Why didn't LL leave the buying of currency to GOM/IGE/AC?

Yes, by all means, facilitate currency buying for players!

GOM/AC/IGE could have handled buying currency from players and then posted their availability to SL.

In order to ensure competition but not dilution, LL could have allowed for the top 3 networth players who wanted to do a currency exchange post transactions.

Everyone would have been happy:

- content developers because people could easily buy content
- Exchanges because they'd have more liquidity but they wouldn't be commoditized
- L$ sellers because there would be more buyers
- LL staff because they wouldn't have to deal with complaints from zillions of people about making payments to them
- Legal issues might be able to transfer to your partners
- Making it hard to sell currency would leave USD in the economy longer, thus propping up the value of the L$
- Developers in general because they'd believe that Philip respected their wishes not to be trampled over like ants by the big bad Philip

Philip could have done this but didn't. He is taking us all for chumps. The reasons he's giving are not true.

Have you read the Town Hall transcript?

The reason he cites is definitely a valid one. As the system stands now, the problem of new players not being able to make impulse purchases with the ease that an impulse purchase requires is a real problem.

Assume for the moment that you're a new user to the system. You've spent some time dorking around with the appearance editor and you've got your toon more or less looking like you want it. You've talked with a few people and bought a few minor things, and then you see the *one* thing that you'd really have liked to add to your AV's appearance, a hat, or sunglasses, or a robotics skin, for a mere L$250. Doh! You've only got $240 left. Well, at the moment, your options are a pretty short list which takes a disproportionately long time to execute. You have to set up an account with a whole 'nother set of people, transfer some currency into it, and then get that currency to your AV, and then try to remember where the heck you saw the thing in the first place. All this trouble for something that costs about 50 cents in USD? Not too many people are going to bother.

It *makes sense* for SL to bring this functionality into the system. Arguments about them gobbling up someone else's market aside, they're doing what's best for the system, not specifically their profit margins. People should be happy that they're probably going to be eliminating a % surcharge and take the more reasonable view that this is something that probably should have been in the system to begin with.

PL explained rather clearly why it wasn't in the system to begin with, and instead of simply accusing him of lying, I'd like to see you back that up and explain exactly how what was said in the Town Hall was a lie.

...and as to IGE, I'd personally like to see them go away and not come back. They've been facilitators of more foul-play in more games than any other single source ever, and their business model pretty much requires that their customers break the rules that everyone agreed to play by when they signed up. If you can't play by the rules, don't play at all.

Well, ok so it is a bit complicated to setup a GOM account. I'm fairly new myself, my first time using GOM was a bit confusing at first, but I'll say this, they have the cheapest $L on the market of any other exchange. I can understand the percentage being taken out too. It goes to pay the paypal fees they encurr when you deposit money. Actually, I'm not a big fan of the "you must deposite money" scheme, but it works alright for me I guess.

I agree.... IGE needs to go away. They are a source for trouble. Basically, in games where it's against the rules to buy/sell in game money, they don't care. In games where PvP is prevalent, like Lineage II, it encourages griefing and farming to the point where it's become a huge problem. I think this might be a bit less of a problem if the allowed an exchange of the currency, but they won't do it. *shrugs*

What I don't understand is why LL can't just help out GOM for a piece of the action? Let GOM deal with the support and upkeep on the system, and LL rake in the cash. Doesn't that make sense? Them pretty much taking over is just as bad as playing "favorites" with one exchange over the others.

GOM refused a deal, and are whining everywhere about being wronged when they had a chance to partner and refused.

Ok, as far as I can tell, neither side actually came out and said what exaclty happened. It takes 2 sides of the story to get the full truth somewhere in the middle. LL isn't commenting, so who's to really argue that GOM wasn't wronged? If the terms aren't satisfactory in the deal, why go forward with it?

You commie >:

Restricting this to only hand-picked residents is evil.

Helping players SELL currency does not help facilitate impulse buys.

I'm not restricting it to hand picked residents.

I provided an objective benchmark based on the amount invested in the economy. That money could stay in for a month and then GOM would have an opportunity to match, of course.

Eboni, this has little to do with GOM. A lot of us don't really care so much about GOM as much as we care about ourselves.

We'd like to see Philip try to work with his community rather than just railroading them in to his way or the highway.

Helping players BUY currency does.

I agree with the bulk of your point, about keeping the exchanges in the hands of residents and only providing them with a foothold into the SL UI, though. I just don't want this access restricted to (insert any number here) people selected on their (insert any condition here).

There was a very very simple way that could have been used but wasn't.


LindenLab creates an account at GOM and adds a "Buy L$ Now" button directly into the interface.

New user needs extra L$ to buy the bling they just saw so they press the button.
SL GUI sends XML-RPC request to GOM computer requesting the current price, which is returned.
A dialogue box asks how many L$?
New user types in 1000.
SL GUI sends XML-RPC to GOM computer requesting the purchase of L$1000, which is duely delivered direct to new user.
GOM charges LindenLab account.
SL GUI charges the amount + commission to new users SL account.


All fully automated, just one button in the GUI. No extra webpages. GOM even has most of the code required to do this built in already.

So what about competition? What about IGE and Anshe? The GUI could send the price request to both of those as well, returning the best price to the user. The exchange that offers the best price being the one that gets the transaction. Any other exchange wants to get in on the market? They get added to the automated list.

This is VERY VERY simple to add. It is fully automatic. It gives the "one click" interface that Philip desires. It increases trade at the currency exchanges. Why was it not done?

I believe Philip addressed this point in his Town Hall meeting as well. If they created an interface that solely dealt with GOM, then LL would be acting unfairly towards other SL businesses in the same market. (Specifically, IGE and Anshe Chung)

No, but helping players BUY currency easily does. Where is your head?

That is the sort of thing I would have expected to be done. Why wasn't it? They just didn't think of it? Or there would be no profit in it for them?

coco

God forbid LL make a profit. We wouldn't want them to have additional income streams to help ensure the financial stability of SL and be more attractive to investors. That would just be crazy! Power to the people, even if LL goes under in the process.

AMEN

Some common sense people the easier and the more painless it is to buy money the more people will buy. Personally I want LL to be more profitable so they are able to develop SL even more.

People need to go visit the other worlds out there before pointing fingers and condeming. Go toThere and see all the fees you have to pay to create content, the wait times just to get the content in world IF it is approved. I have been in AW, Rose/Moove, VZones, Realm, There and Palace. None of these offer the flexibility and opportunities that SL does.

It is unfortunate that GOM was unable to work out a deal with LL but the reality is that GOM was fortunate to have profited from this over the last year and a half.

LL is a business and needs to be proactive to keep ahead of the market, and that has nothing to do with being a "nice" company or not it has to do with doing what is best for the company as a whole.

You would be amazed at how quickly people will buy something if you give them a means to.

I've worked in retail hell for 3 years, and if you can't get someone to buy something with their cash on hand, they'd rather wait for it to go on sale...

Oh, but wait, miss! If you sign up for a (insert company here) card, you can buy this product today, get 0% financing for 6 months, AND save 15 dollars!

Ta-da, sales today.

How come? Two things, in my opinion.

1) Credit is an intangible thing; it's not something you can wave around, touch, or hug. Delayed billing gives the consumer a way to rationalize it further (oh, it's just credit... plus I don't have to make a payment for 6 months! It's like 6 months free! Wow!)

2) People loooove buying things. There are studies, in fact, that show that the brain releases a small amount of the pleasure hormone (endorphin, I think it is) when a purchase is made, especially impulse buys. Endorphin, as it happens, is an addictive thing. Hence why you have shop-a-holics.

If you give anyone in-world a quick means to buy linden dollars at market prices, you are going to see a large increase in volume. This, coupled with the "trust" of Linden Labs (the customer has already given LLabs their credit card info; no need for anyone else to know it, win win!), AND coupled with the fact that, to most people, the Linden dollar is wholly separate from the US dollar (what's a few bucks when you get 4000 whole lindens in exchange?), make this a drool-worthy aspect.

People love convenience. The human brain loves rationalization. The human brain also loves to buy things, especially when comparitively cheap. Play money is cheap.

You're going to see a few stories on how someone went crazy and spent over $US 1000 on currency or something, and is very sorry for it, and so on, in the coming months after this is common place.

Also! Consider that over 100 people join SL a day. In a few months after the implementation of this, buying currency through LLab will seem commonplace, indeed socially accepted, as a sizable continginent of people wouldn't have known any different. Our society has a habit of absorbing new things and running with it.

LF

Yes, facilitating BUYING currency will help sales, but facilitating SELLING currency will not.

There is a huge difference and everyone is completely missing it.

You need supply to quench demand. It's a self-filling cycle.

1) Content creators sell the lindens they get from consumers.

2) Consumers buy the lindens from the content creators to buy content.

3) Goto 1.

WEll the logic I had was that people could still sell via IGE/AC/GOM. Who in turned sold through LL.

Thus maintaining their markets, making it difficult to sell L$, etc.

Well the logic I have is that I don't have to go outside LL to buy or sell. I can either post a sale of Lindens to other resident through a LL provided method, or I can buy some Lindens posted for sale by other residents from some LL provided method. How do you see it becoming difficult to sell $L? It sounds like it will be easier to me. If one currency exchange can make it hard to exchange on another, why aren't all the existing currency exchanges making it harder to trade on their competitor's sites? I don't understand your logic.

Alendril, read my whole post. I used GOM in the example because it is easier than constantly typing "GOM/IGE/AnsheChung.com/anyoneelse.com"

The end of the post explains that the price request can be sent out automatically to ALL registered exchanges, and the exchange that returns the cheapest price is the one that gets the transaction. So the user always gets the cheapest price on offer from everybody.



GOM have been trying to get LL to impliment this for a year. These are the "talks" that Jamie wrote about. As to why LL would not do it... I get the impression that LL wanted to control GOM rather than simply pass XML-RPC requests.

No profit for LL? My example includes a commision on each transaction, so instant profit for no work every time someone uses the system.

How is IGE a SL business? Last time I heard they were just a currency exchange that deals with most online games. SL just happens to be the only one that they can do it leagally. In most other games they buy from farming facilities that ruin the ingame economy (WoW for example). These farming companies are sweatshops that the children play games for 10+ hours instead of making your shoes for extremly low wages. While I would like to belive that LL giving a possibly easier option would shut down IGE, I know it will not. This company existed before SL and will continue as long as there are MMOs.

I really have 0 clue as to why anyone would ever stick up for such a company then turn around and complain that LL is doing this just because of a profit. Shame on you.

Ok so the land baron Anshe Chung can only buy up most of the land then sell it off at inflated prices all the while saying that this is a service to us low value people. LL already gave AC further opportunities by mainly auctioning off full sims. How much more leway does one person really need?

As for GOM. If they would have made their website a bit easier to acutally use... or people who arent trolling here every single moment to find out about...

That all is really here nor there. Will GOM and all the others have to shut down because of this? Who knows. Its competition.

LL has a right to do with their game as they see fit. You can moan and groan and gripe about it but it really wont do any good. If more people know about it and are buying L$ and whatever profits are going back into the game instead of the hands of certain greedy conglomerates, then its all right in my book.

As much as I agree with your main point, I'd like to put this particular myth to rest. "Sweatshop" is hardly accurate. It's more like a bunch of friends doing it for fun first and then making a buck for the majority of cases. The most successful are giving jobs to otherwise very poor people. I know of two examples, where the "children forced to play games for 10 hours straight" are actually bored housewives helping bring income to the family, or students who would otherwise have to pick up farming jobs in an unemployment-devasted village in Romania, and instead can pay tuition and rent and have fun at the same time.