Recently, a SL-supporter asked me what the biggest business risk SecondLife/Linden Lab faces. I said "A major government determining that the L$ is a currency, in conflict with banking laws and/or fully taxable at conversion."
It looks like they got one of those scary government letters indicating that L$ are a little too close to good-old American greenbacks, as Linden Lab has just banned gambling machines in Second Life.
We all saw it coming - admit it. What's next? Hmm?
What do you think will happen if the Linden Exchange is closed for good?
Randy
As I wrote in a recent post:
By hook, or by crook, customers will always find a way to connect with each other.
As with all worlds, this is now demonstratively true in Worlds of Warcraft, where a new text-filter on broadcast chat messages was recently installed to supposedly prevent gold farmers from spamming users about their websites.
It worked for a few days, until yesterday, The Day it Rained Gnomes.
Watch the video and duck...
I often have a conversation with online community/product managers telling them that text-filters are a symptom of deeper problems in your product and are not a solution. They usually don't belive me - but now I have the video.
(For the comments section: How many design flaws/weaknesses are involved in the chain of events that lead to the word raining gnomes? Here's a hint about where to start counting...)