{"id":4191,"date":"2014-08-13T19:26:08","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T18:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4191"},"modified":"2014-08-13T19:26:08","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T18:26:08","slug":"skill-gaming-applications-appear-to-be-a-skill-game-in-their-own-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4191","title":{"rendered":"Skill Gaming Applications Appear To Be A Skill Game In Their Own Right"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a title=\"Skill Gaming Coming To Second Life\" href=\"http:\/\/community.secondlife.com\/t5\/Featured-News\/Coming-Soon-Skill-Gaming-in-Second-Life\/ba-p\/2771080\" target=\"_blank\">Skill Gaming<\/a> applications for Second Life seem to be involved in some sort of skill game of themselves as operators try and seek approval for their game. At this stage I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if the deadline is pushed back again because this is turning into a challenging experience for applicants and Linden Lab.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s just rewind a little,<a title=\"Inara Pey\" href=\"http:\/\/modemworld.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/08\/slba-tos-and-skill-gaming-presentation\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Inara Pey recently covered<\/a> the Second Life Bar Association discussion on the new TOS and the skill gaming policy. I&#8217;ve looked at the TOS discussion but not the skill gaming discussion, so let&#8217;s take a look at the <a title=\"SLBA skill gaming presentation\" href=\"http:\/\/modemworld.wordpress.com\/slba-tos-and-skill-gaming-presentation-2-skill-gaming\/\" target=\"_blank\">skill gaming discussion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The presentation was headed once again byAgenda Faromet. The discussion is a little bit muddied at times due to the fact that gaming and gambling seem to intermingle, but they do get to the differences about gaming and gambling early on :<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gambling<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0betting, wagering something of value, money, on a contest, sporting event, game of chance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gaming<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0playing skilled games that require skill or a player\u2019s control of the game.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are some areas of the discussion that border on being a little bit wrong, for example :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>So gachas, breakables, stuff like that? They\u2019re not gambling. I\u2019ve answered so many questions about that. Not affected by the policy because they don\u2019t have a pay-out in Linden dollars. If it doesn\u2019t have a pay-out in Linden dollars, not gambling.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>It doesn\u2019t matter what the rick versus reward is, it doesn\u2019t matter that you can sell your rare breakables for a gazillion dollars; they\u2019re not [gambling].<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Stock exchange: not gambling. Contest boards \u2026 depends on how they\u2019re set-up, but if it costs Linden dollars to play, and it has a pay-out in Linden dollars, it\u2019s gambling. If it doesn\u2019t, not gambling.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The part about not having a pay-out in Linden Dollars meaning it&#8217;s not gambling isn&#8217;t actually 100% correct. The <a title=\"Second Life Wagering Policy\" href=\"http:\/\/wiki.secondlife.com\/wiki\/Linden_Lab_Official:Policy_Regarding_Wagering_in_Second_Life\" target=\"_blank\">wagering policy<\/a> actually states that the pay-out can&#8217;t be Linden Dollars or any real world currency or thing of value. The thing of value issue is where people ponder whether certain activities fall foul of the wagering policy, it&#8217;s a vague statement. However I suspect it applies to real world things of value, rather than inworld things of value, but I wouldn&#8217;t bet on that!<\/p>\n<p>Then there&#8217;s a discussion on where attorneys are required to be licensed to practice law :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><strong>Comment<\/strong> &#8211; If you are from Europe It is rather difficult to hire an attorney who is licensed both in your country and the USA.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Reply<\/strong> &#8211; You don\u2019t need an attorney that is licensed in the USA. You need an attorney who can write a letter that says what you are doing is permitted in your country.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However the FAQ does indeed state that the reasoned legal opinion should be provided by an attorney licensed to practice law in the United States. Initially that wasn&#8217;t mentioned as a requirement, the goalposts have been moving on these applications.<\/p>\n<p>However it&#8217;s interesting that the presentation viewed stock exchanges as not gambling because <a title=\"SL Capex\" href=\"http:\/\/www.slcapex.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">SL Capex<\/a>, who bill themselves as the number one stock market simulation in Second Life, are currently<a title=\"SL Capex Skill Gaming Application\" href=\"http:\/\/www.slcapex.com\/home\/story\/system\/8420\" target=\"_blank\"> in the middle of a skill gaming application<\/a> and they seem to be having a few difficulties in completing the process.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Skip Oceanlane, in a post dated August 7th said :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Many of you have been contacting me almost daily about updates to our Skill Gaming Application. Honestly I don&#8217;t have much new information to share with you. We are currently working on submitting all the required information to Linden Lab, and unfortunately they keep adding to the list of things they are looking for.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s also interesting that the <a title=\"Skill Gaming FAQ\" href=\"http:\/\/wiki.secondlife.com\/wiki\/Linden_Lab_Official:Second_Life_Skill_Gaming_FAQ\" target=\"_blank\">Skill Gaming FAQ<\/a> was last updated on August 7th, I don&#8217;t know what was updated on that date but I have noticed that Linden Lab have added some guidance regarding what a reasoned legal opinion should include. This now includes a request for a video or screen capture. This is what has delayed the SL Capex application, as Skip explains :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The latest addition is that they want screen shots and a step by step explanation with legal opinions on how each thing a person does is not part of a game of chance. For a skill-based &#8220;slot machine&#8221; this can be quite easy to do, but much more difficult for Capital Exchange. Regardless I am in the process of giving a long-winded breakdown of each step, and our attorneys will add the necessary legal wording before being submitted to Linden Lab.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So this has delayed their application and I would imagine the applications of some others too. Which brings us back to Agenda&#8217;s presentation from the SLBA :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The deadline for submitting these applications was supposed to be August 1st, it just got pushed back to September 1st, mostly because Linden Lab hasn\u2019t been able to provide things like a list of permitted games, or a list of regions or the things that Linden Lab is supposed to provide to all of its potential game operators and game creators. So right now there\u2019s a little bit of chaos going on. I don\u2019t even know if they\u2019re going to make the September 1st deadline. We\u2019ll see.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m firmly in the camp that believes that this deadline will need to be pushed back again, but that in itself is no bad thing because we can see that this is a learning curve for Linden Lab and applicants. The important thing to do is to get this right. However one big concern is the lack of any mention of what exactly the quarterly fee would cost and this was raised in the discussion :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><strong>Question<\/strong>: Is it legal for them to take $100USD from us for application fee when they haven\u2019t yet to divulge to us what the quarterly license fees will be. What\u2019s to stop them from approving us then saying \u2026. btw the quarterly license fee will be 90% of your profit or even $1000USD every 3 months later on?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Reply<\/strong>: So yes, they\u2019re talking about quarterly fees, and I have seen that; that is problematic. I don\u2019t like the fact they\u2019re not disclosing the amount of quarterly fees they\u2019re going to be charging. That bothers me too. That they can have you sign-up for a contract and just announce they\u2019ll be charging some nebulous quarterly fee. and not tell you what it is.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Comment<\/strong>: To me it\u2019s like buying a car &amp; signing the contract &amp; telling the salesman to fill in the price later as he sees fit.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Reply<\/strong>: Yeah, that bothers me a lot. What I would normally advise you to do is not sign-up for that contract, because that sounds like a really bad deal. And I know that doesn\u2019t help anybody a lot.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The quarterly fee is initially waived through to December 31st, that hasn&#8217;t been put back a month as of yet, despite the date for applications being put back a month. That&#8217;s another thing Linden Lab might want to look at.<\/p>\n<p>There are currently no approved game creators or operators listed in the <a title=\"Public Wiki Of Approved games and Operators\" href=\"http:\/\/wiki.secondlife.com\/wiki\/Linden_Lab_Official:Second_Life_Skill_Gaming_Approved_Participants#Approved_Skill_Gaming_Operators\" target=\"_blank\">public wiki<\/a>. This emphasises the point that this is taking longer to get right than was initially envisaged, but as I said earlier, the important thing is to get this policy and application process right, if this means it has to be pushed back again, then that&#8217;s no bad thing.<\/p>\n<p>Who will cross the winning line first? Will operators and game creators appear before the end of August? Will this turn into a much longer race? Who knows, I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;ll find out soon! Good luck to all involved parties.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-share-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" data-url=\"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4191\" data-via=\"Ciaran_Laval\">Tweet<\/a><br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=\/^http:\/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+':\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Skill Gaming applications for Second Life seem to be involved in some sort of skill game of themselves as operators try and seek approval for their game. At this stage I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if the deadline is pushed back again because this is turning into a challenging experience for applicants and Linden Lab. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4191\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Skill Gaming Applications Appear To Be A Skill Game In Their Own Right&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,14],"tags":[19,1022,729],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6rJUK-15B","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4192,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191\/revisions\/4192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}