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I'm sure my parents would disagree that Pokémon trading cards weren't a giant money sink designed to take their money. I can see a lot of problems with giving

I'm sure my parents would disagree that Pokémon trading cards weren't a giant money sink designed to take their money. I can see a lot of problems with giving children access to credit cards, but I honestly fail to see how loot boxes are different from trading cards marketed to children. My high school enacted and enforced a ban on all card and board games because some parents were worried about child gambling; I'm still mad that they took the fun away from school recess because of a dumb moral panic.

BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
This definitely isn't a universal experience and there are definitely a lot of trading card horror stories, but for me + friends growing up the purchase of trading cards had a different place in life. They were like one of life's small rewards you had a chance of rolling whenever going into a shop with a parent/guardian. Being at the checkout, putting on the little kid puppy-dog 'pleaseeeeeee' and the adult deciding if you've been 'good enough' and possibly giving you something for that. Acquisition was separate from their consumption and social role. With lootboxes, you're actively pursuing the purchase to immediately try to meet a goal. You want the purchase, make it, have the question answered of whether your roll was good or not and that's mostly it. Trading cards were taken home (or at least to the car), physically admired, stored, socially shared even if they weren't 'worth' sharing, and had a larger variance in subjective value for trading or gifting later.
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  One small caveat: digital collections of lootbox items can be admired, organized, displayed, and in some games traded to other players. Of course, all these actions are dictated by the software for the most part, and can be arbitrarily restricted. I won't be able to seal a fancy digital hat and donate it to a local museum.
  - BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
    It's true, which is why I tried to caveat it with 'even if they aren't worth sharing'. If I got a Tangela and had it in my pocket I'm still going to show the neighbour friend, she might even like Tangela especially well as a preference (tried to get at this with 'subjective value'). But with the number of football players and how it's much more stat/goal-based and the collector aspects are skewed towards the higher level, kids probably aren't making Discord calls to show their friend John Smith from the English division 2 league because he has a cute nose :)
- mFixman 5y ago
  Did we have different childhoods, or do you not really forget yours? Children used to steal trading cards and have violent fights over them. Only a few dedicated nerds played the game; the rest just collected the cards and showed them as a proxy of self-worth. This is perfectly normal child behaviour, and I'm sure it was much worse than whatever's happening right now with lootboxes. The main difference between them isn't the lack car rides to the store; it's the moral panic mostly distributed by social media about how $fun_thing is killing children.
  - Xorakios 5y ago
    That is not even remotely normal child behavior.
  - BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
    We had different childhoods, I never saw violent fights. Totally didn't mean to present my memory as a universal truth which is why I led with the first sentence. Definitely whole weavings of intertwined complexities to unravel!
  - InvertedRhodium 5y ago
    Where on earth did you grow up?
  - shard972 5y ago
  - krageon 5y ago
    > Children used to steal trading cards and have violent fights over them. This is messed up - is this real or overstated? > This is perfectly normal child behaviour Stealing and fighting? Where would this be the case?
    - mFixman 5y ago
      Maybe "violent fights" wasn't the right phrase here. I was talking about the usual boy light violent play.
- k__ 5y ago
  Doesn't gambling mostly come down to diposition? I did many addicting things in life an never became addicted.
yakak 5y ago
I'm not sure how to feel about collectibles, I bought a lot of baseball card packs and didn't open them as an "investment" as a kid. Probably they beat inflation, but the market would be lower if people like me could ever be bothered to sell. In the case of digital "assets" though, I don't find it so legitimate. AFAIK, they can change their ToS whenever they like or cancel this version of the game, etc. Perhaps a shrewd system would pretend to be indifferent yet force them to escrow money for obligations related to hosting these assets and eventually make them wonder why they didn't just print cards and be done with it as complicated civil cases begin to emerge. (But should we really let the human endeavour degrade to the point where bartering pointless collectibles is where the smart people get allocated? I kind of agree with the IRS that we should add disincentives.)
SkyBelow 5y ago
I feel they are very similar, but do have a few key differences. If these differences matter enough to make a moral difference is something we can discuss. A few of the key differences, in no particular order: 1. Trading card games come with base sets that have guaranteed cards and are useful for playing the game. This makes it TCGs better. 2. CCGs can be traded to others or sold. This one I'm unsure about. 3. Loot boxes are wrapped into games and are often designed to appeal to players in a much more intrusive way than TCGs . This makes loot boxes worse. 4-1. Some loot boxes have no impact on gameplay. These make loot boxes better. 4-2. Some loot boxes have an impact on gameplay larger than the impact of buying TCG boosters. These make loot boxes worse. 5. Loot boxes are often purchased through currency systems made to separate the buyers understanding of how much they are paying. This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes, with some games have layers of currency in between. Compare this to TCG boosters which are sold in stores for specific dollar amounts. This make loot boxes worse. 6. You can buy specific cards you need directly from other players, while most loot box systems require buying more loot boxes until you get the specific item desired. This one is related to 2 and I am also unsure about. 7. Loot boxes are often built into games on ones phone and use tactics to encourage worse spending habits. This make loot boxes worse. Overall my personal opinion would be that loot boxes as a whole are worse than TCGs, but the better done loot boxes are comparable or slightly better (less predatory) than TCGs while the worse loot boxes are much much worse (more predatory). Edit: One way to look at it is that the more predatory loot boxes are an extension of TCGs that doubled down on the worse parts, which might be enough for it to cross a person's personal moral threshold.
- q-big 5y ago
  > 5. Loot boxes are often purchased through currency systems made to separate the buyers understanding of how much they are paying. This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes, with some games have layers of currency in between. Compare this to TCG boosters which are sold in stores for specific dollar amounts. This make loot boxes worse. Converting between currencies is easy "rule of three" - you learn that very early in school. Also, before the introduction of the Euro (and for some border frontiers in Europe even after), children who lived near borders of neighboring countries very often had to become accustomed to two (multiple) currencies from very early on and better were able to convert them in their heads. > 7. Loot boxes are often built into games on ones phone and use tactics to encourage worse spending habits. This make loot boxes worse. Encourage bad spending habits: sounds like classical advertising.
cheeseomlit 5y ago
True, but those trading cards are worth big bucks nowadays. Lootbox rewards are basically worthless since you don't really "own" them and cant resell them
- Nowado 5y ago
  You mean, the issue with child gambling these days is that there's no promise of a big pay out?
  - cheeseomlit 5y ago
    The gambling part is no good in either case. But there is a difference between buying a toy/collectible and actually owning it vs. this digital skinner box stuff where all you really get is a hit of dopamine, the latter seems more insidious to me
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - daemin 5y ago
      Especially when there's a new game coming out every year and your old digital collection is now worth less (maybe worthless even) and on its way to being deleted when the game stops being supported and the servers are shut down in a few years time.
- Kiro 5y ago
  So you're basically arguing for NFTs?
- Bombthecat 5y ago
  And every year, they become useless. I still don't get why people spent so much money... Every year..
- kojeovo 5y ago
  It's really only some first gen holo mint cards that are worth decent money. That's gotta be a tiny, tiny percentage.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
klyrs 5y ago
It was Magic the Gathering for my age group. Thankfully(?!) my school had bigger problems to deal with vis a vis gang activity including actual drug dealing; we were just a few quiet mostly-white nerds that played Magic in a math teacher's room at lunch. But, I never spent my parents' money. I earned my dollars-a-week allowance doing chores, and started blowing it on Magic cards. My parents did grow concerned when they noticed my bank account was dropping, but when I showed them, my mom was enchanted by the beautiful pictures on the cards and my dad was glad that I wasn't doing drugs. Loot boxes kinda suck by comparison. Loot boxes are pretty straight gambling, mostly for decorative skins. Magic, Pokemon, etc., cards are different. There's some gambling, but deck-building requires a lot of strategy -- they're good for the brain. Where there might be some value (I don't see it) to playing stuff like FIFA and Fortnight, it isn't in the loot boxes.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  Its anticipation vs instant gratification. You needed to get the money and then make it to the shop that sells packs. It takes time and planning. Get money - maybe earn it by doing chores - go to shop and get the reward. While this might be problematic when thinking about gambling aspect it still taught you work => reward which is positive character building lesson for a child. Versus use dad's credit card to get dopamine hit of opening the lootbox. Also almost entirely lootboxes are useless as you cannot sell the content, unlike the cards. And companies are introducing new ones with new rewards you NEED to get. I fail to see any positives for a child development here. It sounds like trading cards and lootboxes are the same but its clearly not if you think about it.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    > And companies are introducing new ones with new rewards you NEED to get. You don't NEED to get lootboxes.
    - me_me_me 5y ago
      yeah as a grown adult you dont. Do you know what is an insult for kids these days? "Default" Meaning you are too poor to buy skins in online games. Your argument is poor at best,actually its broken at so many levels. "You don't need to take heroin you can just stop." In fifa you need to buy them to have a equal chance vs other players (pay to win)
jpambrun 5y ago
I am a parent and I agree that pokemon cards business model is predatory and a giant sink designed to exploit kids into harassing parents into spending money. You have to be blind not to see that.

BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago

This definitely isn't a universal experience and there are definitely a lot of trading card horror stories, but for me + friends growing up the purchase of trading cards had a different place in life. They were like one of life's small rewards you had a chance of rolling whenever going into a shop with a parent/guardian. Being at the checkout, putting on the little kid puppy-dog 'pleaseeeeeee' and the adult deciding if you've been 'good enough' and possibly giving you something for that. Acquisition was separate from their consumption and social role. With lootboxes, you're actively pursuing the purchase to immediately try to meet a goal. You want the purchase, make it, have the question answered of whether your roll was good or not and that's mostly it. Trading cards were taken home (or at least to the car), physically admired, stored, socially shared even if they weren't 'worth' sharing, and had a larger variance in subjective value for trading or gifting later.

lapetitejort 5y ago
One small caveat: digital collections of lootbox items can be admired, organized, displayed, and in some games traded to other players. Of course, all these actions are dictated by the software for the most part, and can be arbitrarily restricted. I won't be able to seal a fancy digital hat and donate it to a local museum.
- BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
  It's true, which is why I tried to caveat it with 'even if they aren't worth sharing'. If I got a Tangela and had it in my pocket I'm still going to show the neighbour friend, she might even like Tangela especially well as a preference (tried to get at this with 'subjective value'). But with the number of football players and how it's much more stat/goal-based and the collector aspects are skewed towards the higher level, kids probably aren't making Discord calls to show their friend John Smith from the English division 2 league because he has a cute nose :)
mFixman 5y ago
Did we have different childhoods, or do you not really forget yours? Children used to steal trading cards and have violent fights over them. Only a few dedicated nerds played the game; the rest just collected the cards and showed them as a proxy of self-worth. This is perfectly normal child behaviour, and I'm sure it was much worse than whatever's happening right now with lootboxes. The main difference between them isn't the lack car rides to the store; it's the moral panic mostly distributed by social media about how $fun_thing is killing children.
- Xorakios 5y ago
  That is not even remotely normal child behavior.
- BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
  We had different childhoods, I never saw violent fights. Totally didn't mean to present my memory as a universal truth which is why I led with the first sentence. Definitely whole weavings of intertwined complexities to unravel!
- InvertedRhodium 5y ago
  Where on earth did you grow up?
- shard972 5y ago
- krageon 5y ago
  > Children used to steal trading cards and have violent fights over them. This is messed up - is this real or overstated? > This is perfectly normal child behaviour Stealing and fighting? Where would this be the case?
  - mFixman 5y ago
    Maybe "violent fights" wasn't the right phrase here. I was talking about the usual boy light violent play.
k__ 5y ago
Doesn't gambling mostly come down to diposition? I did many addicting things in life an never became addicted.

yakak 5y ago

I'm not sure how to feel about collectibles, I bought a lot of baseball card packs and didn't open them as an "investment" as a kid. Probably they beat inflation, but the market would be lower if people like me could ever be bothered to sell. In the case of digital "assets" though, I don't find it so legitimate. AFAIK, they can change their ToS whenever they like or cancel this version of the game, etc. Perhaps a shrewd system would pretend to be indifferent yet force them to escrow money for obligations related to hosting these assets and eventually make them wonder why they didn't just print cards and be done with it as complicated civil cases begin to emerge. (But should we really let the human endeavour degrade to the point where bartering pointless collectibles is where the smart people get allocated? I kind of agree with the IRS that we should add disincentives.)

SkyBelow 5y ago

I feel they are very similar, but do have a few key differences. If these differences matter enough to make a moral difference is something we can discuss. A few of the key differences, in no particular order: 1. Trading card games come with base sets that have guaranteed cards and are useful for playing the game. This makes it TCGs better. 2. CCGs can be traded to others or sold. This one I'm unsure about. 3. Loot boxes are wrapped into games and are often designed to appeal to players in a much more intrusive way than TCGs . This makes loot boxes worse. 4-1. Some loot boxes have no impact on gameplay. These make loot boxes better. 4-2. Some loot boxes have an impact on gameplay larger than the impact of buying TCG boosters. These make loot boxes worse. 5. Loot boxes are often purchased through currency systems made to separate the buyers understanding of how much they are paying. This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes, with some games have layers of currency in between. Compare this to TCG boosters which are sold in stores for specific dollar amounts. This make loot boxes worse. 6. You can buy specific cards you need directly from other players, while most loot box systems require buying more loot boxes until you get the specific item desired. This one is related to 2 and I am also unsure about. 7. Loot boxes are often built into games on ones phone and use tactics to encourage worse spending habits. This make loot boxes worse. Overall my personal opinion would be that loot boxes as a whole are worse than TCGs, but the better done loot boxes are comparable or slightly better (less predatory) than TCGs while the worse loot boxes are much much worse (more predatory). Edit: One way to look at it is that the more predatory loot boxes are an extension of TCGs that doubled down on the worse parts, which might be enough for it to cross a person's personal moral threshold.

q-big 5y ago
> 5. Loot boxes are often purchased through currency systems made to separate the buyers understanding of how much they are paying. This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes, with some games have layers of currency in between. Compare this to TCG boosters which are sold in stores for specific dollar amounts. This make loot boxes worse. Converting between currencies is easy "rule of three" - you learn that very early in school. Also, before the introduction of the Euro (and for some border frontiers in Europe even after), children who lived near borders of neighboring countries very often had to become accustomed to two (multiple) currencies from very early on and better were able to convert them in their heads. > 7. Loot boxes are often built into games on ones phone and use tactics to encourage worse spending habits. This make loot boxes worse. Encourage bad spending habits: sounds like classical advertising.

cheeseomlit 5y ago

True, but those trading cards are worth big bucks nowadays. Lootbox rewards are basically worthless since you don't really "own" them and cant resell them

Nowado 5y ago
You mean, the issue with child gambling these days is that there's no promise of a big pay out?
- cheeseomlit 5y ago
  The gambling part is no good in either case. But there is a difference between buying a toy/collectible and actually owning it vs. this digital skinner box stuff where all you really get is a hit of dopamine, the latter seems more insidious to me
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - daemin 5y ago
    Especially when there's a new game coming out every year and your old digital collection is now worth less (maybe worthless even) and on its way to being deleted when the game stops being supported and the servers are shut down in a few years time.
Kiro 5y ago
So you're basically arguing for NFTs?
Bombthecat 5y ago
And every year, they become useless. I still don't get why people spent so much money... Every year..
kojeovo 5y ago
It's really only some first gen holo mint cards that are worth decent money. That's gotta be a tiny, tiny percentage.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

klyrs 5y ago

It was Magic the Gathering for my age group. Thankfully(?!) my school had bigger problems to deal with vis a vis gang activity including actual drug dealing; we were just a few quiet mostly-white nerds that played Magic in a math teacher's room at lunch. But, I never spent my parents' money. I earned my dollars-a-week allowance doing chores, and started blowing it on Magic cards. My parents did grow concerned when they noticed my bank account was dropping, but when I showed them, my mom was enchanted by the beautiful pictures on the cards and my dad was glad that I wasn't doing drugs. Loot boxes kinda suck by comparison. Loot boxes are pretty straight gambling, mostly for decorative skins. Magic, Pokemon, etc., cards are different. There's some gambling, but deck-building requires a lot of strategy -- they're good for the brain. Where there might be some value (I don't see it) to playing stuff like FIFA and Fortnight, it isn't in the loot boxes.

me_me_me 5y ago
Its anticipation vs instant gratification. You needed to get the money and then make it to the shop that sells packs. It takes time and planning. Get money - maybe earn it by doing chores - go to shop and get the reward. While this might be problematic when thinking about gambling aspect it still taught you work => reward which is positive character building lesson for a child. Versus use dad's credit card to get dopamine hit of opening the lootbox. Also almost entirely lootboxes are useless as you cannot sell the content, unlike the cards. And companies are introducing new ones with new rewards you NEED to get. I fail to see any positives for a child development here. It sounds like trading cards and lootboxes are the same but its clearly not if you think about it.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  > And companies are introducing new ones with new rewards you NEED to get. You don't NEED to get lootboxes.
  - me_me_me 5y ago
    yeah as a grown adult you dont. Do you know what is an insult for kids these days? "Default" Meaning you are too poor to buy skins in online games. Your argument is poor at best,actually its broken at so many levels. "You don't need to take heroin you can just stop." In fifa you need to buy them to have a equal chance vs other players (pay to win)

jpambrun 5y ago

I am a parent and I agree that pokemon cards business model is predatory and a giant sink designed to exploit kids into harassing parents into spending money. You have to be blind not to see that.