So what are we doing with the Island?

I always give someone the benefit of the doubt, so for the time being I welcome whatever creativity they can bring into the world.

I think the SL culture is intelligent and self-regulating enough that any overly blatant commercial representations will be shunned long before it gets out of control.

It would be folly for any business interest (especially one so isolated in location) to not respect the relaxed and whimsical culture of SL.

I don't think there's much reason yet to start building protest signs and pitchforks. =D

This company doesn't scare me.

What DOES scare me is the situation you see with email and usenet spam. Hundreds of small companies and people who decide that spamming is the way to go.

Imagine SL where half of every sim is showing comercial billboards for Viagra, free prescriptions, lottery winning schemes, make money fast... and where it's not ONE company, but a hundred new people signing up every month to ply their little scam or trade.

And don't underestimate the effect... spamming is done because it WORKS. Spammers may get deleted by 99.9% of the people they send to, but enough actually respond and BUY THEIR STUFF that it's worth it to keep doing it.

I hope SL never turns into a mess. I will fight tooth and nail every single add in the normal sims for RL products. It's just TOO easy for somone to pay $10 a month and stick several hundred billboards all over. Ugh!

I agree with your premise Kex.... but the problem with it is that we DO shun such things RL.... and it doesn't help.

Fizik.... I read over your initial post. My first response is 'ok so you're an ad agency.' Please explain to the class how an ad agency using their financial backing to buy an entire sim over the bids of actual players is anything BUT our predictions about commercial sims coming to pass?

For what its worth.. you can BASH me all you want. Simply knowing that a 'company' wanted the island.. and had the financial resources to 'buy' it.. it leaves the average player 'out' of the picture. This is what I feared most and already happened.. I am not in favor of companies budging into 'MY' "GAME" I will not.. repeat not support any innovation from a company and make My GAMING experience a job. I simply refuse. Sure.. I could have 'bid' on the island IF I wanted to.. but take in point.. I really didn't need all that land.. HOWEVER.. someone else might have wanted it too. Not for commercial puposes mind you, but to enjoy SL to its fullest capacity.

I must admit though LL probably needed some kind of funding from outsiders I agree with that, BUT it should NOT interfere with the gaming experience. But alas.. its already happened.

Imagine finding a new game when this^ begins happening.

- Tay

Now that I've heard about the people who won the auction, I'm kind of excited! They seem very level-headed and prepared for what is in store for them. I'll definitely frequent the new Island sim to see what they're cookin' up. Congrats!

> BUT it should NOT interfere with the gaming experience. But alas.. its already happened.

I don't understand. The game is all about commerce. Socializing. And commerce.

What about that do you see changing?

Azelda

Einsman, that also bothered me, and I feel we'll just see it again and again.

Really, if a corp wants to buy a full sim at auction, unless there's a few truly wealthy players, no one can succesfully outbid them. It's not even a hardship, it's all a tax-deductable business expense. I just can't believe there's any way to compete against that, and no one can convince me otherwise.

Sure, it's just one sim now, but what will we have a year down the road?

The main reason Im whole hearted about this situation is.. I wanted to ESCAPE from My RL. This was the perfect opportunity to do so. Now.. if I have to ESCAPE My RL to SL just for another job opportunity, forget it, Im out. There are simply other methods for people to obtain finances, and LL chosen the wrong approach. Sure, The Sims Online had the McD's thingy or whatever, but for the average user to try and compete with a business, forget that too, theres simply no way to do it. Now I feel that SL is increasingly being invaded by My RL.. I feel more obligated to leave it behind. Games are meant to be fun, not a job. I don't CARE HOW you put it. Its a job to do what others ask to do. I came here to do what *I* wanted to do, not others.

The way of 'life' we've enjoyed so far, that's what. Sure, there's commerce, but until 1.2 there was no RL money involved, that wasn't the -point- of the game. Before, we were all about a community more than anything else.

Sorry, but 'community' and 'corporate business' don't go together. It's a fantastic catch-phrase, worthy of any ad campaign to claim that a corp puts community first, but PuhhLeeeze!! Don't expect me to actually -beleive- that too no matter how nice the voice or how big the ultra white capped tooth smile.

I see a huge wave of people entering this world with only one thing on their mind : How much RL money can I make?

If you can't understand that this damages the community we have now, then I can't explain it without writing an essay.

All we need now to completely screw it all up is for the Lindens to begin selling $L for RL$.

p.s. No, this game is NOT all about the commerce, it never was, but unfortunately, attitudes like this may change the world we know.

Everyone is worried for nothing. If it's a RL company, and they aren't doing anything SERIOUSLY SL-ish with it, the problem will be easily ignored, and will eventually go away.

The simple fact remains that if this RL company comes in to SL and plys RL services/items, they won't make enough SL or RL money to keep the island, and we'll see it back on the auction block sometime.

I mean think about it... they just bought an out of the way, isolated sim that no one is going to just 'stumble' across. They'll need attractions and such to bring people in. Beyond the initial "Oo, what're they making?" phase, if nothing interesting exists, people won't visit.

What ALSO people seem to forget.. SL was made for the average 'player' not whole freakin companies. What would you do if you had no land to go, nothing to do but just sit and chat, because the company interests have gobbled up all the land and instead used it for their own?.. Mature land is desperately hard to come by, and why would a company NEED a mature island to do their business? and an ENTIRE sim for that matter? Making land LESS available to the average player like Myself. So why even bother to compete now when you know that companies will just BARGE in on our gaming experience and take it over?

Sounds to me like a marketing/ad agency. Using terms like





Sounds to me like a shopping sim. If it is an ad/marketing agency they can give multiple clients exposure in SL. If one of their clients were, hypothetically, Levi then they could theoretically sell Levis in world to bolster interest (and sales) IRL.

If it's done well it should be seamless. If not then it'll be an island and easy to avoid.

This possibility has been openly discussed with residents in the past at town hall meetings. The idea that companies could own sims and have them to conduct meetings or commerce has always been a possiblity and part of the vision.

Its really not that big of a deal. I see this as far less of an impact than McDonalds in TSO. There you needed items that were branded. Here you can take em or leave em.

So... *if* it were a RL company peddling the wares of RL vendors in SL, and you cringe at the idea, use your $L as voting tools. Don't buy anything.

We'll just have to wait and see. If it turns out to be something you dislilke, well, don't go to the island and don't buy the goods.

I'm reserving my opinion until the island is up and running as its new owners envision.

Eins, couldnt of said it better. I like what chance small is planing to do (giveing the land to the community, and not useing it for personal gain) but this is bullsh*^.

From the SL ToS:

"In addition to abiding at all times by the Community Standards, you agree that you shall not: [...] (vii) upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation;"

Azelda

Hmmm... aren't we controdicting ourselves here?..

Here's a few more lines from the TOS:

5.1 Participant Conduct. In addition to abiding at all times by the Community Standards, you agree that you shall not:

...
(vii) upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation;

This can be used to prevent overt hijacking of the game by spammers at LL's discretion, but note that it is NOT used to ban billboards, ingame advertising services, or unwanted IM's.

5.3 Participant Content. Participants can create Content on Linden's servers in various forms. Linden acknowledges and agrees that, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, including without limitation the limited licenses granted by you to Linden herein, you will retain any and all applicable copyright and/or other intellectual property rights with respect to any Content you create using the Service. NOTWITHSTANDING THE FOREGOING, YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT BY SUBMITTING YOUR CONTENT TO ANY AREA OF THE SERVICE, YOU AUTOMATICALLY GRANT (AND YOU REPRESENT AND WARRANT THAT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO GRANT) TO LINDEN: (A) THE ROYALTY-FREE, FULLY PAID-UP, PERPETUAL, IRREVOCABLE, NON-EXCLUSIVE RIGHT AND LICENSE TO USE AND REPRODUCE (AND TO AUTHORIZE THIRD PARTIES TO USE AND REPRODUCE) ANY OF YOUR CONTENT IN ANY OR ALL MEDIA FOR MARKETING AND/OR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICE; (B) THE PERPETUAL AND IRREVOCABLE RIGHT TO DELETE ANY OR ALL OF YOUR CONTENT FROM LINDEN'S SERVERS AND FROM THE SERVICE, WHETHER INTENTIONALLY OR UNINTENTIONALLY, AND FOR ANY REASON OR NO REASON, WITHOUT ANY LIABILITY OF ANY KIND TO YOU OR ANY OTHER PARTY;

This section simultaneously gives you the right to keep your own content outside of the game, and makes it clear that LL has the right to do what it wants with your content INSIDE of the game.

Unless that changes, it is unlikely that we'll see Disney take up residence, as they would never let LL have this kind of access to their properties. McDonalds, on the other hand, may go for this because their goal is saturation marketing, not control of their intellectual property.

One thing I fervently hope is that LL recognizes that the most popular areas in SL remain the messy, chaotic sims built completely by regular residents, and that they will lose out if companies start taking over THOSE areas. So I hope we never see a whole-sim auction like this for a property on the mainland. If it helps LL to keep the game going by selling off islands like this to all comers, I support it! If such companies start aggressively colonizing the mainland with RL "Branding" - billboards, company stores, and such, I'm not going to stick around.

I also note that the auctions made it clear a parcel sized so that an ordinary member can use a whole allotment on it is the "sweet spot" as far as value goes, so hopefully LL paid attention and will be offering a lot more plots in the 1024-4096 range from now on.

But the big thing: If you're going to offer more whole-sim deals, PLEASE, keep them on islands like this one and let the rest of us "opt-in" for the corporate experience.

And your point is ...?

Key word is unauthorized. This and other selling in world IS authorized.

Than can we sue them here for being liars? That would cause me mental grief.

We'll know soon enough, if it IS disney, you know they're going to have virtual lawyers and copyright everything more complex than a default prim.

If Disney does show up in SL, I need to commision a set of costumes: Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, etc .. All done as dirty sleazy drunken versions of themselves so I can walk around the Disney sim and annoy the disney employees.

Cory Linden: Users are users. We don't have special accounts for corporations and if someone (corporation or otherwise keeps scarfing land) SL will grow and we will keep putting land up. If you want land, it will be there, OK?

So.. in this response to this question, there technically is NO stopping any commerical endeavor from invading into SL, if another sim goes up.. poof gobbled up to another company interested in marketting. There's simply no way for us average (low income) users to compete with such things. Future taking: if you want more land.... Work for Me.

What a crazy and chaotic thread to make my first forum post on, but I'd like to weigh in.
For those who don't know me, I'm pretty new to SL. I am loving it so far and very impressed with the things others have done there. It's a beautiful world with some really awesome people in it. I can see why people would be scared of anyting that might mess it up. After two weeks, my gut reaciton was to be afraid that a monster would come in and blow this virtual house down.
But then I actually talked a little to fiz. I listened to what he says his plans are. I think a lot of the fear and rumors and innuendo are based on a really poorly worded intorducion on his part. In trying to be safe, he used a lot of phrases that sounded like a big corporation hiding behind weasel words, but I don't get the impression that this is what he wants at all.
He wants mostly to do what we all do in SL: pay our membership and land fees, participate in the community, show off our talents, share our interests, and learn from those around us.
He has friends with band t-shirts he'd like to show off... artist friends who'd like to let the SL community see their work and critique it, real life fashion designers who want to let you "try on" their designs in SL and if you really love them, maybe spread the word or even go to a little site somewhere and buy them to wear in real life.
I know there are some people who are going to freak out at any hint of commercialism in the game, but it seems to me that the commerce here is totally a afterthought, that fiz mainly wants to explore and play and create and share ideas with friends, and maybe slipped up a bit in the way he came off on day one. That sounds like every newbie in the game doesn't it? That sure seems like me, and like a lot of people who I've met in the last two weeks. Until and unless something bad comes of this, I'd like to think we all owe this island owning newbie the same respect and courtesy that others extended to us in our first days.

It sounds like a small business, which is pretty common nowadays. It'll be fine as long as they act within reason, which they sort of have to otherwise they'll alienate everyone. And I think they will stay within reason. SL is a relatively small community and word travels FAST.

Anyway, if you really want to use sleazy advertising methods for your company, there are FAR better ways of doing it than buying an SL sim to cater to SL's relatively small user base. For $1200, you can get a few million emails spammed (literally), which apparently (somehow) makes money, otherwise they wouldn't be sending the spam. If you send out 5 million emails and you get even a .001% response ratio, that's 5,000 sales!

You'd be STUPID as a company to "invest" in an SL server with the intent of getting some huge cashflow out of it. The market is far too small.