A message from God

Once upon a time, lastnight infact.

Well there I was, fast asleep in my little bed, and I drifted away into a strange little dream. In this dream, God came upon on me....

Wait, I've not finished yet!!.

and he said:

"Starax, tell the children of Second Life (soo patronizing!) that it may be a good idea to allow us to set an item for sale so that even after the item has been sold and has been put on display in the buyer's home. Somebody may come along and buy this item by right clicking on it and selecting 'Buy'. Then the creator will receive the money and not the owner/buyer."

I thought about this when I woke up and I think God may have a good point. It will mean that people wont have to go searching for the creator's store when they see something out there. It may also mean a reduction in malls and stores. Although I do think some people quite like malls and stores. Also, women wouldn't have anywhere to torture their partners without shopping malls.

So, what should I tell this God bloke? Should I direct him to 'Feature Suggestions' or just tell him it was a good idea but there are far more important things to worry about.

He does seem terribly enthusiastic about it.

very cool idea.

eggy suggested that in beta, before god ever even existed.

my question to you is what is so bad about malls and stores that we would want to reduce their numbers? people like to shop. it's every americans patriotic duty to fight terrorism.

Yeah, it would be kinda cool too if you could set a % to go to the owner of the item, you know, as a salespersons fee.

I'm talking from a vendor's point of view. Not a shoppers.

I don't mind stores and malls existing. I just don't really like having to use them myself to sell stuff. I just think they're unnecessary in a virtual world where anything is possible. It's like somebody asking me what's wrong with toilets? Toilets are great!. There'd be crap everywhere without them. But they're just not necessary in Second Life.

Now I hear Siggy likes to make toilets. So I'm expecting to feel his wrath now.

Bring it on, Siggy!!!!

yeah! sounds great!!! I bet God didn't even think of that one!!

I can imagine people buying something, not just because they like it. but because they believe it'll sell well and so they'll be able to benefit from it too

Cost L$[ 30 ] Royalty/Transfer Fee L$[ 20 ]
- Customer pays L$50. Owner/seller gets L$30. Creator gets L$20.

Cost L$ [ 0 ] Royalty L$[ 20 ]
-customer pays L$20 to the creator, none to the seller.

Cost L$ [ -10 ] Royalty L$[ 20 ]
-The seller is offering to pay half of the royalty for the customer. Insufficient funds voids the transaction.

The 'royalty/transfer' fee on an object should be the sum total of all scripts, textures, contents, prims, even if from multiple creators.

Hmm.. iI like that % option too.

You could script this in part now. Just have the sold item include a money event that (a) sends the money to you and (b) sends the buyer a copy from a central server.

The downside is this requires someone to accept the debit permission when they rez the item, but if you include the commission option it's a good carrot. "If someone buys a copy of this lamp you buy, I'll pay you 20%!" or what-not. If they don't accept the debit, you just disable that.

Although this doesn't help so much if the object takes money as part of its normal operation... you can work around it, but not nearly so straightforward.

Please add this idea to the ideas-voting area of the SL site so that I can vote Yes on it. Thanks.

How many votes does God have? He should be able to make it the most popular vote easily.

Ok God - do your stuff!

Oh I like this idea.

Question though for thought? Prefabs tend to get modified, would they be buying that modified copy or would they get the original boxed version out of inventory? It would be better I think if they got the original boxed version as it wouldn't suffer from user introduced problems, but at the same time, they may very well be buying it because of the mods made by the owner.

*added..not all things are in one piece...hmmm...can see them buying the middle section of a home and not getting the left and right wings.

What do you think god would say to that?

*waits for Starax's next vision quest*

This can already be done, although you need a secure network vendor to do it - and people have to give your objects debit permission, which they may be kinda reluctant to do!

You can do that very easily with a script you know. Just get any networked vendor...
And no Jauani, I didn't suggest this in Beta. I suggested it to Starax - God is my alt
What I did do in beta was to include a landmark to the disco inside my freebie items...

Very bad ideal

Once sold, its no longer yours.

Even worst ideal.

Once sold its no longer yours

Why I dis-like what Microsoft and RIAA are doing.

Usually when I see something I like I click on edit to see creator, then go to their picks to find a store.

That's how I found Starax's Items. (which I admire so much)

What I would love to see is creators adding a small decorative sign in the objects contents that I could place with the Artists name and link to their store so I can place beside the works of Art I have purchased. (my photoshop sign making skills equal -0-.)

I love telling people where to go buy the objects I have also purchased. Small signs to place would be perfect for me.

I think God may have considered all of the above problems that have been mentioned so far. I get the feeling that he's made a world before. But he does seem a bit old though, and time can do funny things to folk. Another thing, why would be come to me with all this stuff. There's something very fishy going on!!

Anyway:

I considered making a script to allow people to buy the items directly. The trouble is that the method wouldn't be very common. So not many people would think to check to see if the item was actually for sale. Also, anybody who has created an ingame server knows that if your server goes down then you're stuck in poo creek with no boat and no paddle. Although you do get to hear a nice duelling banjo soundtrack and an odd looking man may ask you to squeal like a pig.

I think something like this would need to be a feature added to a future version of Second Life and then hopefully it would be a common method for selling items and everybody would be aware of it.

As for items made from multiple parts:

There could be a set 'item for sale' or a set 'contents for sale' option. This means if it's a house made from several parts. You could set the contents for sale and have each part of the house contain the whore house.. oops. I mean WHOLE house. Sorry!!

But it's okay. It's only a suggestion. Personally, I think that this God chap needs to sort out his own world before he comes trying to mess with ours. Damn busybody.


P.S. To be honest. I'd rather J-Lo came upon me in my dreams. But shhh

I've suggested that the owner should be able to set a "Resale price", so that when it's sold it would have to be resold for at least that much, and that money would go to the creator. That would be more like real life commission sales, where the agent can reduce their commission for a better sale price, and where the agent can't undercut the original seller.

Objects with a resale price could be sold even if they were "no transfer", but I don't see an obvious way they could be sold that way in vendors where the sale is separate from the transfer. I'm not sure of a way around that... perhaps you could "pay the object" the resale price ahead of time, or have the vendor rez a box with the object in it and let the customer buy that.

This would also solve the "no transfer freebies" problem. You could set the resale value high so that someone *could* resell them if they found someone who REALLY wanted one, but they wouldn't be exploited. Or you could just set the "resale price" to L$1 to track who owns it...

It would also keep products available when the original creator's gotten tired of the whole business "game", and make it easier for people to get *into* the business game.

For objects with "modify" permission you probably want to think real hard about setting them for resale. I think you'd want to make the *box* resale but not the house inside it, so if someone wants to buy it they'd have to rez the box for you to buy.

Doesn't help when it's something like Rickard Roentgen's granite posing stand.