Expensive Island!

I can see your point, but fundamentally I believe that auctions are fair. They are well understood, everyone knows how they work, and what time they end.. its essentially a level playing field.. just because someone was clever/bold enough to succeed in a late bid, doesn't make it unfair.

..perhaps they should gather a bunch of Avs together inworld and have actual realtime bidding with a Linden Auctioneer. That could be great fun!

Brilliant idea.

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Doh. I didn't win with my $5.00 bid =(

I wish I knew this were true. I've heard otherwise from more than one person who I trust as reliable...

I don't see how auctions are harmful. More money into LL hopefully means a better product and a better chance for long term survival. The fact that this auction went so high should demonstrate demand, which should serve to speed along future land additions.

Also, it's quite certian that future full-sim auctions will end at lower amounts since the highest demand is served first.

[Edit: BTW, I posted the above before I even knew about or read the other thread about the laid off consultant]

Folks,
This is a free country and if someone has nothing more to do with their money then wizz it away on virtual land then that is their business. But keep 1 thing in mind . There WAS shilling going on there. I know that some of the bidders had ABSOLUTELY no intrest in the island they just wanted to see the price go up.

Open suggestion to Philip Rosedale !
Please make all auctions for total sims SEALD BID AUCTIONS
then only the serious will Bid. For those of you that do not know what a sealed bid auction is Ill explain it .

Everyone enters their bids PRIVATELY. The amounts are NEVER shown until the auction is over. If that method were used here the Sim would have went for a much different price !

It also keeps out the shillers ! (those that drive up the price).

You seek to make SL better . Then FOCUS and THINK Philip .

Well first off I want to say "Congratulations to the winner of the highest bid!" Outstanding!

Now... What are ya gonna do with it? I think many would love to know Ok so I wanna know LOL

Lastly I think auctions are fine, the Lindens are trying something new and I am honest enough to say that if I had money to burn I would burn it here too

Who wouldn't want their own island folks, come on ya all know if ya could ya would

Hugs

Catherine Cotton

Tony.. stop tooting in the forums!! ewww! hehe

Ok, now my serious opinions on all this auction business and the Island, etc. Personally, I don't think think it is just the people who were bidding that have an issue with the way the auction was handled. I did not bid on a single piece of Magenta land, and I could not have even dreamed of bidding on the Island. Yet I do have a problem with the way the auction was handled.

First, the amount of money spent on the sim is fine by me. Yes I expect the full sim purchases to cost a lot. Maybe not as much as this one went for, but certainly I agree it would be horrid to see it go for too low a price. I also don't think the cost of the Sim was the issue that most had.

Second, I don't think LL is being greedy or doing this just to get as much money out of players as they can. I've supported LL too much in word and hopefully actions, and I've watched them care and do so much based on feedback from the players, that I just can't suddenly think that has all changed.

Maybe LL was testing the waters to see just how much some players would pay for a full sim. Maybe they truely had no idea there would be that much *true* interest. Maybe they were using this as a test run to see what improvements they can make for future auctions of all kinds.

Seeing this auction in action has brought a lot of players to the board with excellent suggestions on how to run future auctions. I agree fully with those who have stated that we need to have Sealed Bid Auctions. ESPECIALLY for the larger ticket auctions. It would cut back on possible griefing, and make it in my eyes a much more professional business transaction.

I'm all for the auctions, they just need *vast* improvements. I trust the Lindens to listen to players in this matter.

Well Reg, there is nothing wrong with 'shilling'.. if someone wishes to risk winning the item for the sake of a few thrills then fine, it isn't against any rules that I am aware of. Shilling happens extensively in RL auctions where it is a wise move to empty your opponents pockets in advance of the item you are really after.

..and I doubt any shilling would have greatly influenced the end figure, it would have reached its natural level anyway regardless of earlier bids. No-one was shilling at 1200 USD.

A Sealed Bid Auction would be dreadful, as it is simply a hopeless guessing game by all concerned, impossible to gauge for those that really do want the land and making less money for Linden (which is after all a long term benefit to all of us) - rather than letting the land reach a natural value point incrementally.

A "closed auction" system where they don't show people's bids might work ok, but that destroys the entire (traditional) concept of an "auction" to begin with. An auction is run to determine the absolute highest price a person is willing to pay for something, to push it to it's limits. Yeah it's kinda greedy on the seller's part, but it'll help LL's bottom line more and eliminate the role "luck" would otherwise play. Also, how do they resolve conflicts when two people bid $100 on something? They don't know how much others are bidding, so there's no way to even know if you've tied the winner.

I still think extending an auction for 5 minutes every time a bid is placed would be a step in the right direction. I can't think of a single way that this is inferior to the current system. Extending the auction like this, in effect, emulates a real-time live auction perfectly.

And if someone wants to bid on something just to raise the price, heh, well they'll be the ones with the wet underwear when they find out that they have to pay $500 for something they never intended on buying. You shouldn't be able to "back out" of buying something if you place a bid on it. Win a bid on something you didn't want to buy? Too bad.

I don't even plan on bidding on anything, not sure why I care so much.

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I think this statement here is the best argument against the thought that sealed bids would cause LL to lose money.

Now, I'm seeing some great arguments against sealed bidding, but I'm still not sold on changing my mind, which currently thinks that they are the best way to go. Of course, the choice between sealed bidding and incremental bidding is not the only issue that some have with the auctions as they currently stand.

One thing I know that I don't like is that someone can come in and take the winning spot by $1 in the last 5 seconds. To lose by $1 just, eww, I don't know, but for some reason it really gets under my skin. I would rather see it be something like $25 dollars. Or various amounts depending on the worth of the land.

Maybe too, (for the purchasing of a full sim) they could make a set price on the cost of a sim, and then have a lottery among those who were wanting to purchase one. Perhaps with the limit that the person who won cannot try for a 2nd sim until after 6 months. That way everyone (or nearly everyone) that wants a full sim, and can afford a full sim, would have the opportunity to get one. Then just leave the incremental auctions to the pieces of land that go up for bidding on various sims.

Not too, too, many people are going to want to, or be able to afford their own Sim. Those that can though, I would love to see them have the opportunities. Especially since most would take other players on the Sim with them and free up more land in current sims.

Just some thoughts!

Extending the auction 5 minutes every time someone places a bid completely kills this. I was thinking about mentioning minimum increases also, but it's probably not needed. If two people want to be silly and keep bidding $1 over the high price 20 times in a row.... well it's not my place to question others' idea of a fun time.

I'm not really sure if "secret" auctions typically result in higher end prices, on average, over open auctions. I would imagine that the capitalism-effect of competition would be much much greater than any fear-factor of a closed auction, but it's just an opinion I can't back up with fact. (yet)

A win is a win when it is an auction, Sealed *or* incremental Pendari... a 1 dollar win or a 500 dollar win, you are still the highest bidder fair and square. If you are worried someone will do this to you, have another browser window open with a bid screen and another bid ready - and you can also chuck a late (higher) bid in by way of insurance.

I believe in real life Sealed Auctions (this happens for property auctions in the UK for example) almost always result in low winning bids, compared to open competitive bidding.

Who, in all honesty, would have sent a sealed bid in for the island of 1200 dollars, or even 750?? Everyone I spoke to you expected it to go for around half the eventual figure.

Yeah that's what I think too. The thing with a $1 win is that, chances are, the loser would have been willing to pay $2 more for the item...

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Ha ha.. very true Garoad, but bluntly.. its just tough cookies.

They lost. When two racing drivers finish within a split second from each other - they don't add a lap.. they crack out the champagne, laugh at the loser and walk away with the trophy.

I hope that Linden Lab requires the winner to sign a lease agreement so we don't keep seeing the same sim auctioned off every month. I'll bet anything that the first auction to sell a whole sim for Linden dollars will be even crazier, but after that, things ought to settle down.

I don't like tough cookies, I like the soft ones!

Like I said above, extend the auctions when a bid is placed, and even that wouldn't be so much of a problem since you could just keep re-bidding until you're sick of the price. That would be the ultimate-uber-high price for the item.



Good point. I'm thinking more about the high ticket items. Closed bidding definitely would work better with low priced stuff than it would with high priced stuff. Possibly a combination of closed and "extendable incremental" (mine) would be a good solution.

Some possibilities I thought of...

Everyone who wants to bid on something as big as an island pays an upfront fee to enter the bidding.

Have the auctions closed to everyone except those who bid on it.

The main problem with auctions is that not everyone takes them seriously, theres always the potential to totaly screw someone over and not even care about the object being bid on. And wether or not thats part of auctions is not the point, its the fact that it could even hurt the bidding and screw over also LL.

I believe the $1 increments should be kept, heck I would even bid .01 on an auction just to win by "such and such and such, and one cent.", sure the other person would most likely go over that one cent, but when every cent counts, every cent counts.

In the case of Sims I think they should be offered without auction to whoever wishes to buy one. Maybe to prevent odd parties (corps and the like) from randomly buying a sim, make it so you have to be in SL for more than so many months to out right buy a sim. Thats a maybe, not saying that should definitly be done, just brain stormin here.

Can anyone explain to me: what exactly is Proxy bidding?

*still trying to decide which methods I like best.. hehe

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I personally think proxy bidding is a must for online auctions like this, especially when they last days not the minutes you would have an auction running at a real auction house.

Until we get proxy bids implemented, I doubt I will ever participate in any of these auctions. Sitting and refreshing a page is un-fun.

proxys are a nice compromise between sealed and incremental bids. the lindens will implement proxy bidding as soon as possible. see, my faith in their public relations ability is not totally shot.

I think a great help in this discussion would be an offical response on WHAT the goal of the auctions is.

I see things like such and such methods work best to raise the price, and such and such work best to do this and that... but until we know what the auction is meant to DO, it's hard to decide what will work best.

Is the purpose to have the land sold at the absolute highest price?

Is it meant to make the land allocation as fair as possible?

I for one would like a clear answer on this, as the current system seeps pretty well optimized to drive the land prices up.