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Second Life Shuts Down Gambling
Tech.Luver sends us to The Inquirer, which notes the banning of all gambling in Second Life. Here is the Linden Labs blog post about the change in policy, which is, to say the least, not popular. From the article: "[T]he large chunk of users that enjoyed using in-world casinos and betting Linden Dollars on events both inside and outside the game world will now have nothing left to do. Perhaps more to the point for Linden, the move will cut off the revenues earned from those owning Casino-style islands in the game, the owners of which are some of the top contributors to the Linden coffers through currency fees and land rental."
That cuts the attractions of SL by 50%...When the "Think of the Children" crowd gets 'em to ban sex, Second Life will become officially pointless.
On the one hand, I get it. Since the Linden actually has a conversion rate with "real" money, the gambling is gambling for "real" money and there are all kinds of laws about that, including last years
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which is directed at the companies that host gambling sites, rather than the players, making it much easier to enforce. I can't see Linden bucking that, though a sneaky gambling "underground" would be awesome, far far cooler than actual legal gambling.
On the other hand, what a bunch of nanny-state crap.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Anyone wanna bet how long before online sex will be banned in SL?
Just got this from one of my SL groups:
"Protest the end of SL Casinos!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Clementina/188/122 Protest Encroachment of
Real-Life US law into Second Life... 1 PM today... pplease IM all your
friends about this demonstration at governor Linden's Mansion.."
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Isn't that thing that was big for a while last year? I thought the companies and advertisers left it in droves.
Where we will allow gambling and all other vices not available in Second Life.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Well at least they can still buy and sell genitals. If LL ever shut that down... that would be a low blow.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Since this paticular MMO happens to involve large amounts of real money.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I bet $100 that people will continue to gamble anyways, anyone want to bet against?
Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
1) Move to country with no Internet gambling laws 2) Start an online game like Second Life, but with gambling allowed 3) Profit! Seriously, I think the only reason the government banned online gambling was because they couldn't effectively tax it.
Protesting in Second Life about stupid laws passed by Congress is as useful as protesting in Australia about stupid laws passed by Congress. It's possible (if unlikely) that other people will notice you and report it to someone whose opinion matters, but you can't blame Linden Labs for following the law any more than you could blame Australia's Prime Minister for being unable to change U.S. policy.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Baccarat
Blackjack
Poker
Don't those games have some skill to them?
I recall that efforts have been made to reclassify poker as a game of skill and not a game of chance, to get around gambling laws.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Other MMOs have (player-run) casinos, because they don't support exchange between their virtual currencies and real-world cash. Now, here's a couple questions.
If Linden introduced a "play money" currency in the game that wasn't officially convertible to cash, but allowed players to decide to accept it for whatever they wanted (including in-game cash), would that also be illegal in the US?
Sony Online games are divided into two, with a minority of servers for games like EQ2 allowing real-money transactions and the majority disallowing it. Is gambling legal on the majority of those servers, but illegal in the minority?
This really does push the question of how virtual these virtual worlds really are.
so where is the burnded woods this week? :)
To summarize my recent rambling journal post on the subject, there are many SL residents (including myself) who appreciate this move. The casinos really tended to trash the sims in which they set up shop, in both functional and aesthetic ways.
It's worth noting that online gambling has been illegal in the US for a while now, and it's something of a surprise that Linden let things continue for so long.
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This is such old news, been happening for months. They've been removing classifieds and land descriptions that even have the word 'casino' or 'gambling', even if it says 'no gambling!'. They're only doing this because the government made them, so it's not really their fault, though it does suck.
Anyone remember Friendster? It was MySpace before MySpace existed. Then the founder tried to intrusively control how people related to each other. Result?: Friendster died, and MySpace, amongst a host of impersonators, but one that wasn't so intrusive (at least socially, nevermind MySpace's instrusive assault on your sense of web aesthetics) catapulted into popularity. Read all about it in detail.
So if I were a betting man (no pun intended), I would abandon Second Life now, and look into the most promising of Second Life's impersonators that doesn't intrude on your freedoms like Second Life.
People do not like unnecessary intrusions on their freedoms, in real life or on the Internet. However, unlike real life, people can vote with their feet a lot more effectively on the Internet, and simply leave and encamp somewhere else, en masse. Carpe Diem, Website investors.
The promise of Second Life, if there is any at all, is that it would allow you to do things you can't do in real life. So what does Second Life do? Make it more just like real life, and kill off what would make Second Life attractive to anyone who would want to go there in the first place, and/ or stay there. (Smacks forehead.)
In Second Life's defense, perhaps they are under political pressure to abandon online gambling, which would make sense owing to being based in the USA and the USA's current retarded attitude towards online gambling.
Well then relocate your servers to Antigua.
Or make a poor policy choice, piss off your users, and wither and die.
Study the Friendster warning example carefully, dear Second Life executives.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I know other games don't make it as easy to convert your 'real' money to virtual currency, but I have yet to see a player-run casino banned in Everquest, EQ2, etc. (Can't speak for WoW ... didn't play long enough to tell).
Back to work, I guess.
So if logic follows regarding gambling, Linden $ and real world money in Second Life, would virtual sex in Second Life for Linden $ be prostitution?
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
are easy to fix so only the people that you want can win.
Prohibitions against gambling work just as well as prohibitions against alcohol and other mind-altering substances. i.e. not at all, in either the real world or a virtual one. It's a losing battle, and Linden Labs will eventually lose this one.
I'd suspect that Linden is under some pressure from some government somewhere, and that's the real reason they're doing this.
There will always be people willing to trade their hard-earned Linden dollars for the thrill of possibly winning a lot more from someone else, no matter how long the odds. Those people will now take their money elsewhere, to the detriment of Linden Labs and all the denizens of Second Life.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Blizzard no longer allows you to roll for epic drops in WoW... duel flags are immediately set for all players clicking "need"
More music, fewer hits
I'm pretty sure it has less to do with 'sin regulation' and more to do with tax evasion and money laundering. Governments have proven time and again that 'sin taxes' are a viable source of income.
Therefore, in order to justify their salaries, they have to make new laws.
Over time, all the easy laws are created. Which doesn't leave much for Congress to make laws about.
What we need to do is to have all laws expire after 12 or 16 years (or whatever) so Congress can spend their time voting to pass old laws again.
That way your Congress Critters could justify their salaries AND we'd have a chance of getting rid of stupid, bad laws.
On the downside, once you finally got a law passed despite all the corporate lobbying against it, you'd have to fight the same battle again in 12 years.
that some of the people that now have nothing to do in Second Life might have to get a first life
I never wear buttons but I got a cool hat,
and my homies agree, I really look good in black, fool!
"No sex?" Have you actually seen SL at all?
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Alcohol and drug abuse are problems in the virtual world. Perhaps my avatar could get drunk, but that wouldn't get me drunk.
Best Slashdot Co
Can't people now set up their own SL servers with their own rules?
Technoli
It would be silly to go that far for something that is nothing more than a kind of enhanced pink phone.
Disclaimer: I'm not a 2nd-lifer or into these kinds of things, so I may be talking out of my ass, but I was wondering...
Where does Jurisdiction lie in a virtual world who's only physical manifestation lies in a bunch of web servers spread all over the world?
foreigners living outside the country.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
There are motives that are related to "sin" regulation but isn't there also side effects to the society as a whole that are not related to sin that some people do not want in their area? One is the potential for increases in crime and violence from people that let gambling take over their life and hang out near places where gambling is taking place, same with heavy drug abuse or a brothel or hookers. Of course there is also areas that have above average crime and violence and the closest gambling venues are hundreds of miles away. I guess the real question is are the non sin related side effects we commonly hear about from gambling real issues or are they just created for fear mongering by the people that believe gambling should be stopped because it is a sin. I know I would not want hookers hanging out near my house because of the slum that comes with them, I do not have experience with what really comes with a gambling establishment. I assume hookers would though which brings this full circle.
Regulating gambling has to do with a lot of things, including just exercising control over people's lives like the Church used to do. Which gets the government all kinds of Church baggage that it should not have, like "faithy" followers instead of skeptical citizens.
Bottom line is that governments have no business regulating compulsive behavior except when it damages others who didn't accept the risk, and when the compulsives damage themselves so consistently that there's a medical solution that needs strong promotion to overcome the compulsive's defenses.
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No, because "virtual sex" isn't even close to the real thing whereas "virtual gambling" is actually real gambling.
Those people also smoke cigarettes, spit on the sidewalk, jaywalk... There's plenty of crimes to bust people on when they actually do them. These gambling laws punish the innocent along with the guilty. That's unamerican.
Also, heavy drug abuse, prostitution, and these other sin "crimes" are none of the government's business, except perhaps in zoning regulations and public health.
If we want to use the hammer of criminalization to help solve those much narrower problems, we could just lock up everyone who ever breaks any law (or biblical commandment, or disobeys their fortune cookie), and put them to "useful work" in government factories and farms.
I don't like my neighborhood filled with the kinds of yuppies who come with a law firm in my neighborhood, hanging out in my local bars and restaurants, talking to my kids on their way home from school. And the huge white collar crime waves so many of them run all day from the neighborhood that do a lot more damage than hookers, drugs, gamblers. I don't want them seducing my children into their way of life. Which is why I live in areas which are zoned so that those kinds of law firms are mostly excluded. But of course I accept that they have their right to make their living (until caught in an actual crime causing actual, nonconsensual, damage) somewhere. Somewhere else, where my preferences aren't offended, but their right to make their living is unimpeded.
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It was a reference to the recent banning of two adults who were roleplaying.
Hi, My name is Frosty. I'm a real person with a real "life". what is this "Second Life"?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It's a benign one, but in the end, you have no rights. They can do anything they want to you without notice at any time and your only option is to stop participating.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
To some country with more relaxed online laws, maybe including startup of a new company ;-)
Like Slysoft, which distributes some programs that were originally developed by a German/Swiss company but are no longer legal to sell in the EU(CD/DVD copy programs including CSS decryption).
C - the footgun of programming languages
From the article:
"The large chunk of users that enjoyed using in-world casinos and betting Linden Dollars on events both inside and outside the game world will now have nothing left to do."
This assumes that those users are ONLY into casinos. There is plenty left to do other than gambling. Yes, obviously some people will pack up and go away, but others will simply find new ways to amuse themselves in-world. After all, lots of these same people have significant emotional investment in their in-world persona's and dumping them at the first obstacle will be unlikely.
Also, I'd bet that underground gambling rings spring up, if they haven't already. God knows prohibition didn't stop drinking, and this won't stop gambling.
http://www.freecitizen.com/
That's a very good point, but one which leads to another factor in this whole situation I hadn't even considered before.
In legal casinos such as those in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, the human dealers and digital gambling machines are subject to stringent licensing and auditing procedures. However, in SL anyone with rudimentary building and scripting skills can build a gambling machine, and anyone who buys a piece of virtual land could put a casino on it. Since nobody was watching them, they could fiddle with those algorithms in any way they like without consequence. As with games on some random shady website, skill might be of little to no importance depending on the scruples of the proprietor.
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can't let the beasts win too much $
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I was thinking about the side effect of those in the area that do not gamble. I mean, your neighbor could blast music 24x7 but there are laws to prevent them from doing that. The law also prevents you from blasting your music 24x7 but overall, everyone will be much happier with the law. Is blasting music really hurting anything? No one would typcially be questioned with blasting music unless someone else called to complain. Is anyone being hurt by it? No, but it does lower the quality of life for those in the area that are not directly involved with the music source. How about a neighbor with a dog that barks all night? There are hundreds of laws that the action is not really "bad" but an annoyance for others. I don't know if gambling really lowers the quality of life in an area, that was my question. Does it or are the people that claim that it does really making that up when the real reason they are pushing to rid of it is because of sin.
Getting close to the 2000000 slashdot post...
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From the articles I have read (and the one you linked to seems to infer the same), there were two separate, isolated issues. "Those two" people involved were indeed just age-playing with avatars.
However, you are correct in that Germany is insane enough to have made "virtual" child pornography a crime.
I never said that the PM was subject to U.S. policy, but he's certainly affected by U.S. policy. For instance, gambling operations in the U.K. catering to U.S. customers have been driven out of business by U.S. law, just like the gambling in Second Life has been driven out of business by the very same law. Countries are interconnected through trade, diplomacy and tourism, so policy in one country can have serious effects on another.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
There's still the thriving BDSM community around which they can prop up their business. Look for an increase of leather-bound furry avatars in the near future.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's clear that all gambling does is facilitates terrorist organizations and funds their causes. Every terrorist I know spends time on fulltilt.com taking money away from hardworking people of the world in order to build the BOMB. Now we should be vigilant to fight not only real, but also virtual terrorism.
This is exactly colluding. Staying out of each other's way intentionally is colluding. Betting other people out of the pot and then checking down with your friends - colluding.
Using what you know about the other players betting tendencies, nervous ticks, playing history - not colluding.
Captcha: Outraged
Big dumb corporations are in the process of learning that an MMO world is not the same as a billboard or a television channel. The other thing they need to learn is that if they don't have a product that an avatar can use directly (virtual trees, etc) there is nothing there for them and they need to move on.
- up
If you saw some of the SL blog threads you'd laugh. Avatars try to explain they're in Second Life in the first place to get AWAY from advertising and mass media. Their voices are then drowned out by all the wannabee consultants and professional marketing tards.
If you want to see a good depiction of what this is like, check out this video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zv6w_the-break
For one, I would like to see actual statistics and reliable analysis that gambling inside private, discreet buildings actually contributes to (not merely correlates with, without causation) actual damaging crimes. Or prostitution, or even drug use. Though alcohol use probably shows us the model, including ways to improve performance, but also how willing we are to accept significantly less than perfect performance.
;) are we causing? I'm personally responsible for just under 0.0738696437% of the crime wave. Where's the "Slashdot's Most Posted" list? I need a shrink, not a warden.
For another, we're not talking about laws for enforcing complaints when damage has occurred, like noise complaints. We're talking about total prohibition, even when there is no damage (because it's preempted, including stopping all the people who cause no damage whatsoever).
What about "Slashdot abuse"? How much damage and other crime ("killing time" must be against the law somewhere
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Since Second Life is a game...and its virtual currency is bought using real currency...and you can gain and lose money by "playing" this game...isn't all of Second Life considered gambling? Shouldn't they just shut down completely?
I know I am stretching it but I am dreaming of a time where I don't see a Second Life article on Slashdot for a whole week.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Actually I wouldn't know because I've never been in Second Life (Hell I don't have time for my first life much less a second!). Some believe though that virtual sex can be real when there is an emotional component to it. MSNBC did an article about this very issue
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
Will someone please explain why people play this game at all, and why so many tech sites give it loads of undeserved attention?
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
This is about revenue. The state, as run by liberals/Democrats, frequently turns immoral activities into illegal ones - but then gets into the business themselves. How many of you are in states where liquir is only sold in state run stores, or where gambling is only legal when the state runs it or is getting a HUGE percentage of the take (way beyond a sales or income tax) or pay massive taxes on tabacco that are required to have a state 'stamp' on the pack.
It's about $$$, ultimately.
I'd be willing to bet there have been some legal moves made towards Linden Labs investigating online gambling and this is a preemptive move on their part.
With the ability to freely buy Linden dollars with real money and sell it back, there's essentially no difference between SL gambling and Casino gambling - just that in Casinos they call them poker chips. It's got nothing to do with morality, nanny states, etc.
The point of it is doing things you would never do, whether that be new partners, positions, or species
If you are pretending to do the things you would never do, are you still doing them? Having sex with a puppy in SL doesn't feel, look, or smell like having sex with a puppy in real life.
You don't pay hookers in real life to have sex with you, you pay them to go away afterwards.
Nothing about sex in SL or anywhere else online is effective as VR except the formation of a consensual pair/group. It is that you found another furry without too much trouble that appeals; that you can share it. The rest is less than imaginary.
Me, I'd rather *do* the things I'd never do.
And you're wrong about hookers.
illegitimii non ingravare
It can be considered cheating, which is what the article talks about, but virtual sex is not real sex, and it never can be.
Also, another mistake in the article is that all gambling is banned.
In fact, only specific types of wagering is banned.
From the Blog:
It is a violation of this policy to wager in games in the Second Life (R) environment operated on Linden Lab servers if such games:
(1) (a) rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner, OR (b) rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events,
AND
(2) provide a payout in
(a) Linden Dollars, OR
(b) any real-world currency or thing of value.
I don't bring this up to split hairs, only to point out that personal contests seem to still be allowed. It seems reasonable, based upon the above, that one could wager on games where the participants compete directly with each other, such as races, tic-tac-toe and so on.
Also, the ban seems to be specific to sporting events, wagers on other events still seem acceptable (elections, the Dow Jones, weather patterns, etc.)
I'm not a lawyer, and stories of Linden Labs capricious application of their rules exist, and I'm not even sure Linden Labs has to actually be accountable to any legal authority about how it administers its TOS, so in the end you have to wager at your own risk.
http://www.freecitizen.com/
Hey Slashdotters, let's stop applauding Second Life and move on. They arn't the first "real life" simulator, they claim to be the biggest but almost anyone who actually has tried to market a business in Second Life has come to the same conclusion, the numbers that Linden posts (the millions of subscribers) are vastly inflated. The consensus is there's around 40 thousand active users and with this move I'm guessing that might drop to 30 thousand.
This is just a PR move by Second life to get more attention but instead we should just move on to other stuff. We moved from too many WoW stories to too many Second Life stories, and now we just seem to be stagnating, anyone have an idea for the next "big thing"?
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"Fake" affair? When you're exchanging explicit sexual messages with another real person? No, that's a real affair.
Two comments:
1. Independent of any legal issues, SL players have no way of verifying that the operations of a "casino" are legitimate. I can't imagine why anyone would give in-game currency to a "slot machine" that has almost certainly been programmed to make sure that the house always wins. From this standpoint, banning such activities isn't necessarily a bad thing. (Indeed, games like World of Warcraft that have banned "casinos" have done so because players tend to spam to advertise games which are so stacked against their customers to count as scams, not because they felt that gambling for in-game currency violated federal law.)
2. Notably, the blog post also declares that there will be NO REIMBURSEMENT for second life "property" removed in order to enforce this policy, much less for devaluation of in-game "land" that used to host a high-traffic casino. I'm half curious whether we're going to see any lawsuits over this, and, in the longer term, whether this will affect peoples' willingness to purchase virtual assets from Linden Labs. I find it remarkable that anyone would willingly purchase "property" that can be rendered valueless at the discretion of the service providers under the terms of service. (Indeed, a court has already ruled against the TOS' arbitration clauses, arguing that they were too one-sided to be enforcible, so perhaps there is an open door to raise just such a challenge here.)
...having "sex" in SecondLife, or any other game, is already pointless. That you would even call it sex, and not at least "sex," is very sad. This is a troll??? Oftopic, maybe...Ok, mods, time to get out of mom's basement and meet real women. ( or real guys if that's your preference )
But quit modding parent troll for speaking an obvious truth.
This post is mirrored at - http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=255933&t hreshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=0 - I Realized after posting it should have been posted here.
I have virtual land on an island owned by a close personal friend who runs (well, RAN) a very successful casino. He spent a ton of real money on his slot machines, poker tables, blackjack tables, etc - and now that expenditure has become worthless.
Although I commiserate with his loss of overhead spent and all potential for future profit being lost, my opinion is this: If you want to gamble online, go to an online gambling site. Second life is meant to be a place where creatives can collaborate on projects and build their own world around them. Casino owners are now predators who have become the prey. Even after LL announced months ago that gambling was no longer allowed in SL, casino owners kept sinking money into expansion and more ways to leech off the gambling addicts. What were they thinking? It was right there in plain text, NO MORE GAMBLING IN SL! It has been clear for months that LL would have to eventually shut it down completely. I am not going to feel sorry for fools who kept sinking money into what they knew wouldn't last. Perhaps they should contact the people who sold them the slots and other machines AFTER the announcement was made that gambling was on it's way out - maybe they will provide a refund, lol. Buying stock into casino machines was a gamble in the first place, and guess who lost?
Basically, the people who had the money to spend made money on gambling in secondlife. If you couldn't afford to buy a bunch of casino machines and open a huge business, you couldn't reasonably make money in SL. Those of us who have relied on their skill and creativity to profit within SL (as it was always meant to be), are, I would have to say, mostly relieved about the sudden shutdown of these activities, even if it does affect our friends, because this will provide a boon to those of us who make our SL living on products we sell and not by preying on others. I also think the SL nightclub scene will flourish again as casino-goers have to find a new avenue of entertainment. Land prices are likely to drop as casino owners sell off their plots - avatars will soon be spending money on clothes, vehicles, houses, and other cool stuff because they won't be blowing all their earned or bought Linden Dollars on a 'sploder or slot machine.
In closing, I don't mean to sound morally superior, but the casino owners have never been "the house" - the house did indeed win, but the house is now and has always been Linden Labs. I hear reports of everyone selling off all their land and Linden Dollars for real cash and getting out of the game. I even heard that money was being exchanged so fast, LL had to put a stop to withdrawals overnight. If all they had in SL was free money from others playing their "games of chance" - then I don't see it as much of a loss. Take the money and run, when you can get it. The contribution made to the Linden economy by casino "owners" was never worth the cost of the massive lag, unscrupulous money-grubbers, or someone sinking their life savings into a "virtual" slot machine, which may or may not be rigged for unfair payouts.
This may also reduce the "Mafioso Mentality" that is so rampant in SL.
Goodbye hotheads and profit-seekers, hello creatives and world-changers! It's about time.
I wish they'd ban boredom next. I can't stand Second Life!
Like I fucking care what kind of (hear the whimpers and the violins) hardship this places on Linden or their lame-ass gambling users. Gambling, like smoking and drinking should be abolished. It has no place in society of any kind, real or virtual.
Moderation -1
100% Troll
A detailed logical answer is a "Troll"? TrollMods roll the dice with reason in every anonymous mod.
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Moderation 0
50% Flamebait
50% Underrated
Faithy TrollMods feel compelled to downmod when they've got no argument. Nothing can cure them.
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Thank you for tagging this no1cares.... now can we get back to the stuff that matters?
Although I agree with you on balance (clearly virtual gambling is real gambling, and clearly virtual sex is not real sex), I think there are some tricky issues surrounding virtual prostitution to be considered, some of them the same issues that led society to criminalize it in the first place (whether correctly or incorrectly).
- Is it immoral? I am certainly no fan of morality-based law, but the question will come up.
- Are virtual sex workers opening themselves up to be victimized in the real world, e.g. by encouraging RL contact with their clients?
- Are virtual sex workers underage? The emotional attachments of virtual sex are certain to be even more confusing than those in the real world, if somewhat less palpable, and I don't see any reason why "age of consent" should not apply there. There is some realism threshhold beyond which virtual sex without consent could be emotionally traumatizing.
- Does the criminal element get involved? Second Life involves real money, so you have to watch out for real theft, real fraud and real confidence games.
I'm not saying all (or any) of these actually apply to Second Life's specific case, but all of them have to be considered before you dismiss virtual prostitution as harmless. (And just like real life, then you have to decide whether criminalizing it actually makes the problem worse.)
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I was an operator (with two partners) of a nightclub in SL until a few days ago. We shut down because we just didn't have enough time to put into it, but we were marginally profitable even though we never had gambling of any kind. We decided not to have gambling for two main reasons, first, we considered it unethical, and second, it is obviously illegal being that we are all based in the US. We sold our land to another resident who will be putting in his own nightclub, and I hope for his sake that gambling wasn't part of his business plan. I guess we sold the land at the right time, I expect land prices to take a dive with all the casino operators selling.
I guess I'm not really sad to see gambling go, but I'd like to see the law changed because it clearly is all about patronage for the big brick and mortar casino interests. Regardless, it is the law and Linden Labs has to obey it if they want to remain in business. Like it or not, that's a fact.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
No matter where you "live" you are still going to be facing human behavior. No matter what we create or try to perfect we, humans, are still imperfect and we impart this imperfection in all things we create.
Second Life is just another extension of human behavior, good and bad, so no matter where we go or create we will still deal with human behavior.
Bad human behavior should be punished no matter where or who does it. On the other side good human behavior should praised, advertised and compensated.
It's a matter of time before "Second Life" will be "No Life"... ...or is it here already?
Depends on whether or not you have a real orgasm, I'd say.
I've had sex in Second Life. I've had sex in First Life. First Life is better, although both have their advantages.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
no1cares....
Next subject please.
Well if you could bring out to RL the fruits of your labor then it might be an issue. Virtual sex -> real sex, virtual childern -> real children, virtual chlamydia -> real chlamydia
If you want to gamble pretend money bought with real money, then you can always head over to Puzzle Pirates. This is a pretty cute and overlooked game that has some excellent parlour games including Texas Hold'Em where you can gamble doubloons.
Typically what we'd do is if one of us raised, the other two folded, regardless of what they had. Only one of us at a time were involved in any pot.
The only exception to this is when we were all seated at the same table, and immediately realized during a smoke break that we were up against a three person team who were doing the exact opposite of what we were, so we played back at them the same way.
The question seems to revolve around what LL means by "value." Would it be possible, say, to run an "amusement center" which gives out "prizes" or "points" for those who win? And, then, there happens to be a separate party that is willing to buy these things from the winners? I.e., you win a magical something-or-another and then conveniently sell it to the guy who runs a pawn shop right next to the "amusement center" (who then sells it back to the "amusement center" at wholesale). Essentially, this is the pachinko parlor way of getting around gambling prohibitions.
Such is life. There is at least one person who gets a kick out of your posts, though.
Actually, they're a Slashstalker. I notice that after I've burned some fool with a properly crafted flame, especially a thorough fisking, they just disappear from the thread, then suddenly a lot of my other, unrelated posts get TrollModded for a few days. Especially "Overrated" mods, but the other downmods are typical, too.
These people are pathetic. They can't argue, they can't think in the first place, and they're such a sore loser. All usually anonymous. Worthless punks.
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make install -not war
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
What ever happened to mmogs being about silly stuff like that? An MMO where people ask you for a Scope of Work all the time? I play one of those every workday!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I meant me. I've said it before, I think, I find you end up adding something to the discussion, even if it's a rant.
Thanks for tuning in. I find that adding something to the discussion makes me think, even if it's just a rant.
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make install -not war