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Netherlands is close to drawing similar conclusions. And it makes sense. You can buy, using real money, a virtual ticket for a virtual item. Then that virtual
by IkmoIkmo 9y ago
Netherlands is close to drawing similar conclusions.
And it makes sense. You can buy, using real money, a virtual ticket for a virtual item. Then that virtual item can in turn often be sold to others for real money. In other words, players can participate by gambling real money in return for less or more real money.
In short, it is gambling. Not all countries make gambling illegal, but those who do, should treat loot boxes the same. And virtually all countries make gambling illegal for minors, and there's currently no working mechanism in play for 15 year olds not to be able to play these games.
Currently in the Netherlands it's required for the proceeds of loot boxes to be tradeable in the real world, giving them economic value, for it to be considered gambling. If it's purely virtual, it's not gambling but just part of the game. (you can question this of course.) The problem is that it didn't matter for the Dutch government whether the items were traded on external platforms (which are often in violation of the games EULA itself), or on a platform of the game itself.
What would help stay legit is for the games to prevent loot box items from being traded between characters at all.
Here's the weird thing though. My entire childhood was filled with opaque plastic packs of cards, pokemon cards, football cards etc. You didn't know which 5 cards were in there. The cards were semi-randomly distributed in the packs in the factory, just like these loot boxes are semi-randomly generated by an algorithm. And you'd pay, not knowing what you'd get. And indeed, sometimes you paid $10 for a pack with a rare pokemon you could sell for $100. That was gambling too under this definition.
- icebraining 9y agoNetherlands is close to drawing similar conclusions. The article says they already did: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-19-the-netherlands-declares-some-loot-boxes-are-gambling https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-19-the-netherland...
- JackCh 9y ago> "Here's the weird thing though. My entire childhood was filled with opaque plastic packs of cards, pokemon cards, football cards etc. You didn't know which 5 cards were in there. The cards were semi-randomly distributed in the packs in the factory, just like these loot boxes are semi-randomly generated by an algorithm. And you'd pay, not knowing what you'd get. And indeed, sometimes you paid $10 for a pack with a rare pokemon you could sell for $100. That was gambling too under this definition." Is that so weird? I came to the conclusion that industry was gambling when I was a kid. I saw my friends spend their allowance on those packs of cards, open them up, then become disappointed because they only received "trash". Yet again and again they'd do it. It seemed totally irrational to me.
- yuchi 9y agoAfter my first 6 packets of trash I started printing copies of them and reselling them for 40¢ each (50¢ for more rare ones) making a little fortune (3€ a day). It lasted a week before other parents were incredibly annoyed by this. Aaaaand they kept paying a lot of euros to buy real ones. :shrug:
- dintech 9y agoCopyright infringement: every parent's worst nightmare.
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- Libturd 9y agothis is such a classic "made it up for the internet" story
- walshemj 9y agoInvalid for play though - though I thought at the time that Pokémon at the time had very heavy ante i.e. you put up cards at random to play fore.
- cuckcuckspruce 9y agoInvalid for tournament play, certainly, but between two kids for playground bragging rights, not invalid if the people playing the game agree beforehand.
- walshemj 9y agoInteresting ethics you have there - and also sounds like the biggest school bully would win
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- raverbashing 9y agoWhile the cards are semi-random, they're selling a pack with let's say, 3 cards. There's not much debate there, that's what it "says on the box" and you're getting that. Depending on the case it might be gambling, it might be not - like for example a Picture Album, you can usually buy the missing cards for a flat fee (per missing card)
- GyYZTfWBfQw 9y agoYes, you are a violent criminal and you should be thrown to a metal cage. How dare you purchase a pack of Pokemon cards as a kid! /s Come on, it's ridiculous. It's just patching up the symptom, which will and always does bleed through. Why do you care anyway on what they spend the money they have? They might as well buy this and that which you think is useless and have no value to you and then prohibit the purchase of this and that for everyone. Plus, if you give kids your credit card, then it's your fault. Stop trying to regulate the sh!t out of everything and call it a day. I would also like to add that ridiculous amount of money is going into cosmetics in games such as League of Legends, and no, the criteria for gambling doesn't apply here. What should we, or rather the goberment!11!1 do to solve the issue of not being able to raise a kid and pay attention to them? Look, if your kid empties your credit card, do not hold anyone but yourself responsible for it, and do not think for a second that prohibition of arbitrary things will solve that.
- 4ndr3vv 9y agoI think you might have missed the distinction between buying IAP on "Gems" or cosmetics and the fully fledged gambling lunacy that are loot crates. It's not about protecting daddy's credit card; gambling can be an extremely addictive and corrupting activity, one that children should not be exposed to as part of their daily gaming.
- GyYZTfWBfQw 9y ago(1) Emphasis on can be. You can't (well they can, but they shouldn't; the undesired consequences are evident) ban things on the basis of can be. (2) > fully fledged gambling lunacy > loot crates OK, way to blow it out of proportions by these unfounded assumptions. Let me tell you something: gambling isn't inherently bad. It becomes a problem if you keep repeating the behavior despite its negative consequences. For further information, please consult https://learn.problemgambling.ca/eip/assessment https://learn.problemgambling.ca/eip/assessment. (3) Are you also against the purchase of Pokemon cards as 1) you don't know anything about the cards prior to the purchase and 2) it can be an extremely addictive and corrupting activity? Oh, and speaking of what can be an extremely addictive and corrupting activity: daily gaming! It can lead to social isolation, bad grades, et cetera. How about we ban games? Let's ban games, let's ban computers, let's ban the Internet because some lousy parents are unable to raise their kid. Are you really to unable to see how ridiculous it sounds?
- Aissen 9y agoIndeed, it seems the Netherlands study separates whether or not you can then further trade the items to determine if it's gambling or not. Therefore, some games like Overwatch don't fall into this category. Regarding trading card games, they are indeed awfully closed to gambling; and they are in fact the main defense of the game publishers, arguing that this is just a "collect and play" type of game, and isn't gambling. But isn't the interactivity, the bells and wistles, animations of the lootbox openings closer to addictive reward patterns than just opening a plastic card booster pack ?
- PeterStuer 9y agoSome differences are: - The physical card packs have predetermined and known probabilities. - The 'opening' ceremony is rather benign and not designed to stimulate - Once printed and distributed no further psychological tweaking mechanisms can be employed to 'hook' the player
- IkmoIkmo 9y agoOn (1) I don't believe there's any difference... a factory prints cards according to the company's desired distributed, and a game's algorithm generates loot boxes according to the same distribution. Lootboxes and trading cars both have predetermined and known (to the company) and unknown (to the players) probabilities. (2/3) agreed there is a difference, although it was still magical as a child and there was definitely something calling me back. A lot of those packs were interesting only because I watched 100 episodes of the greatest adventurer known to me (Ash Ketchum) and my own adventures playing Pokemon on the gameboy for 100+ hours.
- PeterStuer 9y agoSince those companies ostensibly don't want to publish the probabilities, potentially because they employ far more subtle 'personalized' addictive tweaks, you can not state (1). In contrast, the distribution for cards in trading card games seems fairly well known, not just to the publisher, but also to the buyer, and no 'personalized tweaking' can occur.
- s73v3r_ 9y agoBaseball card companies publish the odds of getting certain kinds of cards.
- stordoff 9y agoOn (1), that assumes that the odds are fixed and not tweaked per player. That isn't necessarily the case. Even if it is, other parts of the game can be manipulated to make the purchases seem more rewarding than they actually are, as at least Activison has explored: > For example, if the player purchased a particular weapon, the microtransaction engine may match the player in a gameplay session in which the particular weapon is highly effective, giving the player an impression that the particular weapon was a good purchase. This may encourage the player to make future purchases to achieve similar gameplay results. https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/how-activision-uses-matchmaking-tricks-to-sell-in-game-items-w509288 https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/how-activision-uses...
- winkeltripel 9y ago> there's currently no working mechanism in play for 15 year olds not to be able to play ERSB seems like a good mechanism.
- yellowapple 9y agoThe ESRB is a voluntary self-regulatory organization, not mandated by law. Most "legitimate" video game publishers and retailers (at least in the US) follow its guidelines and use its ratings because the industry has collectively agreed to police itself under those guidelines with those ratings. Same goes for PEGI, last I checked. This is in contrast with (for example) the ACB, which actually is mandated and controlled by the Australian government. That said, an "AO" rating would indeed have a chilling effect on store shelves (since most retailers don't even want to carry AO games at all). It could be feasible to make loot boxes an automatic elevation to ESRB AO / PEGI 18 / etc. should those organizations want to do so (and hopefully they would indeed want to do so).
- ryan-c 9y agoI played MtG a bit in my teens through early twenties, and I think that one difference was that a pack of cards had positive expected value. The set of cards you got would generally cost more to buy individually than you'd pay for the pack. Is this the case for these loot boxes? As a side note, I remember MtG being called "cardboard crack" back in the day, including by those who played it.
- nkassis 9y agoThat might have been the case at some points in the history of MtG but I don't think recent sets have had positive expected value. For the most part you pay less just getting the cards you need. Or use the opening of packs for actual gaming with the various ways to play with them.
- badloginagain 9y ago> Then that virtual item can in turn often be sold to others for real money. This, for the majority of IAP, is super untrue, unless you mean selling on a secondary market. If this is what you mean, then Wizards of the Coast better start worrying because anyone buying rares from the local gaming shop is now engaging in gambling and, by your logic, responsible by WotC. In fact, the big problem here is precedence. How long do you think it will take before a litigious company starts targeting "physical" lootboxes like MtG or Pokemon or any physical variable reward package. The mechanics are the same, the reward rarity weight can be exactly the same, just the medium has changed. This law is dangerous, because you could have gotten the same result (protect children/persons susceptible to skinner box mechanics) with a little more nuance. Also, the big losers here are decent apps that don't have predatory IAP that are caught in the crossfire. It's kind of shocking the lack of foresight being seen in this thread.
- Nullabillity 9y ago> This, for the majority of IAP, is super untrue, unless you mean selling on a secondary market. If this is what you mean, then Wizards of the Coast better start worrying because anyone buying rares from the local gaming shop is now engaging in gambling and, by your logic, responsible by WotC. Yes, they do the same thing. Of course they should be hit just the same.
- dfxm12 9y agoAnd indeed, sometimes you paid $10 for a pack with a rare pokemon you could sell for $100. That was gambling too under this definition. Different jurisdictions feel differently about this, I'm sure. If the collectible's company plays dumb and never acknowledges the secondary market, they'll be more likely to stay clear of legal regulation. After all, they're just selling piece of cardboard. What the people choose do with those pieces of cardboard is their prerogative, wink, wink.
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- everdev 9y ago> You can buy, using real money, a virtual ticket for a virtual item. Then that virtual item can in turn often be sold to others for real money. This exactly describes cryptocurrency.
- ryanmonroe 9y agoIt also describes stocks, and anything non-tangible which you can sell for money. I'm not sure what your point is, unless it's just "cryptocurrencies are like money", which was the point your parent was making with that statement about tokens in games. The part that makes it gambling is that you gamble with them, which maybe you can argue you do with cryptocurrencies, but the fact that they're "virtual" isn't really relevant to the question of whether buying them is "gambling". You can of course buy physical items such as art in the hopes of selling them at a profit, and buy "virtual" items such as bonds which are not very risky at all.
- pwaivers 9y agoHow do you sell virtual items in, say, Overwatch? AFAIK the item is attached to your user and there is no trading.
- viperscape 9y agoI was just about to comment on magic and pokemon cards! Maybe even baseball packs. All could be traded for real cash, and obviously were! It's such a grey line though, the original intent of the cards is to not be traded around for cash, but be used to play games or simply collect (without the intent to sell) and be enjoyed. To be frank, I'm glad the world is cracking down on the digital forms of this, I think it's a bit corrupt-- explicitly targeting minors with considerably less self-control. In my opinion, it's right up there with apps that use in-game currency gems/coins that you can purchase with real money; because kids targeted by that game audience often don't understand the repercussions on such activities. I think there needs to be a very fine line drawn where a child cannot make a digital purchase, even if inadvertent. Regardless. It shouldn't be a "we suggest you set up parental controls", literally the device should be locked down from entirely preventing such behavior and must then be overrode by an adult.