4 ms·

It's crazy that such an obvious problem ties the hands of regulators because people are making too much money on it. There is no defensible justification for in

by Spivak 2y ago

It's crazy that such an obvious problem ties the hands of regulators because people are making too much money on it. There is no defensible justification for incorporating a money siphon into an entertainment product. This could be dealt with swiftly with a law that says that video games must have upfront pricing— either a one time payment or a fixed-cost subscription. It's fine to have loot boxes or random rewards but how many rolls of the dice or your odds can't be affected by IRL money, and in-game items must be purchasable by either in-game currency or money, not both. Items that affect gameplay in any way must be in-game currency. I would just ban all in-game purchases because it's still a money siphon based on social pressure but I recognize that it's a lesser evil.

darby_nine 2y ago
> There is no defensible justification for incorporating a money siphon into an entertainment product. What do you mean? Society would obviously collapse if we did literally anything else—the Free Market is all that keeps people from murdering each other. By endorsing regulation you're just endorsing murder.
- totetsu 2y ago
  Sounds like we need to be preemptively taking out all the Product Monetization executives if they're so ready to start murdering people.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    Oh no, that would also make society collapse. Amy change to society would make it collapse. We live in a very delicate ecosystem and the only way for anything to work is to beg the beautiful people for favor, as it should be.
Aerroon 2y ago
As somebody that plays games I would unkindly ask organizations like this to stop existing. The only thing I ever see from these organizations is them lobbying to ban something in the name of "protecting people". Children do not make their own money. You can't trick someone that doesn't have money, let alone have a credit card to make purchases. It's nonsense. >This could be dealt with swiftly with a law that says that video games must have upfront pricing— either a one time payment or a fixed-cost subscription. And leave millions of people unable to play games. Free games are popular for the same reason websites are ad supported: people don't want to, can't afford to or lack the payment methods to pay for them. People used their wallets to vote on this. And they chose the F2P microtransaction-laden P2W games. The vast majority of those players will spend nothing on that game. You make it buy to play and these games are dead on arrival. If these systems truly were so nefariously predatory as they are portrayed then you'd think that more than a tiny percentage of players would be spending on them. I don't like these mechanics either, but I grew up playing them (Korean F2P MMOs), because they were the only ones available to me. If this change why through then these games wouldn't suddenly change, they just wouldn't be available in Europe. If the entire world adopted the regulation then the game wouldn't have been made in the first place. Instead you would get "to play this $60 game you must buy our custom $350 hardware" or something else like that. Or... You would just get less games. If you don't like a game then just don't play it. Why do you feel the need to make others unable to play it too?
- Pannoniae 2y ago
  "People used their wallets to vote on this. And they chose the F2P microtransaction-laden P2W games. The vast majority of those players will spend nothing on that game. You make it buy to play and these games are dead on arrival. If these systems truly were so nefariously predatory as they are portrayed then you'd think that more than a tiny percentage of players would be spending on them." In an ideal world, this would be true. However, this is not that easy when all your friends are playing those crapware games and they don't exactly want to do anything else. No matter what you choose, you lose in some way. These games have negative externalities.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
everforward 2y ago
There are some niceties from it, primarily that it keeps games affordable to virtually everyone. The price of a video game hasn’t really changed since the 90s. If anything, it’s come down given how many major games are F2P these days. I don’t think it’s abhorrent in principle that people with expendable income bankroll the game for people without in exchange for silly skins. Somebody has to pay, and I suspect the upfront purchase price will be higher than people expect.

by Spivak 2y ago

darby_nine 2y ago

> There is no defensible justification for incorporating a money siphon into an entertainment product. What do you mean? Society would obviously collapse if we did literally anything else—the Free Market is all that keeps people from murdering each other. By endorsing regulation you're just endorsing murder.

totetsu 2y ago
Sounds like we need to be preemptively taking out all the Product Monetization executives if they're so ready to start murdering people.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- darby_nine 2y ago
  Oh no, that would also make society collapse. Amy change to society would make it collapse. We live in a very delicate ecosystem and the only way for anything to work is to beg the beautiful people for favor, as it should be.

Aerroon 2y ago

As somebody that plays games I would unkindly ask organizations like this to stop existing. The only thing I ever see from these organizations is them lobbying to ban something in the name of "protecting people". Children do not make their own money. You can't trick someone that doesn't have money, let alone have a credit card to make purchases. It's nonsense. >This could be dealt with swiftly with a law that says that video games must have upfront pricing— either a one time payment or a fixed-cost subscription. And leave millions of people unable to play games. Free games are popular for the same reason websites are ad supported: people don't want to, can't afford to or lack the payment methods to pay for them. People used their wallets to vote on this. And they chose the F2P microtransaction-laden P2W games. The vast majority of those players will spend nothing on that game. You make it buy to play and these games are dead on arrival. If these systems truly were so nefariously predatory as they are portrayed then you'd think that more than a tiny percentage of players would be spending on them. I don't like these mechanics either, but I grew up playing them (Korean F2P MMOs), because they were the only ones available to me. If this change why through then these games wouldn't suddenly change, they just wouldn't be available in Europe. If the entire world adopted the regulation then the game wouldn't have been made in the first place. Instead you would get "to play this $60 game you must buy our custom $350 hardware" or something else like that. Or... You would just get less games. If you don't like a game then just don't play it. Why do you feel the need to make others unable to play it too?

Pannoniae 2y ago
"People used their wallets to vote on this. And they chose the F2P microtransaction-laden P2W games. The vast majority of those players will spend nothing on that game. You make it buy to play and these games are dead on arrival. If these systems truly were so nefariously predatory as they are portrayed then you'd think that more than a tiny percentage of players would be spending on them." In an ideal world, this would be true. However, this is not that easy when all your friends are playing those crapware games and they don't exactly want to do anything else. No matter what you choose, you lose in some way. These games have negative externalities.
- CamperBob2 2y ago

everforward 2y ago

There are some niceties from it, primarily that it keeps games affordable to virtually everyone. The price of a video game hasn’t really changed since the 90s. If anything, it’s come down given how many major games are F2P these days. I don’t think it’s abhorrent in principle that people with expendable income bankroll the game for people without in exchange for silly skins. Somebody has to pay, and I suspect the upfront purchase price will be higher than people expect.