A "solution" to the gacha issue(?)-- Buy one, get a bonus free

[LilithServil]

I was thinking about a way gacha creators could still keep their items and the same general system without it being a gambling issue and I've come up with the following.

What about a "buy one get (a random one) free" system? This would mean gacha creators would have to split up their products into different buyables, but let's take this hypothetical situation.

 

A gacha seller previously had a gacha containing small animal decor. Before the gacha ban, you could take the chance at getting 5 different mice, 5 different hamsters, 5 different gerbils, or a rare guinea pig for 25L per spin. Post-gacha ban, they divide their items into separate boards to purchase from each containing the exact items you can purchase DIRECTLY with proper copy/mod/no trans perms.

So for example, you want the white mouse? You can now buy it directly for 100L and get another random (non rare) that's no copy/transfer along with it. Essentially paying twice the price of the previous spin to get 2 items; one what you wanted DIRECTLY to eliminate the gambling chance and one as a bonus item.

To handle rare items (like the hypothetical guinea pig), I feel like they'd have to either be priced highly as standalone items with no bonus item included, or artificially limited in some way-- maybe only letting people buy them at special events? It'd be up to the seller to choose whichever method they'd rather go for.

 

This proposed system eliminates needing to gamble for EXACTLY what you want, but still giving people a random mystery bonus for those who do enjoy that-- plus still letting people trade or resell their bonuses like you can with current gachas.

 

 

Otherwise the only other routes are selling the items individually with NO bonuses, selling fatpacks of the gacha items, or retiring them entirely. As someone who really likes the surprise of getting something random, I wanted to try to find a good middle ground. Thoughts? Is it still considered "gambling" even though you could buy the item you want outright asap?

[Prokofy Neva]

Since I don't think gatchas fall under any existing or putative gambling or lootbox legislation as it is now, I think this is a perfectly fine adaptation. If I sent a random gatcha gift to people who are new renters or renters after X months, that's my personal gift, not a game of chance. It's a merchant's perk. But the zealous Internet lawyers not only on the forums but in LL's office might construe this as still offending this vague "regulatory climate" and they may bar it. Sadly you have them to please and not real courts of law which aren't even after LL as far as we know.

[Theresa Tennyson]

This thread could be useful for suggesting solutions for the various disruptions the change in policy is going to cause:

1) REPACKAGING CURRENT GACHA ITEMS: Could be much less work than it sounds. It should be possible for gacha machines to be rescripted so that instead of giving a random item per "pull", they call up a list of options for getting the exact same items. "Rares" can be set at a higher price. Most gacha machines already have a numeric key; the old machines would just become vendors (and be much less annoying than current multi-panel vendors.) It may well be possible that a script could be written that would largely automate this by reading the old configuration. If the maker doesn't sell on Marketplace then that would create an opening for resellers targeting buyers looking for convenience.

2) THE JOY OF RANDOMNESS: I remember a store that offered the ability to "fish" (for free) for various items in a clothing outfit. Another one had a "lucky dip" bin where you could go once a day to get a random free prize. Both should be allowable because you don't have to pay anything. A randomized (free) hunt might also work. In this case the benefit to the maker would be store traffic.

3) SUPPORTING RESELLERS: To keep the "whales" who are specifically in business to resell happy, makers could sell bundles of multiple no-copy items at bulk wholesale prices - i.e. prices that would be much  too high for someone looking for a single tchochke from the selection, but that would theoretically allow a retailer to make a profit by re-selling the items.

4) RARE AND LIMITED ITEMS: Items can be offered only for a limited time and/or limited in number. Auctions could be used to create value.

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, LilithServil said:

Thoughts? Is it still considered "gambling" even though you could buy the item you want outright asap?

Secretly in you heart of hearts you know that "the item you want to buy outright" is a plywood box, as long as your "bonus" just might turn out to be that rare rainbow unicorn. 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Qie Niangao
typo

[Mollymews]

i agree with Theresa, rather than try to game the ban, is better to come up with other ways of packaging No-Copy + Transfer items so that the reseller market can continue

[Finite]

Some already have a point system. If you don't like the thing you can take the points. I bought a bunch recently just for the points item which was a nice suit. If I remember it was 25 points for the item. I liked the suit so I got it for one of my alts which is male. So I sent him all the commons and sold whatever rares I got and he got a nice suit from exchanging the commons for points. In the end I probably spent about the same as what one would have paid for a suit.

Edited August 3, 2021 by Finite

[Paul Hexem]

Someone will immediately adapt this idea to sell only the crappy thing and put all the good options in the "free random".

It's still violating the spirit of the rule, and it's likely to get you disciplined.

As someone else said, best to consider other options.

[Quistess Alpha]

What about the "conveyor-belt" vendor? it shows what the next item that will be bought is, and then after its bought puts another for sale. If there are 17 items in a set, buying 34 will always get you at least one of everything (because you don't know where the random shuffle point is when you start buying)

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 minute ago, Quistess Alpha said:

What about the "conveyor-belt" vendor? it shows what the next item that will be bought is, and then after its bought puts another for sale. If there are 17 items in a set, buying 34 will always get you at least one of everything (because you don't know where the random shuffle point is when you start buying)

The words random/chance translate to gambling. That's the whole issue. 

If there are only 17 items in the set why in the world are you buying 34 items to complete a 17 item set? If you have to make more than 17 purchases for 17 items, you are gambling on getting what you want.

[Rowan Amore]

Why do we need a solution?  Just sell your stuff like 90% of merchants in SL.  

[LilithServil]

7 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Secretly in you heart of hearts you know that "the item you want to buy outright" is a plywood box, as long as your "bonus" just might turn out to be that rare rainbow unicorn. 

I mean?? Not really? As it is right now if I want the rare I just buy it outright. Besides, in my proposed system the "rares" wouldn't be included in the bonuses anyway, they'd be their own buyable thing for more.

 

58 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Why do we need a solution?  Just sell your stuff like 90% of merchants in SL.  

Because some people like the gacha system? I actually really like the ability to get random trinkets in a mystery box/blind bag kind of style. I just figure that if you include a random item with the item you WANT for the cost of x2 the original price of the specific gacha's spin, then that's the best of both worlds without any kind of issue. It's not gambling and forcing people to keep buying the same item for a chance at getting what they want since they can just outright BUY what they want. They just get a nice no copy/transfer version along with it for the trading/novelty factor of it.

 

2 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

Someone will immediately adapt this idea to sell only the crappy thing and put all the good options in the "free random".

It's still violating the spirit of the rule, and it's likely to get you disciplined.

As someone else said, best to consider other options.

This is unfortunately a possibility, but it's already possible for people to rig gacha machines to have an insanely small chance for rares already, hence the problem. I'd say in this situation that specific instance you mentioned would be reportable as it IS falling back into the gambling issue. So then... just report the sellers who do that specific thing and move on.

[Lydia Amethyst]

I don’t think this is a solution because you are still getting an item at random, and it will be seen that way.

[LilithServil]

1 minute ago, Lydia Amethyst said:

I don’t think this is a solution because you are still getting an item at random, and it will be seen that way.

So weird that you're just... not allowed to get any free/bonus items unrelated to what you're actually purchasing then.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

3 minutes ago, LilithServil said:

So weird that you're just... not allowed to get any free/bonus items unrelated to what you're actually purchasing then.

Have to blame that on the governmental bureaucracies around the planet. The internet is not a wild west as it once was and getting heavily regulated.

[Qie Niangao]

58 minutes ago, LilithServil said:

 Besides, in my proposed system the "rares" wouldn't be included in the bonuses anyway, they'd be their own buyable thing for more.

My comment was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that there's no way to prevent the "bonuses" from becoming everything gacha is now, with the item bought outright being of no value. Proposing it would be otherwise doesn't provide a mechanism to prevent it from happening, and with so many folks seeking loopholes to smuggle gacha back into the tent, it would be sure to happen almost immediately. (Except the Lindens wouldn't accept the idea, realizing this is the inevitable outcome.)

[Lydia Amethyst]

2 hours ago, LilithServil said:

So weird that you're just... not allowed to get any free/bonus items unrelated to what you're actually purchasing then.

I’m not saying I’m against the idea, but because even if you do purchase something that you do know what you’re getting, you are still getting something at random which in turn is a gacha…

[Coffee Pancake]

Buy an "item" get a "random item"

It's a gacha with a big picture of some trash item on it.

 

[Mollymews]

maybe could make simulations of arcade/lobby games. Like coin pushers, clown heads, ball drops, claw hands, slider bumpers, etc

these linds of games don't need any kind of 'random' mechanic to operate.  They might tho fall under the skill games policy

 

 

[Alwin Alcott]

the problem with some "workarounds" i seen in different posts is that it's still related to cacha but just with another appearance.. that doesn't solve things, but makes that only more sorts of it will get hit with the banhammer.

[Quistess Alpha]

5 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

the problem with some "workarounds" i seen in different posts is that it's still related to cacha but just with another appearance.. that doesn't solve things, but makes that only more sorts of it will get hit with the banhammer.

Well, you can't expect something ingenious overnight. The easy&simple "solutions" will be the first and the loudest, and will force LL to more logically consider their policy. ('Accepting payment for unknown item = ban' is too general and has many obvious "workarounds" that probably won't fly, but LL needs to be clearer about why)

Hopefully when the dust settles someone (or some-many) will come up with a gacha alternative (because for all their flaws gachas do meet certain 'needs' for residents.) that LL, Merchants and Consumers can feel comfortable with.

[Ghost Menjou]

Just let this anti-consumerist cancer called gachas die already.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Ghost Menjou

[Da5id Weatherwax]

To all the "bedroll lawyers" looking for ways to "work around" gacha being banned... DON'T.

LL have REAL lawyers on the payroll. They are better at this than you are. The more you try to "sneak around" the rule, violating it in spirit but maybe not in the letter, the more likely a much more draconian edict is to be imposed - not only taking your "workaround" offline but also impacting other merchants who haven't pushed the boundaries as hard as you did.

When the dust settles, its the edgelords pulling this kinda stuff will end up blamed for urinating in the well....

[Nova Convair]

On 8/3/2021 at 8:04 PM, Rowan Amore said:

Why do we need a solution?  Just sell your stuff like 90% of merchants in SL.  

Well, the concept is to sell a pile of garbage that nobody wants but still buys to get the item they want.
That allows you to make money out of garbage.

If you just sell the stuff like everybody else nobody will buy your garbage.
You need to do something that is absolutly unimaginary - you need to make quality stuff - how could ever someone expect you to do this?

So there will be all kind of "solutions" which are still gatchas with some obfuscating elements. I will sit at the line with some popcorn and see how LL knocks that all off the playfield. 😎

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Nova Convair

[Coffee Pancake]

Gacha's weren't  just about the rare, quite often it was more about the theme - decorative matched content is desirable in addition to the house to put it all in.

[Aria Aurelia]

Please just make fatpacks and sell them to people who want to buy them.  Plenty of us will pay 1500 or so for a fatpack of gacha good if you'd just sell it that way.