Gachas to be banned in Second Life

[Adeon Writer]

So the Gacha people already have a gameplan.

Linden's rule is that you must 100% know what you are going to get at the time of purchase. You can't ever hope for one thing and actually end up buying another.

..So the Gacha people are simply going to make the devices tell you what they're about to give you for their next purchace. They still have rarity and all that, so of course no one's going to leave it on a good item: You have to go to a Gacha and think if you want to pay to have it roll and buy it and the thing you want if it shows up.

At the end of the day, it changes almost nothing.

Linden hasn't commented on it yet, but I've specifically asked Patch Linden for his input on if this loophole is going to be permitted.

 

[Gear]

This sounds like something going against the spirit of the regulations LL is trying to get out in front of.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

So the Gacha people already have a gameplan.

Linden's rule is that you must 100% know what you are going to get at the time of purchase. You can't ever hope for one thing and actually end up buying another.

..So the Gacha people are simply going to make the devices tell you what they're about to give you for their next purchace. They still have rarity and all that, so of course no one's going to leave it on a good item: You have to go to a Gacha and think if you want to pay to have it roll and buy it and the thing you want if it shows up.

At the end of the day, it changes almost nothing.

Linden hasn't commented on it yet, but I've specifically asked Patch Linden for his input on if this loophole is going to be permitted.

The sniping is gonna be hilarious.

Paying people to camp and snipe even more so.

 

[Adeon Writer]

I assume after buying it you'd be locked in as the exclusive buyer for a period of time. Not too long, to pressure you into an impulse buy.

This sounds like something going against the spirit of the regulations LL is trying to get out in front of.

Pretty much my words exactly! That's why I reached out to Patch to see if he'd be willing to stomp it out before it gets going.

 

[Essence Lumin]

So the Gacha people already have a gameplan.

Linden's rule is that you must 100% know what you are going to get at the time of purchase. You can't ever hope for one thing and actually end up buying another.

..So the Gacha people are simply going to make the devices tell you what they're about to give you for their next purchace. They still have rarity and all that, so of course no one's going to leave it on a good item: You have to go to a Gacha and think if you want to pay to have it roll and buy it and the thing you want if it shows up.

At the end of the day, it changes almost nothing.

Linden hasn't commented on it yet, but I've specifically asked Patch Linden for his input on if this loophole is going to be permitted.

Let's say I modified a real world Las Vegas style slot machine so it will always show the next payout. I don't think it would be much of a deterrent to gamblers knowing they were going to get nothing on the next spin. I also think the state lottery commission will take a dim view of the idea of my claim that I'm always showing what I'm selling so it isn't gambling.

 

[Faithless Babii]

Oh yay! I used to love gacha machines back when they were priced at FUN prices - no rares and just colour changes. Nowadays its all-about-the-win - bring back FUN !

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

A long overdue and welcome change, because gachas seriously hurt the in world economy as well as SL's public image.

Gachas are way too near to gambling, and while every single slot machine in Nevada is regulated harshly, gachas were not. The merchants are abusing them just the way they want to, and too many people are having fun with it. Too much was stuff was primarily developed for gachas only, and not pushed into normal sales channels any longer.

Gachas were an easy cash grab for good as well lazy designers. Good riddance, great job Linden Lab!

It's going to hurt land rentals, of course, since resellers are quite renting some space for their stuff. But SL will surely adapt, as always.

 

[Fionalein]

So the Gacha people already have a gameplan.

Linden's rule is that you must 100% know what you are going to get at the time of purchase. You can't ever hope for one thing and actually end up buying another.

..So the Gacha people are simply going to make the devices tell you what they're about to give you for their next purchace. They still have rarity and all that, so of course no one's going to leave it on a good item: You have to go to a Gacha and think if you want to pay to have it roll and buy it and the thing you want if it shows up.

At the end of the day, it changes almost nothing.

Linden hasn't commented on it yet, but I've specifically asked Patch Linden for his input on if this loophole is going to be permitted.

That's simply fraud then. I wouldn't shy back to report such a vendour for it if it switched before my payment got registered and I didn't get what I payed for. Those idiots are so focused on saving their gambling machines they didn't think of the consequences.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

So, I'm kind of mixed, but...

I'm tempted to try and write up a code that will -give- one random no-trans/copy/mod item as a sample, once a day. Or you can buy the whole set. or maybe once a week.

To be fair, while we're looking at how it affects the SL community here, the real reason it has been cracked down on is actual lootboxes.

 

[Ashiri]

I saw that they brought up sodomy laws, not sure why. They seem to be rather butt hurt about them.

Didn't get to that point. Had to stop before the crazy affected my well-being.

 

[Tiffy Vella]

To be fair, while we're looking at how it affects the SL community here, the real reason it has been cracked down on is actual lootboxes.

If this is true, then LL is making smalltime SL creators pay for what the larger gaming companies are doing to lure players (who are already paying to play) into making more ingame unplanned purchases. I hate lootboxes, and sneer at ESO's crown crate system, where I have seen players blow hundreds of rl dollars for total and idiotic random tat. Jimquisition has a point in his wonderfully ranty rant, but the people he is poking his ire at are certainly not Second Life creators who sell via gacha.

I will be really surprised if I see the removal of the lootbox system put in place by major gaming companies. But I will be happy to be surprised, for sure

(The rest of this is general floofery and not to your comment, Aribeth )

Disclaimer: after 13 years of SL creation, I have exactly 13 gachas in my store plus one at a current event, and have occasionally at times enjoyed buying from gachas. They can be fun to design for, and I see them as a chance to be a little more lighthearted. I don't hate them (much), and have enjoyed visiting the Arcade and seeing what's there. Most times, I've chosen to not buy from them after looking at what's on offer and calculating the odds. There are different styles of selling via gacha, and some are fairer to the customer than others. I looked at mine today, and decided what to do with each. A couple can be retired or go into lucky chairs. A couple represent considerable work and will be repackaged as full sets. A couple can be scripted to be the fatpacks that perhaps some customers prefer. It's all fine. No biggie.

I do pity merchants who have built their business model on them, and who may have many, and I think LL ought to have given more notice for them. It is a LOT of work redoing vendor textures, and updating everything to other styles of vendors. I see people in that other forum saying oh it's no big deal to swap over but bloody hell it is if you have more than a dozen or so and want to do it properly. The style and aspect ratio of gacha textures to others is very different, and needs a total redo.

It's a bit awful seeing the sneering tone from some people over this. Buy or sell via gacha, or don't. It is not everybody's thing and that is totally fine. I have no interest in rl scratchies or lotto, or 80% of SL gachas but don't have any desire to limit others' enjoyment. I get why LL is doing this, and we will all roll with it like we have with every other change, or not.

I have every confidence that next week, the next thing to amuse and annoy people will appear over the horizon and we will all forget gachas were ever a thing.

Peace out.

 

[Tirellia]

I've already seen people discussing potential 'legal workarounds' so they can continue flogging gachas. The most talked about seems to be selling batches of tokens to spend in the machines. Telling them that L$ are already tokens doesn't seem to work. I think some people are just determined to fight LL.

The people who just sell fun stuff in gachas at a reasonable price are going to adapt instantly and do just fine. The predatory gacha creators will suffer in the short term. Then they will either adapt or disappear.

 

[Fionalein]

I've already seen people discussing potential 'legal workarounds' so they can continue flogging gachas. The most talked about seems to be selling batches of tokens to spend in the machines. Telling them that L$ are already tokens doesn't seem to work. I think some people are just determined to fight LL.

The people who just sell fun stuff in gachas at a reasonable price are going to adapt instantly and do just fine. The predatory gacha creators will suffer in the short term. Then they will either adapt or disappear.

If the Feds are behind this I doubt dodging the regulations is a good idea. LL will just go "Oh we already told them not to, here have their user data, enjoy!"

 

[Noodles]

Let's say I modified a real world Las Vegas style slot machine so it will always show the next payout. I don't think it would be much of a deterrent to gamblers knowing they were going to get nothing on the next spin. I also think the state lottery commission will take a dim view of the idea of my claim that I'm always showing what I'm selling so it isn't gambling.

I think the biggest difference is that anyone can play that slot machine assuming they are standing nearby.

So you get one person hoping for a big pay out, taking those low pay outs, surrounded by vultures. Then as soon as the machine says "Million dollar pay out", they all jump on the wagon.

This system will only ever be fair if there is even a slow 10 second moment where the only person it will accept payment from is the last person who paid in.

 

[Fionalein]

Didn't get to that point. Had to stop before the crazy affected my well-being.

yeah I made it through all 49 pages, not sure I'll keep up, much crazy in there

 

[Free]

I saw that they brought up sodomy laws, not sure why. They seem to be rather butt hurt about them.

I would have eggplanted this, but not everyone will catch the punny in your comment.

 

[Fionalein]

... and the official thread got temp locked due to unwillingness of LL employees to do their job in moderating ROFL

 

[Pip]

LOL, I am sure there will several people trying to skirt Gacha, and mobs of people mass reporting what ever they come up with, should be entertaining

 

[Caete]

I find it amusing how many are complaining about not having enough time. You were the one who decided to have 30 items per machine. You have to take new pics and pay for uploads? Almost like there's a cost for doing business! The shoe merchants tend to have 12-24 colours and a vendor for each colour for each style.

Not enough prims to handle the vendors. Cheap excuse. Plenty of multi panel mesh vendors are out there that have minimal LI. Has been for years. Or maybe you can pick up some of your 125 roaming pets, or replace some of the full bright full glow particle emitting trees, or the clusterfuck of clutter on the floors/in the air "theming".

I'm going to lose money. Maybe. If your business model requires every person to do 10-20 pulls before they get the rare, you may have to rethink it. Not everyone is after the rare or sometimes gets it on the first pull! Here's a quick price guide for piece selling. You were content with 75L per sale, so put the common items out at 75L each. You have uncommons as well? 150L. Rares? 750L. A lot of your sales were to resellers who charged 2x the pull price for a common and 20x or mor for a rare. Yes, you may not have the sheer volume of sales but you may have the same amount of profit as you now get rare sale money directly instead of just th pull price.

Permission changes. That's up to you. There have been merchants selling both a no copy/trans and a copy/no trans version of their items for years. You can as well! Stick with normal gacha perms at regular price and 2x the price for copy/no trans.

If you applied as much effort and time as you do complaining about and trying to figure out a way to circumvent the change to actually becoming compliant with it, you'd be almost done by now.

In fact I went to a gacha creator's shop last night and they already had started with breaking up the parts into new vendors.

You have 28 days until the machines have to go but you can take as much time as you need to break up the items into new machines. No where is it stated that the items HAVE to be for sale in new vendors by Sept 1st, only that gacha machines have to be taken down on Sept 1st. Prioritize your conversions.

 

[Fionalein]

LOL, I am sure there will several people trying to skirt Gacha, and mobs of people mass reporting what ever they come up with, should be entertaining

Or frustrating, I often get the impression that "time on the governance team" is the LL penalty for being late for a team meeting. Whatever the real reason, their decissions are illogical and inconsistant at best. Want to get rid of something? Keep reporting it, even after initial failure to get it removed there's a good chance one day you'll be successful. Only LL could think this fair and safe against abuse.