New Gacha Policy Discussion

[Finite]

41 minutes ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

Creators - and by extension us consumers -  are about to find out. I, too, am looking forward to September, but I'm also a bit nervous. 10,000L$ for a fatpack? Hell no. Thing is, at that price, creators don't need that many customers, and I have no doubt they will find them. So...too bad for the rest of us?

I'm guessing 3-5k for the more intricate ones. They generally have a bit more in them than a typical "fatpack" which is sometimes just 1 piece with 50 colors options and not full ensembles or outfits. I kind of think the 10k was an "up yours" to some of the salt being thrown at gacha creators right now.

[Tari Landar]

My opinion likely means absolutely nothing to most people, but I'll share it anyway.

I am not a huge shopper, for myself, in sl. At least, I don't buy clothing, hair, shapes, skins, makeups, other av accessories, etc.. I buy things like animals (a lot), sometimes furniture, games, fun stuff, and building supplies (way too much).So those are the creators I look for, ones that cater to the things I buy, for myself anyway. A lot of gachas don't really fall into that realm, but those that do, I've never been a huge fan of because there is usually only one or two things in them that I want. So I have always bought them direct from resellers on mp or inworld at places that sell them.

I do, however, frequently help other people find stuff they're looking for, including gachas of things I'd never buy because they're not my cup of tea (mostly clothes, because, again, I don't shop for clothes, I haven't bought a clothing item for myself in years, lol). I'm pretty good at finding things, even if I'm not a fan of shopping.

Moving forward no one that I know (or help) personally, and this includes myself, intends to use whatever people replace gacha machines with, including this gachaveyor nonsensical asshatery (whether or not it remains permitted is irrelevant, we don't care, lol). What we'll be looking for, and I can say we since we've discussed it, is merchants willing to sell their items in normal vendors, or on mp, at reasonable prices (read: affordable within our individual budgets, reasonable being subjective and all), and not just in sets, fatpacks, exclusives, etc.etc.. Those are the things we look for most often anyway, even when gachas were a big thing, but some of them had no problem scouring gachas (or having me do so for them lol) to find what they wanted, either.  We're probably not even a blip on the radar, and that's okay, I'm sure we never really were. But I am finding more and more people, even outside of my own personal circles, who are starting to feel the same way. Even people who were quite gung ho on this conveyor idea are starting to realize it's a whole lot of SSDD, which speaks more to the motivations of the sellers that want to use them and perhaps them being more of a money grab than people may have realized. Many people seem to focus a lot on the "ooh I can get something really cheap", which, when all is said and done, IS a good deal for them so I can't fault them for thinking that way (and would never). But often times people don't think in big picture, and now they're realizing the picture is much bigger than they thought. 

I don't see this idea getting nearly as much traction as people think it will, regardless of what any individual thinks about it. I think the whole "we need to find a way to have something almost identical to what is going away" is forcing some eyes open that might not have been before (that's not a knock on visual impairments, I'm mostly blind and literally typing this with one eye open, lmao). There are ways to sell your wares, there have always been ways, no merchant NEEDS gacha or gacha-esque selling tactics to sell their wares. Once the playing field is leveled and everyone has to use the same methods, people will see this. Well, they would if LL hadn't done what I consider to be jumping the gun and okaying this conveyor idea, anyway. At least without that idea on the table, everyone is at a more even level. Merchants that think they would struggle selling their wares without these methods might realize that if everyone is struggling, that struggle might be more of a perception issue than it is an actual issue. Methods may need to be changed, but they're all doable. 

Now I'm rambling, but, the take away from my post I suppose is that these machines, should they continue being allowed (gachaveyor and its progeny) are definitely not going to see the same widespread acceptance as gacha machines did. People are paying close attention now, seeing the writing on the wall and staring to realize there are better ways to sell and buy items...gimmicks like this aren't necessary. 

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

12 minutes ago, Tari Landar said:

What we'll be looking for, and I can say we since we've discussed it, is merchants willing to sell their items in normal vendors, or on mp, at reasonable prices (read: affordable within our individual budgets, reasonable being subjective and all), and not just in sets, fatpacks, exclusives, etc.etc..

 

YES, YES!, YES, YES, OOOOOOOOO YES!!!!!

[SweetestMaike]

Hey there

I'll hope my question wouldn't be unseen.

So gachas will be forbidden from september 1st cause of same law changes.
So my question is now, will this has any effects on paied raffleboards too? You buy a ticket and having no idea if you will win the item or not. Which is a bit more like gambling but there are stores who are using these systems.

I'll hope there will be an answer and would be fine to know what are the regulatory changes, so people could find out for other stuff that could be maybe involved too.

Greets Maike

[RyanJoshua]

I have been hearing that many of the GACHA creators were complaining< rightfully so> because some people are re-selling their items for a huge profit... Rare Items can sell for 2000 to 4000 L$ when a person < the re- seller> has only paid , maybe 75L$ for the item.   I enjoyed GACHAS they were easily gifted because of being transferrable.  I feel SL might lose some very gifted creators because of this.  I am confused about GACHAS being around for years  < at least 10 or more> and now, they are an Issue... I am not a gacha creator or seller, so it really makes no difference to me what they do with them.

Edited August 10, 2021 by RyanJoshua

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, SweetestMaike said:

Hey there

I'll hope my question wouldn't be unseen.

So gachas will be forbidden from september 1st cause of same law changes.
So my question is now, will this has any effects on paied raffleboards too? You buy a ticket and having no idea if you will win the item or not. Which is a bit more like gambling but there are stores who are using these systems.

I'll hope there will be an answer and would be fine to know what are the regulatory changes, so people could find out for other stuff that could be maybe involved too.

Greets Maike

As best as can be determined, there are no actual law changes but seems more some hazy framework that leads some legal types to think there may be future issues with Gacha type sales though there still seem to be plenty of other games out there advertising themselves as being Gacha style games. It's all very mysterious.

[VanityCloud]

Does that mean no more gambling machines in sl too though?? Because it would be unfair if they kept those.

[Rathgrith027]

10 minutes ago, VanityCloud said:

Does that mean no more gambling machines in sl too though?? Because it would be unfair if they kept those.

Gambling Machines, i assume you mean involves Skill Gaming - those are not being banned, but will remain to be restricted pursuant to the Skill Gaming Policy.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Rathgrith027

[Prokofy Neva]

8 hours ago, Dictatorshop said:

SL is my day job, as it happens, crazy foolish or not, LOL.  I have learned over the years that Life is full of uncertainty any company you work for or with can go under or shift gears radically at any time, ***** happens.  Control is a fake construct we make for our own sanity.  Do you really think you have control over the world?  Now, *that* is crazy, LOL!  My hubby was laid off from his RL job last year due to covid, companies all over the place have gone under due to a global pandemic.  It made me realize how much I love creating in SL, it also made me consider what would happen if it suddenly up and vanished one day.  Skills translate, you get a new gig using the skills you have somewhere else.  Its the same for SL as RL in that respect.  SL creation skills can go to other virtual worlds, games assets, making turbosquid assets or something, who knows, but nothing is wasted. 

As I said in the very first page of this nearly 150 page long thread, I feel for those that are taking this hit hard with the loss of gachas, but consider it a layoff of one type of income and an opportunity for something else rather than trying to just keep milking the same dead gacha cow.  At this point all anyone is doing is crying over the spilled milk and trying to figure out how to sponge some of it back up in some other fashion.  yuck.  Move on.

@Mollymews I think you're right that people will develop customs and behaviours to adapt a kind of Lucky Chair thing in a conveyor vendor form.

Creators could take a sheet from the chapters of the book of the Soviet economy. On state holidays, they could "throw out" some fresh produce, usually in short supply, or perhaps *both* shoes in a pair, where many people have only collected the left one and wait for the right one...somewhere. This "throwing out" was something stood around and waited for once they picked up the pattern. They would queue at the place of the last "throw out". They would go to an obvious "throw out" place like near a train station. Maybe a sister who worked in a factory cafeteria would hear of the "throw out" coming and tip her brother off. Etc. 

In the late 1980s-early 1990s with the great dislocation of the Soviet economy took place, which BTW was not due to Harvard consultants, grasping Western capitalists or even oligarchs, but the fact that, as the national bankers explained to me, this was a cashless society -- really, truly, that's hard to grasp -- these little old ladies with somewhat wilted cucumbers in hand -- maybe 4, maybe 2, maybe even only 1! would stand by the roadside and wait for a commuter waiting in traffic to buy it from her. Then, a few rubles in hand, she would trudge back to her kitchen garden at her "dacha," which was really only a shack and grow some more -- but now she could buy salt and matches or things you can't grow or make yourself.

@Dictatorship I totally get that you are trying to make lemons out of lemonade here, but you don't make or sell gatchas, you make non-transferable furniture, whatever few gatchas you might have, mainly for the adult communities and that business is never going to fall off. So you won't feel it. My tenants who live in G sims without your furniture and put out weekend sale or gatcha furniture and pay for their rent with gatcha sales money will feel it. And yes, what happens is that they fall out and leave, and other people who have steady income from RL or some other business in SL come in and fill their place. But I am not like Kenny Linden. I do not say "There's always another guy to buy the island" -- something he would cynically say when people, exasperated with IMPEACH BUSH signs cynically put up to gouge "buy back the view" cash from hapless landowners, would threaten to tier down, or even dump their lands. 

Yes, I've posted the statement from a gatcha maker who is very sanguinely talking about dusting off her resume or going to Turbosquid or whatever. But Turbosquid can't absord a lot more competition, you know? And in that country the maker lives, the main jobs for people with liberal arts degrees is with the KGB's successors or the Troll Farm upsetting Western elections. Theaters and independent newspapers are shuttered everywhere. This policy doesn't take place in a vacuum; it takes place in a pandemic where some places in the world are experiencing terrible economic downturns and authoritarianism, including our own. 

Your admonitions to people to stop milking dead cows or sponging up milk with conveyor gatchas are fairly nasty because you do not rely on these vendors and never will. I think it's a time to refrain from these kind of smug comments, and all the likey-likes on your post come from people who a) aren't in business at all or b) in some other business unrelated, possibly breedables.

The economy is interconnected. The people you are lecturing to stop crying over spilled milk stop buying furniture. They leave SL. They don't log in. Your sales fall. So don't be like those anti-vaxers who then later cry from respirators that people should get the vaccine. Understand that many people are hurting in various ways, and you may hurt too because we are in a shared economy.

[Rei Waifu]

1 hour ago, So Whimsy said:

We can only speculate at this point as will the merchants. I think there will be some sort of adjustement period where things will find a median between too cheap and too expensive. It also depends on how many pieces are in the gacha and of course the quality. 10,000L seems like a lot if say, there's say an outfit in 6 different colors. But if it's a home and garden gacha with a house and 39 other unique items then 10k doesn't sound as much anymore.

Yeah it was an outfit with about 9 colors, luckily i wear Maitreya lara petite anyway so i wouldnt have been able to use that outfit anyway, but 10k is pure greed (that said i about fall out of my chair when im searching for homes on the MP and some are like 250k)

[So Whimsy]

6 minutes ago, Aria Fae said:

Yeah it was an outfit with about 9 colors, luckily i wear Maitreya lara petite anyway so i wouldnt have been able to use that outfit anyway, but 10k is pure greed (that said i about fall out of my chair when im searching for homes on the MP and some are like 250k)

The housing market is a strange one. I check new listings religiously because I am a house junkie. Some really good quality ones can be found for below 500L, most are in the 1k-5k range. Then there's the really expensive ones though imho I think they want to retain some exclusivety by not selling much.

And then there's the insane ones.

[Jaylinbridges]

Never Mind  

What was in this $10K fatpack was revealed when I was typing.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Prokofy Neva]

47 minutes ago, RyanJoshua said:

I have been hearing that many of the GACHA creators were complaining< rightfully so> because some people are re-selling their items for a huge profit... Rare Items can sell for 2000 to 4000 L$ when a person < the re- seller> has only paid , maybe 75L$ for the item.   I enjoyed GACHAS they were easily gifted because of being transferrable.  I feel SL might lose some very gifted creators because of this.  I am confused about GACHAS being around for years  < at least 10 or more> and now, they are an Issue... I am not a gacha creator or seller, so it really makes no difference to me what they do with them.

They weren't complaining, though. That's actually not how it works. If a few are complaining they didn't have many gatchas, didn't have many customers, and didn't understand volume sales at cheaper amounts would help them more than complaining about what customers do, out of ignorance of first sale doctrine.

Most gatcha makers have a health grasp of first sale doctrine even if they never heard of its 100-year-long history. They get that people are free, and they do what they want with your thing on transfer, the end, and you can't look back. And that's a good thing.

Look on the MP, please. There are 907,000+ gatchas. How many items do you see for $5000 or more? Ok then. How many for $1000-5000? OK then. Please disabuse yourself of this notion that there are "all these people selling $4000 rares". There aren't. Because there isn't a market for them. This is a boat with 50,000 concurrency. Maybe 10% of the people can spend huge amounts of money like US $500 per month. Most spend...$25 per month (as we know from past LL statistics of 10-15 years ago, but which are still roughly relevant).

Scroll up and read all the commentary and the bottom line most recently expressed succinctly by Ms. Popstar: there isn't a law, there's a climate to which LL reacted, so there's a policy, the end. They can do what they want; we are free to adjust or not. 

Do me a favour and instead of repeating something "you heard" from consumers, go to gatcha creators you know, or even whom you don't know, and ASK. That's what I do. So I've been talking to dozens of them. And it's interesting that there is a very much gendered break-down here, but that's another story. So what are the reasons I hear?

o Gatchas are time consuming to make in large enough quantities and pack into machines

o I'm tired from all this march of events where I constantly need lots of fresh content and dozens of new gatchas to keep up

o I hate the way customers are constantly complaining about how they didn't get the rare despite playing 50 times; they don't understand basic math and the law of averages -- which doesn't apply to gatcha machines! Each new pull has X percent change of a rare, and it has no memory, and yes, it is possible to pull 50-100-200 times and not get the rare due to that *law of chance*.

o I did have a few machines, but my sets/breedables/whatever sold better.

Note this is VERY much according to niche and culture -- if you sell elf ears, you don't need a gatcha; if you sell weapons, a gatcha gets in the way for you; if you sell mesh heads, you can sell those without putting them in a gatcha. I followed mainly housewares, and for furniture makers, it's the opposite; their gatchas sold way more than their individual items or sets.

SOME are saying ONLY NOW, despite having years of machines selling like hotcakes in their stores and at events:

o I think gatchas are predatory and it addicts my customers and I'm better than that

o I'm just going to sell my sets, it's the same, I'll charge the same, I'll be fine

There's one more reason I have surmised:

o The old gatchas contain my earlier efforts which are not as pretty and skillfull as my current creations; they have sculpties but I do mesh now.

Not a single person I've talked to in this business says that they resent rares selling because that's simply not the economics of it. They sell thousands and thousands of commons and rares, and that stream makes up their real economy in RL. So they make US $250, US $500, US $1000 per month. Note that this is not enough to live on in large American cities and the belief that gatcha makers are millionaires like Anshe is simply not sustained (and PS she wasn't exactly a millionaire either as she had a lot of paper out).

Compare and contrast with the many gatcha resellers I know who sell crazily, with poor pricing, or smartly, with good pricing and constant attention to the market, and yes, those skillful people who can get $50,000 for a retired set.

They don't make $250 or $1000 every month. They make $50. They pay tier with it. That one time they sold that rare set for $50,000 -- that doesn't repeat.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

11 minutes ago, So Whimsy said:

The housing market is a strange one. I check new listings religiously because I am a house junkie. Some really good quality ones can be found for below 500L, most are in the 1k-5k range. Then there's the really expensive ones though imho I think they want to retain some exclusivety by not selling much.

And then there's the insane ones.

When you say "housing market" do you mean rentals or actual houses?

We lived in a world in 2004 when house makers would not put them on copy. This was a huge pain in the butt because if one broke -- and they often fell apart into many prims -- we were SOL. They feared that rentals agents would do better than they would, so they would not make them on copy. You'd have to buy 6 of them to start a rentals but since they only cost $199 or $399 it was all good. Finally they grasped that rentals were free advertisements for end-users who would buy land and move out of their rentals and then remember that house they saw. Then they put them on copy.

Houses used to cost $250 or $500 and $1500 were very rare. Prim houses, I mean. Sculpties were added in especially with fantasy houses.

Then mesh came in, which meant now people had more prims. And house makers responded by making their houses more expensive. So now there are $12,999 houses. Poor people often like the feeling of living large that SL can give and will give up RL meals to buy an expenso house in SL they can brag about to their friends, costing $3000.

But then there were gatchas. That meant in a set with a house, you might get that rare house for 50L. Suddenly, your costs were slashed as a rental agent, like me. To be sure, we might have to insanely pull to get that 50L but most of us like me simply waited til they were on the MP, and bought them if not for 50L, for $250 or even $500, still way cheaper than a copyable house. You don't need a lot of copyable houses. You need variety.

Now what? We will all be stuck with aging inventory. I'm not going to spend $750 for a new house? Or skybox? So either I will merely provide lots for people to put their own houses if they want to spend that, or put out older stuff people won't mind, or do less, with less land. 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[AriaMoonlit]

On 8/2/2021 at 2:05 PM, Adeon Writer said:

On one hand, I'm happy to see this go. I just want to buy exactly what I want and not have to gamble.

On the other hand, Gachas had some of the highest quality content I've seen that rarely ever was spotted elsewhere on the grid or marketplace.

Gachas always had a noticeable quality bump. I really hope that creative effort is properly redirected.

The quality was there because people had monthly events , so they at least had a month to create a gacha with Is enough time for someone that knows what they're doing to create a gacha set , especially if they go the other route  and they have  clothing they've made themselves before that was not released , that they could alter for a new look. Honestly I don't think the events will stop. People will still make smaller quality items for normal sale and most likely- like before have a month between events to make something of higher quality just now it will be a normally sold item rather than a gacha.and most events creators have to pay to get into so in a way that keeps people from overloading in work or taking spaces from newer creators etc.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Anyone here who buys gachas could give me some data to do some quick probabilities calculations?

• Gacha Name (not the actual name but something to refer to it)
• Type. (clothing, furniture, etc...)
• Whether the parts are designed to work together or are variants.
• How many parts does the gacha has, how many rares.
• Price per spin.
• Odds for the rares (if public, or if the machine config is visible)

I'm actually curious about how much your typical, high profile gacha seller is effectively "asking" on average.

[LittleMe Jewell]

Wow, up to 150 pages. 

 

I have nothing to contribute, as I stopped reading this one a few days ago, but I was curious as to how far it had gotten.

 

[Tari Landar]

2 hours ago, RyanJoshua said:

I have been hearing that many of the GACHA creators were complaining< rightfully so> because some people are re-selling their items for a huge profit... Rare Items can sell for 2000 to 4000 L$ when a person < the re- seller> has only paid , maybe 75L$ for the item

Yeah. that's not happening, creators are not complaining, anywhere, about their items being resold. If a creator doesn't want their items to be able to be resold, they will simply not make them transfer. They can't control what others resell their products at. They're the ones that made certain ones "rare" to begin with, they put the idea into customers' heads that certain ones were likely "worth more" than others. Now not everyone likely agreed with them on this assessment, but they're still the ones that put the idea out there. 

I have a bunch of different animals that were all gachas at one point, not a single one of them considered "rare" by their creators, but I personally treasure them and consider them to be far more valuable than nearly all the others in their respective packs. Rare really shouldn't be determined by the creator, imo, that's a huge part of what made gacha machines predatory in nature, this scripted and artificially inflated rarity (which in itself varied widely, most leaning towards the not really all that fair odds against consumers). But, I digress....

No, creators are not complaining about their items being resold at higher values than customers paid. If they didn't want that to happen, they had every opportunity to stop that even before this policy change. In fact, customers selling their stuff at higher values probably helped to increase the popularity of their machines and wares in the first place. No creator is going to complain about getting more sales, lol. 

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Wow, up to 150 pages. 

 

I have nothing to contribute, as I stopped reading this one a few days ago, but I was curious as to how far it had gotten.

 

But one or more of the Linden staff has to weed through all the posts...  And put out their hair. Then find out the hair is only available in a gachveyor! 🤣

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 minutes ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

But one or more of the Linden staff has to weed through all the posts...  And put out their hair. Then find out the hair is only available in a gachveyor! 🤣

And if they put back all of the posts that they deemed worthy of removing, who knows how big this thread would really be.

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

And if they put back all of the posts that they deemed worthy of removing, who knows how big this thread would really be.

They just removed my post about some joker on MP was selling a 27 lb gold bar (1 prim) for $250,000 L  It was relevant because folks were complaining about the high prices some were charging on MP for rare Gacha items.  Just a bit of humor (which I noted in the edit box).  But humor is not allowed in this forum, which is too bad since reading the same arguments 1000X over is a waste of pixels and time.

I have nothing to add even though this policy will affect both of my businesses in different ways.  Both will result in less income.  And NO, I don't sell anything on the MP  or have ever used a Gacha.  I work about 40 hrs/week inworld, breeding and selling my originally bred unique cats in my inworld shops, and in club entertainment, for tips. I know many of my clients are not rich in RL, nor high end graphics designers.  They depend on the "lower skills" as Prok put it, to scrape enough Lindens together to pay tier, buy inexpensive items, and have fun at clubs.  Prok is right about this affecting the general economy, although not a one of you will admit it.  

Edited August 11, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Maryanne Solo]

Problem? = Reselling/greed.
Solution = get rid of reselling.

End of story.

[Mollymews]

12 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

The folks who make RL gaming machines would have good suggestions how to optimize a next-gen gacha-loophole device. At first I assumed long-queue conveyorpon couldn't be optimal at exploiting vulnerability to gambling addiction, but now I'm not so sure.

is interesting from a technical pov what devices could be made and be compliant with the update policy as is currently wrote

it could be made like a slot machine and be compliant

a three reel machine for example and you get 1 to 3 items on the payoff line. When 1 item then 2 reels show blanks. When 2 items then 1 reel is blank. Or get lucky and is 3 items on the payoff line

then could take it to the next level. Make a 9 item display window of 3 lines. The middle payoff line, and 1 above and 1 below. The above/below OMG you nearly won mechanic

for the whales could make it so they can stick in L$3X and play all 3 lines at once

[Sandy Schnook]

1 minute ago, Mollymews said:

is interesting from a technical pov what devices could be made and be compliant with the update policy as is currently wrote

it could be made like a slot machine and be compliant

a three reel machine for example and you get 1 to 3 items on the payoff line. When 1 item then 2 reels show blanks. When 2 items then 1 reel is blank. Or get lucky and is 3 items on the payoff line

then could take it to the next level. Make a 9 item display window of 3 lines. The middle payoff line, and 1 above and 1 below. The above/below OMG you nearly won mechanic

for the whales could make it so they can stick in L$3X and play all 3 lines at once

I may be missing something, but I'm not sure this would be compliant.  You still have to pay to play before you know what you'll get, don't you?

[Fionalein]

5 hours ago, SweetestMaike said:

Hey there

I'll hope my question wouldn't be unseen.

So gachas will be forbidden from september 1st cause of same law changes.
So my question is now, will this has any effects on paied raffleboards too? You buy a ticket and having no idea if you will win the item or not. Which is a bit more like gambling but there are stores who are using these systems.

I'll hope there will be an answer and would be fine to know what are the regulatory changes, so people could find out for other stuff that could be maybe involved too.

Greets Maike

Great question, you fear rightfully it might get lost in the confusion of the heated discussion. However there is an easy remedy: tagging the powers that be. But be aware that summoning such a mighty being without a proper reason might draw their ire (but in this case I think it's pretty warranted, as it clearly is a question that deserves an official answer)

Hey, @Patch Linden, Maike brought up a question that while not on gacha itself clearly relates to gacha as it involves payment and a possible random reward. Please see quoted post.

 

Here you go @SweetestMaike, I tagged them for you. 

Edited August 11, 2021 by Fionalein