TOS Discrepency?

I hate to tell you this, but who cares what you think? I am not trying to be mean, but how much of an understanding of the entire complex economy do you really have? New islands are coming on line, new mainland sims are being auctioned off again, the exchange rate has been for the most part steady, and the I am not seeing a mass exodus of people leaving SL. Has the economy taken a hit? A little bit, but not because of the gambling ban. Increased connection issues, the slower summer months, and land prices coming to more normal levels have all played its toll on the overall economy.

There is something else out there that is at play, but I am unsure of what it is. Something is slightly different but I can't place my finger on it. I by no means claim to be an expert on the SL economy, but I did not see a large hit on the economy when the casinos left. I still honestly think that the pressure was being placed on them long before they took action to get rid of the gambling, but they feared that it would hurt the economy too much. They put it off as long as possible, and then phased it out. As SL grew, the casino sector became less important to the survival of SL.

microprims?

the illuminati.

This is so stupid. Do you guys care about gambling THAT MUCH?!

That much, to the point you`d like the ability for real life money to not be able to be exchanged for $L any longer so you can gamble for fake money. That`s just dumb. If that (not being able to exchange L for RL$) happens, this whole "platform" will change drastically. I for one will be out of here, just the same as the other content creators here who slave away making clothing and accessories for this grid. No more brand names you love. LL will have to hire their own personal developers to take care of apparel, etc.

Part of the charm in this so called "game" is the ability to make real world cash, once thats gone, so will be the people who are here in seek of that. For some of you- thats ok. But i just cant really fathom this place without that ability.

I would think the island and such would have to be free as well. I sure as hell wouldnt spend $1650 USD to never be able to make that back.

Also, LL makes money each time someone cashes out.


I also believe many were so into gambling because they could cash their winnings in for USD (I mentioned before my friend won 200K lindens jackpot 5 times in one month, and 400K one time...thats ALOT of real world money!!!!!!!!!).

Apparently so. Odd to me when you consider how many better gambling sites there are on the web. Sigh

As for me, I'm going to take some of my non monetary Lindens and redeem them for RL dollars and go buy some pie.

Yeah, Not only that, but theres also other p2p games with no real world currency they can go play.

I say the $L should always be able to be turned into RL money. Thats probably why this game has lasted so long. I know with the sims you can mod things but you dont make real money for your time, you make money to spend inside the game, that gets old very very fast.

And where, praytell, are they going to get this $L from?

You are trying to take an ECONOMY that has been built up for years, and remove its value just so people can fake gamble. and you can pay your "employees"

It`s extremely illogical. It makes absolutely no sense.

The gamblers who win money can no longer cash out, so they must use whatever L they made solely inside of SL. There will be lack of user created content as all of the content creators have left. (No use slaving over that new outfit when youll be paid in fake with fake money you dont need because you make all your own things anyway). Do you think LL will be releasing new and innovative items for user purchasing pleasre? Of course not, they cant even tend to whats on their plate currently.

Its not only about the content creators either. EVERYTHING WILL CHANGE. many land owners who rent land out to people wll not continue doing it if they cant cash out. This is not a game, many are here for the money, and many of them are what keeps the grid rolling. if the ability to convert L to RL$ is removed, this will revert to a game, just like everything else out there, and it WILL die, or drastically slow down.

I think user created content and the ability to make real world money is a very vital part to why SL is still breathing; but maybe im the only one who thinks that anymore.

It just seems very selfish to push for that ability to be gone just so someone can "Gamble" for fake money because you assume they will be using it to buy things inside of SL thus getting you more sales.

Here's how it works: Lindens are game points, and are not technically a currency, since the company that makes them could go out of business without warning, stop using them, or make up any arbitrary rule about them that they wish regarding their use.

However, people trade game points amongst one another, and pay each other real money in exchange for game points.

Since the game points can be used in the same way that chips are used in casinos, there is a tenuous yet arguable legal basis for shutting down casinos in Second Life.

EXTREMELY tenuous. But arguable. It's this fact that probably made Linden Lab push away from the table on this. While it's very probable that they would incur no legal liability from allowing people to gamble with game points while in Second Life (it's pretty much the same as using jelly beans or potato chips), Linden Lab could also incur huge and recurring legal costs finding out for sure whether they were liable or not. These sorts of things can swallow entire multi-million dollar companies whole, and Linden Lab is probably not in the mood to be the game industry's poster child for this particular issue.

Just my 2$L thought

I am not a lawyer but if LL's legal department is of the same caliber as the management making their business plan then the TOS is probably full of loopholes. The legal departments in the big corporations they are trying to court will eat them for lunch.

L$ _have_ to be exchangable for US$ because tier has to be paid in US$.

LL can't accept tier in L$, because they have to pay for servers and workers, etc, and those things can't be paid for in L$.

I know that LL have said they could accept tier in L$ right now but that's only because of the US$ they're turning over via LindeX commissions and Currency Linden. If the correspondance of L$ to US$ was removed, that would be too.

The limiting idea would probably also hurt badly.. I know several people who can or will only cash out for tier because they can't meet the tax requirements to make income in their country, and they're kinda demoralised compared to those who can.

*possibly*--as long as that "value" is purely in-world and cannot be exchanged for anything of RL value. Nope, that makes it legally gambling again, if you can "win" something that can be purchased with RL money.

I really don't understand the origin of this red herring about L$ convertibility to RL currency being the root of the gambling ban. The problem is way more basic than that, and trying to find a loophole is just not gonna work. If SL were *purely* a game--more so than WoW or any of the others, such that nobody could ever buy anything in-world for RL money--then yeah, one could gamble for purely worthless game tokens all one wanted. But there'd be blessed few gamblers interested in that game--and blessed few others, too.

Why is it so hard to read things carefully? It says "not redeemable ... from Linden Lab" in both cases. It says nothing at all about whether or not you can exchange Linden's for ordinary currency in other ways.

This has been discussed to death. Linden won't buy L$ from you, and asserts they have no obligation to you for your L$. That doesn't mean they can't have monetary value from other sources. It's pretty obvious that they do.