5 ms·

Regulation proposal: Set maximum spending limit/time tied to the purchase price. The limit is tied to account and player character. example: 1. free-to-play

Regulation proposal: Set maximum spending limit/time tied to the purchase price. The limit is tied to account and player character. example: 1. free-to-play: $100/year. 2. other: 10×purchase price/year. For a $50 game the maximum spending is $500 per year. This would not set hard limit. It would only mandate up-front investment related to the amount of in-game spending. A Whale who spends $10k a year would have to pay $1k to get started. I think this would effectively kill addictive impulse for people who can't afford it. At the same time it allows games to create expensive games.

encrux 4y ago
This would pretty much kill the current industry (*as we know it). F2P/mobile games are monetized through Wales, but they're only willing to spend if there's enough incentive (e.g. prestige). That's not given if there's no F2P player base, because the base game would be too expensive. IMHO the best way to go about is to vote with your wallet. There are plenty of worthwhile games where you don't have to be a whale to be successful.
- INGELRII 4y ago
  It was thought that people would use less restaurants and bars if smoking was forbidden. It's more likely that when incentives change, the whole customer base changes. The current system of preying whales to pay for games has negative externalities for gamer's who don't have addiction. Playing is cheaper, but people play less games because addictive spending mechanics is affecting where the game development money goes. Regulation would create incentives to make games that are expensive because they are so good.
  - Aerroon 4y ago
    Regulation would create an incentive to region lock out the areas that regulate it. Now you have people from the regulating country use VPNs to play the game in another region instead.
    - nabla9 4y ago
      Diablo Immortal is not available in Belgium and the Netherlands. It's not about the VPN, it's the payment method and App store setup that determines if you can install the game. Regulation does not have to be watertight. It just needs to work well enough to drastically reduce harm.
    - cdash 4y ago
      Yeah sure, but say the EU as a whole or the US regulated it. You aren't region locking them out.
      - Aerroon 4y ago
        But you are though. Lots of games region lock US and EU out of their game. Lost Ark is in the top 3 of all games played on Steam and has been since it released this February. The game was 3 years old when it launched in NA/EU though - it had been out for 3 years in South Korea, 2 years in Russia and Japan. This is a game that ended up being very popular, but if nobody had bought the NA/EU publishing rights then the only way to play it would've been to play on the Russian, Japanese or Korean servers. It's pretty normal for online games that come from Asia to not cater to the western market. I don't see why they wouldn't do this even more if we get additional regulations on games. And even when they do cater to the western market the priority is going to be North America, not Europe. Europe's almost always second class in these. (And when these games are brought over they're often Americanized/localized.) PS Lost Ark is banned in Netherlands and Belgium too.
- _abox 4y ago
  Well good.. Let's kill it. Who cares if the business model works. It shouldn't work. The idea of such regulation is to stimulate the business to move back to normal models. In the Netherlands this is already working, Diablo immortal is not available there. It's a small market but once the whole EU does it they won't have a choice but to come up with something more reasonable. Win-win.
  - teawrecks 4y ago
    I'm not disagreeing, but the money will.
- teawrecks 4y ago
  Why do you think Wales has so many wealthy mobile gamers in the first place?
thr0wawayf00 4y ago
> I think this would effectively kill addictive impulse for people who can't afford it It would be nice if simply pricing out poor addicts worked as a deterrent, but it just doesn’t. We see this in sports betting all the time, young men are committing suicide in England after getting in too deep on the betting apps.
- INGELRII 4y ago
  My proposal would work equally to everyone because the limit would be related to purchase price.
elif 4y ago
How many accounts you got? These are gamers... We've been trained to bypass arbitrary obstacles in the easiest way since birth.
- INGELRII 4y ago
  Multiple accounts would be allowed since they don't circumvent the mechanism.
gooses 4y ago
This just woundn't work unfortuantly. It's a known fact that the large majorirty of the player base will not spend any money. This has the knock-on effect that the whales have to be squeezed in order for the game to turn a profit. People underestmate the UA costs on these games. It can cost >$10 to get a single player into the game through advertising. So right off the bat you need to make $10 back per player to make a profit. Say 95% dont spend anything, so then you need $200 off each paying player to cover the costs of acquiring everyone else. Thats why this situation has evolved and why the games build themselves around the whales. Of course games do get some players for free via app store discovery but predonminatly it's through advertising.
- INGELRII 4y ago
  Killing UA business model would not be that bad. Protecting big business should not be the goal in itself. We don't know what kind of games would replace these malevolent business models. We might get new kind of games and companies. Maybe less flashy, but more fun to play and better game mechanics.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  This is some backwards logic there - its the problem of the businesses to provide value. If some business model provides no value, it is not a viable businesd model. The rest os society shouldn't be taking a hit to make some business work artificially
  - skohan 4y ago
    Yeah exactly - if these games can't afford to exist without causing social harm then they should not exist.
- bo1024 4y ago
  It sounds like you are saying the regulation would work (as intended)?
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  If it doesn't work then this model would simply disappear. Not a bad thing either for gaming. In the Netherlands there's already laws around this kind of business model, requiring the company to specify win chances and other things. The publisher has decided not to release Diablo immortal there for this reason. If more countries follow suit they'll have no option but to just go back to regular business models.
bo1024 4y ago
This is very intriguing. I would love to hear a take based on research in psychology of addiction and gambling. I think the reason it would work is forcing people to decide to play with the analytical part of their brain, ahead of time, rather than with the addiction part in the moment.
seattle_spring 4y ago
What you’re not understanding is that this game violates the players constitutional right to have legendary gems that are as good as their favorite YouTuber. What are they supposed to do? Just pick away at rifts for free to build up their legendary gem count like secondary citizens? Are they supposed to ONLY use the crests from the battlepass as if this is some kind of subscription based game? What if they want to work tirelessly day and night to grind legendaries to make their character more powerful but don’t have as much money as the next guy? Shouldn’t the government step in?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tsuujin 4y ago
Regulation limiting the amount of notifications you can receive for microtransaction purchases would make a big difference I think. Even though I am refusing to spend money for gems, there is effectively always a “look at me” notification on the screen reminding me that the store is open. They’re gaming the fact that we have all been trained through habit to check those notifications, and it is really effective.

encrux 4y ago

This would pretty much kill the current industry (*as we know it). F2P/mobile games are monetized through Wales, but they're only willing to spend if there's enough incentive (e.g. prestige). That's not given if there's no F2P player base, because the base game would be too expensive. IMHO the best way to go about is to vote with your wallet. There are plenty of worthwhile games where you don't have to be a whale to be successful.

INGELRII 4y ago
It was thought that people would use less restaurants and bars if smoking was forbidden. It's more likely that when incentives change, the whole customer base changes. The current system of preying whales to pay for games has negative externalities for gamer's who don't have addiction. Playing is cheaper, but people play less games because addictive spending mechanics is affecting where the game development money goes. Regulation would create incentives to make games that are expensive because they are so good.
- Aerroon 4y ago
  Regulation would create an incentive to region lock out the areas that regulate it. Now you have people from the regulating country use VPNs to play the game in another region instead.
  - nabla9 4y ago
    Diablo Immortal is not available in Belgium and the Netherlands. It's not about the VPN, it's the payment method and App store setup that determines if you can install the game. Regulation does not have to be watertight. It just needs to work well enough to drastically reduce harm.
  - cdash 4y ago
    Yeah sure, but say the EU as a whole or the US regulated it. You aren't region locking them out.
    - Aerroon 4y ago
      But you are though. Lots of games region lock US and EU out of their game. Lost Ark is in the top 3 of all games played on Steam and has been since it released this February. The game was 3 years old when it launched in NA/EU though - it had been out for 3 years in South Korea, 2 years in Russia and Japan. This is a game that ended up being very popular, but if nobody had bought the NA/EU publishing rights then the only way to play it would've been to play on the Russian, Japanese or Korean servers. It's pretty normal for online games that come from Asia to not cater to the western market. I don't see why they wouldn't do this even more if we get additional regulations on games. And even when they do cater to the western market the priority is going to be North America, not Europe. Europe's almost always second class in these. (And when these games are brought over they're often Americanized/localized.) PS Lost Ark is banned in Netherlands and Belgium too.
_abox 4y ago
Well good.. Let's kill it. Who cares if the business model works. It shouldn't work. The idea of such regulation is to stimulate the business to move back to normal models. In the Netherlands this is already working, Diablo immortal is not available there. It's a small market but once the whole EU does it they won't have a choice but to come up with something more reasonable. Win-win.
- teawrecks 4y ago
  I'm not disagreeing, but the money will.
teawrecks 4y ago
Why do you think Wales has so many wealthy mobile gamers in the first place?

thr0wawayf00 4y ago

> I think this would effectively kill addictive impulse for people who can't afford it It would be nice if simply pricing out poor addicts worked as a deterrent, but it just doesn’t. We see this in sports betting all the time, young men are committing suicide in England after getting in too deep on the betting apps.

INGELRII 4y ago
My proposal would work equally to everyone because the limit would be related to purchase price.

elif 4y ago

How many accounts you got? These are gamers... We've been trained to bypass arbitrary obstacles in the easiest way since birth.

INGELRII 4y ago
Multiple accounts would be allowed since they don't circumvent the mechanism.

gooses 4y ago

This just woundn't work unfortuantly. It's a known fact that the large majorirty of the player base will not spend any money. This has the knock-on effect that the whales have to be squeezed in order for the game to turn a profit. People underestmate the UA costs on these games. It can cost >$10 to get a single player into the game through advertising. So right off the bat you need to make $10 back per player to make a profit. Say 95% dont spend anything, so then you need $200 off each paying player to cover the costs of acquiring everyone else. Thats why this situation has evolved and why the games build themselves around the whales. Of course games do get some players for free via app store discovery but predonminatly it's through advertising.

INGELRII 4y ago
Killing UA business model would not be that bad. Protecting big business should not be the goal in itself. We don't know what kind of games would replace these malevolent business models. We might get new kind of games and companies. Maybe less flashy, but more fun to play and better game mechanics.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
This is some backwards logic there - its the problem of the businesses to provide value. If some business model provides no value, it is not a viable businesd model. The rest os society shouldn't be taking a hit to make some business work artificially
- skohan 4y ago
  Yeah exactly - if these games can't afford to exist without causing social harm then they should not exist.
bo1024 4y ago
It sounds like you are saying the regulation would work (as intended)?
GekkePrutser 4y ago
If it doesn't work then this model would simply disappear. Not a bad thing either for gaming. In the Netherlands there's already laws around this kind of business model, requiring the company to specify win chances and other things. The publisher has decided not to release Diablo immortal there for this reason. If more countries follow suit they'll have no option but to just go back to regular business models.

bo1024 4y ago

This is very intriguing. I would love to hear a take based on research in psychology of addiction and gambling. I think the reason it would work is forcing people to decide to play with the analytical part of their brain, ahead of time, rather than with the addiction part in the moment.

seattle_spring 4y ago

What you’re not understanding is that this game violates the players constitutional right to have legendary gems that are as good as their favorite YouTuber. What are they supposed to do? Just pick away at rifts for free to build up their legendary gem count like secondary citizens? Are they supposed to ONLY use the crests from the battlepass as if this is some kind of subscription based game? What if they want to work tirelessly day and night to grind legendaries to make their character more powerful but don’t have as much money as the next guy? Shouldn’t the government step in?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tsuujin 4y ago

Regulation limiting the amount of notifications you can receive for microtransaction purchases would make a big difference I think. Even though I am refusing to spend money for gems, there is effectively always a “look at me” notification on the screen reminding me that the store is open. They’re gaming the fact that we have all been trained through habit to check those notifications, and it is really effective.