SL SHOCKER! – SLLA Hires Freelance Hit Squads

by Pixeleen Mistral on 31/10/06 at 6:59 pm

L$1000 bounty for hits on Electric Sheep, Millions of Us, Rivers Run Red –
Aimee Weber hit jobs discounted to L$500

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

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SLLA now paying freelance shooters

Addressing the dearth of entry level jobs in SL, the Second Life Liberation Army today placed a bounty on a number of high-profile commercial contractors involved in bringing RL to SL. In a terse communique, the avatar rights and SL terrorist group called for “unrestricted warfare” in Midnight City with a L$500 bounty for filmed mayhem in the sim.

However, Aimee Weber’s stock appears to be dropping in the opinion of the SLLA. Hits on her competitors – the Electric Sheep, Millions of Us, and Rivers Run Red – fetch L$1000 – double what Aimee is worth. Observers speculate that Aimee may be over-exposed in the media based on her relative valuation – or perhaps she and visitors to Midnight City are just easy targets?

What motivates these contract hit jobs? The SLLA is concerned that the “elite few are increasingly taking control of SL”. In response, the SLLA is advocating attacks on the RL commercial base of SL in an attempt to gain more avatar rights -and stock options- from Linden Lab.

I was contacted by the SLLA shortly after they posted their hit job rate sheet, and was told they are moving to a leaderless resistance model where the SLLA sets targets and allows volunteers to select the method – push guns or cage guns are a matter of personal preference in the new organizational model. Gun-toting freelance alts may want to brush up on their machinima skills however – the bounty is only paid in the event of a filmed successful attack.

With this in mind, I’m off to go shopping for a shield and a flack jacket for my multimedia girlfriend Destroy Television – I don’t think she is a target, but I’m concerned about collateral damage if Hank Hoodoo or the other sheep are hanging around. Destroy? Be super careful, OK?

28 Responses to “SL SHOCKER! – SLLA Hires Freelance Hit Squads”

  1. Urizenus

    Oct 31st, 2006

    Good scoop pix.

    Meanwhile the SLLA needs to do a better job with their videos; that youtube thing on their site was not illuminating. Maybe they can get Crayon to help them with that stuff.

  2. Cory Edo

    Oct 31st, 2006

    Doing my part to help the SL economy, come blow me up at 9PM SLT at Sheep Island, tonight and the rest of the week. Even if you don’t need the money, there’s a little girl named Tiffany who does…www.savetiffany.com. Don’t forget your fraps! http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/cory/?p=14

  3. Cocoanut

    Oct 31st, 2006

    I don’t believe these developing companies bringing in corporations help the SL economy as much as it hurts it.

    It does help the personal economy of the individuals working in these developing companies, however.

    coco

  4. Urizenus

    Oct 31st, 2006

    does that mean you’re joining the SLLA Coco?

  5. Cory Edo

    Oct 31st, 2006

    Come blow me up on video tonight Coco, and help your personal economy by $L1000. Fraps is a free download for 30 days, and its really easy to use if you haven’t tried it out before.

  6. csven

    Oct 31st, 2006

    Nice way to help publicize these companies. Easy press. Which one of them dreamed this up? Clever.

  7. jauani

    Nov 1st, 2006

    how does bringing in RL companies hurt SL? do tell!

  8. Prokofy Neva

    Nov 1st, 2006

    how does bringing in RL companies hurt SL? do tell!

    1) hires some craven architects away from the indigenous economy to become corporate hacks and slaves, destroying the world’s beauty
    2) floods the world with freebies like the Nissan cars, free land like Pontiac will do, all kinds of free stuff, destroying the value of indigenous products in both land development and content creation
    3) draws in business-related RL mainstream media to report on SL as merely a business platform for PR campaigns, not a viable world with people in it including indigenous workers, craftsmen, residents.
    4) destroys the motivation to work for micropayments as the end game now seems to be to get a job with a metaversal consulting company and/or big corporation and sell your content-making or development skills to them
    5) big corporations are like camp-chair sitting/club arrangements — they are willing to pay for traffic and eyeballs outside the indigenous economy. Their big camp chair payout is their PR budget in RL — they don’t have to really work for traffic by really making compelling content
    6) big corporations bring in bland, cement-related and overall-dressed drones that make the whole place look like the Soviet Union c. 1963 with merely a nouveau 2006 makeover.
    7) the corporations’ willingness to pay was what enabled the Lindens to crank up island prices, thereby totally sinking the mom-and-pop rentals business who cared more about community and customer service than just cheap media hits and branding

    Do you need more reasons?

  9. TP

    Nov 1st, 2006

    It would be funny if these people logged in alts to attack themselves and then sent video to these guys collecting the $L hassle and AR free. If I were one of them I’d just invite people to come attack me then split the cash 50/50 sounds like some easy money.

  10. Satchmo Prototype

    Nov 1st, 2006

    TP, we want all of you to collect the bounty. We’re making ourselves available every night this week at 9PM on Sheep Island and I’m sponsoring a Shoot Cory Edo, Machinima Contest. 15,000$L for first place!!!

    Last night was a party and DestroyTV was there. Hope to see everyone tonight with cameras in hand!!!

  11. Urizenus

    Nov 1st, 2006

    Yeah baby, I’m gonna bust a cap in Cory’s ass and score me some Linden Dollars!

  12. Cory Edo

    Nov 1st, 2006

    Uri: BRING IT! Oh and if you have a chicken gun that would be great. I saw a fried chicken gun last night but it didn’t really have the same visceral effect as a fully feathered flock flying at me.

  13. Urizenus

    Nov 1st, 2006

    Chicken gun, hellll no! I’m gonna use my Assblaster 3000.

    pulls gun from inventory, fires up Fraps…

  14. MSGiro

    Nov 2nd, 2006

    What cracks me up is that when the last drop of venom has been spewed the haters are going to reach down and push the power button on their Dell, Alienware(now Dell), HP, IBM, Apple machines and jump in their Honda, Toyota, Ford, Chevy, BMW, Volkswagen cars to take a ride to Cracker Barrel, Steak & Shake, Krispy Kreme for some grub and then head on over to Abercrombie, Banana Republic and Macy’s for some clothes. Talk all you want about big brands but a simple analysis of your personal space will most likely reveal some obvious findings.

    I’ve been watching this argument for a while and reading all of your comments. It’s not the brands that you hate. It’s the crappy execution. I don’t blame you, because you’re abolutely right. That can be easily remedied by the right people though and instead of bitching and moaning about everything, behind the veil of your monitors, why not try to engage the people involved and pass along your critiques, advice, lessons learned, etc? Some may tell you to bugger off, but the smart ones will listen. Isn’t being heard what you want in the first place?

  15. Urizenus

    Nov 2nd, 2006

    MSGiro, I think you are right that the big complaint is with the crappy execution, but it is false that no one here is offering positive advice. Take for example Prokofy’s 20 pointers, which has been picked up by the MIT Advertising Lab and the Strategic Public Relations blog but apparently no one building in SL.

    http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-to-advertise-in-second-life.html

    http://prblog.typepad.com/strategic_public_relation/2006/11/20_tips_for_mar.html

    We are all of us quite willing to pass along what we know. It seems however, that the outside firms are being funneled into a very narrow channel of developers, and are either too lazy or too blindered to consider the possiblity that someone else among the million other alleged residents of SL might actually know something.

    Dell bought Alienware? Is nothing sacred!!!!?????

  16. MSGiro

    Nov 2nd, 2006

    I’m more than happy to listen to feedback, comments, complaints. I love the dialogue. If we all followed the same track this would be the most boring place in the metaverse. You can find my avatar by the name MSGiro Grosso. I’m going to be responsible for bringing big brands into SL(might as well add me to the hit list, but be warned, as Italians we come with muscle behind us so it can get very ugly) but I refuse to have it suck. I’m not talking design either. We all can do design well. It’s the engagement with the community (current and future) that matters. Show the community respect and they’ll give it right back. Simple philosophy that has been overlooked.

  17. urizenus

    Nov 2nd, 2006

    Word.

    You know the thing that astounds me the most about this whole episode is the way that marketers and corporations seem to be coming to the Lindens first for guidance. It is almost as though they were going to develop a brand of cars or shoes in the United States and the marketers decided to go to Bush and Cheney for how to proceed, as though Bush and Cheney would have any insight into marketing shoes or cars in the US by virtue of ruling the place. No doubt they would tell you to hire Haliburton and 50 million dollars later you would have nothing for your money.

    Alora, fra poco, Don Grosso.

  18. Prokofy Neva

    Nov 2nd, 2006

    MSGiro, yeah, I always say the thing about all those kids who go to anti-globalist demonstrations in their Nikes and Gap jeans and break the windows of the Starbucks where they get their mocha lattes? And then go back to their dorm rooms which could power a small third-world country with how much energy it wastes. Sure.

    There might be some Chomskyites out there who hate capitalism and corporations, but that wouldn’t be me and I think most people in SL. And it’s not only the execution, or the crappyness — though that is a factor. It’s the fact that they wield an unseemly and undeserved political clout in our fragile little world, aided and abetted by oldbies ushering them in who were feted for the first 3 years of Second Life and who got all kinds of perks and passes to be vicious and nasty on the forums, silencing others. That’s what it is for me. And even if there weren’t any FIC, there’d still be the problem of what it means when massive, well-financed careless entities not interested in building up the world qua world come in and swagger around and splash all the water out of the pond.

    So then I’ll tell you what’s *as* irksome — those coming and spouting how they are engaging with the community and putting back to the community and talking the talk of the community — yet it’s all bullshit because they are just spouting jargonistic nonsense.

    You get these eerie scenes of IBM sponsoring a pumpkin-carving contest and giving away Halloween swag and creating this kind of ersatz fake community center feeling — reminds me of Hallmark greeting card stuff or Ronald McDonald sort of stuff. Perhaps as an internal festivity for their own customers and clients it feels good and works, but for others it simply looks like they are sucking away from all the indigenous venues who really rely on participation and traffic to stay afloat.

  19. Prokofy Neva

    Nov 2nd, 2006

    In that Counting Sheep group I think it was I saw that the Sheeple were trying to out-terrorize this SLAA thing to the point where I began to think they’d thought it up themselves as a fake stunt to siphon off actual public hatred and give it a controllable outlet that they themselves and big corporation runs. Hey, conspiracy ‘r us here. But it’s just like Promsoyuz that the Tsar’s secret police ran, where they made a fake trade union to capture the revolutionaries and watch them but then their agents got so caught up in the fun of making the fake trade union that they really began to believe it, then the Tsar’s secret police had a real problem on their hands.

    Satchmo Prototype is even offering $15,000 as a bounty on Sheep’s heads if these wannabe pixelated terrorists and make a machinima of being bombed. Bleh.

  20. Nacon

    Nov 3rd, 2006

    Oh what a grand idea!

    Make a movie where an agent come in to shoot aimee, with drama! Ohhhh!! A MOVIE! It’ll be a machinima winning award film!

    Fucking retards.

  21. TP

    Nov 3rd, 2006

    Has the SLLA payments been confirmed yet? Just wondering if they plan on honoring the 1kL per shooting.

  22. Cory Edo

    Nov 3rd, 2006

    Just for a clarification, there’s no connection between the SLLA and ESC, or any other development company that I’m aware of. I’m sure they’d be happy to hear it, though.

    I read about the bounty first right here on the Herald, then I figured hey, if people want to shoot at someone for cash, why not make it easy? I can sit at Sheep Island and eat my dinner, people can blow me up and videotape it for cash, no one gets ARed, everyone has fun.

    If someone has it out for you to the point they’re offering money to grief you, you can either piss and moan, or have fun with it. We decided to have fun with it. The fact that now people think we’re in cahoots with the SLLA and orchestrated the whole deal is even funnier.

    TP: I’m not sure if they’ve honored the payouts yet, but I’m interested to know myself.

  23. Spin Martin

    Nov 3rd, 2006

    BTW, as a side note, the S.L. Army general thought it would be a good idea to set up shop in SIX rooms spanning two floors “because they weren’t being used” and that I could ‘return the stuff if I wanted to’…

    Even an S.L. Army Grunt had taken up a floor, of which I returned all his crap.

    The funny thing? This guy has a computer in his ‘office’ that kicks out notecards of SL’s most wanted, and in a conversation with him, has claimed that the SL Army is out to protect the RL brand sims from the terrorists.

    He wasn’t too amused when I told him that armies, have no power, not the power of land, not the power of estate.

    And besides, he just PUT his crap there, annexing if you will. Maybe the S.L. Army should put their names on their own list?

  24. Spin Martin

    Nov 3rd, 2006

    And yeah one more thing. I do have RL corps on my sims and I am just as amused at the people trying to defend them, as those wishing to protest. So they’re both guilty of being lame. But then again, I got some spare Gene Replacement coffins laying around the health enabled sims I can stuff some folks into.

    Werd.

  25. TP

    Nov 4th, 2006

  26. TP

    Nov 11th, 2006

    Turns out they do not honor the kill/hits/whatever and it’s just another attempt to garner attention. 2 weeks no 1kL so yeah…

    SLLA is a farce it seems. That Reebok attack video they show is really weak aswell.
    PR stunts are retarded especially when I fall for them thinking I can make some money to buy more star wars shit if I participate.

    Atleast I got to lay a non-AR smackdown on cory afk av though! She/He was actually there to say hello during the emminent attack, nice touch.
    wasn’t sure if those briefcase nukers worked or not but the AV did a vanishing act rather quickly with no apparent activity so I assume it orbited or layed enough push to blow out of the sim.

    Set it to some music and layed an egg on youtube. not mechanima material but could be worse.

  27. Noe

    Nov 29th, 2006

    The first blow is half the battle… Noe

  28. broadstuff

    Dec 7th, 2006

    Second Life, Habbo Hotel and the happy (social) medium

    You know something is happening when there are TWO events on Virtual worlds in one night. I went to This One by Music Ally et aland missed out on That One at the Dana Centre.

    The thing that I have been mulling over for the last few days is what the ne