New Gacha Policy Discussion

[Jo Trimble]

Gatcha's have always been there on the edge of banning since E.A and the lootbox incident.

It IS a matter of LAW.

It IS defined as exploitative and predatory gaming practice.

If agree with those terms is irrelevant. It's the law in countries that Second Life Operates in, pure and simple.

If you Dislike the LAW then write to your government representative and make sure you write to every government representative in which second-life operates .. Good luck!

Being against this decision really does not deal with the situation, it cannot be negotiated, its a matter of LAW, if LL reversed this decision they would face a shut down in the near future.... and nobody wins at all.

People aren't using words like LAW lightly... They aren't using words like LAW because they don't have other words. LAW is the word that applies. Its the word that conveys. Its the word that is appropriate.

Should vendors and content creators been given a heads up and a more generous time frame, undoubtedly they should have. Sadly though LL  have probably been given that time frame from elsewhere. It's not their fault.

 

While I do love a lot of the creations that Gatcha makers make, and do understand how this will change their approach going forwards. They can still make -event- specific  or -time limited- exclusives that will be -rare-, and -event- sims need not worry going forwards in this regard.

There's always the option to price individual color sets as you wish, or fatpacks or anything. The pricing is entirely up to the content creator. They can even make -time limited- releases if they so desire, meaning that the product is only available to purchase for a short time, or they can -limit- the number of items released to a fixed number and charge whatever they like too..

Items can be rare without being -random-

Rarity has its own rewards, people will still -pay- for rares that nobody else has.... of course... this does mean we'll likely have to deal with "Scalpers" unless creators are able to ensure that an individual can only purchase the item once. Or that items are simply -no transfer-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by Jo Trimble
additional info

[Rosa Hexem]

18 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Why are people (most likely to defend their gachas) put in that much effort to get fishing and breedables on the radar as well? It will not help the situation around gachas to clear up, it only might in the end take more down than originally intended by LL.
Just saying.

I'm not defending gacha, gacha is off the table now as far as I'm concerned, that's the new reality I hope people start picking up on needing to adjust to instead of coming to this thread to air their greivances.

Otherwise the reason I bring up fishing and breedables is much the same, if they come under the scrutiny of this ruling it's better to know now when the amnesty period is still up before it becomes a reportable offence. That being said, again, we won't have an answer that satisfies people until someone from LL says so. Granted I still think the "is it like 7seas where you just pay for a more expedient experience or is breeding paywalled" case applies to breedables, they're safe if there's no paywall to breeding because that's essentially the exchange of money for a randomized product.

[Tari Landar]

1 minute ago, CelestineDemetria said:

Ok , so say you and your friend decide to  buy an LE pack knowing the coat does not transfer. But you know that in that Item there is a Hidden Item (Randomized) that pops out every now and then. 

You and your friend take it home. You both do the exact same thing I.E buy the food, Etc., to have that animal do what it's name intends it to do. (Breed)

You and your friend wait About a month. Wham! your friends Animal which has everything exactly the same, same food, Same Vitamins, same everything that you have given your animal. Spits out that Randomized hidden thing on the Server. (Its a numerical Sequence that decides when it comes out)

What is that Called? Randomization and Luck - A chance that you breeding them 2 LE animals together for that "hidden" thing in them, and you getting the luck or chance for it to come out.

So your friend got the luck of the draw and dropped that new thing even though both of you put the exact same money into that animal.

What does secondary randomization of traits (which with enough work put in can be determined, but does require some work on your part) AFTER initial purchase of an item, have to do with the actual item you bought? There actually isn't as much luck of draw as you think, it just requires understanding how genetics work, and realizing you may have to put some work in AFTER you buy the initial horse to get what you want later down the road, genetically.  It's not the same, not even close, to a random factor being added in to the initial purchase of a horse. Perhaps some people don't quite understand breedables the way they think they do, I'm not sure. But the two things are not as related as you might think.

Now, if you bought that horse from a vendor, all sight unseen, like a random vendor, that's not permitted anymore under this policy. 

Let's say I get a couch it's an awesome couch, I love my couch. Let's say the creator updates it, or it has features I was unaware of at my initial purchase. It has a setting that randomizes the poses into it's own sequence so I don't have to click buttons. 

Do you really want this to apply to all things? Or can we get back to talking about the randomization of initial purchase which is where  portion of the legality of these items comes into play. 

[Deathly Fright]

18 minutes ago, Silas Merlin said:

Item #4 is the only one that is being offered for purchase.

In my experience, it is mostly resellers that actually played the gacha machines.
When they decide to play on a machine they do not even wait to see what they are getting. They simply play the machine a given number of times that they know will statistically give them the whole set.
They do not resell the items "at a highly inflated price". They got it wholesale so to speak, and they are reselling it at what they deem is their actual value.
It makes more sense for the "end user" to stay away from gacha machines entirely. when you want a specific item only from a series, it is up to you to first look for it on Marketplace, and if that fails, go to yard sales and look for it.
I am not interested in selling the item directly to you, thank you.
When you do get the item, come to me to trade it in for mod/copy if you want.

 

As stated above, in my view, as the creator, I am not interested in selling the item directly to you :
I want to spend my short time on this earth making things. Not in marketing (finding ways to reach out to the general population in numbers, in hope to reach the few people who will want my item).
Resellers are willing to do that work (find the buyer who will actually pay a "fair price"). Resellers will buy my items in quantities that will make up for the low cost.

 

 

This is correct, it makes absolutely no sense for you to buy this item you do not want.

The point of this new vendor is to make the items artificially scarce, so that resellers can do their thing, and so that collectors feel (rightly imho) that they own treasures.


to recap :
-If I sell items mod/copy myself, I have to stop creating to spend energy and time reaching buyers, which in itself requires skills that I do not have in the first place.
-If I sell the items mod/trans directly from a vendor, the supply becomes unlimited and resellers will have no interest in them whatsoever, and collectors will have trinkets instead of treasures.

The only two viable alternatives I see for myself are :
-To sell the items mod/trans in limited quantity with a total value that represents what I want from my work. In this scenario I still have to find the buyers myself, and the resellers vanish along with the yard sales.
Yard sales both in SL and in real life are something that make life more interesting, imho.

-To use second life only for the pleasure of seeing my creations inworld. That is, to keep them to myself, take pictures, make exhibits where you can't buy, etc...
And to sell the mesh on external online stores only, which means that should you buy them there, you would not be allowed to upload them to Second Life, because you didn't make them.

Part of the issue here is that we are putting very different things under the same label "gacha".
In order to explain, Ihave to make the same mistake, and create categories that are bound to not encompass everything, but I do not see how to say this any other way :
-There are series that contain a single item in different colours, one of which has a texture that is actually different from the others and has more work put into it and it is the rare. (many "duds")
-series with a myriad items in slightly different variations of colour. Everything might be interesting in itself, but the sheer number of them and the fact that they come in variants make it so that you are bound to end up with very many semi-duplicate, which also effectively makes them "duds".
-series with a quantity of absolutely unique items, without variants (or the variants are a single item with a texture changer). This type of series often contains one or more items that are marked "rare" and may or may not be more elaborate than the commons.
This last type is what I am personally talking about.

Were gachas not going to be banned entirely I would like a label to be created by some authority, and you would have to adhere to certain standards in order to use the label, much lke it is done for things like "organic food" in the real world.

"Less content" ? I doubt it, there is already so much content in SL that no single person will ever see it all, I think.
"less new content" ? Definitely.

For creating content, start with a tool like Sculptris or sculpt GL, it is very much fun, you don't really need to know much at this point. Once hooked, you will gradually learn all you need to know.
(Just very basic concept you need to know : mesh is made up of vertices (points in space), edges (that connect the vertices), and faces (when three points are connected by edges you get a triangle). A mesh can be coloured, or it can be textured. in order to be textured, it needs to be "uv-mapped", that is, make each spot on the mesh correspond to coordinates on a flat texture).

The problem here in my opinion is that what is being taken away is one of several intangible concepts that makes Second Life so special for all of us, whether we are aware of them or not. They are characteristics that, put together, make the virtual space very real in our mind. Real in the sense that they make for a space that we want to live in.
Some of those things we take for granted, yet they are lacking in other virtual worlds, because people tend to just fail to grasp their importance, and simply discard them when designing a new world, albeit for good reasons (performance, feasibility, scalability, whatever..).

Some of them that come to mind :
The feeling of interconnectedness the world map provides : despite regions and clusters of regions being totally disconnected from each other, the world map gives that wonderful feeling of being part of a larger world.
The ability to see accross region borders, and even cross the borders !
"live editing" : the mere ability to rez a cube...
The myriad of ways in which you can customize your look (in some worlds you would have to commission an immutable avatar with clothes that will never change, for a fee of 1000 real dollars).
....And gachas, items that are scarce, can't be copied legally, and that can be traded, gifted, and resold, along with the fear of losing them through some mishap. This makes for a wonderful, very real feeling. This goes away ?

Opensim ? naaaah, it just doesn't have the numbers that Second Life has, which is also one of those essential intangible treasures that make SL so special.

Yes, that, exactly that.
 

If you play a machine put out by the creator, the quantities are unlimited.

It is only if a reseller chooses to sell their items in a machine that items will run out.

 

 

less new items is a better way to put it, yes.

thank you for taking the time to type that long explanation, but for me I would want to make clothes as I used to, just this time with mesh. pushing prims around was easy, as was texturing. getting everything for a dress I have in mind and then rigging it etc is so complicated now. I don't have time to learn the whole new skill of 3d modeling. I have looked into doing it and have even tried my hand at blender but it's such a giant learning curve.

you obviously love SL as much as many people here, including me. yes the number of people still active is very important to keeping this thing we all like alive.

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by Deathly Fright

[Silent Mistwalker]

10 hours ago, Nameis17 said:

besides the word "law" do you know other words? and if there are people against it, then maybe this is not the right law?

For someone who thinks they are smarter than everyone else:

https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-illegal-japan-china-belgium-netherlands/

Funny how gachas got their start in Japan and Japan was the first country to outlaw gachas.

[Luna Bliss]

29 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Thinking of how yesterday when I was inworld shopping there was a cute skirt from one creator that didn't have a demo available and it struck me it was a bit of a gamble to buy it without being able to try it on first. Should not that sort of common scenario also fall under this as I do not know exactly what I would be buying other then a box with a picture of a skirt on it. Often enough items are not exactly as shown because of photoshopping, specific posing etc.

So many activities in life are a gamble, very true. But those are very different from an organized system designed to entice people to gamble. The entire motivation in the latter is to elicit a customer to gamble with said system, and this is where the danger lies. This is where the possibility of predation occurs where the owner of a gambling system has the ability to take advantage of a customer.

However, at least in RL, it is a bit confusing since we see that gambling is allowed in some cases whereas not others, and the laws very from state to state. I'm not all too sure society has our best interests at heart completely (concerned about addiction and the like) -- the laws seem to be primarily set up to maximize taxes and thwart criminal activity.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Rosa Hexem]

6 minutes ago, Deathly Fright said:

I have been arguing for conveyors, mostly out of my curiosity about the rules and how they will be applied.

I'm more or less in the same boat here, I have my assumptions about where I think things are heading post no-gacha ruling but I want to know where things will be heading in the SL market space.

I look forward to hearing back from LL about if conveyor mechanics are okay because at least that'll clear up one avenue of where this is all going. Then, hopefully, we can have an actual discussion about what might be replacing gacha and maybe even help steer it towards being something that's less exploitative than gacha was.

[CelestineDemetria]

20 minutes ago, Tari Landar said:

What does secondary randomization of traits (which with enough work put in can be determined, but does require some work on your part) AFTER initial purchase of an item, have to do with the actual item you bought? There actually isn't as much luck of draw as you think, it just requires understanding how genetics work, and realizing you may have to put some work in AFTER you buy the initial horse to get what you want later down the road, genetically.  It's not the same, not even close, to a random factor being added in to the initial purchase of a horse. Perhaps some people don't quite understand breedables the way they think they do, I'm not sure. But the two things are not as related as you might think.

Now, if you bought that horse from a vendor, all sight unseen, like a random vendor, that's not permitted anymore under this policy. 

Let's say I get a couch it's an awesome couch, I love my couch. Let's say the creator updates it, or it has features I was unaware of at my initial purchase. It has a setting that randomizes the poses into it's own sequence so I don't have to click buttons. 

Do you really want this to apply to all things? Or can we get back to talking about the randomization of initial purchase which is where  portion of the legality of these items comes into play. 

Do you do breedable? That LE Pack not talking secondary Breeding but the stuff you get from the creator LE PACKS . To breed them LE's together for the hope and chance that you might drop that random hidden item in them. Which they call it that. Random drop- I.E numerical Sequence. Not cause that Other LE Has Anything different than yours they are all loaded with exactly the same things. ( So one person gets it and one doesn't, Even though they put the same money into the initial purchase and anything else required to get that animal to breed) - All with the LE Packs .- (Said that in initial posting Only LE Stuff or Starters Packs) 

That is Randomization. ( Chance, Luck ) whatever you want to call it.

Not some secondary stuff about genetics and what not. That is all a sequence of numbers held in a script) You get enough theoretical Stars on a Certain trait and suddenly the trait pops out from the server end.)- Not cause your animal had good blood or anything like that- it's just a randomized sequence of numbers. And if that animal has only a limited set of numbers being placed into it yea it's going to pop out that same set of numbers. ( your so called Genetics)

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by CelestineDemetria

[Gwin LeShelle]

I was actually a little surprised but excited to see the decision on gachas, it seems to me that LL is making a little spring-cleaning...in summer tho x3 

A friend and some people here in the forums  noticed changes with the adult search inworld and now the gacha, maybe SL is getting a clearer image now. I never had a problem to talk about playing SL with my RL friends, many of us even started together back in our early twenties! X3 but I saw a lot of people here in the forums stating how they would never share that with RL people cause people tend to think bad about SL.

So to me I try to see the upside on this one, maybe they are trying to revive it in the media to attract new players for real. So I'm just excited to see what may come out of this in general.

 

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

9 hours ago, ZacharyFen said:

Gotchas are no where deemed as betting or gambling, You win a prizes everytime you play, gambling involves a chance to lose, with gotchas it is not. I find it sad that LL is turning into snowflakes and trying to disneyfy the game. Im sorry but gotcha are the best content that has came into secondlife since i dont every see LL giving anything away, just countingn the $$$ they ar egetting to bad that will drop dramatically once gotchas are out of the picture.

Odd. Gachas originated in Japan and yet Japan was the first country to ban them. Go figure.

[LilithAbdelnour]

ok - im dyslexic an nt good at typing but im going to say my bit an thats it

if you have trouble reading my typing, pls jst dont read. dont insult or attack me fr something i cant help. no, spell check doesnt help.

i use caps fr emphasis. im nt shouting at you.

1. it doesnt mattr how YOU define gambling. your opinion doesnt matter hre. the only opinions who matter are the lawmakers in multpl countries that are making laws and defining it. THEY have decide ANY chance based mchanism involved in getting wht you want is gamblng and are in procss to make them iilegal. your opinion tht they are like gumbll mashines is irrelvant.

2. it dosnt matter which countris are doin this or whether they have establshd laws yet. they are ACTIVELY wrkin on it. LL legal cousel has advised them to chang things NOW to AVOID future lawsiuts. other companis, BIGGER compnies have already been sued - fr huge amunts of mony LL cld never afford if THEY were sued. so they are mitigating the risk to their business by acting NOW, before something happens.

3. your opinon of their decison doesnt matter. they are doing this to protect THEIR intrsts and th wider intrests of th SL community. no mater what YOU like doing/creating, SL DOESNT revolve arnd gacha. the majorty of ppl in SL do many othr things and wldnt want a lawsuit to sue LL out of existnce. LL doesnt want that either because then theyve faild their shareholders. so no matter how many times you say you think this is a mistake, or complain hw it affects your business, or that you nw have nothing to do in SL..... it doesnt matter. LL hs to become compliant with the laws that are being developd all over the world, BEFORE they go into effect, to protct their bsness, shareholders, an residnts.

4. trying to gt arnd whats coming by rushing to create new 'not-gacha' machines is pointless and dangerus. pointles because LL hsnt yet relesed guidelines of what will be acceptable altrnatves. dangerous because if you strt using unregulatd machines, youre riskin being in violaton of the ban. and no one currntly knows what consequence LL will levy for delibrate attempts to get around the rules.

5. demanding mor answers from LL before they are rdy to discuss it wont do any good. they are only goin to say what their lawyers have advsed them to. no more, no less. they will say what they are advsed to say, when theyre advisd to say it. crying, pleading, dmanding wll do nothing an only make YOU agitated, and you still wont gt what you want.

6. LL alrdy GAVE some rules on how this is goin to roll out. read thm. accept them. because those rules arnt going to change, no matter hw much you plead. and keep eyes open for further clarificatons and additonal rules.

----------------------

tl;dr: your personal beliefs, concerns, or preferences do not factr into the decison being made here. it is a business an premptive legal decison that LL believes will be best for the company, shareholders, and the greatest amount of residents. LL WILL let us knw how to comply goin forward. and we have no choice but to do it. we residents are like hotel guests on LLs platform - we follow th rules of the establishmnt or we'll be 'fined' or asked to leave. (the 'fine' in this case would be things like stores retrnd, accounts locked, or similr things.)

sometimes in life, you jst cant have what you want. disappointment: it happns. this is something everyone lernd as childrn, or shld have.

[Silent Mistwalker]

9 hours ago, ZacharyFen said:

PEOPLE GAMBLING INCLUDES LOSING MONEY YOUR NOT LOSING MONEY FROM GATCHAS THEY ARE PRIZE MACHINE WHERE YOU WIN EVERY TIME AND CAN RESALE THE ITEMS YOU HAVE DUPLICATES OF. Was this clear enough for folks to understand or do i need to go down a few grades.

[Rosa Hexem]

1 minute ago, Gwin LeShelle said:

So to me I try to see the upside on this one, maybe they are trying to revive it in the media to attract new players for real. So I'm just excited to see what may come out of this in general.

I have myriad gripes with LL's choice of target audience and how they've been choosing to go about reviving SL, but I'm absolutely all about seeing a brighter side to this.

In my wildest dreams I'd have hoped that this would lead to gachas becoming games where (based on how well you did in the game) prizes are won, or tickets are won which can then be used to buy prizes of varying values. Imagine: The Arcade being an actual arcade, fun games to play with prizes to make playing them worth it. Actual engaging and fun experiences for SL players which aren't dressup and house deocration. It's a possibility at least, and if such a thing were to happen that'd be pretty darn cool.

[Finite]

36 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Why are people (most likely to defend their gachas) put in that much effort to get fishing and breedables on the radar as well? It will not help the situation around gachas to clear up, it only might in the end take more down than originally intended by LL.
Just saying.

Idk I liked GACHA. It was a fun something to spend L's (or money I had already spent) on. A break from normal shopping. I got burnt a couple times and I can see why people would have salty feelings if something like that was their only experience. But that being said, I have no interest in breedables nor fishing. I genuinely don't think this would be an equally enjoyable shopping experience to GACHA.

[Deathly Fright]

30 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Also, everybody who bought the ugly skirt got the same ugly skirt, as opposed to a chance at getting a prettier skirt now or in the future.

this made me think of another scenario that could also be considered a gatcha... what if update scripts (where you get a free update for an item you own, which checks for a new version when you put it on) didn't update everybody. what if they only updated random purchasers who then could also resell it? nobody would know who if they got the updating version until the update went out

Edited August 4, 2021 by Deathly Fright

[Vanity Fair]

57 minutes ago, Silas Merlin said:

n my experience, it is mostly resellers that actually played the gacha machines.
When they decide to play on a machine they do not even wait to see what they are getting. They simply play the machine a given number of times that they know will statistically give them the whole set.
They do not resell the items "at a highly inflated price". They got it wholesale so to speak, and they are reselling it at what they deem is their actual value.
It makes more sense for the "end user" to stay away from gacha machines entirely. when you want a specific item only from a series, it is up to you to first look for it on Marketplace, and if that fails, go to yard sales and look for it.
I am not interested in selling the item directly to you, thank you.
When you do get the item, come to me to trade it in for mod/copy if you want.

As stated above, in my view, as the creator, I am not interested in selling the item directly to you :
I want to spend my short time on this earth making things. Not in marketing (finding ways to reach out to the general population in numbers, in hope to reach the few people who will want my item).
Resellers are willing to do that work (find the buyer who will actually pay a "fair price"). Resellers will buy my items in quantities that will make up for the low cost.

to recap :
-If I sell items mod/copy myself, I have to stop creating to spend energy and time reaching buyers, which in itself requires skills that I do not have in the first place.
-If I sell the items mod/trans directly from a vendor, the supply becomes unlimited and resellers will have no interest in them whatsoever, and collectors will have trinkets instead of treasures.

The only two viable alternatives I see for myself are :
-To sell the items mod/trans in limited quantity with a total value that represents what I want from my work. In this scenario I still have to find the buyers myself, and the resellers vanish along with the yard sales.
Yard sales both in SL and in real life are something that make life more interesting, imho.

-To use second life only for the pleasure of seeing my creations inworld. That is, to keep them to myself, take pictures, make exhibits where you can't buy, etc...
And to sell the mesh on external online stores only, which means that should you buy them there, you would not be allowed to upload them to Second Life, because you didn't make them.

Hello Silas, I wanted to respond to some of what you are saying here. We chat often, and you know that I am a friend, and your current situation makes me sad. So I am saying this to you as a friend and as a fan of your artwork.

First, you are going to have to change your mindset. The gacha resellers who previously bought your products are a market that is only going to shrink in the coming years, as the supply of existing gachas starts to decline over time. You are going to have to start thinking about selling your artwork directly to the customer at a fair-market price. 

If you are not interested in selling your artwork directly, then you will have to partner with a trusted art broker, who can sell your artwork for you, taking a percentage of the proceeds. I'm sure that there are many galleries and stores in SL who would be only too happy to take over the task of selling your work, should you decide to do so. That way, you do not have to deal with what you consider the distasteful task of marketing yourself, etc. and you can focus on your creative work.

You can still sell your items mod/trans in limited quantity with a total value that represents what you want from your work, WITHOUT you having to find buyers yourself. You are a very talented artist, and I and many others who value your work would hate to see you shut your gallery and store in Second Life. This is a big change to how you do your business, but it is not the end of the world, and there are possible solutions. 

Change is constant; it's how we respond to change that defines who we are.

Please do not leave SL! I want you to succeed!

Edited August 4, 2021 by Vanity Fair

[Luna Bliss]

8 minutes ago, LilithAbdelnour said:

sometimes in life, you jst cant have what you want. disappointment: it happns. this is something everyone lernd as childrn, or shld have.

Well, that's true. As well as "adaptor or die" is also true. But on the way to accepting reality there's usually a bit of b*tching and moaning -- that's a natural part of change.

The reality is that some of these gacha sellers will fail in their attempt to re-imagine the way they sell their items and their businesses will fold, so I do have some sympathy. You can blame them for placing too much faith in one way to sell, but the fact is that it was legal at the time, advantageous to them, and so they used it. I hope as many as possible can reinvent themselves.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Ghost Menjou]

Good on LL for removing this anti-consumerist cancer, lootboxes/gachas generally prey on people's weakness for gambling, especially when you realize this game also allows minors to sign up.

 

This legal sweep against lootboxes and other forms of virtual gambling is a big win for consumers. 

 

[Rowan Amore]

43 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Thinking of how yesterday when I was inworld shopping there was a cute skirt from one creator that didn't have a demo available and it struck me it was a bit of a gamble to buy it without being able to try it on first. Should not that sort of common scenario also fall under this as I do not know exactly what I would be buying other then a box with a picture of a skirt on it. Often enough items are not exactly as shown because of photoshopping, specific posing etc.

And exactly why most people will never buy something without a demo.  If more people would follow that, maybe creators would start adding demos.

On that same theme, that is one thing that always bothered me about gachas as far as furniture and knick knacks go.  They are, for the most part, not rezzed out so you can check quality or triangle count.  Clothing, they do offer a demo sometimes.  Other things, not so much.

[Tari Landar]

6 minutes ago, CelestineDemetria said:

Do you do breedable?

Yep, I have since 2008. I'm quite well versed in them. I wouldn't comment if I wasn't, that would be silly. 

7 minutes ago, CelestineDemetria said:

That LE Pack not talking secondary Breeding but the stuff you get from the creator LE PACKS . To breed them LE's together for the hope and chance that you might drop that random hidden item in them.

You literally are talking about breeding. That is secondary to the initial purchase of a LE. If the initial purchase of the LE is as random as starter packs, that is to say the exact known traits (not secondary, not unknown, not "can be breed out later down the line", etc..) that can get called into question. That is indeed a starter pack, and falls under exactly what I already said "LL needs to discuss with their legal team on how to help breedable creators solve this initial randomness". It will likely need to be 100% known at time of purchase, no "you could get brown, you could get green, both are starter colors", that will keep it compliant. 

If, in buying the LE animal you know it's basic traits, the known ones, the ones you can see, before buying (it's green with gem eyes, curly tail, floppy ears), then it is not random. What you can breed out of it is irrelevant to this particular discussion. 

11 minutes ago, CelestineDemetria said:

To breed them LE's together for the hope and chance that you might drop that random hidden item in them. Which they call it that. Random drop- I.E numerical Sequence. Not cause that Other LE Has Anything different than yours they are all loaded with exactly the same things. ( So one person gets it and one doesn't, Even though they put the same money into the initial purchase and anything else required to get that animal to breed) - All with the LE Packs .

That is Randomization. ( Chance, Luck ) whatever you want to call it.

Not some secondary stuff about genetics and what not. That is all a sequence of numbers held in a script) You get enough theoretical Stars on a Certain trait and suddenly the trait pops out from the server end.)

I don't think you fully understand either what I am saying, or what you're saying. No, all LEs do not all hold the exact same genetics, they are, by design, a bit different, you just have to figure out how (if that's how you choose to play that particular breeding game).  If they were not different, there would be differentiation between the offspring they all give off, which is part of that breeding game, lol. 

 You are actually talking about breeding and what you can get out of, or do with, the item (animal in this case) after buying it. This entire post is about what you can get out of those LEs, through breeding (secondary, involving genetics, which in the case of all breedables is still very much just code, everything in sl is., lol) , which is very much secondary to buying the LE in the first place. 

 

[Jo Trimble]

Still not sure how "Gatcha" is an enjoyable experience.

Watching my Linden Balance drop and my inventory fill will doubles of items I did not want. Then looking for a buyer to flog my doubles to.

That's like shopping blindfolded and then paying for the items, hoping you got what you wanted. Finding that you haven't and then going on another blindfolded visit down the Aisle and paying for whatever you stuck in your trolly.. Rinse and Repeat until the item you shopped for turned up in your basket.

Then taking your filled basket to a reseller venue and hoping someone can make up for the money you spent.

That sounds fun, why is nobody doing that in real life I wonder?

Plenty of real life sellers limit stock or availability of products and can charge what they want.

Its simply a case of limiting the stock (no transfer) and fixed number...  or the time the item is available (event exclusive)

If you believe people can't make a killing with time limited offers, you obviously wasn't there for the launch of the Catwa Pro Bento head for 1 linden.... they had to open additional sims just to keep up with the number of people throwing money at them.

 

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

8 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

Land names can be changed ... Region names by LL, but most others by yourself.
Groups is a good question!

If no one else has answered this, group names can only be changed by filing a request (support ticket) with LL. LL may or may not grant the request. USUALLY not.

In the case of groups with gacha in the name LL may be willing to grant requests for group name changes (only). It's worth submitting a ticket for.

 

[VanessaJane66]

I for one am sad that a source of cheap but well made and imaginative product will now vanish.  I occasionally use gachas but can count less than the fingers of one hand the times I pumped lindens into a gacha to get a specific thing.  There are lots of lovely gachas out there where I am happy to get pretty much anything it sells so one pull results in a lovely item for 50L or thereabouts.

I have a lovely baby dragon flying companion.  I didnt care on the colour so it only cost me 50L.  As someone on a budget I will mourn the loss of these wonderful bargains.  I cannot see creators pricing down their vendors to the same cost as a pull of the gacha.

It's sad, so bite me.

[Kathlen Onyx]

37 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Or require all products to have a demo....to cancel out that potential randomness.

You are not even making sense. There is no randomness. It's not like one person got the skirt that looked great on them and you got the goodwill version. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME SKIRT!

[Rosa Hexem]

Just now, Deathly Fright said:

this made me think of another scenario that could also be considered a gatcha... what if update scripts (where you get a free update for an item you own, which checks for a new version when you put it on) didn't update everybody. what if they only updated random purchasers who then could also resell it?

Y'know this is an interesting one if only because it shows just how blurry the line can get. Sure it's been made clear that within the terms of the exchange of L$ for product that the user needs to know exactly what they're going to get but then there's this case. As I understand it:

1.  The "regular" product is sold and in that exchange everybody who buys it knows what they're getting, they pay for the (thing) as advertised and they get the (thing).
2. Everyone who bought the regular product is entered into a prize draw and randomly selected members of the people who bought the product may recieve a rare item.

Now on the one hand this could just be seen as paying for a random chance to get a product with extra steps and, in turn, be forbidden by the new rules. On the other it could be argued the systems here are seperate, the random rare prize draw element could be viewed as a potential free prize completely tertiary to the product where someone who buys the (thing) gets the (thing) either way and getting the random free prize is just incidental. Is it gambling any more than the chance of getting a free toy in a box of cereal when each time you're buying it for the cereal?

I suppose it'll come down to LL to rule if this is or isn't permitted (not that I doubt that people will reply to inform me it is actually super definitely what they think). It gives me other ideas for horribly tortured hypothetical scenarios also though! I'll elabroate next post.