Urgent Issue with Gacha Exploit – No Copy Item Duplication via Sim Crash
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Stoic Cat
To Linden Lab,
With the reintroduction of Gachas to Second Life, I am concerned about an unresolved and critical exploit that has long impacted artists work and livelihoods.
The Bug: No Copy Gacha Duplication via Sim Crash
A longstanding exploit allows users to duplicate No Copy Gacha items by:
Rezzing a No Copy Gacha item in-world
Picking the item back up
Forcing a sim crash
Upon region restart, the item can appear both in the user’s inventory and rezzed inworld effectively duplicating it.
This method enables malicious users to mass copy limited items and resell them on the Marketplace at the expense of the original creator. These listings often do not show the “(Limited Quantities Available)” tag, indicating they were not legitimately obtained through the original Gacha machines.
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Impact on Creators:
As a creator, it was devastating to spend weeks or months designing an entire Gacha set for events like The Arcade or Epiphany, only to see duplicated copies flood the Marketplace mere hours after the event opens. Worse still:
Linden Lab's support response times (especially on weekends) have historically been too slow to address DMCA claims before significant financial damage is done.
Exploiters often profit thousands of Linden Dollars before listings are even reviewed.
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Documented History & Community Efforts
This issue has been widely reported over the years via:
Jira reports
Blogs
A dedicated Discord server ("Creators Against Theft") where we actively supported each other in identifying and reporting exploiters.
For reference, this 2017 blog post documents the exploit and includes a quote from Simon Linden stating:
“We haven't solved all the problems outright, but we're making good strides.”
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Thank you for taking the time to review this request. We all want Second Life to thrive but artist must be protected if that’s to happen.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Creator
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Dwight Clutterbuck
I propose a radical solution:
BAN GACHAS AND LEAVE THEM BANNED.
Sincerely,
The Majority of Your User Base.
Skyler Pancake
"These listings often do not show the “(Limited Quantities Available)” tag, indicating they were not legitimately obtained through the original Gacha machines." That's not how that works.
The Limited Quantities Available tag shows up for anything listed with... Limited quantities. You could create and upload your own item, make five copies, and then set them all as no copy and put them in your marketplace listing folder. It'd then show as limited quantity, as there would only be five of the unique items available for sale. It has nothing to do with them being gacha or not.
Stoic Cat
Skyler Pancake Thank you for explaining! Back before 2021 we would watch our analytics on the sales. (only a few rares were supposed to exsist at the time of checking) Yet the MP would be flooded with full sets including the rares. The math didnt add up with to the history of won "rares".
nya Resident
Thanks, I'll try not to do that.
Zia Underwood
Gacha is the real exploit. Duplicating creator profits by exploiting human psychology.
Kyrah Abattoir
So many thoughts... Can Gachas truly be considered art?
Tenaar Feiri
I'm not sure it can be fixed. I'm not sure what sims do when they crash but if I were building it, I would have it roll back to its last working snapshot after it crashed. Recovering into a faulty state would be bad.
I'm not gonna lie, I'd prefer if the gacha plague vanished off the internet but if it's here to stay, I'd like to see this fixed. If for no other reason than that I want to browse the marketplace without drowning in a flood of no-copy gacha items stopping me from finding what I'm actually looking for.
Tamara Silversten
Tenaar Feiri There is a Marketplace search filter you can utilize to clean up the results.
After having done a search, look on the left side and scroll down. You will see a section called "Do not show:", there you can tick the "Limited Quantities" checkbox and then click the "Refine Search" button underneath. That'll hide any listings with artificially limited stock, such as gacha resales.
(Unfortunately these filters do not stick, so the results have to be refined again after every new search.)
Violaine Villota
I agree with all of this, not looking forward to an increase in seeing Gatcha items spammed all over the Marketplace.
Does the Creators Against Theft Discord server already exist, or are you asking for it to be created? If it does exist, can someone please send me an invite?
Vae Darkheart
Continuing to not offer the predatory and horrendous practice of Gatchas in SL should be LL's only move, but for some reason, they want these back.
This NEEDS to be fixed before the full scale re-implementing of Gatchas.
Isabella Cinder
Vae Darkheart I wholeheartedly agree, on both accounts. I tried to make a post about a LL implementation earlier tonight, even linking the updated EU regulation on digital currency, but it got shutdown but this site's AI in 19 seconds flat.
Sadly, microtransactions and lootboxes amounted for 54% of PC gaming revenue in 2024, so they can't really let this goose go, but enforcing a proper and honest channel (including bug free no-copy, bad luck catch-up, addict behavior prevention and proper RNG) should be the top priority.
Zia Underwood
Vae Darkheart im so happy to hear you say this Vae. Its good to know you won't be engaging in these predatory practices so i can feel safe still shopping at your store.
SL Feedback
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SL Feedback
Hello, and thank you for your detailed report regarding the Gacha duplication exploit via sim crashes. This issue has indeed been brought up in the past, and we are merging your comments to expedite our review and resolution process. We understand the significant impact this exploit has on creators and the Second Life economy. Your input is invaluable, and we appreciate your patience as we work towards a solution. Please keep an eye on future updates for any progress on this matter. Thank you for your continued commitment to improving Second Life.
Stoic Cat
SL Feedback Thank you!
I want creators to know about this exploit before they consider making Gachas again. In the past people were very hush hush about talking about it due to fear of more people learning how to do the exploit.
If Gachas are making a return then creators need to know their art will be at risk.
Isabella Cinder
Stoic Cat you realize you replied to an AI that gave all that feedback in 20 seconds, right?
I'm not being condescending with you, I'm just not sure they are really on top of this bug.
Stoic Cat
Isabella Cinder Thank you for pointing that out. I did consider it might have been an automated response. Still, I took the opportunity to add my comment to let them know my intentions of raising awareness among fellow creators about this exploit.
I sincerely hope its not a bot, that being said the more attention this post gets with votes / comments will hopefully still get this exploit addressed.
Dorie Bernstein
Stoic Cat I know this has been possible since time immorial. I help manage a private estate, and years ago an incident led us to realizing that a region crash or restart could help us get copies of objects with no-copy permissions. Restarts have never been easy to get, and especially now because they cost money to do. Crashing a region is a lot harder now than it used to be on the old physics engine. (The stories I could tell!) I do have to wonder the stats on how often this exploit is being used.
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