New Gacha Policy Discussion

[Quistess Alpha]

22 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

( and yes i think a minority of the replies  did actually read it)

Oh that; I read it, and I think many others did too, but it's still not nearly extensive enough for the impact it has.

[silevera]

7 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

 

Very true, but also from people that dont read the blog post.

It specifically states that this only applies to gacha's and that they will still allow any other currently-allowed distribution mechanisms that isn't a gacha named item. This however still hasn't stopped people asking as to whether breedables are banned despite LL answering that in the blog post by the aforementioned statement.

No one from LL stated that this will only affect items named "gacha". And by that logic, we could just rename them "collectibles" and be done with it. That is obviously not the intent.

What LL did say is that the criterium is based on whether or not you are paying for an item where what you are getting is based on chance, which is why people are speculating that this may also affect breedables. And since LL has been failing to follow up on their promise to answer questions, you can hardly blame people from speculating.

To say that this will "only affect gachas" is to underestimate people's ability to circumvent the rules. Unless LL makes it very clear what is and isn't allowed under these new rules, people will just name it something else and say that it's not technically a gacha. This is not likely to fly, so it's not unreasonable to assume that the rules -- once LL figures out the details -- will also affect other products that give out random items for payment. And breedables are such a thing.

[Knotso Slippery]

12 hours ago, Orwar said:

   This may well have been the best thing to happened since the fall of the Berlin wall. I'm ecstatic. 

The fall of the Berling wall? Are you sure?? When did this happen??? 😲

[Claude Belgar]

12 hours ago, Pannie Paperdoll said:

Gacha is no different than a gumball machine full of toys. you pay, you get something. you might get three of the same thing. you might get something special. but you always get something worth the money you put in. Gumball machines are legal for all ages, how can gacha be illegal??

 

12 hours ago, DeeJay Peapod said:

but as someone stated before they are basically like the gumball machines outside stores with the random little prizes....they still havent banned those

Not at all, in a gumball machine, all gumballs have the same value.

[Alwin Alcott]

4 minutes ago, Bridget Leavitt said:

I agree that ignorance is no excuse but LL should also make it a priority to reach out far and wide outside of the forums to inform residents of changes when it comes to people's accounts that could possibly be in jeopardy.

it's on the main account page, it's on the blogs, it's on the forums, it's making inworld groups explode, it's on external blogs ... i think people have also a own responsibility to stay in touch with official announcements.

 

[Jaily Bailey]

12 hours ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

The article tells you what you need to do and when.

Why bother replying to her question, instead you post a generic reply because you dont know the answer.

 

No you don't need to remove items from the store but you won't be able to post new items after August 31.

[Alwin Alcott]

1 minute ago, Jaily Bailey said:

No you don't need to remove items from the store but you won't be able to post new items after August 31.

no you'r wrong.. you can post as many new items as you want, just not pay to play and have a chance for rubbish or a rare.

[Jaydoge]

This sucks. :T

[MarissaOrloff]

So... Does this mean there will be "skill" gachas in the future

[Prokofy Neva]

@LittleMe Jewell This is why it would have been better if LL had waited until an actual district attorney or state attorney general actually contacted them. Did that happen already? I doubt it. They could have waited until the cases played out. There would be findings that this did not constitute gambling if you got a prize every time, especially because a prize need not be called "rare" to be actually in demand, and "rares" get ignored despite their name. A good lawyer would find the arguments.

LL should also have given 90 days on this. It's not fair to events that don't happen to be on this month that are on a bi-monthly or bi-annual schedule to be left out. Epiphany is in session now and gains; Arcade doesn't. Etc.

@Mollymews you have a good argument, but I think the law as it is likely to be written and applied  (its existence in California or this or that state means nothing as there are not yet any SL-related cases yet) will involve only the blind purchase where you cannot see what you are getting. Waiting half an hour for a rare to appear that you can see is not a blind purchase. Your wait is no different than waiting in a long line for Grateful Dead tickets. Lucky chairs won't be affected as you can see the thing and decide to wait for your letter. It's a known operation. This idea is merely taking the Lucky Chairs idea and applying it to gatchas.

@Drayke Newall No one is forced to buy a gatcha. They are adults with free will. But the regulators are concerned about buying a thing you cannot see. That's mainly the thrust of the legal argumemnt, that it's a pig in a poke. If you wait until your item is thrown out for sale like Soviets used to throw out food products for sale suddenly on holidays, that's not deception. It's about the deceptive nature of the transaction.

@chesse Vyceratops anything that is random is likely to fall under the policy. A perk added if you buy 10 items would not be covered as it is a known transaction. The vendor might change the perk every hour or every day but it's visible.

@Little Jewell once again, there is no federal law in the US. It's not that "the federal bill expired" as Living in a Modem World put it, it's that the draft bill by one conservative senator (now indicted for Jan. 6), which *did not even make it to committee* which would begin its actual life didn't just "expire" but the session ended, and it was not put on the agenda in the next session, likely because that sponsor was preoccupied with other matters.

Again, the law in California has not been used against an SL resident.

@Marsellus Walcott I'm all for trying almost-gatcha devices to save people's revenue and go under the wire if they can but there's another thing they can do: make good things, sell them on transfer, and not charge a lot. Make a set, and issue each thing in it each week. Maybe the appearance of "the rare" could be an anticipated occasion and not spelled out. Or not. But the point is, to make things ON TRANSFER. Now they have a reason to. They will sell more of them. The end.

@Animal Haiku You may be right about that, and given the prevalence of such whiners and hall monitors on the forums, it could well be true. I think my theory of Raj Date jumping the gun is more likely.

@Chic Aeon I think you are being too literalist about this. People sell old gatchas as fatpack sets all the time. Maybe the "covenant" with gouging event organizers includes that, but obviously, with the new policy, they will have to change. The situation has changed. And they can't police all their former customers anyway. How? They won't get to RL court let alone the court of forums opinion if some poor gatcha creator sells the former objects one by one now even for the same price. 

It's good that you've flagged this unknown policy for these event organizers who oversaw the move to $100 gatcha pulls even as their fees for booths went up and up. But their day is gone now. None of them are in this thread and won't be. They may be privately complaining to LL or not, but they can't make this stick, no way. Monstaar is absolutely right.

Gatcha re-sellers don't need to stay in business, you do. And you come first in the commercial chain. So by all means put out your former gatchas for whatever you can get. I will try to find your blog for your other thoughts. But no need to labour under this burden of a promise made in another setting.

@Nixkie I find it hard to believe that you are able to rent a home with the funds for gatcha resales but maybe there's something I don't know. You will still be able to resell them and will have more competition but those with experience in selling should do well. You will now have to buy from more desperate gatcha owners because the supply from fresh content has dried up, but you should be desperate enough to do that, sounds like.

@HarrisonMcKenzie There is no court decision. There is no state attorney general who spoke out. There isn't even a conservative senator, because none of them have ever mention LL, but have in mind large online games where lootboxes are sold to advance in game play. No attorney or prosecutor has illustrated in a court of law that SL fits under this definition. It's a pre-anticipation that this might happen, and not based in a legal fact. Unless LL has been given a heads up of a crackdown in California coming down the pike, in a world where wildfires and the pandemic are more properly the concern of states, you can't speak of any "illegality".

@Cain Maven you make houses, not gatchas, so this isn't affecting you and yours. It will affect many people who make their living in SL or people who make or sell gatchas and then buy your houses. So this kind of comment is out of place. No one in SL should ever be rolling over and just following LL policy that does this much damage without criticism and demands for mitigation. And telling others to climb down. @Charlotte Bartlett you ought to know better than likey-liking such an arrogant and insular comment yourself. We are all in a shared economy, a tiny one. We will all be affected, one way or another.

@Rosekin1982 you're right that while it's true technically merchants can pivot and simply take a fatpack out of a gatcha fatpack and sell it for the same or more, they won't make as much money as the frenzy won't be there. The root of the frenzy is in part just some individual's fancy about what they like in a rare, but it's more about big-time gatcha resellers who came early to events, had the money to invest to get the rares and then sold them for a huge mark-up on the MP. Not a pretty sight, like the land business, but a previously legal one.

@cutencuddlybreedables Watch the Linden leave breedables alone on some technicality because they can. There is no federal law. California has not acted against them AFAIK and this is all on their whim. They can decide to leave their friends in the breedable business alone and save the axe of them for when the economy recovers from the gatchas. Indeed, we will see just how arbitrary this policy is when we watch how they leave out breedables on the technicality of the fact that you buy what you see, and their future value as breeders, only a potential, is not the transaction at hand. The reality is, people breed animals largely in hopes of getting rares to resell so it's merely an attenuated gatcha. Rares in breeding are random; gatchas are random. Favoring the one and shafting the other is a political act.

@Zoren Manray You've said a rare sensible and fact-based thing in a thread full of ridicularities. The only point is that the US is not making plans. What is the US? Congress. One senator had plans. Perhaps some state attorney general somewhere has plans. The California law wasn't applied to LL. Same with the Canadian law that enabled a class action suit which itself isn't a law like Japan. It's all pure hysterical hypothetical and we need to hear the reasons for it. The claw-back clauses would have course appeared and I predict we will see the return of gatchas in the Metaverse, if not in LL, and on big platforms where regulators will be forced to back off.

@Lucia Nightfire there is no court case or prosecutor or any legal entity that has done this because to do so, it would have to be public. You can't have a secret law and tell a company they will be fined under a secret law.

@Zoey Winsmore It's unlikely there was any "phone call from the Netherlands" or any other EU-based event. A phone call from Elizabeth Warren's office, sure.

[Sniper Siemens]

I think it is a good decision. I never liked Gacha. I want to know how much I spend and what I get.

[Drayke Newall]

12 minutes ago, silevera said:

No one from LL stated that this will only affect items named "gacha". And by that logic, we could just rename them "collectibles" and be done with it. That is obviously not the intent.

What LL did say is that the criterium is based on whether or not you are paying for an item where what you are getting is based on chance, which is why people are speculating that this may also affect breedables. And since LL has been failing to follow up on their promise to answer questions, you can hardly blame people from speculating.

To say that this will "only affect gachas" is to underestimate people's ability to circumvent the rules. Unless LL makes it very clear what is and isn't allowed under these new rules, people will just name it something else and say that it's not technically a gacha. This is not likely to fly, so it's not unreasonable to assume that the rules -- once LL figures out the details -- will also affect other products that give out random items for payment. And breedables are such a thing.

I stated in my post "...distribution mechanisms that isn't a gacha named item". In other words if it is a distribution mechanism that is different to what the gacha named items (i.e. gacha machine) use it is still allowed.

Considering no other item that has a distribution method uses a gacha script other than a gacha named machine, I would have thought it to be pretty obvious.

[Drayke Newall]

11 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Again, the law in California has not been used against an SL resident.

What does California law have to do with anything? If another country introduces a law that its residents can access Second Life from, Linden Lab HAVE TO abide by that countries laws.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

There's one thing that I'm definitely not going to miss about gachas: the tendency by some creators of making one item, giving it 20 different colors and call it a 'collection'.

[Morcinna]

Frankly, this was easy to see coming, but a month's warning isn't near enough. Not all creators watch the forums closely or even log in frequently. I've known Major creators to set up their releases months in advance so they can have time off. Not to mention all the events that are going to need to be postponed or retooled... expensive propositions given the cost of tier. 

Even for those creators who catch this change right away... reboxing everything as copy/no-trans and redoing ads and everything else is going to be time consuming. Some mesh makers do nothing but Gatcha... they're going to have to redo their whole shop.

 

[Drayke Newall]

1 minute ago, Morcinna said:

Some mesh makers do nothing but Gatcha... they're going to have to redo their whole shop.

Business and life 101.. Never put your eggs in one basket.

[silevera]

12 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

I stated in my post "...distribution mechanisms that isn't a gacha named item". In other words if it is a distribution mechanism that is different to what the gacha named items (i.e. gacha machine) use it is still allowed.

Considering no other item that has a distribution method uses a gacha script other than a gacha named machine, I would have thought it to be pretty obvious.

What are you basing this on? LL has made no mention of "gacha scripts". Patch Linden did mention the mechanism of the gacha machines, but in a way that is broad enough to include other systems that receive payment in exchange for a random item. Until LL finally steps up and answers all the questions people are having, it remains unclear how or if this will affect anything that is not currently named "gacha".

11 hours ago, Patch Linden said:

Next, is some of the comments on the mechanism or the gacha machines themselves.  It is the act of paying for something and in return the item/thing you receive back is based on chance.  The level of chance does not matter, or if you disclose it, including the ratios, percentages, etc, if the output is unknown (chance based in any way), that combination of mechanisms is what will be prohibited moving forward.

 

[connorboy26]

3 hours ago, HarrisonMcKenzie said:

Question:

If someone sold items as gachas with equal probability (no "rares"), but then clearly offered a free exchange option for anyone who bought one but didn't get the one they wanted, would that be permissible? This would allow that randomness factor for those who don't care which colour or specific item they get, while still allowing those who are after a specific one to get is at no additional cost and without gambling for it. I doubt many would do this, but I'm curious if this would be a solution.

What would be the point? If there is just the same item but different colours all of the same value you would just set up a vendor.

[Prokofy Neva]

12 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

What does California law have to do with anything? If another country introduces a law that its residents can access Second Life from, Linden Lab HAVE TO abide by that countries laws.

No they don't, that's ridiculous. First of all there is neither law nor cases you can point to that exist to trigger a legal decision. Second, if that were the case, there wouldn't be any customers from outside the US. You have a weak grasp on how international and local law in fact work. You need a law. You need a case. You need a prosecutor, like the German prosecutors who announced publicly they would prosecute for child pornography. But that had to be combined with other signals from the environment  for them to make a policy.

No district attorney or prosecutor abroad have said anything about the application of their laws to SL. And go back and read the CA law referenced above, and any other law and their intent. 

[Prokofy Neva]

When laws are passed, they don't self-execute like Internet policies with electronic rigidity.

They need prosecutors to bring suit.

Or they need class actions, like the one in Canada or this one from Apple filed in 2020 which -- guess what -- was dropped in March 2021. Let's put this in red and all caps.

 a California federal court said the plaintiffs didn’t show economic harm and therefore lack standing.

Apple likely did this to screw with a competitor, or in anticipation of some entity coming after them for selling game apps, or some other mercenary reason.  See this primer which emphasizes that mitigation or adjustment by putting nag notices below the offering meant that this remained at the stage of regulation and not banning. The primary focus was children. There are not supposed to be children in SL.

We are likely to see the same from Canada. If enough of these get tossed, LL may reconsider, who knows.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Drayke Newall]

2 minutes ago, silevera said:

What are you basing this on? LL has made no mention of "gacha scripts". Patch Linden did mention the mechanism of the gacha machines, but in a way that is broad enough to include other systems that receive payment in exchange for a random item. Until LL finally steps up and answers all the questions people are having, it remains unclear how or if this will affect anything that is not currently named "gacha".

The script is the mechanism in the gacha machine that controls the machines outcome it controls the random chances he is talking about.

If your so pedantic about it wait for LL to clarify directly.

[SheyCutiePie]

So let me get this right. it is gabbling right and all there people that is happy about this are from EU. Please tell me people are not going crazy. Can we now banned Lottery from the EU. This is not gabbling. Are you going tell a kid not to play with a toy vendor in real life to collect them all? This is silly and will hurt SL.

[Jewel Nova]

1 hour ago, Alwin Alcott said:

copybot has been around all the time, and it's as far i know not a huge problem,( if you get hit by it it is of course) never seen ip replacements since 2009 i think... it's more the fear that still lives in some people's thoughts.
A bit the same principle as griefers.. are there? yes, but is it that common as years ago... no.

Copybotting is a MAJOR issue still. Not sure where you are coming from. 

[Alwin Alcott]

1 minute ago, Jewel Nova said:

Copybotting is a MAJOR issue still. Not sure where you are coming from. 

ok, mention 5 big ip-replacement actions from last 3 months... nót hear say

[SheyCutiePie]

4 minutes ago, SheyCutiePie said:

So let me get this right. it is gabbling right and all there people that is happy about this are from EU. Please tell me people are not going crazy. Can we now banned Lottery from the EU. This is not gabbling. Are you going tell a kid not to play with a toy vendor in real life to collect them all? This is silly and will hurt SL.

 

Britain's most popular game first launched in 1994 as the UK National Lottery, but was officially renamed Lotto in 2002. ... Although Lotto tickets are sold every day of the week, you'll need to purchase your ticket before 7:30 pm on the night of the draw. To win the jackpot, you must match all 6 main numbers drawn.