Linden Lab didn't ban gachas, they banned a mechanic of the gacha

[bigmoe Whitfield]

2 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Technically, gachas are still OK until Wednesday.  From the LL Blog >>> "We know that creators plan their content releases far in advance and will need to re-tool their products, so to mitigate the impact to those affected, we are giving a 30-day grace period, until midnight SLT on August 31 .  After that time, selling content via gacha machines will no longer be permitted in Second Life.  Enforcement won’t start until September 1; after that date an Abuse Report for “Gaming Policy Violation” will be the preferred method of reporting this content to Linden Lab. "

I know of at least one creator that's refusing to remove any of their gacha's "it's legal in my country, the lab has no legal right to move them" is what I've been told.   oh the fun begins.

[Chris Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

No it is not but whatever. I think some are perhaps too focused on the odds of getting the rare rather than the idea that the Conveyor provides a known item for each pull. The not knowing is what defines a Gacha, which is not the case for the conveyor.

There are no rares anymore. You yourself play for what you want. And the odds of getting what you want are exactly what defines a gacha. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what item you’re getting. The removed the wrong mechanic. 

[Lucia Nightfire]

5 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Technically, gachas are still OK until Wednesday.  From the LL Blog >>> "We know that creators plan their content releases far in advance and will need to re-tool their products, so to mitigate the impact to those affected, we are giving a 30-day grace period, until midnight SLT on August 31.  After that time, selling content via gacha machines will no longer be permitted in Second Life.  Enforcement won’t start until September 1; after that date an Abuse Report for “Gaming Policy Violation” will be the preferred method of reporting this content to Linden Lab. "

Event then, it will be finger wagging and wrist slapping from Governance until 2025 when they may start considering bans.

[Jaylinbridges]

5 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Technically, gachas are still OK until Wednesday.  From the LL Blog >>> "We know that creators plan their content releases far in advance and will need to re-tool their products, so to mitigate the impact to those affected, we are giving a 30-day grace period, until midnight SLT on August 31.  After that time, selling content via gacha machines will no longer be permitted in Second Life.  Enforcement won’t start until September 1; after that date an Abuse Report for “Gaming Policy Violation” will be the preferred method of reporting this content to Linden Lab. "

And this was added later:

A:  We are sorry that we are not able to further extend the policy deadline.  However, we have been able to extend the enforcement of the policy change an additional 30 days.  To be clear, starting on September 1 we expect gacha as a sales mechanism to cease. However we will start with warnings, and any enforcement of the policy as it would be applied on an account will not begin until after September 30.

[Finite]

I don't think I would play the miepon game. It doesn't seem very practical. If it's at an event and you're playing it the thing you want finally pops up and someone comes in and snipes it?? Seems like a headache worth avoiding. I saw another game at an event where you are given 3 options of guns to shoot at targets that give random gifts listed similarly to how gachas were listed. Except you have to purchase the gun first. The cheaper gun has the lowest accuracy, middle one has medium accuracy and the expensive one has the most accuracy. These are the things that skirt the gacha rules now lol. I understand people had bad experiences with gacha but seems the alternatives are much worse than what it was before.

Edit: I must say I was at an event today and was very happy to see a usual gacha creator made a full outfit granted without all the other bells and whistles that come in a gacha set for a very reasonable 1299L fatpack price.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Finite

[Quistess Alpha]

The vendors at positive wavelength have an interesting take: Displays one item for purchase at a time, over the course of 10 minutes or so the price drops from 120 to 65. buy the thing or touch it to get 20 seconds of exclusive use (nobody can snipe your thing).

(What's "next" on the "conveyor" is not shown)

[Chic Aeon]

2 hours ago, Finite said:

I understand people had bad experiences with gacha but seems the alternatives are much worse than what it was before.

Edit: I must say I was at an event today and was very happy to see a usual gacha creator made a full outfit granted without all the other bells and whistles that come in a gacha set for a very reasonable 1299L fatpack price.

I had to smile at that first part.  I agree AND what is even more confusing is that all games are not equal rule-wise. So unless folks do their homework they may have no idea that someone can "outbid" them or grab the next number in line if they aren't fast enough to play again.  Messy Messy.   

 

I also saw a couple of "collections" from folks which I assume where made for gacha sales. So I am hoping that trend happens OR some creators just go back to regular releases.   

 

1 hour ago, Quistess Alpha said:

The vendors at positive wavelength have an interesting take: Displays one item for purchase at a time, over the course of 10 minutes or so the price drops from 120 to 65. buy the thing or touch it to get 20 seconds of exclusive use (nobody can snipe your thing).

(What's "next" on the "conveyor" is not shown)

 

I am going to go check that out as I have a blog post on all this coming out soon. So thanks for that info.    

********************

I was wondering if The Arcade was closed now. The sims are still there  but no green dots and nothing on the website.  I thought maybe they might try and change to an alternate non-gacha method, but perhaps not. 

 

Personally I am going to be happy to take my gacha stuff down.  AND if I find something that I want on a conveyor that is UP, I certainly might buy it --- more likely to do that than I was to  play the gachas.  Honestly most of my gacha  play of late was more about "rewarding" the creators for doing a great job. I got a fantastic tent that way last month I think.   It was one of the rares and it is gorgeous. So my good deed had a bonus for me. 

 

It is all very interesting how this is playing out!  For sure. 

 

EDIT: I went to the positive wavelength shop but right now all I could find was the traditional gachas.  Did you see the "new" method somewhere other than their main store?   @Quistess Alpha

Edited August 30, 2021 by Chic Aeon
adding info

[steeljane42]

9 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

I went to the positive wavelength shop but right now all I could find was the traditional gachas.  Did you see the "new" method somewhere other than their main store?   

Check more carefully. Dragon vendors and bear ones both do use new conveyor system. You get what is displayed on the picture, next roll is random. And it does lock vendor to the user for 30s to avoid sniping rare items.

[Quistess Alpha]

26 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

EDIT: I went to the positive wavelength shop but right now all I could find was the traditional gachas.  Did you see the "new" method somewhere other than their main store?   @Quistess Alpha

Funny running into you there in-word. it seems forum people do actually exist XD.

 

 

[Finite]

Yeesh that store is awesome. 

Lol was about to leave and decided to check one more thing and this happened...

[16:22] Second Life: [ Pebbles the Golem - by Positive Wavelength ] owned by Nadi Vemo gave you 'Pebbles the Golem - VOUCHER - ultra rare 28'

Edited August 30, 2021 by Finite

[Prokofy Neva]

23 hours ago, Chris Nova said:

I know. But people are saying gacha is dead when it’s really not. LL said they killed gachas when they didn’t. It’s still a game of chance. All they literally did was ban the mechanic that didn’t allow buyers to see what they were buying. I’ve tested one and it’s still a gacha. Functions exactly like a gacha except for the obvious part that we can see what we are buying now. 

They couldn't ban random sales without banning all sales activity, because a merchant decides randomly what they will put out for sale, say, at a 60L Happy Weekend or a 50L Friday. It's not randomness that can be at issue. It's blind sales. That is all. All of a Second Life is a game of chance, when you come down to it, as real life is.

[Quistess Alpha]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

They couldn't ban random sales without banning all sales activity, because a merchant decides randomly what they will put out for sale, say, at a 60L Happy Weekend or a 50L Friday.

If I buy from a normal vendor, they don't switch what is being sold after every purchase.

Personally I think conveyors fall under LL's definition of gacha:

Quote

 It’s widely known as "gacha", and is defined by a chance-based outcome as a result of a payment.  

but apparently LL wants to enforce their policy as loosely as possible.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

32 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

If I buy from a normal vendor, they don't switch what is being sold after every purchase.

Personally I think conveyors fall under LL's definition of gacha:

but apparently LL wants to enforce their policy as loosely as possible.

 

LL cooked up this whole "regulatory climate" stuff in the first place, in the total absence of a single court case in California ruling against lootboxes, or for that matter, SL gatchas, in a court of law.(in fact Google and Apple beat their lootbox lawsuits in California) -- and the absence of any judicial action around the world in places like Japan *against SL members*. So if they walk back this craziness a little, that's great. However, they threw their best, Harvard-trained lawyer at this issue of gatcha (or he threw *himself* at it), among the new owners, and now conveyor is declared legal. Because there is no pig in a poke.

And once again, you don't know on Friday what a merchant might put out in their Saturday sale, unless they send an "early access message". There's no way the randomness of sales of thing you can see can reasonably be stopped. It's not about what kind of vendor the merchant uses. If they choose this compliant method, good for them, and if they put the items on transfer, so much the better.

 

[Crim Mip]

And while that new system is within the rules, I suspect it's going to fail. Why? Because before, every pull of a gacha gave you a chance, however small, of getting one of the 'good' items. With this or even worse, ones that just show a single item, You know you're going to get junk every time since presumably the instant a good items shows up, the person at the vendor will keep going to get it. If no good items are showing, many will simply walk away. Personally I hope so many do that the creators trying these give up and just sell their items the normal way.

[Teagan Tobias]

17 hours ago, Finite said:

Edit: I must say I was at an event today and was very happy to see a usual gacha creator made a full outfit granted without all the other bells and whistles that come in a gacha set for a very reasonable 1299L fatpack price.

 

Wow, you think that’s a reasonable price. Well prices do keep going up and up, and I had to go look at my ledger and I was right, I have not done my monthly linden purchase since March. I guess now my SL will be more like RL, I’ll spend a lot of time in blue jeans (that I already have), and I don’t have a problem with that. With a 90K inventory i have clothing.

When I shop on the market place I enter a top limit to the price I will spend, and its around 250L or so, so anything higher priced than that I just don’t see. And I don’t do no copy, but still get a lot of no copy in what I do see, that check box does not work very well.

 

 

[Jax Leeder]

Why can't merchants just put things up on sale normally?

What's with the gimmicks and pretend "rarity".

Just make stuff and put it up for sale - if it is good people will buy it. No need for the gimmicks, 

[Arielle Popstar]

27 minutes ago, Jax Leeder said:

Why can't merchants just put things up on sale normally?

What's with the gimmicks and pretend "rarity".

Just make stuff and put it up for sale - if it is good people will buy it. No need for the gimmicks, 

Where is the fun in that? Shopping should be an experience, not just another mundane chore of life. Creators who separate themselves from the herd by offering a different way to shop feed into that need for something different. There are still plenty who do offer you the humdrum and standard fare so no loss to you.

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 hours ago, Teagan Tobias said:

And I don’t do no copy, but still get a lot of no copy in what I do see, that check box does not work very well.

You're checking the wrong box. Tick the "no limited items" box instead and all those gachas will disappear.

[Silent Mistwalker]

45 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Where is the fun in that? Shopping should be an experience, not just another mundane chore of life. Creators who separate themselves from the herd by offering a different way to shop feed into that need for something different. There are still plenty who do offer you the humdrum and standard fare so no loss to you.

Nothing wrong with that as long as the gimmick isn't something that is a rip off in disguise like gachas are. Just don't expect the intelligent people to fall for those gimmicks. We aren't blind.

If a product can't or doesn't sell on its own merits then the product either needs improving or discontinued. That is how a successful business works.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

55 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Where is the fun in that? Shopping should be an experience, not just another mundane chore of life. Creators who separate themselves from the herd by offering a different way to shop feed into that need for something different. There are still plenty who do offer you the humdrum and standard fare so no loss to you.

I asked that in one of the groups and nearly got my head chopped off. She was very ticked off at the Lab for putting the kibosh on the gachas.

[Paul Hexem]

10 hours ago, Quistess Alpha said:

If I buy from a normal vendor, they don't switch what is being sold after every purchase.

Personally I think conveyors fall under LL's definition of gacha:

but apparently LL wants to enforce their policy as loosely as possible.

They wouldn't be enforcing it at all if they weren't afraid of legislation.

This is LL we're talking about. These are the people that think taking a 10% cut on fraud, false advertising, and theft are "resident to resident disputes".

[Teagan Tobias]

38 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

You're checking the wrong box. Tick the "no limited items" box instead and all those gachas will disappear.

 

I always click both boxes, always. And I still see no copy items, but I don't think they are the gacha items, just no copy things, and not a lot of them but still...

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

12 minutes ago, Teagan Tobias said:

 

I always click both boxes, always. And I still see no copy items, but I don't think they are the gacha items, just no copy things, and not a lot of them but still...

 

It always works for me. I never see any no copy items unless a merchant has mislabeled the perms. That's on the merchant, not the search filters.

[Chris Corvinus]

21 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

They couldn't ban random sales without banning all sales activity, because a merchant decides randomly what they will put out for sale, say, at a 60L Happy Weekend or a 50L Friday. It's not randomness that can be at issue. It's blind sales. That is all. All of a Second Life is a game of chance, when you come down to it, as real life is.

Wow. I can't. That is NOT the same as playing a gacha/conveyor. A creator who chooses whatever item to put out at 60L is one single item compared to a meipon conveyor where you keep playing to get whatever item you want sometimes that number doesn't even show on the "conveyor belt". The numbers are all randomized like a gacha. Good grief, where in your head did you think comparing those two was a good idea?

[Arielle Popstar]

36 minutes ago, Chris Nova said:

Wow. I can't. That is NOT the same as playing a gacha/conveyor. A creator who chooses whatever item to put out at 60L is one single item compared to a meipon conveyor where you keep playing to get whatever item you want sometimes that number doesn't even show on the "conveyor belt". The numbers are all randomized like a gacha. Good grief, where in your head did you think comparing those two was a good idea?

I can see the correlation. I was in a hair shop yesterday that is often advertised in the Saturday sales event and saw a hair I really liked but didn't want to pay the price. I know eventually it will be on sale for 75L but just no idea how long before that happens.