Late last month, Vaki, a longtime Second Life user who is also a real life attorney that's represented several SL users on legal questions, told New World Notes to expect a crackdown on SL-based gachas:
"Realistically," as Vaki puts it to me, "the likely scenario — if there is ever a crackdown — is that pressure will be put on Linden Lab to get its platform cleaned up, and Linden Lab will then put pressure on creators, exactly like it did with 'skill-based games' (in-world gambling) five years ago."… In fact, Vaki adds, "I would suspect that there already is pressure, particularly as the US keeps talking about loot box legislation."
Vaki's forecast just came true, with Linden Lab announcing today that gachas would soon be banned from Second Life:
Due to a changing regulatory climate, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to sunset a very popular sales mechanism for content in Second Life. It’s widely known as "gacha", and is defined by a chance-based outcome as a result of a payment. 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 don't think Linden Lab's post was actually very good at explaining what people can't do," Vaki tells me today, after reading the announcement. "You're going to have a ton of people trying to find the boundaries of this decision…"
Fortunately, Vaki has a long thread on Plurk explaining more about the legal policies at play:
There's been a lot of debate about lootboxes and gachas on other games, because those are clearly games of chance — you're just clicking on a thing to get your ultra-rare outfit or avatar skin or whatever. And you have to pay to get the gold or gems or whatever in order to buy them: that's a step removed from the of value thing needed to place the bet, but it's close enough, really. But with lootboxes, the thing you get doesn't have an intrinsic value of its own. You can't resell it. Other than selling your account, it's mostly worthless. So… it isn't clearly gambling, and the lootbox debate goes on.
But.
Over here in SL, we have gachas. We spend Lindens on them, which do have an intrinsic value: they are redeemable for cash. They are a game of chance. And on the outcome of the game, they provide something of value — it might be something of very little value, something mostly worthless, but it might be something worth a lot.
So it's been a long time coming, I suppose, but as countries crack down more on lootboxes, gachas, and online gambling, this was kind of bound to happen.
Much more here. And much more from Vaki on this topic, hopefully soon.
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 
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