Banking and In-world currency exchange

Two main points here.
"..the problems they have caused in other games, illegally selling others intellectual property in such games.." The only 'problem' they cause is ruining the games for everyone else by making quests, etc, pointless. Why go on a quest to win a magic sword that increases your hp when you know all your friends have simply bought one, plus the magic armour to go with it? This point is completely irrelevant in SL because SL is NOT A GAME. If they were to start selling equipment from in-world games such as darklife, ul or whatever, then that would be up to the respective game owners/developers to deal with.

"..The fact that the Lindens do business with these companies is regrettable to say the least." The Lindens do no more business with 'these companies' than they do with you. The Lindens DO NOT buy or sell L$ on GOM, IGE, AnsheChung.com, or any other trading site.

GOM no longer trades in other games and concentrates exclusively on SL, where their presence is welcome, not a violation of anyone's intellectual property. And AFAIK, AnsheChung.com has no association whatsover with any online game or world besides SL.

Others have responded, but since I was addressed directly, it would only be polite to answer.

Yes, I read your entire earlier post, Zantax. Boycott IGE if you like, since they actually do trade items from these other games you're upset about, but GOM has nothing to do with your prior problems on MMOGs, nor does SLExchange. Tarring them with the same brush is like refusing to use a telephone because MCI/Worldcom had an accounting scandal. You are certainly entitled to your own opinion about the value or validity of the services offered by GOM, etc., but I am also entitled to my opinion about your reasoning. For what it's worth, my opinion is that your baggage from previous online games is interfering with your enjoyment of Second Life. But that's not really my business, I guess.

Everything else I was going to say in response to the rest of this has been said by others.

neko

Several folks are already providing currency conversion inworld.

I'm providing instant L$ purchase with a Credit Card or Paypal account, with instant inworld delivery (no human interaction) already at my ATM in Garrison(139, 151) [Gigas Supermall]. Others provide human metered delivery of L$.

Running out of RL money? Stop wasting time in SL!
Who are these people who are leaving in droves?
I have been here since beta and all my friends are still around.

EggyMan don't know about people leaving in droves - here's a thread I started early Jan. 05, just after the 3 day melt down.


Tiering Down, Scaling Back

Seems like a whole lot of people scaling back, Merwan



Eggy, you should take your friends that have lifetime accounts out of that equation, and see how many are left.

A thread to track people quitting is ridiculous. Anyone that has actually done so isnt here.

This is a game. If you want to call it a virtual world, fine. But it's not real money. I don't see why we have to have 3rd party companies at all. Linden Labs provides the service. They could just set the price of $Lindens at will, and bill the same credit card that I use for my account.

I know that the amateur economists will be all over me for saying this, but I'll stand by it... well, maybe not. I can be convinced to change my mind if the reasons are good...

Anyway, it's not really money. These aren't really houses and clubs. And if there's a cash fee for exchanging the money, why shouldn't the Lindens get it instead of some other company?

In our efforts to be realistic in this virtual world, we're purposefully overcomplicating this money issue. In-world ATM's would be wonderful.

Was my impression also Deklex, that more people seemed to be scaling back.

But who know, people say one thing and do another, eh look at the numbers of peeps that say they're quitting, over and over and still they don't seem to actuall quit.

One problem with Linden Lab selling L$ is that that would result in rampant inflation in the SL economy. The 3rd party L$ exchange services (me, anshe, gom, ige) "recycle" L$, we don't create them. If LL sells them, they "make" L$, thus increasing the money supply drastically. That would lead to hyper-inflation, and a market crash.

They could start selling land for l$ and then sell the resulting l$ they receive.

The advantage being that they get the same amount of money they did before and easier to buy currency, the disadvantage being the perception problem.

I think the theoretical problem will be the legal liability issues, if they are not already getting themselves into deep by linking to various websites.

Okay I'm reading the initial post and I'm seeing nothing suggesting that you couldn't go sell Lindens on GOM for USD. Just that purchases handled through the handy features would credit sales to your account - you could always go out of world and do it the way we're doing it right now. People who rely on Lindens to buy their food I think could deal with that.

FWIW, it seems equally convenient for it to be an account credit in USD, or go back to your GOM account (IGE, etc.) so you can take it out by Paypal.

I think it would be a wonderful convenience, and I'd love it. I don't see a downside to it.

If more active trading in $L makes the value drop, then spending will rise. If the theory is that only relatively poor activity in trading in $L maintains its value, then I'd be concerned and getting out of any $L based business endeavors anyway.

I actually think that spending will rise. Most of the people in $L are westerners and most westerners are from a spend/convenience economy. I think in general that people who don't buy things now because they are out of money and don't feel like logging out and going into IGE and waiting, etc., will be more likely to if they can do it quickly and painlessly inworld.

I think that's good for vendors and merchants.

this is terrible if this happens the game will stop being fun everyone will be greedy and if yuora noob who needs money theyll just say go buy some. and never help out

I'm all for anything that would help me pay my tier.
As a UK resident it takes up 9 days to transfer money from GOM through PayPal to my bank a/c. If I can pay LL direct I will be very happy !

Ok am not sure why this would be bad, for it really dont look to be...but then im just one who buys L$ and spend it in SL
here is how it works for me....and im not happy with it really if you want to know, and im not real new but been here a month i think'

i go site to buy L$- dont matter which one for they are all the same in price and time it takes- i wait for days on end to recieve my L$...after a week passes i get my L$
Now when i did this with There i received the tbucks in minutes...no long days of waiting....
now you could say it is cause i use paypal, but they dont use credit cards the sites dont well ones i been to didnt....
There is nothing wrong with those sites, it is just the time it takes to receive what i bought, if im going to buy L$ or whatever, i would want it same day not days later.....and Phillip has a good point on the land part, you dont have days to wait if wanting to get auctioned land or even for sale land, it goes fast on most of them....
I think LL should have something where someone like me can buy and use thier money right then, but using the sites that do it now, maybe like a cash advance thing ...for example... avatar goes to a machine, buys however much L$ needed, L$ are then given; site gives the L$ to LL instead of avatar....even have it where u can buy L$ in this way 1k,2k,3k,4k,5k,10k,15k,20k and etc

on the gambling casino stuff.....pogo and iwon has those ..and you can win real money wit them....how can they do that with the laws you were all talking about?..they are both world wide played am sure....

Now if those sites would take credit cards...or faster transaction of funds that would be great tooo

as someone who never uses paypal or any type of online banking this would appeal to me

but I have to laugh... no offense.... Ive lost half my inventory with LL software
not to mention the connection problems

Im personally not ready to gamble my RL $$$ in this BUGGY software lol

Ditto. What's L$100,000 these days? I conservatively estimate thats how much inventory I've purchased from other players that has since disappeared or gives an error when I try to rez or attach it. Or, as I recently discovered, merely crashes me to desktop when I try to change perms in inventory.

I suppose another L$100,000, time wise at least, for things I've made myself that have gone missing.

Lucky for LL that your inventory and Linden Dollar balance are worth a big fat zero, really!

End the money sinks. Its as simple as that

You think the economy will be more stable with less money sinks? Laws of supply and demand suggest that the value of something decreases as the supply increases. The supply increases from stipends, bonuses, and anything else that create $L. With no money sinks, inflation will cause the price of the $L to fall constantly. LL on the other hand seems ready to try to balance the economy by tweaking both sources and sinks. If you completely lose one or the other, there is no stability. The price will either rise or fall greatly, either of which is not stability.

A. This has a potential to take away the stipend for basic members -_-

B. This is an interesting idea, but rather i'd like a place to STORE my excess L$, and watch it grow when it is in the account each week alog WITH my stipend

C. By the time ratings are taken outta the sl profile, will all ways of getting richer in sl change?_?

D. I like pie!

E. What kind of potential would a bank be in sl? Would it be used to do a virtual economy with more engrossing features?

F. Will i learn to fly by farting?

G. Are you sure that when we die, Second Life isn't where we end up reincarnating?

I think this is a great idea, bringing an egalitarian approach to the purchase of $L. Who cares if the value of the $L goes up or down? Only those with a vested interest in keeping it high. And that would be the property moguls and the great movers and shakers of SL. This approach would mean that we, the great un-washed not making squillions of $L in-game would be free to purchase extra cash without having to endure the rigmarole of going through GOM and the like. Top idea - do it now - most SL players will thank you for it.

And *Anglo-saxon two fingers up gesture* at those who don't.

You don't get any more egalitarian than GOM. Seriously. Anybody at all can place orders as small as ~$3. That's the lowest barrier to entry you're likely to find anywhere.

What I'd love to see is LL take over the web shopping market and try to run *them* out of business too! That would surely encourage others to use SL a a business platform! Do you think most SL players will thank LL when people decide it's not worth developing anything new and interesting because LL will simply copy it when it gets successful and starts making money?

Unfortunately, Ricky, we may find that some of us who are developing significant content for SL will stop doing so if they do NOT try to take over web shopping / currency exchange.

The reason being, we need to make more money in order to build content.

In order to make more money, the process needs to become more user friendly and LL will need to make that happen.

For example - I need more categories in the classifieds. Listing all my content in there as it stands is way too messy and makes it difficult for users to find my stuff and therefore to buy it.

Yes, this will harm SLX/SLB but as a content producer I really need this to happen.


Setting up an infrastructure that lets GOM / SLEx / etc integrate more intimately with SL would be cool, but I'm not sure we can wait around for the complexity of that to be hashed out.

That being all said, Philip can't be arrogant. He needs to keep lines of communication open. Being arrogant isn't going to get anyone anywhere.

Blaze, you've been around the GOM forums enough to know that we drafted a proposal for a robust XMLRPC interface that would have allowed anyone to integrate with SL's financial infrastructure. The complexity would actually have been *less* than LL developing their own marketplace, since all they would have had to have been concerned about was intra-user transfers, rather than running a full-fledged marketplace. Our propoasal would also have gone a long way toward facilitating content purchases through third-party sites. Sadly, it was dismissed by Philip with a wave of the hand as "putting up roadblocks" to LL developing their own marketplace. To me, that reads as "we'd rather do it right now than do it right".

As you say, the lines of communication needed to remain open, and unfortunately they haven't. Bottom line is, Jamie and I had the experience and knowledge to put forth a solid proposal after Philip had asked our opinion, and it wasn't even given the courtesy of a proper reply. That speaks volumes to me.

You're missing a big part of the picture here. Yes there are the uber-capitalists with *lots* of RL money to do land barony, trade million-unit blocks of $L on the GOM, etc.

But there are far more "small business" owners who develop and run the clubs that you dance at. Or the *ingo game you occasionally play. Or the casino that you occasionally frequent. Or the RPG or shooter sim you occasionally play at. Or the shopping mall that you buy all your stuff at.

These small business owners spend anywhere from $40 to 125 to even 195 or more of their real world dollars every month to bring YOU that content. Do you have any idea how many linden they need to make back just to recover the cost of their monthly tier? Do you have any idea how many sheer hours they put into their efforts every week? The RL return on investment, if it even manages to make a profit at all, is a pittance. A poverty-level wage.

Without these folks, you'd have one seriously boring experience in SL.

As the $L drops, so does their break-even margin. You think folks who charge $L 200 for something now are going to be able to charge $400 or 600 or 1000 for it later if the value of the $L against real world cash keeps dropping? You think folks aren't going to want to just walk away from trying to create content for you if they go further in the hole every month as the $L declines?

Every basic and premium player is affected thus by the destabilization of the $L. When you give your sod-off gesture, you're giving it to yourself.