by Alphaville Herald on 21/04/11 at 1:58 am

Linden Lab Enters Gambling Business

by Journey Yellowlist, Herald Gambling Desk

San Francisco based Linden Lab, maker of the Second Life disaster virtual world, announced today that it was killing its ridiculous and insulting failed to get enough traction from its virtual-pet campaign and will switch to a sure-fire, lag-free revenue stream: Metaverse-themed lottery tickets for the American market. A test campaign will begin next month in, as fate would have it, Primm Nevada, a crossroads on I-15 south of Las Vegas.

“The name is magic, baby,” Linden Lab’s newly hired V.P. of Gaming, Jimmy “The Geek” Linden, reported. And since Primm is just over the California line, we figure we’ll get some of those SoCal types, racing back to LA in their supercars, who might want to pick up a fist full of our new scratch cards. We are gamifying it, baby!”

Even without the cross-border traffic, Nevada offers a particularly lucrative market for the new lotto initiative, according to Linden Lab. The state’s gaming industry already attracts desperate drunks, hustlers, drunken Englishmen, big-haired hillbilly women, Eurotrash, gangstas, and freaks like this reporter tourists from all walks of life who purchase lotto tickets with funds not frittered away wagered in casinos. Second Life’s makers plan to raise the profile of the virtual world with every lotto ticket.

“It’s gonna be HUGE, baby,” said Jimmy, who met this reporter in Linden Lab’s new satellite office in the basement of the Caesar’s Ghost, a down-on-its-heels casino that has been leasing out space to all comers. “We sealed a great deal on this property,” Jimmy noted, as he brought down his cigar to incinerate a cockroach crossing his desk. “Primm Nevada is just a toehold for us. And our management team has come up with a sure-fire way to boost the somewhat static concurrency numbers in SL.”

The back of each lotto ticket will feature a URL, premade username, password, voucher for 50 Linden Dollars, and the words “have teh sex with jiggly-boob Vegas showgirls.” This offer will apply, no matter what the ticket’s face value ends up being. “We’ve already test-marketed the concept on a few suck…I mean, early-adopter types.”

“Every playah will be a winnah!” Jimmy noted. “Yeah, I figure a few of these chump…I mean, potential new residents will find a computer that can handle our forthcoming client, SLite 2.7, guaran-damn-teed to run on your dad’s Commodore 64. You’ll need to talk to my tech guru, Priapus Linden, over in the corner, about it.”

With a rusted length of pipe that had fallen from the ceiling, I roused an acne-ravaged teenager who had passed out over this PC while playing “Left for Dead 2.” It took this reporter some time, and several bottles of Mountain Dew, to awaken the lunar-faced youth, but soon he was eager to talk about the new SL interface.

“You’ll love the two-button client, optimized for ease of use by new residents. I know some oldbies and Mac Users will complain, but like the boss-man says, screw ‘em if they can’t evolve. They can go play IMVU if this game is too big for their brains…or wallets.”

The new client has two options to click: point-and-click to move the avatar, right click to bring up the only menu: “go get teh sex” and “go buy more Linden Dollars.”

Priapus and Jimmy then gave me a quick SL tour. Jimmy steered a Wayne Newtonesque avatar down a simulation of the Vegas Strip. “They’ll get a basic avatar from our selection, can pick the height of the pompadour or beehive hair and whether they want gold or silver lamé outfits. They rezz in a shop with lots of items below 50L in price, to get them spending. Hell, yes, we’ll make money, baby! They give away drinks upstairs, too.”

“We figure many of them will end up plunking down a credit card to get more Linden Dollars to ‘go around the world’ with our showgirls or buy that MacLaren SLR they’d never have in real life. If they are drunk enough they may think they are getting a real car. But hey, baby, as they say in Vegas, caveat sucker!”

Jimmy noted that other promotions tied to Linden Lab’s Vegas-oriented strategy will also boost concurrency. “We’ll greet the new residents with showgirl avatars who, for just a bit more than that 50L, will give them the times of their fake lives. It’s a winner, baby! It’s gonna be HUGE HUGE HUGE! Why the hell you think we ran out the news about the new boob-and-butt physics in the client!

<http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/04/second-life-avatar-body-physics.html > SLite 2.7 turns them on, heh heh, for everyboby! It’s Jiggle City! It’s a master plan, baby! Did I say it’s gonna be HUGE?”

Linden Lab said that several themes for the tickets will be offers, including Whack-a-Troll, Land-Baron!, The Hamlet Sucker-Game, Run Da Numbaz with Tateru, Tier-Day Madness!, and Mega-Million-Word ProkPost.

“Love Machine,” a Philip-Rosedale-themed slot machine, is in the works as well.

Will a Linden Lab Casino be next?

“Babycakes, we are ready to try anything!” Jimmy said over a line of coke. “Right now, the road goes on for fuckin’ ever and the party never ends!”