7 ms·
> "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
by JackCh 8y 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 8y 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 8y agoCopyright infringement: every parent's worst nightmare.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Libturd 8y agothis is such a classic "made it up for the internet" story
- walshemj 8y 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 8y agoInvalid for tournament play, certainly, but between two kids for playground bragging rights, not invalid if the people playing the game agree beforehand.
- walshemj 8y agoInteresting ethics you have there - and also sounds like the biggest school bully would win
- cuckcuckspruce 8y agoWhy? If anyone can print the cards and therefore play the deck that they want then the game comes down to a limited amount of luck (as decks are randomized before play) and skill in both play and construction of decks. This has become a more pronounced issue as realistic counterfeits of Magic: The Gathering cards that are no longer in print and in some cases cost more than a car are starting to appear on the market. They can be detected by a trained eye, but to they look "close enough" to a casual or even sharp observer. While the people producing the cards and discussing their quality often say "these cards are intended for use in decks but not to trade or sale as if they were real cards", some in the wider Magic: The Gathering community feel very strongly that legal action should be taken against the producers, sellers, and in some cases, even the users of these cards. On a practical side, using non-genuine, non-WotC produced cards is against sanctioned tournament rules - from Friday Night Magic up to the Pro Tour, but what right do others have to tell me what I can and cannot allow in non-sanctioned play or at Commander night with my friends? That said, my friends and I often "cheapass draft" in our homes - we generate random boosters, print them on paper, cut and fit them atop bulk commons in sleeves, and then draft/battle for the cost of six sheets of color laser print. No money changes hands, we're never going to try and pass off these obvious printouts as anything other than playtesting. Just figured I'd expound on the ethics - both societal and personal - around this topic since you questioned them.
- croshan 8y ago
- Sharlin 8y agoIt’s weird in the sense that it didn’t seem to bother anybody even though the same laws restricting gambling were in effect.
- JackCh 8y agoIt bothered me back then, and I wasn't alone. Here's an article from 1999 in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/24/nyregion/suit-claims-pokemon-is-lottery-not-just-fad.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/24/nyregion/suit-claims-poke... Obviously the objections to pokemon cards never reached any sort of critical mass as objections to loot boxes seem to be. Maybe that says something about differences between the two industries, or maybe that says something about how society has progressed in the past two decades.
- niij 8y ago> says something about how society has progressed in the past two decades Or regressed, depending on your views about personal liberty and what the obligations of the state are.
- JackCh 8y agoWas it also a regression when governments around the world banned children from gambling in casinos?
- celticninja 8y agoAnd working in coal mines.
- niij 8y agoSpending money on virtual games is miles away from child labor. I don't think you'll find very many people in here arguing that anti-child labor laws are a bad thing, so I find your comment a bit of a red-herring.
- 8y ago