Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Above: Message that a SL user who logged in from a US state that bans skill games received when they tried to teleport to a sim with skill games

Last chance to take New World Notes' survey on how the end of gachas in Second Life will impact the economy of Second Life (if at all). Meantime, reader Frankie Antonioni had this interesting proposal on how SL gachas might continue:

Here is a solution to the new gacha rule. Allow gacha machines on some islands. If gachas are legal in your country, then you can go to gacha islands. The islands would be set at mature, and you will have to have payment info on file. On these islands, you can have gacha malls. People can rent places at these malls. Creators that are from countries, that don't allow gacha machines, can sell them to people that can go to these islands. It could be a 50/50 type deal. The money made would be split by the creator, and by the person that owns the machines. And the people that play the machines, can resell what they win.

Now granted, if you are from a country that doesn't allow gachas, then you can't visit the gacha islands, and you can't play the machines. But they can go to gacha yard sells, and buy gacha items. They just can't play the machines.

I can't speak to the regulatory issues, but Linden Lab already blocks people who haven't verified that they're adults from entering Adult sims, and even (reportedly, see above) blocks people from US states that ban skill games from entering SL sims tagged as having skill games. So Antonioni's proposal at least seems technically possible?

Then again, practically possible seems like a totally different question. If I'm Googling around correctly, very few counties allow completely unrestricted online gambling, with many or most requiring some kind of local license, for operators; and in the US alone, regulations around online gambling varies widely state by state and even within states, since many Native American jurisdictions have their own regulations that differ from the US state they are located in. So I'm guessing Linden Lab/Tilia would face a morass of paperwork and regulations to create some Gacha Islands that only a fraction of SL users could conceivably visit.