New Gacha Policy Discussion

[Muffinstuff]

10 minutes ago, Maryanne Solo said:

I like my gachas done rare please.
Dripping with blood having been ripped straight from the original creators heart. ❤️

I prefer mine to have the creator attached 

[Mollymews]

8 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

i mean nothing what you seem to think. But a company lawyer is no law maker, but only advising how and when to implement new or changed laws. And a controlling job to prevent the company getting in trouble for things that are not compying to national and interntional laws. They decide totally nothing.

yes. Companies get legal opinions from counsel, so that if the company does end up in court they can show that they made a good-faith effort to comply with the law as wrote

a showing of good-faith compliance can reduce (if not eliminate) any punitive measures that the court may impose, limiting  damages awarded against the company to compensatory damage

 

[Fionalein]

21 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

yes. Companies get legal opinions from counsel, so that if the company does end up in court they can show that they made a good-faith effort to comply with the law as wrote

a showing of good-faith compliance can reduce (if not eliminate) any punitive measures that the court may impose, limiting  damages awarded against the company to compensatory damage

 

Funny! This might work in the US, but the EU might just tell you to get better lawyers next time if the last ones counceled you to do something illegal. Otherwise companies would just hire the most stupid of lawyers...

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

3 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

Do I have this conveyor thing right? I walk up to a machine that has 10 items in it. I want item #1, but the only item I can buy is #3. #1 may or may not pop up for sale after I, or some other schmuck, buys #3. Am I missing something? I want to buy a thing and the machine won't allow me to buy the thing I want unless I buy things I don't want first? And even then there is no guarantee that the thing I want will ever actually pop up for sale? Oh hell no. 

This is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard. Is it going to be allowed? Apparently. Why in every single hell would anyone think this is a good selling tactic, though? What is enticing about this? Just sell me the damn thing I want, and since I'm not focused on one single machine, I might even look around the shop and find more things I want to buy.

Studying that picture of the dumb machine --- it looks like the next new number chip that starts at the top is random. So it's probably still using a RNG so the chips don't appear in the same order over and over.

[Mollymews]

39 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

Funny! This might work in the US, but the EU might just tell you to get better lawyers next time if the last ones counceled you to do something illegal. Otherwise companies would just hire the most stupid of lawyers...

hiring a lawyer to give you an opinion that is outside of their expertise is not  considered a good faith effort. Like hiring a lawyer who specialises in property transfers to give you a legal opinion on product safety compliance

also lawyers can have their practice licenses cancelled when their legal advice is nonsense. The expertise of the lawyer who gave the opinion is always questioned by the peer associations that administer the practice license 

[CelestineDemetria]

On 8/8/2021 at 1:13 AM, cutencuddlybreedables said:

As a breedable creator [who bred many other types of animals before creating my own] I have to correct you here.

90% of breedables starters AND LE's are transferable. Many people will pre-buy LE's etc and hold them for ages then sell them for a profit. its a common $ making technique. That happens in almost every breedable.

We are pleased that LL has said we are uneffected at this time with the gacha ruling, however we do have some concerns about Starter Animals as they do have random coats, eyes, ears etc - but we are working on implementing a system that will remove that from initial starters to ensure we are compliant.

It is still a big shake up - maybe it was needed, maybe not. but regardless I just wanted to ensure that you had the correct information.

Some LE's are in fact are  No Transfer.

Yes in theory after you hold them for said period of time you can "Birth " them and then sell them. But in an LE Box you cannot just sell them on as is. You have to Birth said Animal and then yes, you do know all the stuff that does come along with whatever animal it is. That is the case with 3 different Breedables that I do currnetly all different companies, The same thing applies you must pre birth a LE at the time of sales if you would like to sell them on. LEs  in Theory they are transferable but not until after birth. Just like any other animal. Even states it on the websites, for commonly asked questions. You cannot just sell LE boxes onto other customers without pre birthing the animal. Can in fact quote said websites. If you would like. 

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by CelestineDemetria

[Mollymews]

3 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

low quality merch

selling low quailty merchandise is not the sole province of gacha creators. People make low, middling and high quality products, no matter the sales method

[Muffinstuff]

9 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

selling low quailty merchandise is not the sole province of gacha creators. People make low, middling and high quality products, no matter the sales method

Agreed.

In a free market, proprietors of low-quality merch won't always stay in business. 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Muffinstuff

[Muffinstuff]

Imagine going to Wal-Mart and spending $10 bucks for a pair of shoes. They hurt your feet, your back, and fall apart a month later. You return the following month and spend another $10. Why? Maybe it's all you can afford.

Gacha or otherwise, markets exist for low-cost, low-quality products. As long as there's a demand, they will continue to exist. 

[Irina Forwzy]

12 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

 

Has anyone read the blog post?  The didn't say they got rid of gachas because of anyone's gambling addiction.  If someone, somewhere decides to regulate cartoon sex, they may need to do.something about that.  Not because they care about anyone's addiction but because they don't want to run afoul of any laws or potential laws/lawsuits.  No one cares what you are or are not addicted to.

 

Due to a changing regulatory climate, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to sunset a very popular sales mechanism for content in Second Life.  It’s widely known as "gacha", and is defined by a chance-based outcome as a result of a payment.  

Well it just so happens some countries deem that as p**n.  A few countries do have issues even with cartoon action (cough).  Free speech to. So who knows. So here we go.  And if they want to market SL for corps again,  just you wait.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Irina Forwzy

[Irina Forwzy]

On 8/9/2021 at 6:57 PM, Fionalein said:

Funny! This might work in the US, but the EU might just tell you to get better lawyers next time if the last ones counceled you to do something illegal. Otherwise companies would just hire the most stupid of lawyers...

And for that companies usually hire** counsel that is very well versed in countries they operate in. Just saying. Don't assume that because it is an American company that are ignorant of European law.

Edited August 11, 2021 by Irina Forwzy

[Irina Forwzy]

4 hours ago, Muffinstuff said:

Imagine going to Wal-Mart and spending $10 bucks for a pair of shoes. They hurt your feet, your back, and fall apart a month later. You return the following month and spend another $10. Why? Maybe it's all you can afford.

Gacha or otherwise, markets exist for low-cost, low-quality products. As long as there's a demand, they will continue to exist. 

Exactly. And even if the gacha is low-priced or the clothes is low priced, they can still be driven out of market due to customer word of mouth. Plenty of businesses in sl tried to put things rather cheap,  but the quality just wasn't there.

Second, quality is also in the eye of the beholder. As such, someone may deem an item as well made and beautiful. While someone may claim it's high poly and lagging up a whole sim (seen this with one of the famous SL stores).

[Dratzo]

On 8/8/2021 at 7:53 AM, Alwin Alcott said:

please read the posts about this..( in short and skipping some details) You DON"T buy the offspring, you buy the PARENTS, and those need to be recognisable in the matter of what you buy. And if you sell the offspring it also needs to be recognisable what you sell.
Random box selling is not allowed.

the randomness comes from the parents not the offspring the parents drop random bundles so i dont see your point. with breedables you dont know what you get and sould be banned!

[Alwin Alcott]

13 minutes ago, Dratzo said:

the randomness comes from the parents not the offspring the parents drop random bundles so i dont see your point. with breedables you dont know what you get and sould be banned!

you don't buy the offspring.
The whole thing was about"pay and chance" .. take away the first and it's a different thing.

[Marianne Little]

15 hours ago, Finite said:

Eek yes a bunch of those I wouldn't recommend playing. Cheezu is normally very reasonable ( i have a couple of their gacha sets) and Luas are fun to play if you're into those sort of outfits. Black Nest normally has a flat rate fatpack option. I only have one rare from them. It was the only thing I wanted of the set. So I bought it from the MP rather than play it. Edit: Actually I bought 2 since it was mod and I could "break" one and still have a backup.

A few of the others I am a bit disappointed since I like their main stores and they don't seem to use a similar gouging model when selling their usual stuff.

The gacha where bikini top and bikini bottom is separate, 6 colors and 75 per pull? Horrible. That encourage buying from resale.

[Prokofy Neva]

18 hours ago, Dictatorshop said:

 

Perhaps I was not clear @Stella Davros I was not intending to say that everyone who has ever taken a pull at a gacha is addicted or math challenged.  But those of us who do make internal rules for ourselves, ie a 3 pull limit or whatever, are NOT the audience being sought by these predatory selling practices as they don't make most of their money off of us.  Where they ARE making their money is people who can not  help but throw as many lindens as it takes to get the thing they want and do not have those internal safeguards.  

Is it really so hard to just make stuff people want to buy the usual way? Really?  Those sets of 20 items that you see in gachas are 10 of them really needed or were they just those ugly puce and chartreuse  teacups to round out the set when what people really want is the table and chairs?   

My aim is not to insult everyone, please do not take me the wrong way.  I simply do not buy the whole logic that says "well, I just won't sell as much if I don't put it in a cheap gacha!"  There are plenty of shops out there selling things with normal prices and people are buying just fine.  If you make quality stuff at reasonable prices it is possible to make a go of it.  

I find myself railing against the conveyors because it seems like more of the same, only worse for the consumer.  There will be lines as people have to wait for the people in front of them to finish before using it or else having the rares sniped right out from under them.  Even those of us with a "3 pull limit" or whatever will probably be tempted to go for 5 or 6 to get that one item.  And when they seee that 5 or 6 more out from that one is something else rare.  Nopes, not for me.  Even if LL allows them to go forward, I find myself 100% disinclined to consider buying anything from merchants who buy into that selling method, full stop.

So Lucky Chairs and Midnight Mania should go, too, then, because that makes people stand around the store and create those artificial calories of traffic, right? Oh, but those things are free, so it's ok then! 

[Prokofy Neva]

9 hours ago, Muffinstuff said:

Imagine going to Wal-Mart and spending $10 bucks for a pair of shoes. They hurt your feet, your back, and fall apart a month later. You return the following month and spend another $10. Why? Maybe it's all you can afford.

Gacha or otherwise, markets exist for low-cost, low-quality products. As long as there's a demand, they will continue to exist. 

While there are low-quality products surely, there are also a lot of very high quality gatchas, and not just the rares. Do you ever play the machines or buy them on the MP? Well, take a look, even at just the $5000 or higher, but then below those as well. They are valued. People pay money for them. And giving a very high quality artist US $48 in the form of $12,000L worth of gatcha pulls isn't a regrettable thing when they are not paid their worth as they would be in RL.

[Ted McGregor]

As one believing in honest labour, I find it very disheartening to see demand for manipulative selling techniques based on fraud, no matter how playfully presented, instead of conventional means.

We should not be teaching talent that income relies on this.

[Prokofy Neva]

11 hours ago, Mollymews said:

yes. Companies get legal opinions from counsel, so that if the company does end up in court they can show that they made a good-faith effort to comply with the law as wrote

a showing of good-faith compliance can reduce (if not eliminate) any punitive measures that the court may impose, limiting  damages awarded against the company to compensatory damage

 

Again, I think this reality of the utter absence of any judicial decision in a court of law, or even any form of legislative draft or warnings from the states attorney general, just does not compute for people in other systems outside the United States or who do not understand how common-law systems work. Otherise you could not keep saying this so airily.

And insisting that laws in Japan or Belgian get to dictate the "regulatory environment" betrays a lack of understanding how international law works, too, as it is not a given, not self-executing, and jurisdiction and harm still have to be proven in a court of law. 

And even if there is this awareness based even on actually being a lawyer, there is unwillingness to grasp what *adversarial defense* means in a system as composed to mere mitigation in a magisterial system. 

The willingness of so many people here to let lawfaring attorneys set the tone here is really scary, but then we've seen that in the past in SL with other topics like the banks and stock markets.

LL did not cite any law, any other country, but only a "climate". What signals from this climate reached them with persuasion? They should be able to account for themselves and not just make vague statements. They should be able to say that a Belgian or Japanese law enforcer wrote them. Or simply that they read a lot of stories in the hysterical hypothetical prone tech press, and that spooked them. That would at least be honest. They definitely could have gone a very different direction on this as I keep saying. They could have looked at decisions *this year* in suits against Google and Apple related to California and said, "Good! The California gambling law is just not going to be used against our form of vending, and we will have our customers back on this." They could have shown such backbone, and said, "Sure, we know there is a law in Japan, but no Japanese court of law or authority has related this to SL's gatchas, nor have they banned our customers" -- again, that would be in keeping with LL's character as a company that doesn't commodify customers and strip their assets but gives them IP rights.

They could have heard the know-it-alls citing EA.com and said, "Yes, but we're not a game company. SL is not a game. And we don't make or collect the revenue from the gachas. Our customers do. And the courts have already ruled that platforms are not liable, and Section 230 is still intact, BTW. So if you have an issue, go directly to our customers." 

I'm a big critic of Section 230 and I'm happy for Facebook and Google to take responsibility for content on their platform the way the New York Times or CBS does. Absolutely. This isn't about "conservative news slants" but about accountability that these big platforms shirk and media, which they helped kill, has to still take on. I think the argument that removing Section 230 "hurts the little guy"  is pure bunkum, as no small little web site is going to have terrorists and thieves using it to achieve their goals; they will do this on bigger platforms. So the idea that legal remedies are too expensive for the small guy completely overlooks the fact that they will not be targeted, and that's why PS the law against platforms and sex trafficking was rightfully passed. Techs invoke all kinds of nonsense all the time to protect their meal tickets; that doesn't mean they are right or are good for society. Here, the big dogs have won, and LL can hang on to their coat-tails because we have a system of *precedent* unlike Russia or even many European countries.

And even if Section 230 is abolished tomorrow, there are still legal remedies against a gatcha prosecution as I've indicated here regarding definition, scale, magnitude, maker, intent etc. Lawyers with SL clients should be helping them beat this instead of lining up to stake a star turn on a court reporter's blog or Twitter in favour of LL's quixotic and unexplained move. That's what is so offensive about this.

Yeah, we totally get that not only can LL do anything it wants "for any reason or no reason" -- something fanboyz gloat over until it applies to them -- they need to limit the liability for litigation before it happens, not after. But the precedent system; the application of the law; the context; the need for actual procedures that have to be viable in international cases -- these are all real things and LL could have taken another direction, and since it did not, could have explained themselves better. Therefore absent any real persuasive explanation, I'm going to see this as a political move of lawfaring and virtue signalling by the Lab, which is also an outcome of either cynical disdain or ignorance about how deeply gatchas are intertwined in the inworld economy, and I'm going to conclude that *the inworld economy is being retired, in favour of TV tie-ins or corporate contracts as they hoped in 2006-2007. If you are in business in the inworld economy, and smugly congratulating yourself that you didn't make or sell gatchas, I hope you have a plan to catch the Lab's attention to be relevant to TV and media tie-ins and that your alt is a Mole or on the special contractors' list. Otherwise, read the handwriting on the wall.

There are quite a lot of you (not representative of the world inside and its economy) who think there are "too many little stores and they should close" and "gatchas are predatory and people who rely on them are chumps and incompetent and not talented" or "why can't you just buy your Lindens for $10 on the LindEx and shop and not worry about how you will make money, are you a loser?" Etc.

OK, when your favourite breedable creator, weapons manufacturer, vehicle maker, Bellisseria house add-on maker begins to feel the pinch from this and raises prices or goes out of business, maybe you will realize the connection of interconnectivity, Like a lot of COVID deniers who refused to get the vaccine because their personal choice should rule, and who sometimes apologize on social media from a respirator before they die, but sometimes not.

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

16 minutes ago, TDD123 said:

As one believing in honest labour, I find it very disheartening to see demand for manipulative selling techniques based on fraud, no matter how playfully presented, instead of conventional means.

We should not be teaching talent that income relies on this.

I totally understand this perspective about "honest work" and refraining from gambling as this is a religious tradition I come from and still practice. But just like I can grasp that abortion is the law of the land, if not my personal choice, I think you have to zoom out here.

You're absolutely convinced that makers who use gatchas are abusing a trust and aren't talented OR that if they are, they have fallen into sin and must be saved. The talented used this system because it was available, legal, and viable and not just about them, but about THEIR CUSTOMERS and resale value in a secondary economy.

I'm going to interrupt this broadcast of a steady stream of hate and disdain to publish the notecard of an actual vendor selling to actual customers whom she actually values, who is actually talented.

I think it's instructive to note that a) she does not concede that she is a "carnie" or "untalented" or "cynically preying on addicted customers" because she's not, and does not perceive herself as such b) she doesn't view her customers as "addicted" or "losers"; she seems them as resellers, a neutral perspective that acknowledges the very real world of a secondary economy that helps people live in SL especially if they are poor, and in poor countries.

And note another important thing: she doesn't have to be here. Yes, she has suffered a terrible blow with this move that destroys her livelihood, which she knows she cannot get back, with whatever gimmick anyone comes up with, fatpacks on transfer or not, conveyors or not. She has written some anguished announcements. But she has also acknowledged that she can take her talent elsewhere, to Turboquid, to another game, to Shutterstock, to whatever. East European graphics artists are in demand; LL itself makes use of them among their Linden staff and Mole contractors! They are willing to work for less, and their systems are attached enough to the Western world that they can be interoperable with them in ways that somebody in Uzbekistan or Afghanistan cannot. My son hires programmers from Venezuela, copywriters from Nigeria, video editors from India -- he could do all this himself but if you have volume of work, it makes sense to internationalize and this is the norm everywhere now.

Getting ready to say "Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you" and "can I has ur stuff"? Because if this multiplies, it really is a loss for LL and all of us.

Hello lovely people!

I received an overwhelming amount of questions, opinions, suggestions and just sweet messages from many of you! I think I should share some of it with the folks who have the same thoughts/solutions/concerns, but decided not to contact me for some reasons (cheers to all the introverts out-there ♥)

There is nothing super important regarding the store itself in this NC - so feel free not to read it
I will make official announcements on any important changes that are coming next!

• First of all, there is a popular opinion that if we put our gacha items in regular vendors, we'll have the same profit (or more). Sadly this is not true! Most profit comes from gacha re-sellers. Regular customer spends a few hundreds L$, regular re-seller invests a few thousands in a good gacha set. As a result I get a lot of sales during event, re-sellers get even more profit on a longer distance and customers can choose to have fun and pay a little for a random item or pay more for specific product. In my opinion (as an avid gacha player, ex gacha re-seller and soon to be ex gacha creator) It was a good and fair system for everyone. 

I simply don't feel comfortable to charge 2000L$ for a house and up to 5000L$ for a full set as re-sellers do. So without re-sellers my revenue will automatically shrink down to 50% or less, even if all the same people will buy all the new products directly from me. 

• I'm glad that creators are trying to find some new and exciting ways of shopping to replace gacha! Normal shopping is boring Unfortunately new systems that were introduced so far didn't inspire me as a customer, therefor I'm not going to implement them as merchant (I'm talking about those conveyor style vendors)

• I will also pass on simply drugging all the products to multi-vendors, or put that hover-text script inside old gacha machines. I have standards
Last year I re-packaged every single product just so they all have updated LM and NC inside! I think, that things like correct note-cards, individual pictures, nice packaging and overall aesthetics are super important - call me silly for that XD

• I will try to put for sale as many individual products as possible considering prim limit and general demand. You can always ask me to put a certain item for sale - many people already did - I'm very flexible about those things!

• I very much like the idea of collectibles - as transferable products available for a limited time or in a limited amount of copies. You can re-sell, trade, gift them to a friend and so on. All the things we loved about gacha minus the fun of getting a random prize. I'll try to make first collection in September and we'll see how it goes. I will also exchange them to copy+ on demand (normally less than 5% of my gacha players requested an exchange, so I see no point in making copy+ vendor at the first place) 
I hope you'll also like this idea of having more exclusive and limited products + it will help re-sellers to stay in the market after gachas are gone.

Though we need to find a balance between re-sellers quickly getting all the copies and sell them for insane prices - and customers getting so many copies, that collectibles are no longer so special and exclusive.
 I'm not sure how to make it fun, fair and exciting for everyone, let me know if you have any thoughts!

On a personal note:

Quite a lot of people contacted me with their concerns about my financial well-being, advices and suggestions  - it's so very nice of you - but I can assure you there is nothing to worry about (maybe I was a little over-dramatic in my first NC)

Even though I had the most terrible RL summer with a few family members having serious health issues - I'm still a debt free home owner in a country where minimal wage is 185 US$/month and average salary is around 600 US$/month! There are plenty of ways for me to make money as a 3D artist (actually much more money than I make in SL) - I'll be fine In the worst case scenario I'll wipe out the dust from my useless degree in Liberal Arts and get a RL job.

For the past few years I was privileged to make a living by designing things that I love on the platform that I like - now it's over and I have to find other sources of income in or out of SL. That's OK, I see it as a new beginning. You should have much more sympathy to gacha-creators and re-sellers from more expensive countries, with a mortgage, small children, no free health-care and so on. They are the ones who will struggle the most in this situation!

Still I'm very grateful for all the support, kind words and wishes!

Lots of love!
 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Ted McGregor]

What an absolute proposterous drivel you have come up with this time again, Prok. Really.

I believe in honest labour, because I myself am the kind of user which inventory consists of a promillage of gachas compared the other stuff I bought ( sometimes entire collections of non-gachas ) which I payed for with my earned money in real life.

There' s nothing religious about it. The gachas in my inventory are not even a promillage. It' s not SL entire economy.

Honestly.

Edited August 10, 2021 by TDD123

[Mollymews]

14 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Again, I think this reality of the utter absence of any judicial decision in a court of law, or even any form of legislative draft or warnings from the states attorney general, just does not compute for people in other systems outside the United States or who do not understand how common-law systems work. Otherise you could not keep saying this so airily.

there is some truth to this. In Aotearoa New Zealand we have laws which say can't do this. Anything else we can do

on the question of loot boxes, New Zealand law doesn't say they are illegal. The last time the responsible Minister of the Crown was asked about it, they said the Crown doesn't have an opinion on the matter

when Linden shifted from No completely to Yes conveyor then I think it was in response to the feedback they got from the conversation with residents

Resident question: "What if we display an item and randomly select the next item to display after the shown item is purchased?"

Linden went: that works for us, so lets go with that

so while we can continue to discuss all of the hows and whys of this policy being introduced, I think the Yes conveyor is an ok outcome for the gacha creators and their customers

 

[Prokofy Neva]

5 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

there is some truth to this. In Aotearoa New Zealand we have laws which say can't do this. Anything else we can do

on the question of loot boxes, New Zealand law doesn't say they are illegal. The last time the responsible Minister of the Crown was asked about it, they said the Crown doesn't have an opinion on the matter

when Linden shifted from No completely to Yes conveyor then I think it was in response to the feedback they got from the conversation with residents

Resident question: "What if we display an item and randomly select the next item to display after the shown item is purchased?"

Linden went: that works for us, so lets go with that

so while we can continue to discuss all of the hows and whys of this policy being introduced, I think the Yes conveyor is an ok outcome for the gacha creators and their customers

 

Of course it's viable, and frankly, given all the hollering, and given the shaky premise for their original announcement (as far as we know, based only on jitters from hysterical tech media and the forums knowier-than-thous ranting for months-- awful to think of!), they may be fine with grasping at this straw now because technically it's compliant. So it's good that instead of rioting, or mass-exiting from SL, or turning to crime, the user base is coming up with some viable alternatives. LL should be grateful they've been helped out of the corner into which they painted themselves.

And with all the haters here, they will go on hating and invoke the same reasons they've been invoking -- creators are inferior if they rely on gatchas or pseudo-gatchas; their items wouldn't sell for a normal price without this "incitement"; buyers are chumps and addicted; etc. etc. All of this is so much noise because real people in the real world of SL, which isn't the forums, devise alternatives, compensate, go out of business, help or shaft their customers -- but they act, rather than opining endlessly.

Even so, the reality is, the conveyors will not be substitute for the revenue lost. And all the compensations and innovations people are coming up with, whether cheap fatpacks or transferable fatpacks or whatever thing they develop, will not replace the gatcha economy as a great system for creators of all sizes and levels and consumers of all sizes and levels -- which gave us the robust economy and valued Linden (at US $4/1000) that we have enjoyed despite search being broken, the move to the cloud, Oz leaving, or whatever vicissitude we have had to endure -- and most importantly, Ebbe dying. Because I don't think Ebbe would have done this policy *this way* -- sending Patch out to catch the flak and hiding behind vague invocations of "climate".

So the economic pain is real, will continue, along with the pandemic, and this compensation is only a mitigation.

The reality is, people *will* stand around stores waiting for something. They already do this for Lucky Chairs; they already do this for hunts. To be sure, those things are free or $1-10, and conveyors might be $75 for a commons, so to speak, and $400 for a rare. But they *will* stand around. "They also serve who only stand and wait". We will see the emergence of a job description in SL in the lower ranks of jobs that involves being paid to go stand by conveyors, and then TP in grander dames when the rare shows up so those who can afford it can buy it. There is already a friendly bunch in Jinx's group, for example, who call out in the group the letter of the Lucky Chair for those who can't stand on the sim. So similarly cooperative activities will begin, either in groups for free or outside of groups for pay.

Where the hurt will come is with events. You can't get into a sim as it is; if you are there and you nod off, some organizers will boot you and if you dawdle, other people on the cam sims might IM you. People can stand 2 or 4 days of a full sim and then the rest of the 2 weeks of an empty sim they can get into. They can't stand 2 weeks of a filled sim with waiters.

There aren't enough cam sims to fix this -- you can only have 4 and most can only afford 1 or 2. If they have less customers because people stand around more, or the cost of more cam sims, they can't break even. While people scorn these events and I'm first among them because I see *EVENT OWNERS* as the real problematic middleman in the gatcha economies, not creators and not consumers. They exist to skim off the profits from creators, charging huge booth fees, or having an invitation only system that perpetuates elites as the only money-makers; they have prevailed over the creep to $100 gatchas which they could have curbed as a matter of public interest; for too many, gatcha events are sidelines to their true predatory practices, like stacking 25 huge ugly domes in the sky and destroying the view for 4 sims or more; or simply collecting smaller events to run in a cartel that they use merely to scrape user data and spam everybody. 

Even so, I'm all for thinking of vendors that work for their interests, too because I don't view the economy as one where you can be Puritan and eliminate the sinners and have paradise. It's all connected.

[Pixels Sideways]

On 8/8/2021 at 6:54 AM, Gwin LeShelle said:

Have I said that it's smart? I have a real job. But I do not lack the empathy to feel for people that do make money in SL, it's not only "stupid" or "crazy" people. It's disabled people or people with anxiety or the stay-at-home  Mom that have found a way to feel worthy that way. So saying 7 days enough let's nuke their hard work? You can say that and be happy I would personally just feel bad to think that way.

and let's not forget that those "crazy" people...are part of the reason SL is what it is today. If there wouldn't have been some people in love with SL enough to create, and build SL would be a pretty empty and boring place.

I am not unhappy to see gacha go, but I also do not forget that there are humans on both sides, customers and creators.

I also do not want lucky vendors, conveyer belts and all that jazz but I will probably have to deal with some gacha in disguise 🥸 that is on the edge to what is legal...and it's fine because I do have a choice to use it or not as a customer.

No where in my OP did I call anyone stupid or crazy. 

I pointed out it is foolish to create an income dependency on the back of an entity like LL/SL that you have absolutely no control over. 

Anyone who doesn't realize this is setting themselves up for a rude awakening one day when SL comes to an end.  Especially if they create a business in SL - they should bake that fact into their reality.  

Second Life may be around for five, ten, twenty more years and beyond. It would be fabulous if SL continued indefinitely and continually evolved to be better.  Still, having a contingency for no longer having SL as an avenue to earn some income should not be overlooked.  It should not be overlooked by anyone.  If SL were to close, your inventory goes with it. Only things you originally created outside of SL or originally created in SL and exported out of SL will be yours to keep.

And your reiterating of something I did not say -  "crazy" - is, again, intentionally misrepresenting what I wrote and totes not okay.

There are countless creators from all walks of life who make things for fun and to provide content in SL that makes it what is and who don't sell things.  Perhaps you might look beyond the Gachas and visit some art sims and tons of builds through SL grids to see that content in SL isn't just something created for you to buy.

There are also other grids - Open Sims, Kitely, etc. - where people can sell their products they sell in SL.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Pixels Sideways

[Gwin LeShelle]

5 minutes ago, Pixels Sideways said:

No where in my OP did I call anyone stupid or crazy. 

I pointed out it is foolish to create an income dependency on the back of an entity like LL/SL that you have absolutely no control over. 

Anyone who doesn't realize this is setting themselves up for a rude awakening one day when SL comes to an end.  Especially if they create a business in SL - they should bake that fact into their reality.  

Second Life may be around for five, ten, twenty more years and beyond. It would be fabulous if SL continued indefinitely an evolved to be better.  Still, having a contingency for no longer having SL as an avenue to earn some income should not be overlooked.  It should not be overlooked by anyone.  If SL were to close, your inventory goes with it. Only things you originally created outside of SL or originally created in SL and exported out of SL will be yours to keep.

And your reiterating of something I did not say -  "crazy / stupid" - is, again, intentionally misrepresenting what I wrote and totes not okay.

There are countless creators from all walks of life who make things for fun and to provide content in SL that makes it what is and who don't sell things.  Perhaps you might look beyond the Gachas and visit some art sims and tons of builds through SL grids to see that content in SL isn't just something created for you to buy.

There are also other grids - Open Sims, Kitely, etc. - where people can sell their products they sell in SL.

As I said without people creating and building SL would be empty and boring. Where did I stated something about buyable things only? I visit alot of fun places of art, education and culture in SL some people have created amazing museum's about things they have passion for. And me saying crazy when you said your words, well not everyone speaks English as birth language, and interpretes things a different way. I don't care where people can sell stuff, I just said no one should forget that there are humans involved with passions and feelings on both sides. Funny that this seems not ok. But people in here advocating for gacha, conveyor belts and other things is ok.

It's also cute that you picked me out of all the commenters in here to pick on. Since I said several times that I do not care for gacha and am happy to see it go, and would prefer no new system at all (so I really not know why you tell me to look past gacha lmao) ...just simple click and buy the old fashioned way. I got the impression we actually seem to have a similar stand on this topic but probably I'm wrong.