Gaming Open Market

This is NOT an endorsement or a recommendation, but this is a pretty interesting site:

http://www.gamingopenmarket.com/

No idea whether the guys starting the site will succeed or not, but I did a couple of transactions through them which went smoothly. If you need L$ or have too many and are wondering what to do with them, this might be a fun option. I know that several folks have tried to make banks on their own but this might be simpler.

Cory

Also great for bringing over your TSO Simoleans and There T$ and converting to cold, hard L$! I've known about this site for a while now (maybe a week or two), and I've recommended it to some friends that left There and TSO for SL.

I signed up for an account, but, I'm not going to try yet

Eek! I don't want Second Life to get commercial and inflated like There!

I believe that this is only going to overly-commercialize and inflate SL's economy, and take away the wonderful part of it that bases it on talent instead of RL financial standing. Keep it based on creativity, even if it is simply dwell + vote scores.

How would it become like There.com darwin? This is player to player transaction, not player to game company transaction. It feels totally different to me - I doubt I will use this, but If I did feel it was worth paying real money (which obviously some do) for content, I would rather it go into the pocket of the player who created it, than the corporation who "allowed you to create it and now owns it , to bad sucker."

What is a block?
GCX only allows trades of fixed sizes, or blocks. This keeps the market consistent and easy to understand. Block sizes might change from time to time. These are the present sizes:

UO gold 50,000
TSO simoleans 100,000
There therebucks 2,000
Second Life L$ 250

Browse the commodities page for up-to-date details.

I would just like to point out the fact that our money is SO much harder to come by.... because we rock

Hey, now we can figure out what our taxes are in US $.

And here I thought that L$ were never going to be added. After all, it's too easy to get more money -- you just need to be playing.

I don't think this is adding money. -These guys probably just have an account in SL - if you give that account some money, they will give you US$, if you give them US$. Since (I'm pretty sure) they are not buying L$ directly from LindenLab, no money is just added, its all money that was already in the system.

Consider the following:

I have L$3500. Every Monday, I deposit L$1000 with these guys, and list it on the market. Simply by doing so, I add L$1000 to the game each week.

Assuming that L$ sell for more than US$2.59 per L$1000, it makes sense for me to add additional accounts for the sole purpose of sitting around generating L$.

The result? More money is in the game, while the number of people playing remains constant. In other words, inflation.

Okay.. current rate is $0.75 US per 250L. At that price:

A prime takes .03 US to rez.

Although, I should just stop working on making money in world. I would be making 6243 Lindens an hour at my real life job. No way I can make that on the game.

Jebus $0.75 per 250L$????
So... let me get this straight. L$2500 is $7.5 and $75 would be L$25k
OMFG I'm gonna buy myself a new HD with linden bucks!!!

You could start your own currency in-world (I don't know why, because you can?) by offering whatever your 'money' is redeemable in either prims (for that simulator only, of course) or Lindenbucks.

Really don't know what you would do with it, unless you wanted to set your own exchange rate or something business related like 'access-tokens' or some other needless complexity.

Yeah, its monday and I'm bored already at work.

Anyone know who the GOM representatives/associates for SL are?

I hope LL isn't selling out like this! But ya.. they probably have a SL account that they use to trade $$$

I can see the headlines now. Just like EverQuest.

Make money at home playing Second Life! Quit your day job. Here's how!

That's one thing though I will give a applause to for Linden Labs, rights to stuff you make and own. While I don't expect SL to become the next EQ "farming ground", it is nice to know you can sell Linden dollars for money or give Linden dollars to get RL money. Something for if you're a cash cow sitting on a lot. LoL

The only drawback to that would be this. You get some rich spoiled kid who gets a months membership and buys a ton of L bucks and then proceeds to raise hell buying up everything and charging to get past it or enter. Rather unnerving to an extent.

Taxes will kill him in no time flat.

If he doesn't get nailed for TOS violations first.

i cant wait to make some $$$ off of this, this is great

The whole idea is appalling. I hope it dies a quick death.

Nonononono, you guys missed the point. Our economy is based on RATINGS AND SKILL. This would make it based on WHO DECIDES TO TRADE AND WHO DECIDES TO BUY. Now, no talent will be involved in, essentially, how much server space you can take up in SL.

To clarify/reinforce a few points made already:

Linden doesn't do/not do anything to enable trading L$ on a third party site. GOM market is a system that matches buyers and sellers, but an SL resident could as easily offer to see their L$ on Ebay with the same effect. GOM is seeking to build a business around providing an efficient market for these sorts of transactions.

So there is no 'inflation' or adding to the money supply associated with these transactions. There are a fixed number of L$ related to the number of paying users of the SL service. Trades like these do not affect that supply - they simple move money between residents.

It is important to note that the decision to allow users to own/profit from their own content is consistent with services like this. We don't believe that it is appropriate or prudent to use our TOS to in any way restrict what folks do with their content or their money. This sort of third party trading is a logical outcome of SL becoming more compelling (people being willing to pay $USD for L$).

It will be fascinating to watch the response of our community to these developments, but not something we see as being under our control. Personally, I think that the SL community is very strong and will quickly find a way to make services like these part of the SL experience.

I'm not complaining about the amount of money, I'm complaining about the people to which it will be moved.

Yeah, I can see how this isn't such a good thing. The problem is, if L$ represent the distribution of server resources, moving them around based on the economies of other games is defeating the purpose of SL's economy system.

I think the whole idea behind second life is to see it evolve beyond just being a game. $SL now has a value beyond the limits of the servers. I'm sure this might upset a lot of people who just play the system to their advantage, but in the long run I think it's a good thing over all.

I don't think anyone can say SL has an economy.

Ratings are crap in SL, completly meaningless and easliy cheated.

Skill and talent are the only things of worth here and all the $SL in the world still won't get you that.

Maybe now someone with real creative talent can just buy the money they need rather than jump through all the silly hoops.

Ahemhem, we'll see how long that lasts. *winks at NDA*