Is GOM's decision also partly a revenge?

They have other projects that they are working on, some may use some of the same code and they still may want to use the Gaming Open Market name. Who knows what the future will bring, maybe they still do hope that LL will change their mind and come crawling back begging Tom and Jamie to reopen.

An idea that Jamie mentioned a while ago was a Real Time trading system, so people could build their own desktop clients and hook directly into the trading platform.

Another idea that did the rounds was allowing people to rent the market from GOM. So somebody could run a L$ one for example and handle all the admin but pay GOM for the hosting and maintenance of the trading platform.

So theres lots of ideas out there and I suspect unless its completely seperate will be using the current codebase. Still taking GOM Open Source could be an interesting idea as well. Would allow lots of people to set up their own exchange and improve it.

That got me thinking... maybe they aren't leaving us so high and dry like we are all thinking, maybe they have something up their sleves that can't be talked about yet....

They did not put GOM out of business, GOM quit. The market place had not even been implemented yet and they threw in the towel, instead of trying to figure out how to innovate and compete. It's easier to roll over and play dead and make dramatic comments about falling on swords.

Do you know the dollar amount GOM was offered, or the value of the stock? No one here does. GOM's inability to diversify their currency business, combined with slowness to add crucial features, is their own fault, not LL's. Their marketplace could have remained quite viable after LL's exchange debuted, but now, we will never know. They get to play the martyr, which is far more dramatic and in line with their behavior over the past few months. Snowcrash is not making an attack on GOM's character. Their actions speak clearly.

I just had enough of your personal attacks Ulrika. You know no limit do you? In another post you associate me with a despised political figure, and in another post made fun with a cartoon (which you apparently deleted). You clearly trespassed my tolerance for personal attacks. If you want to discuss passionately or with humor or with sarcasm I have no problem with those, but you are not allowed to pass beyond that to attack my character, integrity, personality in no circumstances.

Why does it always seem to be one side or the other? Either it is all GOMs fault for whatever reasons, or it is all LL's fault. Maybe it is both? Maybe LL used it power to try and get basicly free work out of Tom and Jamie, and GOM just gave up. Or maybe it is more one way or the other, but I think it is a failure on both sides.

And if these cases were true, then why dump the $L trading?
If they ARE going to continue pursuing any trading system,
they could allow $L to be traded under the new system.

If GOM is making any kind of profit, why not continue
with it's profit until their new systems are functional?

If GOM requires too much work for them to pursue these
other things, why not ask/hire someone to help with
GOM efforts while they focus on the other things?
(some people would help for free.. if the alternative
was shutting down GOM)

I have to (want to) believe Tom and Jamie when they
give their reasons for shutting down GOM being:

1) LL's addition of trading $L within the GUI causing
them to lose interest in SL
2) XML-RPC bugs causing them to lose money

In either case.. there ARE other solutions than
closing it all down. Mainly, I'd like to hear if
they are open to other solutions or if they're
ONLY interest is in making sure GOM shuts
down suddenly.

Gabrielle

I think the Real Time trading system was in the works:
http://forums.gamingopenmarket.com/viewtopic.php?t=323

At the end of the day who knows what made them reach their decision. Maybe Jamie finished up the company accounts and found a huge hole or maybe their wives were complaining how much time they were spending in front of their computers each night doing Paypal and handling support.

Well you know this is exactly the reason why we need LL based exchange system. You are absolutely right, we may never know the answer to questions I asked here and only speculate our own opinions. However, the point is, they could have done this at any time whether or not LL decided to have an exchange system, because of couple of the million potential reasons you mentioned above. Then what? We would hope and wait for LL to develop a system in time to take over the gap? Even when we know LL is going to come up with the exchange soon, there is still worry if this will be on time before GOM shuts down or is 1-2 week delay will be painless enough? or if IGE will take advantage of this as a monopoly?

I am not arguing whose fault this is or whether or not GOM guys have given great service (they have and they should be applauded for that). Again the key point is they are more likely to make emotional or make personal choices that can hurt SL then LL is, I hope all agree on that at least.

It's just sad that GOM gives up and so many people are quick to blame LL.

LL didn't do anything to force GOM out of business -- anyone is free to start up their own exchage, LL included. So what if they can integrate it into the client itself -- still doesn't stop anyone.

I can't see any logical way to say that LL acted 'against' GOM. They didn't try to subvert or interfere with their business in any way. They didn't try to stop GOM from conducting their business.

They just haven't done anything wrong here -- so all this wailing about LL pulling the rug out from people and acting against residents or anti-competitively doesn't make sense. If GOM wanted to, they could carry on business as usual... but they don't.

There is no conspiracy, they're just abandoning the business.

So does anyone think they could introduce an exchange that actually adds value to the market? Who's got the killer solution? The killer app?

Though I don't want to set my expectations too high for the SL community, I do remain hopeful that we'll see something inspiring come of this yet.

Interference? Not at all. Subversion? Even by the most conseervative definition, a resounding yes. The implementation of an LL-sponsored currency exchange definitely subverts the business plan of GOM. There is little that can be done to "innovate" or "compete" when the competitor has a massive amount of leverage. In this case, the leverage is almost insurmountable. How does one compete against a service which has the ability to directly process credit cards, can apply credits directly to accounts, creates and manages the currency, and incorporates the exchange into the UI of the client?

To everyone who keeps parroting the line "innovate or die" I ask you this: how would you compete against such a service? What is your brilliant innovation?

I dont agree its insurmountable.

If that were the case then how did all the other seach engines cut into yahoos glut market?

How do web hosts continue to pop up and give rise to a fevor of competition on the internet?

How did Sir Edmund Hillary ever make it to the top of Mount Everest (a thing called the most insurmountable object in the world!) ??

the list goes on....

Its not always innovation that drives a market, it is also dedication.

I have been in business for a long time, but have I invented anything new? Nope. Have I innovated into the field I work? Nope.

But I have been here a looooooong time. That gives me an edge in experience and referrals. People know I get things done, and done right.

So its not always innovation.

And to be perfectly on point, because company A makes a better widget yet has horrible service and company B's widget is slightly less perfect but the company truely understands the plight of the customer, who would you choose?

I prefer quality and service, they dont have to be exclusive, and we typically weigh the pressures of each in our business.

Just to play devil's advocate here, but... if you design a service for a product of another company, , in your own time, as a hobby, how often do you get stock options by said company in order to integrate it into the client?

LF

...and you should add with a lot of support from LL. If anyone remembers GOM was selling virtual money for many other mmorpgs but they had to drop every single one of them because none of those companies supported them, whereas LL did and promoted their web site.

Yahoo! was not integrated into the fabric of the web. Irrelevant. But, it raises an interesting question. How did Yahoo! come to be opposed? Some engines went with kitsch. Ask Jeeves had an interesting approach which it hoped would attract users. Some engines went with superior results. Google is winning in this regard. MSN used their browser as leverage to get their engine a share of the market. However, none of these are directly applicable because none of them concern development for a proprietary platform. You can't control the internet. There are always other browsers and other engines. No one corporation can control it. However, even the parallel example of MSN, which is similar to our circumstance here but not directly analagous, demonstrates that platform leverage can significantly affect competition.



The primary mode of competition in web hosting is cost. Almost all of the packages offered are similar if not identical in services offered. The key distinction is the cost of the service. Even in this area, there is very little deviation from the average price. This is primarily because $4.00 hosting is approaching the limit of profitability. However, SL has the major advantage in this regard as they can directly credit accounts and process credit card payments without the need for PayPal. This definitely improves profitability. Though GOM could conceivably drop PayPal and improve in this regard, they will never be able to credit accounts. In a life and death battle of overhead reduction, LL is inevitably going to win. Their position as the only provider of SL ensures that they will always be in a superior position.



Irrelevant. Mountains are not companies, and mountaineering is not business.



Which would I choose? It's irrelevant. The market chooses for me. Consider the example of cellular phone service. I watched as AT&T, whom I was comfortable conducting business with, was consumed by Cingular. Cingular is a perfect example of a company with piss poor service, piss poor customer service, and phenomenal success. Yet they continue to drive competition down because of their significant leverage.

Hell, consider an even more direct example: IGE. Tons of people used IGE because, at times, the rates were better than at GOM. This despite a multitude of problems and a host of bad karma. People do not choose with their hearts. Most people choose with their wallets. The vast majority of consumers are not looking for a surfeit of affection, but rather minimal expenditure of either time or money. Most users will even tolerate poor service if it is more expedient or less expensive. It's a fact of business.

Thank you, Dnate.

If this is going to another one of those "I'm right and there's not point in discussing it otherwise," kinds of discussion, then disregard this post and I'll go no further into this.

The point some people seem to agree with is that LL's move hasn't prevented or subverted the business practice of GOM. They might have leverage since they own the platform, but how well that leverage would serve them is a subjective observation.

GOM could still stay in business and just have found other ways to differentiate it's business so as to retain or grow its customer base.

As for what I would do.. well that has nothing to do with it. I'm not in this business but am merely an observer with an opinion on business practice. If it were me, I would find some way to make my service better than what LL could offer within the client and I would probably wait to release those features after LL rolled out their service. If I didn't have the ideas or talent in-house to ensure my success, I would've scouted it out if I could afford to.

Best thing I've read so far. I'm a relative newcomer to the game, and have used both IGE and GOM to purchase/trade Lindens. If there is an internal system, why would anyone want to use the external platforms? It was mentioned that they could have features that the internal trading system did not, but how soon would it be before those features were assimilated into the internal trading system as well?

Microsoft claims to be benevolent, and its continual adding of features to Windows is designed to make the user's experience more complete. However, to the outside companies who developed those features first and independently, Microsoft is pushing them out of the market. It appears, from the miscellaneous postings, that GOM had help from Linden Labs in the beginning to create their system. Obviously, LL didn't see a need to create such a system up front, but as they noticed the demand increasing, they began to think as Microsoft did. That installing an internal trading system would be a direct benefit to both LL and their users.

Does this make GOM the bad guys? Not hardly. Even if they were being unreasonable in their demands when LL talked to them, it doesn't change the fact that they are running a business and expect to get paid for their work. LL apparently decided that they couldn't negotiate terms with GOM that would be beneficial for LL, so they hired programmers and are developing their own system. Doesn't make LL to be the bad guys either.

And I am sure that there are probably tons of other facts on both sides that none of the rest of us will ever be aware of. Not that we actually need to know. So we have GOM shutting down because they can't make a profit. They are shutting down as quickly as possible to reduce their losses and expenses. Nothing wrong with that at all. There are alternate currency trading systems still. And we will all look forward to LL's currency trading system and watch to see how it performs.

Good luck to the GOM crew on their new endeavours, and the same to LL as we await the results of their newest creation.

From what i Understand - in the begining LL needed a lot of help - thats how all these charter accounts, etc came in to placxe.

They Helped GOM (and were helped in return) put together its currency exchange.

Now LL had a business decision to make. They decided they needed to bring an exchange in game. This makes sense there are big blocks of people who WONT use thir party sources. There is conveinence. There are other reasons.

They figured out what GOM would be worth to them. They made an offer. GOM decided it wasnt good enough. Even called it Insulting.

Unfortunately Linden Labs does not owe them the Income they got off of GOM. Never did.

It sounds like they Already made quite a bit of USD$ off the currency exchange, enough they were contemplating having on quit their RL job.

SO they wanted more then Linden Labs was willing to pay , so much so they couldnt reach a compromise.

SO Linden Labs had to go ahead with their business decision without GOM. Sorry - thems the breaks.

If you read some GOM posts you can tell they are bitter. I imagine there is at least some of it aimed at cuasing LL some discomfort - since they know LL isnt ready to replace them yet. However they didnt want to make all their customers too mad , so they gave the 4 day time window.

I can agree to this, I don't think either side came out smelling of roses. I think its just that human nature means that we want to be able to blame one side then another because it suits our euphemistic concept that theres always a good guy and bad guy.

In negotiation there is never a black or white answer and both sides are always going to try and get the best deal possible.

Because business is business and I would like all the people saying GOM didn't have a chance to tell me where it was written in the book all new business owners get (yeah as if) that you are guarenteed never to have opposition to your product and service in the niche marketplace you create???

Adapt or die. And in the case of US law, sue. Otherwise you really have no recourse, and to be perfectly truthful here, if you decided to bow out, why be an ass and post more melodrama for the trolls to feed on ?

It would seem both sides have a lot to learn still about doing business in the virtual world and the real world.

This is an arguement pro-GOM that keeps popping up and I thought I would inquire as to where you can read their actual business financials that gives this statement creedance?

I mean other then what the owners have said?

I am sorry, but I like to base things on facts mostly, but this is hyberbole until such a time as I see the actual quarterly returns.

And to run some numbers, even with a 4GB bandwidth and a co-located server at the volumes they were trading over there I find it extremely hard to believe, even if they only took in 0.02 cents per block for every single trade, they made next to nothing. I host, and co-locate, and run bandwidth into the gigs and we don't come close to the payment they would have had over there, unless by gross incompetence or fraud/theft/ripoff prices of the host.

I could get a fully dedicated server and 4 gigs of bandwith at a permium, for example, at 900 month. Giving a 200-300 return just based on 2000 in volume a day for 30 days at 0.02 per block.

So unless those numbers are someplace.....

I've been away from this thread, as I've been working feverishly on a submission for the State of Play Public Spaces Contest. Upon my return, I had quite a hearty laugh when I read your post. Talk about a miscommunication.

A personal attacks are defamatory statements that can either be part of a fallacious ad-hominem attack to discredit an argument or a tangential off-topic remark usually motivated by anger meant to insult an individual. I did neither. Instead my comment was on topic, asking why you were taking the road of Linden apologist without regard for the position of GOM. You have been so aggressive in your punditry (spawning threads and posting prolifically), that I wondered out loud why you have taken such an extreme position. What are your interests? Are you being paid? Do you have a competing service? Do you dislike the individuals who run GOM? This is not a personal attack, it's part of the discussion.

I have no recollection of comparing you to a deceased politician. Personally, I never compare individuals to Adolf Hitler (it's a forum cliché) and my worst insult, comparing someone to George Bush, hasn't been used in quite some time. Frankly, I'm not sure what you're talking about, although if you refresh my memory, even then, would it really have anything to do with this discussion?

Additionally, the picture I posted was written in good humor, when I thought we were sharing a chuckle about the impending fallout when the rest of SL woke up and discovered the GOM news in the forum. Since you were the one doing most of the explaining, I crafted a fun image of the impeding fallout for a laugh. I'll post it again below. Look at it with fresh eyes and you'll see that it was crafted so we could share a laugh.

Finally, I have every right to question your character, integrity, personality just as you have done mine in this post (accusing me of personal attacks). It's just part of discourse. Provided individuals are rational, this probing into one's ulterior motives does not have to be insulting.

I hope that has served to repair the miscommunication we had.

~Ulrika~

That cartoon is too funny! Thank you for sharing! *grin* I thnk people tend to get way too serious in conversations at times.

I don't care if you had a hearty or heartless laugh, there was no miscommunication, you attacked my personality and character.



I know very well what an ad-hominem attack is and what a personal attack is. Let me give you the definition of personal attack:

"Generally, a personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when examining another person's claims or comments. It is considered a personal attack when a person starts referencing a supposed flaw or weakness in an individual's personality, beliefs, lifestyle, convictions or principles, and use it as a debate tactic or as a means of avoiding discussion of the relevance or truthfulness of what the person said. It works on the reasoning that, by discrediting the source of an argument, e.g. the person making it, the argument itself can be weakened.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because the attack is directed at the person making the claim and not the claim itself. The truth value of a claim is independent of the person making the claim. After all, no matter how morally repugnant a person might be, he or she can still make true claims."

You did exactly that. Rather than responding to my question, claims or comments, you questioned my motives, whether I am being paid by LL (how ridiculous!), whether I dislike the individuals at GOM and that I am using Karl Rove like tactics (see below). I don't think anyone can dispute that these are trying to discredit me so that my claims or questions are discredited by the virtue of my hypothetical motives, or integrity. THis is a text book case of a personal attack.




See below your earlier comment towards my character again. I did't say deceased, I said despised. By making an analogy to Karl Rove (which I consider worse than comparing to Bush) and saying that I am a Linden lab apologist again you are trying to discredit my comments, by directly attacking integrity of my character. By posting these completely false accusations, you are again personally attacking me to discredit my opinion.





If the picture was prepared in good humor then why did you delete it after you posted it? If you had not made personal attacks, I perhaps would have taken this in good humor, but in the context of your attacks to discredit me, this cartoon basically reinforces the aim to discredit my opinion and I consider this a personal attack.



You have absolutely no right to question any of my character integrity! Who do you think you are!? Your personal attacks are not accusations, they are facts as they stand. I have reported these and will pursue this as far as it goes. You can't just insult any one you like, question their integrity without shred of evidence and get away with it, at least not from me.

If you want to argue for or against the things I wrote, like pretty much everyone else did in this thread, you are welcomed to tear those apart however you like, but you are not allowed to attack my personality or motives to discredit the ideas.