Gotcha

Most (but not all) of the items in this picture were won through gacha machines. I have more, but I couldn't pile them all onto Kitti because she's only got so much virtual skin to plaster them to.

A new round of the Arcade opened, and half of Second Life is now - if they weren't before - addicted to gacha machines. If you are blissfully unaware (and probably, thusly, not bankrupt), a gacha is one of those machines you mainly see in the supermarkets these days into which you put about 50p/£1 and get out a random prize. The last place I saw one IRL was at a garden centre, with a big bubble-dome on top of the machine full of an assortment of semi-precious stones. In SL, you can put just about anything into a gacha machine including toys, hair, skins, plants...whatever you can think of. 

The gacha machine seems to be a big hit in SL at the moment, and all of the fairs are following in the Arcade's example and adopting this method of selling. When you play a gacha, you are always guaranteed a prize (unlike the merciless yet-to-make-it-big-in-SL claw/crane game), but it might not be the one you want. Some items have 'rare' status, being scripted to drop through the prize system at a very limited rate.

What is so remarkable about this? You ask. That's very nice, but why is this interesting?

The gacha machine is interesting because it makes people go NUTS. At the previously blogged-about FutureWave event, I got to listen to some of the store-owners talking about how well their items were selling, and they were reporting that individuals were spending massive amounts of virtual money at their stores. As I am writing this, I put out an ask in the Arcade group chat requesting that people IM me with rough estimates of how much they have spent on gacha machines there and one person reported having spent L$40,000 (which amounts to about £100 IRL). They might be exaggerating, but listening to people talk about these events in general, it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that they are telling the honest truth. Most people are reporting around L$2,000 - L$5,000 which is, obviously, considerably less but it is still tens of pounds in the real world. To put that into perspective, most gacha machines charge around L$25 - L$100 a go. 

In the FutureWave group, sian (who had a store set up there) told me that she found many of the bloggers who had already received the items in her gacha for free playing her gacha machine anyway. They already had the items, but wanted to get more - just to play. 

We are addicted to playing the luck game, and - I can speak from experience - there is something about being in that atmosphere, surrounded by people who are also gaming and winning and losing, that makes you consider playing machines for items you know full well you are never going to use ever again. I now have an inventory stuff of cuddly kitten toys that I am probably just going to place on a shelf in my skybox. I played the Glam Affair gacha for a skin in a tone Kitti doesn't usually wear. And I consider myself to be a very restrained gacha player, setting my number-of-goes limit before I even arrive and being sure to stick to it. Many gacha machines give out one item in different colours, and when that is the case I rarely play more than once, deciding to work with whatever colour I get. Sometimes the gacha machines are about collecting everything to complete a set, but I'm not much of a collector and tend to avoid those machines.

It's highly likely that you'll receive doubles of items if you play the gacha enough, and/or that ten minutes later, you'll be wondering why you bought the items anyway. Alongside the Arcade is a massive trading system of people swapping items to get what they want and complete their sets, and there are always hundreds of yard sales popping up all over the place of people trying to sell on their items. The items are laid out on tables and customers can simple go and buy the ones they want, rather than leave it to luck. In the past, I've found it useful to go and shop at these instead - and I think plenty of people do that - but the way we shop at yard sales is so totally different than the way we shop through a gacha machine. Impulse buying goes way down. It is, quite seriously, the gacha that makes us go mad.

Somewhere, the Gacha God is rubbing his hands together, looking down on the multitudes of people at the Arcade (which is so full, nobody else can get in - quite literally), and saying 'Gotcha'.

(R)Evolve

'The Digital Revolution is Now'

For a couple of months now, I have been watching the organisers of FutureWave build their dream of a futuristic fashion fair, and all their hard work has accumulated in a great event that opens to the public today. A large number of Second Life creators have been drafted in to this transhuman 'revolution', including some real fashion giants who I wouldn't ordinarily associate with the science fiction genre (but who, from the looks of their billboards, have created some fantastic things). There are also a whole bunch of stores I have never heard of that I am now going to be paying a lot of attention too - and I think that's half the point of such a couture market kind of event as FutureWave.

sian (who, in the future, has massacred the Upper Case) got me a sneaky early pass into the sim before the hoards descend later today. Having heard so much about it and having posed for sian's shop's (MetaTheodora's) ads, I really wanted to get in and have a look at the place before it becomes overrun with lag.

This is about the closest to cloning I'm ever going to comfortably get. So many Kittis!

(In the future, we'll probably all move really bloody slowly. Even the speed of Virgin Media internet cannot combat sheer numbers of virtual bodies who, nostalgically, cling to heavy scripted prims - which, non-SL users, can be fantastic and beautifully made but which can also cause super lag.)

Incidentally, there is an item available in MetaTheodora's gacha inspired by a blogpost I wrote ages ago about the idea of a nostalgic and out-dated vision of the future. That post is titled 'Kicking the Chrome Bucket'. If you get sian's little booby prize, I would love to see your pictures of you wearing it.

Reaching Beyond

Looking Down

But then I felt a little bit guilty. I knew I was going to take lots of pictures of the sim and post them here, but sneaky passes are ordinarily meant for fashion bloggers who agree, in exchange for said sneaky pass and free copies of a lot of the items on sale, to provide a whole bunch of publicity for the event and the products on sale. By posting pictures of the sim only, I'm only really doing half of that job - but I am still being bombarded with free copies of everything.

A moral dilemma then, and I have solved it by only picking up the free blogger copies of items I have been told to pick up or sent directly. I'll be back to buy everything else that I might want like an ordinary Joe when the fair opens later today (about eight hours from now). I've also done my damnedest to photograph FutureWave in the best most honest way that I can.

Just opening the couple of boxes I have been given has been stressful. There are boxes upon boxes and items upon items and I want to try everything at once but there is just so much! I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a box to open from each vendor...for each fair running in SL. I'm afraid I've lost half of what I've opened already. No wonder so many fashion bloggers have such huge inventories and such incredible lag. They're dragging around wardrobes full of Narnia all the time! That is not a territory I really want to venture into.

Meeow

So whilst you're full of Valentine's chocolate (gifted or discounted - who cares? Chocolate is chocolate) and the weather outside is foul, check out FutureWave. Here is the link to their page, and I'm sure they'll post a link to the sim itself there just as soon as it opens - here!

Yesterday's post on avatars and souls here - here!