Still room for GOM replacements, even with the LindeX?

Although the LindeX is here -- I did some quick math to see if a GOM-style open market could still offer some competition in conjunction with the LindeX. The 3.5% flat fee for sellers on the LindeX is a hefty one -- especially considering the volume tier discount that GOM offers.

Non-market buyers/sellers (IGE/Anshe) still have the best deal for sellers, but it's been my understanding that this price has always been influenced heavily by the open market. *buying* L$ from the dealers, however, always has a higher markup, compared to the open market. I won't get into the buyer side, but if someone wants to take that up, go for it.

So, basic numbers, assuming a flat rate of $3.30/L$1000 and including current fees:

Selling 50k L$ @ $3.30USD/L$1000:
LindeX - $154.225 (with $5 Paypal fee)
LindeX - $159.225 (without $5 Paypal fee)
GOM (at 0.12 tier) - $159.00
GOM (at 0.2 tier) - $161.70
---
Non-market buy/sell:
IGE - $165.00
Anshe - $165.00
---

One thing that's always struck me about GOM has been their consistent professionalism in business dealings -- which I'd expect of anyone handling financial affairs in and outside of SL.

SLExchange has made mention of entering the market, but I'm betting there's still going to be plenty of room left in the wake of GOM closing. Any thoughts?

I guess you have not read this yet?

/130/b5/63988/1.html


another alternative

I'm thinking we should see what SLex rolls out.

However, I'm ALL about more options, so if we
can get even another choice, that could be a good thing.

Personally, I'd like to see Tom and Jamie turn over GOM
to some other people ... and let it live on.

However, I have a feeling a large part of their shutting
it down is to try to get back at LL for (seemingly) screwing
them over, and so they won't let someone else raise
it from the dead.

More talk on the SLex here:

/130/b5/63988/1.html

Just been reading this from the GOM Forums as penned by Jamie.
http://forums.gamingopenmarket.com/viewtopic.php?t=385

I get the impression they want to take a sabbatical from GOM and then come back with new ideas and features to build the ultimate trading platform.

Well, I DO hope they come back !

But, I just read the posts there and am not sure I'm convinced.
Why do they have to shut the whole thing down if it's just
that they need a break, and have been running in to XML-RPC
problems?

Why not, instead, hire on a couple people to manage it while
they focus on other things, and let a few people in the community
try to come up with solutions for the bugs... or at least to help
in whatever ways are needed until they CAN come back?

I'm not sure I know any big biz people who scrap their
entire company, which is doing GREAT, and has such super
backing from the community, to take a vacation... Most of
them hire on managers to continue the work while the
owners are away.

Thanks for that link -- does give some insight into what's in the works. I think a vacation's a good thing at this point.

As you say maybe GOM won't come back to Second Life. And in some ways I wouldn't be surprised. Concentrating on SL may have been one of those small business mistakes that resulted in the fallout you see today.

Their original ambition was too tackle the whole virtual gaming market in some form or another. You could even argue that Second Life isn't big enough yet to create enough volume to sustain GOM. Add in LindeX as a competing exchange, and I can start to see how Jamie and Tom were thinking.

Bottom line is you need money to pay managers or hire people to run the business whilst you are away and it sounds like GOM just wasn't doing enough. It ran into the very dilemma that all small business faced, how to get from a small start up to something sustainable. 50% of businesses fail in 3 years of inception, 20% in the first year because of a myriad of reasons ranging from getting the business plan wrong to being unable to reach sustainability.

I'm facing a similar dilemma of going into hibernation with a company I own, whether to shut it down and rip out the crud. Although its easier as its mainly a holding company for various projects and dosen't have many shareholders (Family only) and not many assets.

I would bet you money that if Tom and Jamie put out a post
saying they needed a break.... asked if anyone wanted to help
run things while they were away, for no pay..... they would
have many people offer !! Infact, probably more people
than they could use.

That is a lot of work to do for free. Plus, how do you know who is honest and who is not, we are talking about millions of L$ and thousands of USD that people would have access to.



Jsut a little XML-RPC issue? So having to spend hours a day to manually go through EACH transaction, losing 100KL$, and having LL not fix this issue is just a small thing to you? What would be a big issue to you?

Indeed, I'm sure many would jump at the chance. It would have to be done officially in some way due to business legalitys, sign a contract that kind of thing, so at least they know who you are if you decided to empty paypal account

Since GOM is a registered corporation, even the offer of share options or shares in GOM might sway a few more, especially if you do want to hire somebody full time.

The problem is at the end of the day its only a short term solution. Businesses shouldn't have to run on charity but need to generate enough to be sustainable.

The XML-RPC issue is a pretty big one. Saith Jamie from the posted GOM forum thread:

Doing something like GOM requires a certain degree of stability within SL. While it's certainly possible to audit transactions manually, that shouldn't be the case. If GOM does re-emerge, it's probably best that they wait until there's a solid communication protocol in place.

Stable platform, stable economy... I don't want to have to choose.

Well.. I can't really answer those questions myself, since I do not
know exactly what type of work those two guys are actually
doing on a daily basis... and for how many hours.

GOM seems to be running very well on it's own.

I'm sure there is work that needs to be done, like finding
a solution to the XML-RPC problem, but I don't know
how much time they actually spend on that. Also, perhaps
if the community of our scripters were presented with
the problem, we could come up with a good solution
fairly quickly.

I don't think they are taking a lot of sales calls, nor
placing tons of orders for parts, nor working in an
assembly line, etc... I'm sure they DO stuff.. but apparantly
it's enough for just two guys to handle it for as long as they
have been.

As far as "who can be trusted?" .... well... I'm not sure
if any of the helpers would need to actually be in charge
of any money, right? What do Tom and Jamie do with
regards to manipulating currency? -- Perhaps something,
but as I said... I can't answer these myself.. I don't know.

However... my point is... I'm SURE they could find
at least 2-3 people if they were really interested in
keeping their biz going. I find it odd they haven't
even tried!

First of all, the XML-RPC problem is not their scripts it is SL being flakey again. I know this has been an ongoing issue, not just with GOM, but will all scripters that use it. A lot of the time that Tom and Jamie spend on GOM is processing Paypal. I know Tom stated that alone is 2-3 hours a night. Having to examine all the withdrawls via the ATMs can't be easy. All of this, and they still don't make enough for one of then to make it a full time job, let alone both. Like I said before, it sounds to me that closing up shop is the easiest way to move forward. If they have other plans, why would they bother leaving a money losing operation going?

Yep CB the market is wide open - and I'm sure there will be players entering that no one is expecting.