Survey: Will Ending Second Life Gachas Hugely Impact SL’s Economy?

August 5, 2021

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Now that we know that come month's end, gachas gotta get gone, please take this survey asking how their removal will impact the Second Life economy. While Linden Lab releases few economic/user stats to the public, we can track sim ownership and concurrency rates via third party data sites like Grid Survey.

Hence the survey questions above. Since SL gachas are extremely popular and lucrative, we may see the pang of their loss in a decrease of sims and concurrency.

… and then again, we may not. For instance, when Second Life casinos and other forms of explicit gambling were banned in 2007, many predicted it spelled the end of Second Life. But, as Grid Survey's Tyche Shepherd points out, that was not the case:

"We didn't see that when the gambling rules came into play and i wouldnt expect any significant impact this time round," Tyche tells me. "Personally, while I’ve only tended to buy from gachas during charity events, I think it is a great shame and a lot of great content creators are going to take a hit . But we’ve seen crackdowns on various aspects of the [SL] economy over the years from advertising to gambling and the community adapts."

Then again, this time may different — take the survey and let's see how the Wisdom of Crowds fares against Tyche's stats in Septembers and October.

Posted in Economics of SL, Survey

8 responses to “Survey: Will Ending Second Life Gachas Hugely Impact SL’s Economy?”

Adeon Writer

August 5, 2021

No. A near-identical replacement in all but name is going to pop up without even missing a major monthly event.
Of course, it will be completely legal and not-at-all related to gacha in any way. And insinuating such will be against community standards, thank you very much.

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Yoofaloof Pacer

August 5, 2021

My sim owner where my store is located has said she is leaving from the end of August and the sim will be no more primarily because she dealt in gachas. Such a shame that it has come to this for some residents.
There may be ‘no significant impact’ but then the fun is slowly and surely being throttled, I know it’s all to do with legislation but blah, blah, blah. I still miss the days of winning the odd L$ on a fruit machine and the chance of a windfall in the lottery.
I know some hated the gachas and would prefer to see the back of them but these folk would have never played anyway them so I don’t know why they are so vicious.
I didn’t play them that much myself but I loved to take a look at them and the creativity involved.
RIP Gacha.

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Adeon Writer

August 5, 2021

The commonly held concept that SL could not survive without it’s Sex and Gambling is pretty telling.

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camilia fid3lis nee Patchouli Woollahra

August 6, 2021

The loss of sims as a result of gacha being taken away from the allowed sales methods will depend to some extent on how much space a sim has dedicated to gacha sales or resales. Once the gacha machines are totally gone, the supply of resale gacha will become actually finite as no further new gachas go onto the shelves. Once the gacha are gone, the sims that specialise heavily in this stuff will have to pivot to other uses or go the same way as Ozimal bunny resale fairs.
if simowners are to keep their holdings sustainable post-gacha, perhaps they should consider sponsoring up-and-coming content creators or working on new sale fairs or other niches. There is always a demand for something unusual, and people need to look for these demands to fill.

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et

August 6, 2021

A “loss” doesn’t neccessarily equate “loss” but for some will only be a “absence of”. It totally depends on the sim-owner or store-owner’s business model. For some, their sole sl income is from gachas, for the smarter folks it isn’t.

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Rin

August 6, 2021

I guess it depends. So far I am yet to meet anyone who would not celebrate or at least like the idea that gatchas will vanish and stop cluttering up the marketplace.
Of course that is only a small sample and not representative as we do like to surround ourselves with like minded people but from what I have also seen when things like that got mentioned in larger group, I think the amount of people being happy might be rather big.
But only time will tell.

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Fionalein

August 8, 2021

Gacha were not banned, LL just re-allowed them if they add an extra predatory step. LL also asks us to not use the term gacha for the new conveyor-gachas anymore. I for myself will do them the favour and comply. From now on I shall refer to them by their common name: “Lootboxes”.

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Colleen

September 8, 2021

I just found the gachas incredibly creative and fun. Shame to see them go, and will miss the extraordinary talent of the creators: Each collection of gachas was/is amazing and gave each artist a nice “mini exhibit” of their skills and talents.

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