By Stevie Smith Jul 27, 2007, 14:04 GMT
In another marked shift in its creators’ standpoint regarding non-intervention, hugely popular virtual world experience Second Life has issued a new and widely prohibitive policy that clamps down on most forms of in-game gambling.
San Francisco-based Linden Lab’s policy focuses specifically on gambling and forms of monetary wagering that are based around chance, random number generation, or the outcome of real-world sporting events, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Linden Lab has outlined that popular Second Life gambling titles including baccarat, blackjack and poker roulette will no longer be allowed in its virtual reality, and it will also apply to in-world one-armed bandits and various other casino-based games.
The restrictive gambling rules are effective immediately, and anyone found violating the new policy will face having their Second Life account suspended or even terminated, warned Linden Lab. However, it is presently unclear whether certain grey area games that don’t instantly appear to fit the outlined stipulations will be singled out by the new policy.
One such game, Tringo, which is a mixture of traditional bingo and block-builder Tetris, could be discerned as a chance-based game, though player skill is required in terms of assembling the random blocks. Tringo can be played merely for fun of for financial gain, but its creator, Second Life user Nathan Keir, believes community-based chatter regarding payout games and even the remotest form of chance is indicating Tringo will probably be pulled.
Second Life’s ban of in-world gambling has reportedly come about as a consequence of Linden Lab inviting the FBI to investigate the virtual world’s gambling-based content following legislation passed in the US that has deemed it a crime to use online payment systems or credit cards to place online bets. The ban also follows on from Linden Lab stepping out of the creative shadows to pass new restrictions against what it termed as "broadly offensive" sexual material.
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