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US Senator demands review of loot box policies, citing potential harm
- eveningcoffee 9y agoIt is actually a very good point. Now that I look into it, I think we should also ban all the booster packages for the board games. These packages can contain or may not contain valuable card and you are effectively gambling when you buy one. It can also become very addictive.
- notsofastbuddy 9y agoThis seems like an argument to remove all randomization from purchases.
- SomeHacker44 9y agoI am fully supportive of that.
- kevas 9y agoDoes that mean you're also in favor of ending state sponsored lottories, raffles, etc...?
- enraged_camel 9y agoI’m not the parent poster, but yes, that sounds like a great idea.
- ethbro 9y agoI am. Unless it's not-for-profit or single use (e.g. lottery revenue going to schools), then it's a regressive tax on people who don't understand probability.
- Larrikin 9y agoAre there any lotteries in the US that don't directly fund public sectors like education or elderly care? I thought that was how lotteries became legal across the states.
- cstejerean 9y agoEven if it’s funding education, it’s doing so through what is essentially a tax on the poor. Why not tax those that can afford it instead?
- Clubber 9y agoWell, that's how they sell it. When they started the lottery in my state, they sold it as a wonderful benefit to society, because all the proceeds would be used to fund education. What they didn't tell us is it wasn't additional funds to existing budgets, but they would pilfer the existing budget and replace it with lottery proceeds. Lying, smarmy politicians. You'd figure we'd learn by now.
- gowld 9y agoMoney is fungible single-use funding doesn't exist in reality.
- mmirate 9y ago> a regressive tax on people who don't understand probability This is precisely why I support lotteries etc.
- chillwaves 9y agoWhat you support is immoral. IF you want to live in a society where people prey on each other in every way possible, do not be surprised to eat a bullet. This shit is destabilizing because you advocate taking food off the tables of the poor. Impressive karma btw.
- mmirate 9y ago
- seangrogg 9y agoI would be in favor of ending state sponsored lotteries. I could see an argument in favor of them if: * Sellers were obligated to disclose the odds of winning the jackpot at the time of purchase punishable to the same extent as underage liquor sales * The state was required to render, upon request, financial consultation at the burden of the state to winners whose consultation can, at the winner's discretion, be recorded and later reviewed to understand the advice rendered and its context with respect to the winner's financial situation and risk profile
- gowld 9y agoWhat does bullet 3 even mean
- jasonlotito 9y agoGood to hear you want to combat companies like CDPR who use techniques to like this to sell to children.
- kakarot 9y agoSupportive of it being illegal for one individual or group of individuals to give an item with an agreed upon element of randomization to another individual in exchange for money? That is more than a little heavy handed, if not a downright Draconian economic policy.
- Drakim 9y agoAt the very least, all purchases should include info about the randomization. It shouldn't be legal to sell randomized products while keeping the randomization secret.
- DanBC 9y agoYes. I hate the Lego minifig series, and Panini sticker albums, and Pokemon cards. They should all have to include how many packets you'd expect to buy to complete a collection.
- megaman22 9y agoAt least with the Lego minifig series, if you buy them in a store, you can feel the polybag to get some kind of an idea what might be contained.
- DanBC 9y agoSure, but for a series of 16 figures you'd expect to buy about 55 packets to complete the collection. I don't think parents (or children) are aware of that, or have any idea how to work it out. (I didn't, I just searched until I found this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon_collector%27s_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon_collector%27s_problem
- my_username_is_ 9y agoThat seems like a reasonable step in the right direction. You wouldn't be forcing companies to abandon products (and preventing consumers from buying things that they potentially do actually want), but you do help the consumer make informed decisions and weigh the costs versus the potential benefits.
- bko 9y agoDo you think that will prevent the supposed harm? Lottery tickets include odds on the back of the cards. I think that has a very small effects on discouraging play. And those odds are pretty straight forward (1 in 2,000,000 for a 500k payout). I imagine information about how randomization works would be even more indecipherable.
- a_t48 9y agoI'm not sure how this would work out for Magic the Gathering. Currently card prices are mostly set by the community, because of relative power, rareness, and demand. I'm not sure if WotC can make accurate prices up front.
- araes 9y agoActually, WotC and the community are quite good at predicting price and market forces on their game. They have ~20,000 cards and 25 years of sales, and numerous quick factors for determining approx. card value. Concepts like the "curve" (mana vs P/T), and the value of evergreen keywords greatly help. If there was ever a topic for big data. Naturally, there are surprises (ex: Standard deck that becomes overly popular and drives demand), but sites like mtggoldfish generally predict prices for most cards to within a few percent and then follow all cards and box prices like stock tickers. Frankly, I've often thought that investing in MtG cards is more stable than gold. Many cards, like "Liliana of the Veil" [cur $88] are worth more by weight - ~$75/ 1.8 gram card = $41.7 / gram, approx gold price. Plus, value cards generally only rise and are supported by a trading base of a few million yearly players.
- a_t48 9y agoI stand corrected.
- kakarot 9y agoNo, they are wrong because they are analyzing secondary market prices, while the discussion was about introductory market prices, which are indeed set by WotC and made to, on average, be higher than the payout for selling the cards within. I think there have been two, maaaaybe three expansion sets in the multi-decade history of the game where the average price for selling all cards in a booster pack exceeded the price of the booster pack itself.
- chimeracoder 9y ago> I think there have been two, maaaaybe three expansion sets in the multi-decade history of the game where the average price for selling all cards in a booster pack exceeded the price of the booster pack itself. Which sets are those? I would be shocked if that were true for unlimited-run sets during the time when they were still in print (the first few sets were limited to a fixed number of cards, but every normal set since has been printed to demand).
- Waterluvian 9y agoI saw that a ton as a teen. I always felt sick at the idea so I had a built deck at a set price. But friends would buy a pack. Then just one more. Just one more. Okay last one.
- TaylorAlexander 9y agoMy friends son is constantly asking for more Pokémon cards. I’m not sure if there is any harm, but he’s in to it. I do wonder if regulation is the answer though. Shouldn’t we expect people (parents, here) to make their own choices?
- Waterluvian 9y agoI agree. I think regulation should focus on ensuring people have the facts and can make an informed decision, not make the decision for them.
- emodendroket 9y agoSurely part of the concern here is that the audience for these games include children who are incapable of making an informed decision. > Hassan urged the ESRB in the letter to examine whether loot boxes are being marketed "in an ethical and transparent way that adequately protects the developing minds of young children from predatory practices."
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y agoI wonder about this because as a child I and my siblings were big into Pokémon cards. At the height of the hype my parents bought a 100 pack of booster packs and would periodically dangle them in front of us as rewards. In the end we got a lot of new cards and my parents got a decent amount of chores done. I’m about to turn 28 and I’ve never had any sort of gambling problem (but I have had my own other non Pokémon related problems that were probably at least somewhat related to my parents)
- emodendroket 9y ago
- jdietrich 9y agoUnlike the US, the UK has quite liberal gambling legislation. You can legally bet online, there's a casino in every town, there's a betting shop on every high street, pubs can legally install slot machines, you'll see adverts for bookmakers during football matches. Crucially, it's all regulated. You have to be 18 to enter a betting shop or a casino. A slot machine has to be inspected by the Gambling Commission and must clearly state the payout ratio. Every business and employee involved in gambling has to be licensed. There's a voluntary self-exclusion scheme, so problem gamblers can ban themselves from being able to place a bet. Lootboxes are effectively a form of gambling - you pay x, but you get a prize worth anything from 0.01x to 1000x based on a random number generator. That RNG isn't audited. Customers don't know the odds. There's no age restriction or controls on advertising. Nobody involved in the business is licensed or subject to scrutiny by a suitable regulator. The operators have no social responsibility obligations. I'm a gambler myself. I think that US gambling laws are a bit weird. I don't want to ban gambling, but it needs to be properly regulated, regardless of the form it takes. I don't want to see children being stealthily introduced to gambling by predatory game developers.
- nkrisc 9y agoI don't disagree with you, but what about cases where the contents of the loot box can't be traded or sold? Or I suppose one could sell their account with the desirable item but that may be disallowed by ToS and get the account banned. I dislike loot boxes but I have a hard time seeing it as gambling if you explicitly can not liquidate the assets you receive from it. Then it's just a grab bag.
- shakna 9y agoYou pay $x, with a chance to receive items worth between $0.1x and $10x. It's true that x might not be able to converted to fiat or resold. That makes it effectively equivalent to a raffle, which often put restrictions on reselling similar to these cases. Raffles are considered a form of gambling, and are heavily regulated, in the UK[0] and Australia [1]. [0] http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Fundraising-and-promotions/Fundraising/Lotteries-at-events.aspx http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Fundrais... [1] https://www.vcglr.vic.gov.au/gambling/raffle/licensee-resources/faqs https://www.vcglr.vic.gov.au/gambling/raffle/licensee-resour...
- thomastjeffery 9y ago"The rating board will fix this for us." Ugh.
- wpasc 9y agoNot always the biggest fan of regulation, but man do I hate loot boxes... They are really egregious in many games. If the industry hadn't taken it way, way too far, it might not be necessary. However, I think it's way past time they're looked at
- c3534l 9y agoWhy not make it illegal to make randomness a component of games entirely? Ban the possession of dice. Make it illegal to be rewarded with in-game content just for doing well. Games should be like movies. The idea of manipulating people with feelings of achievement is clearly abusive and addictive. No more winning teddy bears for your girl at carnivals. Don't let people unlock things like high scores and new levels, new dialogue, your name on a high-score list. Ban pinball machines, too. I mean, as long as we're ignoring the fact the loot boxes: 1. Don't require you risk anything of monetary value. 2. Don't reward you with anything that can be sold for cash.* 3. Are randomized, but based on skill. 4. Are entirely digital goods with no real-world value. 5. Are philosophically indistinguishable from other forms of procedural content. 6. The ability to purchase a substitute for in-game content requires access to a credit card. Also, f * * * EA. I'm not defending EA. But I'm also not for out-of-touch Senators urging us all to think of children when the "children" in question need to have a bank account. *typically. I know things like "trading cards" on steam can be sold for monetary value. So let's outlaw Pokemon and Baseball Cards, too, just to be safe.
- DanBC 9y ago> But I'm also not for out-of-touch Senators urging us all to think of children when the "children" in question need to have a bank account. It's not just out of touch senators, it's experts in problem gambling who think loot boxes need to be looked at.
- pfisch 9y agoThe truth is this is really a populist movement of gamers who don't like lootboxes for reasons unrelated to gambling or addiction. They only latched on to this addiction/gambling argument because it suits their purpose. Very similar how child porn laws are pushed and abused by the copyright lobby because it suits their purposes. Gaming as an addiction is a much much larger problem than lootboxes as an addiction. If this is truly about addiction then where is the movement to restrict the amount of time people spend playing video games everyday?
- woodfall 9y ago1. is wrong. You loose significant amount of time and too many people came unbounded. Currently, industry (including social media) has no interest in mitigating the adverse effect of feedback loops on the personal lives of their victims. Regulation has to be made to avoid further harms.
- empath75 9y agoYeah just give them an ESRB rating of ‘mature’ if they have gambling elements.
- subroutine 9y agoNot taking a stance for or against this policy. But based on personal experience, I always spend the most money on these damn random draw "loot boxes", especially if I get a crappy draw my first turn (specifically thinking about puzzle and dragons).
- Shivetya 9y agowargaming, a Russian company who puts out World of Tanks/Warplanes/Warships seems to skirt the issue but insuring the value of the other items; not the most desired; is equal to the cost of the loot box. This turns the issue into, they decide the value of all items but players may not agree. I do believe the recent EA dust up is a clearer indication of when loot boxes cross the line into gambling. however if they guaranteed an item of specific value you could buy otherwise "but with other items" they might technically not be gambling. Its gambling when you have a chance to lose your money. (at least how I understand it)
- mewse 9y agoAt the risk of engaging in what-aboutism, I am amused that they think that right now is the ideal time to spend time thinking about the potential harm of loot boxes, when they're doing nothing to address the potential harm of gun violence. And have given up on protecting DACA recipients. Don't get me wrong; I'm no fan of loot boxes. I just am amused (although sadly not particularly surprised) that this is apparently the most urgent issue on anybody's pile this week.
- cromwellian 9y agoGun control provokes intense whataboutism: "Thoughts and Prayers" "What about mental health!" "What about MS-13 and immigration?" "What about drugs?" What about everything except considering restrictions on ownership, licensing, etc. A terrorist can kill a few dozen people once every few years, and suddenly we need a massive surveillance state, hundreds of billions spent on military and intelligence, "extreme vetting" of immigrants, travel bans, etc. But domestic mass shootings can happen on a weekly basis and it's business as usual.
- crag 9y agoI'd up-vote you twice if I could. Well said!
- Shivetya 9y agoGun control runs afoul of both the second and fourth amendments. Privacy concerns, depending on how its violate runs mostly amok of the fourth and sometimes the first. the real issue privacy issues don't rank as high is because both political parties use the surveillance state to spy on Americans to curtail the other party more than protect the people. its a tool to them to intimidate people who get out of line
- cromwellian 9y agoUp until 2008 in the Supreme Court Heller decision, the second amendment was not recognized as an unlimited individual right to firearms, and the 'well regulated militia' part of the amendment allowed states and localities to introduce their own ownership requirements, and indeed, many did, even in the 18th century, many local ordinances regulated firearms. A reactionary supreme court and aggressive NRA produced the overton window shift we now find ourselves in, where even banning those on mental health or terrorist watch lists from buying guns is perceived as a "slippery slope" too much to bear.
- 111_1_111 9y agoI don't understand this. You don't risk anything by opening a loot box. If you're going to ban loot boxes because they cause kids to play more video games, why not just ban video games entirely? Also, the definition of loot box seems like it could be very fuzzy. For example, in the pokemon games when you walk through grass you run the risk of running into a wild pokemon. Sometimes the pokemon you run into is a rare pokemon that you want to catch and sometimes it's something you've already caught and don't care about. Is this a "loot box"? I know I sure spent a lot of time walking through grass on those pokemon games as a kid.
- ficklepickle 9y agoThe biggest issue with the games kids are playing is that they are now specifically designed to exploit the young brains reward system, effectively engraining addictive behavior. Getting rid of loot boxes won't change that. I would say the biggest group at risk are under-stimulated, under-supervised children that may spend 8 hours a day hunched over a smartphone. It will be interesting to see the long term implications of that behavior.
- scarface74 9y agoWhere are kids getting the money from?
- emodendroket 9y agoFrom their parents, often without their parents' knowledge or consent. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/9928381/Boy-runs-up-1000-bill-buying-virtual-doughnuts-on-iPad.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/9928381/Boy-runs...
- scarface74 9y agoHow are they doing that? Are they taking their parents credit cards?
- emodendroket 9y agoNo. Haven't you ever used an iOS or Android device? Your credit card information is saved. The default setting is that the password doesn't need to be entered again if you buy something in the next ten minutes or so after you last did (and were prompted for your password), so I guess what's probably happening in some cases is they're buying the game and giving the kid the iPad and then he's able to order a ton of DLC. Or maybe they have looser settings or the kids know the password.
- scarface74 9y ago
- lsmarigo 9y agoThis is good and long overdue, hopefully we can come up with something effective unlike the regulations in China/Korea which are skirted by publishers gifting the loot boxes with other purchases instead of outright selling them. The amount of money at play here is no joke, Activision/Blizzard alone earns $13.4m daily revenue (2017) on just in-game microtransactions. They've even re-organized their financial results to downplay the dominance of microtransaction loot box revenue if you compare 2016 to 2017. http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm Should be framed as an extension of existing laws regarding child gambling.
- chimeracoder 9y agoThis is a stunning display of ignorance about how the games industry actually works today. Loot boxes, like how Blizzard implements them in Overwatch, are the absolute best business model in an industry that's otherwise filled with predatory pay-to-play DLC business models. With Overwatch, you pay $30 up-front for the game, and that's it. You don't have to pay a cent more, no matter how often or how long you play it. The more you play, the more XP you get. Every 20,000 XP[0], you get a free loot box that has purely cosmetic items with no impact on game play. If you want to, yes, you can buy extra loot boxes, if you really want a particular skin, but again, it has no impact on gameplay whatsoever. They also give out free loot boxes during promotional events, as well as an additional 3 free loot boxes each week for winning arcade games[1]. I play Overwatch, and I've never even thought to purchase loot boxes, partly because there are already so many ways to get free boxes that there's almost no point. There's no pressure to buy boxes, no in-game reminders, no dark patterns - really, nothing. Last I checked, you have to click through three menus from the home screen to even get to the place to buy boxes. It's not particularly prominent. For that $30, you get access to Overwatch for as long as they run servers (which, looking at Blizzard's track record, is probably years after you will stop caring). You get frequent upgrades to characters and maps, as well as free game lore (like the online comics). The alternative to this business model is to have either a pay-to-win model, where you can spend extra money for superior items and weapons. Or, you can have people pay based on the amount of time they play. The latter is unsustainable for a multiplayer game that receives frequent updates. The former is what most other companies do, and it's incredibly predatory. Almost all the big published, from Zynga to EA to King, practice this heavily. Actually, there is a third option: provide no support for the game after it ships. Once a player has paid for it, the game is sold, and it doesn't matter if it's so buggy that it's unplayable or if the game is imbalanced. This is by far the most common business model, as evidenced by the sea of Steam reviews for games like these. This may be the most manipulative model of all: release a game that's just tolerable enough that people will buy it, but insist that they buy next year's version at full price to fix any bugs or mechanical issues. EA is one of the worst offenders here. I'm pretty disgusted with the fact that people like Hassan are zeroing in on the one games company that is actually executing successfully on a rather ethical business model, when pretty much every other company around is actively trying to optimize outright predatory business strategies. [0] The XP rate depends on a lot of factors (such as how well you personally do), but that's somewhere between 5-10 Quick Play games (which usually take about 10 minutes). [1] Which is pretty easy. The matchups are generally pretty balanced, so your winrate is usually around 50%. In other words, you get additional loot boxes by playing 6 arcade games, up to a total of 3 boxes per week.
- catdograbbit 9y agoHow do you define what is and isn't a loot box? Elements of chance are a fact of life. If you remove them from games, video games will be indistinguishable from movies.