Tateru Nino of Massively recently wrote a great profile of an anonymous bot farmer, someone who deploys artificial avatars in Second Life. Originally, I thought this was yet another individual who's hired by land owners to artificially drive up their Traffic stats with their bots (a practice the Lindens recently banned, but shows no obvious signs of going away, at least not yet.) But no, Ms. Nino wasn't talking to that kind of bot farmer. As it turned it out, it was way more insidious (an deliciously ironic) than that. The bot farmer explains:
"It's strictly business.... A friend slipped me a copy of the bot-running software that he'd bought, and it's much more profitable.... Depending on where I can get camping spots, between $100 and $200 a week. My bro's got better spots, but he won't tell me where. He makes over $300, and only uses 60 bots."
Camping chairs, as longtime Residents know, give out free L$ to people who sit on them; this is also a way landowners artificially drive up Traffic. Generally, Residents will park their avatar on a chair, then go away from their keyboard, and let the Linden Dollars slowly roll in.
That in mind, let the full weight of Tateru's interview sink in: as it turns out, some bot farmers are using their bots to get free Linden Dollars from camping chairs. And quite a lot of money, $400-1200 a month for sitting several dozen bots on them. (The Lindens banned camping chairs last month, but as with bots, that announcement hasn't had a perceivable effect.) The supreme irony of course, is that both camping chairs and traffic bots were both invented to game the Traffic stats... and now they're feeding off each other.
Linden Lab lied about the bot/camping ban. They have no intention of enforcing it or making the search engine not favor their alts.
If they are going to be serious then they are going to have to enforce it on their alts, family, and friends. Never going to happen.
Posted by: Ann Otoole | Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 05:28 AM
The Linden policy is vague as well. For instance, what of camping spots that had anti-bot measures put into place?
HippiePay Island sim, where I once worked, eventually beat the bots at their own game, and they'll pile up like turds on the pads because they could not answer the anti-bot questions. Then a paid helper like me would ban them. We even had roving camping for a while, which paid a lower rate but the avatar could be anywhere in SL and still earning money.
Most of our visitors were regulars we actually knew, talked to, even dated and partnered. They were real people making perhaps 100L a day camping while they did other things IRL. And a party scene went on there and at The Pharm with ravers who were never afk.
Admittedly, HippiePay wanted high traffic numbers and people to do the surveys, which is where we made money. We closed long before this new ban came in, but in their heavy-handed way, the Lindens used a club when a more precise tool could have reduced the bots.
What we did at HippiePay is no longer a viable model, but it was sure fun for the HippiePay staff and our regulars, while it lasted.
Posted by: Tempest Homewood | Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 07:19 AM
I've known for a long time that many of the camping chairs are filled with bots, and that many of the camping chairs are fake (unscripted other than hover text and filled by bots run by the owner). I said so in my bot surveys, and it's one reason I lump bots and campers together.
I think the amount of money collected by humans camping is vanishingly small these days.
Posted by: anya ristow | Friday, June 12, 2009 at 07:09 AM