then take those materials to a crafting station where you can combine them to acquire a new item. Which of these combinations is allowed and which is not:

assuming all input materials are no-copy/trans

a) you put in material 1, material 2, material 3 => you get an random choice of item that is no-copy/trans

b) you put in material 1, material 2, material 3 => you get an random choice of item that is copy/no-trans

c) you put in material 1, material 2, material 3 => you always get the same item in a deterministic way based on inputs. e.g. mat1 + mat2 + mat3 = item1. mat2 + mat3 + mat4 = item2, etc. resulting item is no-copy/trans

d) you put in material 1, material 2, material 3 => you always get the same item in a deterministic way based on inputs. e.g. mat1 + mat2 + mat3 = item1. mat2 + mat3 + mat4 = item2, etc. resulting item is copy/no-trans

Thank you.

I think that there is no proble if the item is transfer or not, gambling law don t talk about this but only talk about randomness so i think that all of your examples are fine

[Sammy Huntsman]

12 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Personally, I would never have agreed to any rule that dictates when, where and/or how I can sell my products. That is an emphatic NO!

That happens in real life, owners of stores and even companies have regulations put on them on what product they sell to who. Like would you want cigarettes or alcohol sold to minors? Would you want food that has clearly gone bad to be sold to consumers. This is a normal practice in Real life. It is not called dictation, it's called regulation. 

[Komarimono]

1 hour ago, LemmeStore said:

Hello, Im the owner of a store called LEMME. My store is half gacha based. This message goes to creators and events looking for new solutions to this big change.

I had an idea inspired on Epiphany exclusive item to the next possible fun-sale system. I just wanted to share it to see what you think and if it can be one of the possible proposals.

What if we (designers) keep creating complete sets, like we used to do in gacha. Then , at the events or mainstores, we release them by selling all the separate items, so the customer can cleary see and choose what to buy. But in adition of making this more fun , every "common" item gives you points, like in Epiphany. Every common gives you 1 point, and then you get RARE for free, as a "gift", only if you buy and complete the whole set. Once you have all the points (if the set has 12 items, then 12 points) you click on Rare and you get it. Can be the rare or can be another second "rare" ...who knows, just thinking out loud.

And we can value the commons prices by its complexity etc having a range prices based on that. I mean, is just one idea for some sets, and we can still sell some others as fatpack or individual and give the chance to buy a "rare" directly.

Maybe is a silly proposal but I think we need to start thinking on what to do, specially the stores like mine, based on gachas.

Im not trying to iniciate a discussion based on negative reactions, so please just reply if you think this could work or if you can make it better, or why this wouldnt work at all comments are ofc welcome too. But Im not in the mood to read if gacha is gambling or is not. Gachas are gone, we move on looking for creative solutions that work in a fun and also legal way

This is already considered worse then current Gacha.  This is actually similar to what Japan has flat out banned, called Kompu Gacha.

See, Gacha used to be, you'd collect the various smaller toys and trinkets, then trade them in for the larger reward once completed the set.  Japan felt this was wrong, and banned this form of Gacha. 

I see a creator doing this, I personally would stop buying from them for the same reason I quit purchasing from the many creators who swapped to Gacha only new releases for events.

This is sadly, showing it's all about the greed.

[Katherine Heartsong]

4 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

being under the wrong impression that the true price of the item is that of the pull on the machine

Waiting for someone to finally admit this.

Gachas are artificially priced to entice play and force a user to gamble to get what they want. You said it yourself, the true price isn't the price the user pays. That's deception. Add gambling and it's a ripoff. It's a carny game. No different than Vegas. It's rigged in favour of the seller.

If you can't simply create an item and sell it at a price that both you think is worth your time and the buyer thinks is worth the cost, you're forced to use more dubious methods to sell your wares.

That's gachas. 

[LemmeStore]

@Komarimono I think you didnt understood well what I was proposing. Im not saying to trade all the items you have purchased for the "rare". Is only that the fact that you bought all the set, gives you the price that is this called rare. You dont loose your items in exchange of nothing.

[Kytteh Wytchwood]

On 8/3/2021 at 4:06 PM, Cristiano Midnight said:

I see notices popping up left and right in world doing the same thing. I suppose they want to get the most they can out of it before it goes away. I can't fault that.

I don't have a problem with it. In fact, I was sharing the Flickr photo that a member of the Fab Free staff had uploaded, and linking to their wordpress, to creators who didn't know about their gacha sale store list. I also got thanked by the woman and other creators as well for sharing so that they could contact her to put their store on the list. I also shared to all the fashion FB groups I am in as well. I like to help our community. 

Somehow you took what I said out of context with a negative assumption about me, twisting my words.

I was mentioning how 1 store said they "might" have gacha fatpacks in their store with a 50% off discount. That is a very old fashioned lure to bring people to your store.

Instead of being transparent and stating how many gacha discounted fatpacks they had placed out for purchase.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Kytteh Wytchwood
I also shared in this thread about Fab Free's never ending gacha sales store list. You missed that post.

[Komarimono]

3 minutes ago, LemmeStore said:

@Komarimono I think you didnt understood well what I was proposing. Im not saying to trade all the items you have purchased for the "rare". Is only that the fact that you bought all the set, gives you the price that is this called rare. You dont loose your items in exchange of nothing.

I know, just sounds too similar.  In this case, hiding said items behind a pay wall.  Requiring the person to purchase everything else first.

[Sammy Huntsman]

6 minutes ago, LemmeStore said:

@Komarimono I think you didnt understood well what I was proposing. Im not saying to trade all the items you have purchased for the "rare". Is only that the fact that you bought all the set, gives you the price that is this called rare. You dont loose your items in exchange of nothing.

Not a lot of people are gonna like that idea, I mean it was worth putting it out there. However, I see a big problem here. As @Komarimono you are putting your big prized item behind a pay wall and depending on how much they would have to pay. As we all know, with this new method, they might as well sell it at normal price. A lot of people would be turned off, by having to pay all that for that one big prize. 

[MelodicRain]

So glad to see the end of this gambling trend. IAP lootboxes already plagued the gaming industry to the point of no return, we don't need this garbage plaguing SL. Thanks LL for actually doing something nice for the customers for a change, even though it was only due to a legal requirement. I'm so sick of finding that awesome looking item on some poster or site, then only to find out it's effing-gacha-only.

I'd rather pay 200-300L for the item I want, in the colour I want. Gambling and possibly paying 1000L+ for the actual item I want (when the item pool consists of multiple types of items), in popular colours (usually black, white, red, pink), no effing thanks, get your money from other idiots. People need to realize 90% of gacha items are never used/sold and end up being dead pixels, because let's face it, you'll probably get 20 copies of [insert unpopular item type, and unpopular colour here] before you get one that you want, and most people prefer the popular colours, and 90% of the time the popular colours are ALWAYS the rares.

Edited August 5, 2021 by MelodicRain

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, MelodicRain said:

So glad to see the end of this gambling trend.

I'd rather pay 200-300L for the colour I want. Gambling and possibly paying 1000L+ for the popular colours (usually black, white, red, pink), no effing thanks, get your money from other idiots. People need to realize 90% of gacha items are never used/sold and end up being dead pixels, because let's face it, you'll probably get 20 copies of [insert unpopular colour here] before you get one that you want, and most people prefer the popular colours, and 90% of the time the popular colours are ALWAYS the rares.

This is why when they introduced the choice of buying the fatpack over pulling. Thank you PocketGacha for coming up with that. That I jumped on the bandwagon and just bought the fatpack of the item I really liked. I didn't have to gamble away tonnes of my money, I knew what I was purchasing and I didn't have to worry about losing it, if SL went all wonky. I could just redeliver it. 

[LemmeStore]

@Sammy Huntsman It was just an idea to make a contribution here. As I said it could be only a gift what is given away and not the "rare" per se,  a "second rare?" just a "gift"? whatever.  This method allows the customers to pay for what they see and nothing else. And for those who loves collections to enjoy having something more to enjoy a more fun shopping experience.

[MelodicRain]

1 minute ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

This is why when they introduced the choice of buying the fatpack over pulling. Thank you PocketGacha for coming up with that. That I jumped on the bandwagon and just bought the fatpack of the item I really liked. I didn't have to gamble away tonnes of my money, I knew what I was purchasing and I didn't have to worry about losing it, if SL went all wonky. I could just redeliver it. 

You do realize the gacha fatpacks are always overpriced right, because they mark it up taking into consideration the gambling chances? How's that remotely a solution?

Non-gacha fatpacks of a dress might be 1000L. Gacha fatpack of a dress will likely be 3000L. With that kind of price you might as well just gamble and hope you hit the fatpack before you spend 3000L.

Edited August 5, 2021 by MelodicRain

[Ted McGregor]

2 minutes ago, MelodicRain said:

... 90% of the time the popular colours are ALWAYS the rares.

.. which is of course ridiculous, because there' s no such thing as a 'rare'  item in an environment that can easily copy anything by mouseclick.

All this seperation of 'normal' goodies' against 'rares' is cringeworthy to me and only favours the gambling mechanism for the greedy seller.

Just put that effort into one decent selling product.

[BeckyHolbrook]

On 8/2/2021 at 7:26 PM, Claw Streeter said:

you can resell exisiting gacha's providing the buyer knows exactly what they are getting. But yes all Gacha machines will need to cease

I just wanted to add an idea. I'm not a fan of Gachas and am completely against gambling but I feel compassionate about people and their small businesses (Some people make their main source of income from this eg. Resellers). Its like wiping out an entire industry RL and expecting it to not affect GDP. It benefits the consumer but what about the seller? To me, personally, what can and can't be done is a bit vague from the notice but here goes...

Idea: 

I noticed the lucky letter boards use a randomized system but you are shown the letter and product. If your letter isn't there, you know to come back later or wait for your letter to appear for that specified product. So, I was brainstorming and thought maybe could remodel the machines to use a similiar system which would be a little more fair than the current. For example: A machine can still show all the products that can be obtained overall but the item to be purchased changes randomly. For instance, when you tp in, a Victorian themed machine, currently shows a glove is available to purchase but you want the unique victorian dress. Sort of like a randomized slideshow of the items at different intervals. So you wait or come back later till your preferred item appears and then you pay for it. The con is the element of having to wait. Modern day consumers want things here and now. They want convenience and transparency and rightly so....

Anyway, just my 2c. I never post on forums but I deeply feel bad for people who make a living of this in these unprecedented times and wanted to contribute with creative thinking. 

Take care. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

The voices being heard (hammered would be a better word) are a handful of gacha haters who are delighted to see the gacha gone because they think this means they are finally going to be able to get their hands on the goods easily for the same price (being under the wrong impression that the true price of the item is that of the pull on the machine).

There are so many people that are so deluded as to what most of the conversation is about in this thread.

While I have seen posts saying they are glad that gacha will be gone, the much more vocal are the ones that are trying to figure out how to get around it and the ones responding to their ideas.

I see very little 'hate' in this thread except for people like you that are ranting about the haters.