New Gacha Policy Discussion

[Da5id Weatherwax]

2 minutes ago, JoJo Aurelia said:

I don't think anyone is tricked. So, are the gaming centers closing next?

And where did I say anyone was "tricked"? - A bookie on the high street taking bets on the ponies (yes, here in the UK that's legal) isn't tricking anyone, you walk in there you know you're gambling. If you deceive yourself into thinking you're not that doesn't change the rules the bookie has to operate under. You're not getting tricked in any way.

Gacha in SL DO make a lot of their profit by capitalising on the "gambling urge" that seems to be a part of human nature. No trickery involved. (except when the games are rigged, which is more often than you think - I've seen some of the scripts used in gacha that major vendors use. The few I've seen and analysed the code of were ALL rigged with "house odds" that wouldn't pass muster in most regulated gambling jurisdictions)

The point in my post that you quoted was that this isn't necessary to make a profit selling your creations in SL. Merchants were doing so successfully before gacha became a thing and they will continue to do so after gacha is gone. The only folks going out of business involuntarily will be the ones who depended on the gambling profit margin from those "house odds" and forgive me for saying but they are the merchants I wouldn't buy from with YOUR money, let alone mine.

[Faly Breen]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

it was answered already in the original post

we can sell collectibles, we just have to ensure that the buyer knows what exactly the collectible is before they pay for it

 

cards. the one who will pay the vendor will get 1 random card out of (sample) 50. im unsure if that counts or not.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Faly Breen

[Silas Merlin]

33 minutes ago, Rathgrith027 said:

If creating your art relies on some sort of rarity that isn't covered by limited releases, than I and others don't know what to tell you.

Gachas were perfect in that respect :

If it turns out noone wants the items, then no new copy is created, because noone plays the machine.
The possibility remains.

With a limited release you decide ahead of time how many copies can possibly exist.
If noone wants it, all the possible copies will not be created.
But, if it turns out to be something people want, all the possible copies do get created, and then that's it, no more ? why do that ?
 

[Robin Kiyori]

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Or in this case, a bad gimmick. Gacha and things sinilar to it are  gambling mechanics that depend on peolle like me who through adfiction, neurodiversity both or other reasons to sell tat and maybe the odd actually nice thing.

 

So I am not gonna lose sleepbif some gatcha malers cannot sell things normally and wind up leaving.

[Rowan Amore]

32 minutes ago, Silas Merlin said:

Gachas were perfect in that respect :

If it turns out noone wants the items, then no new copy is created, because noone plays the machine.
The possibility remains.

With a limited release you decide ahead of time how many copies can possibly exist.
If noone wants it, all the possible copies will not be created.
But, if it turns out to be something people want, all the possible copies do get created, and then that's it, no more ? why do that ?
 

Do it because it's now one of the options available to you?  

48 minutes ago, Silas Merlin said:

It is not the events. there is noone to enforce a rule, it is just what a gacha is.

It's what a gachas WAS.  Since it will be no more, no one will expect creators to never be able to sell their creations ever again.  If you release your oldest creations that were gachas first as simply a normal item to buy, how.does that hurt anyone?  Sure, there might be a few people who moan and groan about it but honestly, I don't think that will be the majority of people.

I understand you're trying to abide by the spirit of the gacha events by not selling your items as anything other than gachas after an event, but that's just not an option now for anyone and few would think any less of you or any creator who did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

it falls under the Not As Advertised marketplace rule which you applied by reporting it

stuff that is Not As Advertised isn't particular to gacha

Another listing right now that's confusing,  Gacha Cute Stump Tree House 15 Objects*Bench*2 Prim

So is it 15 objects that are 2 prims or what is it?  *bench* does not tell me anything.  to me that tells me " you get 15 items, plus a bench that's 2 prims"    Yeah reporting it right now too I am.  that's misleading and confusing.

Edited August 5, 2021 by bigmoe Whitfield

[AmyBlackwood]

18 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

Not a bold statement at all. If the EU and UK are banning it by the end of the year that is basically near all of the western world bar USA, Australia and a handful of other countries. Australia also is introducing legislation this year for it and others have already banned it so that leaves very few places that SL can be accessed from that actually haven't banned them..

The UK definitely isn't banning loot boxes by the end of the year, and may never ban them. The sports minister said "the review will seek to strike a careful balance between individual freedom and protecting the vulnerable.” A House of Lords report concurred, saying loot boxes "should be regulated" rather than outright banned.

[Ellith Blackwood]

I have no idea what the recent most 40 or so pages are discussing now because I got tired of reading the same things over and over again, so I stopped. I just want to address a bit that I have a feeling people are still going on about, 90+ pages later.

 

The whole 'They are banning this! WHAT NEXT???' thing gets to be tiresome.

Stop screaming woe be unto thee, for next they shall ban couches! Oh blasphemers, such horror! This is the end! The end I say!

That's what half of this topic sounds like.

You know damn well they are banning things because they have lawyers that say, 'Yeaaaaaaah.... you're going to lose more if you do it this way because x of your residents reside in y and z just passed and/or is passing this law. It would be better to remove the problem, rather than the residents.'

 

And the people fighting to keep gacha as though it is what makes up the community and not the actual residents? Please. It's not an entity. It is a sales method. They have other ways to sell things to you. It will be replaced. Same as everything is. If you want to buy things via a fun little game, go make one. Many have existed over the years, many more are going to come.

 

"How will x make money now?" --The same as they always have, by selling items in various ways. Did everyone forget that while gacha has existed, that regular sales did too?

"I made 5% of my sales on gacha, what now?!" --You make 5% more in your regular sales. Congrats, you just effectively didn't lose money. If anything, you might even make more because not everyone likes gacha. But zero people have a reason to not buy things normally if they want it.

"Ermahgerd a fatpack costs so much what will I do in the future if I just want one?!" The same thing you're doing right now. Buying the one you want. Regular sales still exist. And in terms of gacha? The difference is instead of giving some random person the money for that one specific item you want (which is not playing gacha anyways), you'll be giving the cost to the creator. Why are so many people arguing AGAINST giving the actual creators money? Because you can't rip them off through a third party anymore? How nice. Half of you don't play the machines. You use regular sales to obtain items. Guess what? That isn't changing. Enjoy.

 

Current gacha going into fatpacks has nothing to do with the future of items coming out. Current gacha fatpacks are to make old content still readily available for people who might want it one day. If there is something you want? You have 1-2 months to go buy your single color. Odds are you don't really want it or you would have acquired it already. You just don't like the idea of never being able to have it after this change.

 

The other half of this topic is a bunch of people beating dead horses with sticks.

You can sell your no-copy items still, once they leave the gacha machine they aren't gacha anymore. They already gotcha. Just show someone what it is and you can sell it to them. Now you're just someone holding a no-copy item and trying to convince people it's a shiny stone, far shinier than any stone they already have of other colors, so buy your stone please so you can be rich to acquire even more shiny stones

 

Consider this a push for new innovation and revel in the delight of seeing the end of a time and the beginning of a new era.

And this is coming from someone who has been playing gacha heavily since 2011. Previous owner of many yard sales and events. And I have one of the largest collections out there. Since for some reason that makes me more qualified to talk about gacha ending, if I actually participated. So there you go.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Ellith Blackwood

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

The new policy does not suddenly make it alright to break that rule.
It would make the millions(?) of gacha items out there worthless.

I'm not a Gacha creator or a Gacha collector, so my opinion matters little on the issue.  I have heard both sides of the issue argued here and I can fully understand both sides.  

I hear more people saying they want a way to still get the gachas, even if they are sold as regular store items.  I've heard very few argue the other side of it -- at least here in the forums.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, ARD1994 said:

This is the limit that you can buy from them fronte the lindex exchange but if u Want to buy normally there is not limit.

Please explain further the part that I bolded.  You can ONLY buy L$ via the LindeX -- legally at least.  Buying them any other way can get you banned from SL forever.  
IGNORE THE ABOVE - It was clarified in further posts.

 

1 hour ago, ARD1994 said:

second the LEGAL reason is that Lootboxes are illegal since years and they wake up right now? 

The LEGAL reason is that their LAWYERS told them to ban Gachas.  If my lawyer tells me that if I continue to do X, I might have to pay tons of fines or even possibly get shut down, I'm going to stop doing X.

Basically it boils down to Gachas initially being questionable, then they were equated to Lootboxes and were banned in some areas, then they were banned in some more areas.  As the number of banned locations grows and the outlook of them being banned in more locations, it makes very good business sense to no longer allow them.  Legal fines and court fees would cost far, far more than pissing off and losing a few customers.

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, ARD1994 said:

When u want to buy linden u have 2 options the first is to buy normally but you will have less lindens and the second one is from the exchange where u can buy lindens (Like for selling) at different quote and Maybe u have to wait a bit and the limits are just for the second option

Both of those are buying from the LindeX and your 24-hour and monthly limits most definitely do still apply to BOTH options.

 

ETA:  After reading other posts, I realized that you are thinking that the LIMIT BUY is where the limits come it.  Totally wrong.  A "limit buy" and your "Billing/Trading limits" are two different things entirely and your "Billing/Trading Limits" apply to every L$ purchase you make regardless of type of purchase - whether or not it is a LIMIT BUY purchase.

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[Sammy Huntsman]

On 8/3/2021 at 8:06 PM, ShanaMoon2014 said:

ok, I understand if there are 100 people, there will be 100 different opinions, but my opinion is that the ban of gacha is the most wrong thing that I saw in SL

It is not an opinion that it is gambling, it is a fact. People have been telling you that multiple times. 

[Finite]

9 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

It is not an opinion that it is gambling, it is a fact. People have been telling you that multiple times. 

And an equal number have disagreed. They are both opinions and not fact at all. Keeping in mind we are speaking of SL's variation of gacha and not the video game gacha that's banned in multiple countries for targeting children. Last I checked SL isn't a kid's game. Some countries of which where gacha is banned allow gambling.

So even if it is actually gambling and there's a legal sense that it is (currently there is no legal sense in the US on GACHA) then what's the big issue? It's not illegal in the US. More and more states are legalizing it. My state just opened a couple casinos over the past few years.

In the end it doesn't matter. It'll be gone in 30-60days and that will be that. Bashing people for having a differing opinion is unnecessary and not very productive in any sense.

I don't think the legality of it is what's at issue here, it's SL's willingness to regulate it if/when it does become illegal in CA. And that's their prerogative of how to handle it. And I'm fine with that and fine with people having opinions about it.

[Monstaar Mama]

I'd like to weigh in on this a bit now that people seem to be calming down. I've been following the thread and seeing a mix of jubilation and doomsday predictions and I do have to say I suspect the real outcome will lie somewhere in between. It will likely take Second Life's economy awhile to truly recover from this. I feel endless remorse for the creators who made their livelihoods partially or entirely dependent on Gacha. They weren't doing anything wrong. As someone who came to SL completely lost and truly found herself here, I reckon most of them are simply doing what they can to monetize what they love to do. Just like the rest of us fortunate enough to become creators in SL. It is going to take awhile for things to feel like they're ok again. But that is in and of itself okay. Second Life will survive.

I would also like to state that I think it is apparent that the Lindens did NOT want to have to ban Gacha. They did it to protect their business, which also means protecting this community. Being in charge of something means that sometimes you have to make choices that are hard. Choices that might hurt in the short term while ensuring stability in the long term. Gacha brought a LOT of money into SL. There is a reason many creators focused on them entirely. Gacha are extremely lucrative. They are designed to trigger the very same impulses that more dangerous games of chance like gambling do. But it is that exactly which puts them in a grey area. And unfortunately for us, countries around the world are beginning to equate them to gambling and outlaw them. My point is, LL probably stands to lose a bit on this decision as well. Profits for this year may stagnate or go down, despite people insisting that they'll get a boost from MP sales. I assure you they probably made a lot more from Linden purchases around The Epiphany/The Arcade time. Charity donations from events that support Veterans and RFL depended heavily on gacha sales and stand to also lose a lot. But I believe it is what LL had to do.

It may not be fun, it may not be popular. But it is definitely smart to head off potential lawsuits by banning something that doesn't look like it has much of a future in games.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Monstaar
clarity

[bigmoe Whitfield]

10 minutes ago, Finite said:

And an equal number have disagreed. They are both opinions and not fact at all. Keeping in mind we are speaking of SL's variation of gacha and not the video game gacha that's banned in multiple countries for targeting children. Last I checked SL isn't a kid's game. Some countries of which where gacha is banned allow gambling.

So even if it is actually gambling and there's a legal sense that it is (currently there is no legal sense in the US on GACHA) then what's the big issue? It's not illegal in the US. More and more states are legalizing it. My state just opened a couple casinos over the past few years.

In the end it doesn't matter. It'll be gone in 30-60days and that will be that. Bashing people for having a differing opinion is unnecessary and not very productive in any sense.

I don't think the legality of it is what's at issue here, it's SL's willingness to regulate it if/when it does become illegal in CA. And that's their prerogative of how to handle it. And I'm fine with that and fine with people having opinions about it.

Legality of it is,  LL wants to continue operating in more than just the USA,  they have to abide by the rules of other places too when it comes to these such items.  saying "NA" will cause way to many issues for the lab,  the lab is within their rights to do just what they have done.

[Monstaar Mama]

18 minutes ago, Finite said:

So even if it is actually gambling and there's a legal sense that it is (currently there is no legal sense in the US on GACHA) then what's the big issue? It's not illegal in the US. More and more states are legalizing it. My state just opened a couple casinos over the past few years.

You're not wrong. It's just that SL, while based in the US, has a substantial portion of it's population in other countries. And if it wants to continue to provide services to residents there it needs to be in compliance with certain core regulations. Plus they are not wrong that the regulatory climate even HERE is starting to get tense. It genuinely sucks, I agree with you 100%. But I don't think they're making the wrong decision.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

9 hours ago, kali Wylder said:

Is Gacha gambling? Yes.  Is gambling illegal in the US of A where Linden Labs is based? Yes. Does it matter who or how many people want Gacha to continue? No.

I need to touch on this statement.. Gambling is NOT illegal in the USA. Only two states have banned gambling, Utah and Hawaii. 

[simplemint]

2 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

With a limited release you decide ahead of time how many copies can possibly exist.
If noone wants it, all the possible copies will not be created.
But, if it turns out to be something people want, all the possible copies do get created, and then that's it, no more ? why do that ?
 

I've seen a fair amount of creators do limited releases of items. There's a certain air of exclusivity to it kind of like the rare/super-rare items from gacha. People get to be 1 of however many people in SL who have an item. People might also get a bit of a rush from snagging an item in time and getting to purchase something before the limited copies run out. For people who roleplay it also adds a bit of realism.

I've seen it with creators making luxury-style items like handbags, but I've also seen it at a few events too. Creators might offer an event-exclusive item or a special price to the first however many people who purchase the item as a way of driving interest and traffic. There's also the roleplay system BeYou, where people can sell the food they've harvested and cooked to other users. Quantities available to shoppers are limited, just like real life. 

It could be an interesting avenue for creators who are interested in adding some exclusivity and randomness to their items. Maybe creators can rotate in items from a set on a random schedule for a limited-time only, or for a limited quantity only. That'd still be allowable under the new rules. 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

I have noticed in all the links posted about the legality of lootboxes and gachas that they all talk about online games. How lootboxes offer a random chance to purchase an item that will give you an edge over other players or make the game easier to beat. Seeing as SL isnt a game and gachas give ZERO advantage or edge, why is this even a problem?

"ITS GAMBLIIING AND EVILLL!!" Is it though? You get an item with every pay.

An item is only rare if the creator sets it as such. What if the rare item isnt what i want? I dont want the purple cape house.. I want the sofa. And as for the pirce jack up on the MP, if people werent willing to pay that much for an item, it wouldnt sell. Just because joebob resident says the "rare" item is worth $5000L doesnt mean its actually worth that much. 

[Monstaar Mama]

4 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

I have noticed in all the links posted about the legality of lootboxes and gachas that they all talk about online games. How lootboxes offer a random chance to purchase an item that will give you an edge over other players or make the game easier to beat. Seeing as SL isnt a game and gachas give ZERO advantage or edge, why is this even a problem?

"ITS GAMBLIIING AND EVILLL!!" Is it though? You get an item with every pay.

An item is only rare if the creator sets it as such. What if the rare item isnt what i want? I dont want the purple cape house.. I want the sofa. And as for the pirce jack up on the MP, if people werent willing to pay that much for an item, it wouldnt sell. Just because joebob resident says the "rare" item is worth $5000L doesnt mean its actually worth that much. 

That's all true. But I think the laws don't care. "It's GAMBLING AND THUS EVILLL" is right. And LL's lawyers be like "Yeah no you don't want anything to do with that".

But really, Second Life is at it's core a dress up game, lets be real. And you can't say that some of the best, most fanciest/fluffiest/cutest stuff on the grid wasn't those flashy rares in the more popular clothing gachas. That is in a sense an "edge", yeah?

[Finite]

12 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

I have noticed in all the links posted about the legality of lootboxes and gachas that they all talk about online games. How lootboxes offer a random chance to purchase an item that will give you an edge over other players or make the game easier to beat. Seeing as SL isnt a game and gachas give ZERO advantage or edge, why is this even a problem?

"ITS GAMBLIIING AND EVILLL!!" Is it though? You get an item with every pay.

An item is only rare if the creator sets it as such. What if the rare item isnt what i want? I dont want the purple cape house.. I want the sofa. And as for the pirce jack up on the MP, if people werent willing to pay that much for an item, it wouldnt sell. Just because joebob resident says the "rare" item is worth $5000L doesnt mean its actually worth that much. 

HA that reminds me of a gacha I was playing last year. I just wanted black gloves which were supposedly common. I ended up getting 3 rares before the gloves dropped...

All for a funny picture.

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Finite

[Pussycat Catnap]

22 hours ago, Finite said:

So now gacha players are being compared to junkies and crackheads?

So I used an over stated example but yes - addiction is addiction. And gambling addiction is a very [real] problem. The gatcha system is a system designed to prey on that very form of addiction - be it an out of control issue or just an over borne impulse.

Considering that the person I was responding to was exactly trying to blame the addict, I felt it fair game to make that analogy to show what kind of light they were attempting to shine. They were trying to blame the person who is having trouble controlling an impulse - and that's just not right, whether we're talking about hardcore addicts or just minor addictions. The blame always belongs on the people feeding that addiction and trying to make it worse.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Pussycat Catnap

[Perrie Juran]

46 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

I need to touch on this statement.. Gambling is NOT illegal in the USA. Only two states have banned gambling, Utah and Hawaii. 

But it is regulated and some forms of gambling are not legal in every state.  Take for instance Kentucky:

https://www.gamblingonline.com/laws/kentucky/

Or Tennessee:

https://www.gambling.com/us/tennessee

Your mileage will vary by state.

 

ETA:  Because of the laws in my state I can't access the gaming Sims.  Though I really have no desire to do so.

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Perrie Juran

[Finite]

2 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

So I used an over stated example but yes - addiction is addiction. And gambling addiction is a very problem. The gatcha system is a system designed to prey on that very form of addiction - be it an out of control issue or just an over borne impulse.

 

KK I get you and in hindsight from reading your post again I got the sense what you said was in jest anyways. And my response likely had a bit more temperature than your comment did. I've been around junkies, I don't like junkies and don't ever want to be compared to one. I spend 15-20 dollars on gacha, addicted gamblers spend their bank accounts, life savings, cars and whatever credit they may have. I don't see anything remotely close to that in SL gacha. So I think "overstated example" is ironically a bit of an understatement.

 That being said. Let's say I concede that gacha is gambling then what is the issue? It's not illegal in the States. It's not even illegal in a few of the countries where GACHA is illegal. Keeping in mind that the reason they are illegal is not because it is gambling it is because it simulates gambling on video games played by children. SL isn't a kids game. People act like kids and dress like kids but as far as I know SL is not marketed toward children and I honestly hope that it isn't. I've been playing for awhile and wouldn't want my kids to see what I've seen in here. And to be completely honest if I absolutely had to decide between letting my kids play SL or play gacha on some pay to win game, I would let them play gacha on the pay to win game.

[Polenth Yue]

3 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

It is not "some of the gacha events", it is the intrinsic characteristic of a gacha item, the understanding that it will never be made available for sale directly by the creator in Second Life.

The new policy does not suddenly make it alright to break that rule.
It would make the millions(?) of gacha items out there worthless.

They won't be worthless. They'll still be worth whatever price you set. So set the rares and ultrarares at a higher price and resellers can continue to sell their ones for more than the pull price.

Though even if you did make them worthless, I've seen people today giving away their gacha prizes or making them extremely cheap, and I didn't see anyone complain about that. Where I've seen creators asking people if they should sell the gacha things or just delete/retire them, the answers were overwhelmingly in support for continuing to sell them the regular way. This pressure to never sell any way other than gacha is one you're putting on yourself, not one that's coming from the majority of customers.