Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Patch Linden Says More About Upcoming Gacha Ban

 

When Linden Lab announced they would be banning gacha machines in Second Life, there was quite an avalanche of responses on the forum thread created for the topic. Some were in support of the ban, some had mixed opinions, and many opposed it, sometimes strongly. Eventually Patch Linden saw the need to step up and offer a little further explanation.

I wanted to address a few themes I'm seeing so far.   

 One of the bigger one's is 'why'?   As we mentioned in the post, the regulatory climate around these sorts of selling mechanisms abroad have been under scrutiny for some time, as many have also already mentioned.  This includes the formation of some precedence already in place.  We did not make this decision without a lot of thought on the impact this has and sadly we know how burdensome this can be for many.  Through legal guidance, we are giving as much notice as we possibly can, but we also understand that it may not be enough is all cases.  While we will begin enforcement on September 1, we will not start this out with an aggressive approach.  Your account will not be at risk on a first offense basis.  Please don't take that as an opportunity to break the rules until you get caught, but we are committed to taking a proactive approach to any enforcement.

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.

I have seen some interesting counter-points to how to handle the sales of the content themselves.  Of course any already purchased gachas will continue to be able to be re-sold by resellers so long as the sales mechanism doesn't use a chance based outcome to give you the item.  Limited quantity items is another that would be perfectly ok to do, so long as the item being represented for purchase is what you receive upon purchase.


Stay tuned for more information as it comes in.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

2 comments:

  1. I was given a 3-day forums ban for starting two other threads narrowly to deal with the issue of forming a list of demands to LL for mitigation of this policy -- two of which were already met, ironically. The other thread was about ideas for merchants to cope in "Merchants". When LL drops a post this controversial with 300 pages, I hardly see opening other threads as "Spam". This will have an unpredictably adverse affect on SL. https://3dblogger.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2021/08/linden-labs-new-gatcha-policy-harms-the-livelihoods-of-poor-people-in-poor-countries-especially-wome.html Prokofy neva

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  2. Finally they do something against that RND greed machines
    Thumbs up

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