GOM’s Zeppi Schlegel: This bodes well for the future
by Alphaville Herald on 11/01/05 at 10:47 pm
GOM strike price for Linden Dollars
While residents of Second Life are generally opposed to the Linden’s new restrictive monetary policy, Gaming Open Market’s Zeppi Schlegel (aka Jamie Hale) thinks it is a good idea in principle, and he thinks that their execution of the policy is not that bad either. (Club owners will survive just fine, thank you.) The Linden dollar spiked to $4/1K Linden’s during Robin Linden’s town meeting. Will it stabilize? Will it go higher? Well, Zeppi says…
GOM’s Zeppi Schlegel
Urizenus Sklar: Zeppi, I’m sure you are following the new Linden economic policy with great interest. What is your initial visceral reaction to it?
Zeppi Schlegel: To be honest, I think it’s absolutely amazing that the Lindens are concerned to this extent about the economy. It bodes well for the future.
Urizenus Sklar: Do you think that the moves they made are called for? And do you think they will be successful in keeping the monetary supply in check?
Zeppi Schlegel: Called for, yes. Socially I mean. If the value of the L$ is dropping against the USD and the apparent reason is that there are too many L$ in circulation, then one nice and clean way to address the problem is to start limiting the supply…
Zeppi Schlegel: … And while a lot of them are my clients, casino and nightclub operators shouldn’t really be the target for event income. They make enough – I’m all for supporting the education events.
Zeppi Schlegel: As far as keeping the supply in check…
Zeppi Schlegel: … time will tell. 
Urizenus Sklar: So you think they are cutting back stipends where they should.
Zeppi Schlegel: If I were in charge, and if I *needed* to cut something, I think they’re in the right sector yes. Of course by saying this I’m sure I’m annoying some of my larger clients, but they all know much better ways of making money than through stipends.
Urizenus Sklar: Do you think the Linden will stabilize at around $4/1K?
Urizenus Sklar: or do you think it might go higher?
Zeppi Schlegel: I think there’s a significant psychological resistance level at $4. I think that if there’s enough interest to push through that level, then at least in real-world markets, resistance becomes support and we could see higher prices.
Zeppi Schlegel: That said…
Zeppi Schlegel: … if after all this hoopla the price doesn’t press much beyond $4, then we could see a dive. It’s fascinating how much the market resembles real-world markets. I love it!
when it rains it pours
Jan 12th, 2005
In the end none of this will make a difference because the people buying at $4 for 1kL are fools thinking they will get a return investment out of it. The same people who game the system will keep on doing it the same way they have been doing and no half stipend no $L for events(thats a joke)
Only thing that will come from all this is clubs/casinos will start having to give more away for the leeches to spend time at them (which is hardly a cash sink).
This is a quick fix to a broken ecomomy due to dwelloper awards and incentives. Once they remove the Rate systems, deprive the people with multiple credit card (5 accounts per card) people out of rate farming and dwell gaming, then only then will the economy reward those who deserve it.
ajdown@jp
Jan 12th, 2005
“Only thing that will come from all this is clubs/casinos will start having to give more away for the leeches to spend time at them”
Hmmm interesting how TSO and the ‘payout’ culture seems to have migrated to SL. I bet in 3 months that the popular clubs won’t be the best clubs, they’ll just be those that pay out the most… just like happened in TSO.
Remove the ‘rate’ system….. am I right in guessing this is similar to the TSO top 100 listings, forgive me but I don’t play SL
aj
Ian
Jan 12th, 2005
AJ it isn’t like that at all. They do not give money out at all times. Just at parties at night(not everynight), everyone gets a chance to win money, however not everyone gets money. And you don’t get money for doing mindless number of boards. And there is no top 100 list to be on, so attempting to climb the list is pointless. There is a top 10 list, but includes all sorts of properties.
urizenus
Jan 12th, 2005
Well if you use the find tool and look at the properties they are ranked by dwell, so there is a ranking of every property from one to infinity (if it is set to show up in find). Also, you can select for subcategories of properties. The issue here is that the top properties were *paid* for getting more dwell, which made the incentives for gaming the system with alts even more pervasive. The net effect was that the Lindens were subsidizing the clubs that gamed the system with alt and by camping noobs, and this in turn led to the club culture out of control aspect of SL that Artemis complained about in her recent Op/Ed piece. Not sure this will solve the problem, but at least the Lindens won’t be encouraging it with money.