Are lootboxes gambling & should games be regulated. BF2 and OW under investigation

[Zig Zug]

This isn't gambling.

This is the government trying to get their cut.

[gcsmith]

There are a lot of nuances to this that make lootboxes in gaming their own unique thing that doesn't have an obvious legal counterpart for comparison. That's why they're a grey area -- because there's no existing legislation that covers exactly what umbrella most lootbox economies fall under.

Games where lootbox rewards can be traded away for real money are distinctly different from ones where they can't, for example. Cards from CCGs can be sold on, and random toys in cereal boxes are free bonuses that also technically hold some physical value. There's also the obfuscating factor of buying a product which then has a completely separate series of products inside it that are purchased using an entirely different business model. What legal precedent is there for something like that? Do there need to be two separate laws applied to the base game, and then the loot box game inside it?

This is why we need new regulations that definitively establish some guidelines for this stuff. It's not "gambling" in the traditional, specifically monetary sense, but it does employ many of the same methods of psychological manipulation and target the same kinds of individuals who suffer from compulsive and addictive behaviour.

It's clear that there does need to be some layer of consumer protection in place. Whether that takes the form of banning lootbox systems outright or simply requiring games to list warnings, disclose odds, or raise their age ratings, will be down to individual lawmakers.

Why should there be laws restricting how idiots spend their money? Most people I know earn their loot boxes in game through playing. Unless of course they change it to be like HOTS, where you can buy the skins/champs/mounts directly, or earn in game loot boxes and get random ones.

[TheLimonTree]

Its not sorta gambling its 100% gambling.

I'd just like to point out that there's an actual difference between 1 and 2 in that quote. Leaving your phone unlocked when family is over is a gamble, but you aren't gambling really.

[GennGreymane]

Its gambling and I hope the ruling is in the favor of gamers. In the comparison to cards, in card games, I can get a card someone wants and receive any property they want to give in exchange, like a cookie. I cannot do that with overwatch skins, its just between me and blizz and its all random.

[Wondercrab]

Why should there be laws restricting how idiots spend their money?

The same reason laws exist to stop anyone from hurting themselves. You can't just tell someone who's got a gambling addiction to git gud. Just because someone's not very smart, has a compulsive personality, or can't wrap their head around the psychological manipulation going on, doesn't mean that they deserve to be preyed upon and exploited.

You can just as easily say that anyone who falls for a Nigerian email scam is an idiot who deserves it, but it's not that cool when it happens to your grandma who doesn't understand the internet.

[Pooti]

Its not sorta gambling its 100% gambling.

Although the type of gambling that is governed is not the one you highlighted.

[GennGreymane]

These companies higher psychologists to help them make these systems. There is a reason they always give you weird incidents of currency to buy something. Need 100 when you only get 85? now you gotta spend double right?

[Deleted]

There is also many country's that disagree with you. This isn't up for debate words have meanings and this is gambling, Not going to debate more on it.

Which countries would that be? So far the only european statement was along the lines "Not unproblematic, but no gambling".

https://wccftech.com/pegi-loot-boxes...fine-gambling/

National agencies tend to echo that.

[Darknessvamp]

I'm curious as to why Overwatch is part of it while something like Hearthstone isn't. Does being a TCG vs FPS make the difference?

*Note: Not bashing Hearthstone or any TCG, because I know that's how you get cards. (I play MTG)

I think it's more along the lines of how the items are given out and how likely you're going to be influenced to pay for the packs/boxes due to the incentive and how it's presented. I mean Hearthstone packs knowingly giving you commons more often than the cards you want and with the new system where the first 10 packs of a new expansion guarantees a legendary as well as legendaries having an overall higher drop rate now plus the fact it's extremely easy to farm up and get gold to buy packs makes it a lot fairer and less addictive system whilst with Overwatch it's a case of having a fanfare every time you get something good, lootboxes and credits are earned at extremely slow rates, the loot box prize pools are filled with fluff such as sprays and player icons so players have a harder time getting the things they would like and limited time event items that can only be gotten during certain times of the year which all may easily influence a player into paying for and playing the loot box gamble game.

[GennGreymane]

They also lack the value of cards. I may have a friend who values "summoned skull" and a friend who does not value "summoned skull"

The friend who values "summoned skull" would give me 2 cookies or a dollar, while the other would give me a jolly rancher. In the loot box system, the interaction is between the buyer and the company, unlike cards there is no third party value determination. Cards can be valued by purchaser, seller, or third party websites that base values on particular averages.

[Arkthugal]

A guy I work with is outright banned from entering any bookies in the country. I won't claim to know how well the system works, but I know for a fact the last time he tried to sneek his way into a bookies they refused to let him gamble at all and had to call the police to get him to leave the building without making a scene.

Instead, he's now spending upwards of £600 a month on Overwatch and PUBG lootboxes to get the same rush.

It may not be "gambling" in the legal sense of the word yet, but it does trigger and play off the same impulses that real gambling does. It's equally as harmful as it's IRL counterpart, only without having to follow the same strict guidelines and that is a problem. Gamblers, the compulsive gamblers, aren't interested much in the prizes on offer, they want the thrill of winning. Its why arguments like "it's only cosmetic!" are completely irrelevent - Because the prize itself is irrelevent to the people the system is designed to exploit.

Guess what, people spend hundreds of dollars on trading cards, too! But they're not classified as gambling, because that would be retarded. Loot boxes are exactly the same as opening a pack of trading cards. It's not gambling.

[Treeskee]

I'm curious as to why Overwatch is part of it while something like Hearthstone isn't. Does being a TCG vs FPS make the difference?

*Note: Not bashing Hearthstone or any TCG, because I know that's how you get cards. (I play MTG)

Yeah, seems really nit-picky. They should go after everything if they're going to target games... MTG, Pokemon whole nine yards.

[Lucetia]

Enjoy the lootbox shit while you can because more and more country's are going to crackdown on it and rule it for what it is... Gambling.

This isn't really gambling. You always get something and come out with something. Gambling is a different beast than this.

If you really want to call this gambling then that's fine, but then you need to take a big look at the world and realize everything in some sense is gambling. Do we need to start restricting everything in real life?

[Zephyr Storm]

The sooner this lootbox shit dies in a fire, the better. It's making the gaming industry worse as a whole.

Relevant video:

[lawow74]

There's a blurry line there that game companies want to keep as blurry as possible (while milking that money cow) and governments want to stamp on cos they want their taste. Don't think this is about protecting people. It's all about getting money.

[Schattenlied]

I'm curious as to why Overwatch is part of it while something like Hearthstone isn't. Does being a TCG vs FPS make the difference?

*Note: Not bashing Hearthstone or any TCG, because I know that's how you get cards. (I play MTG)

Difference is, in MTG, you can buy and sell cards to and from other people, can't do that in hearthstone...

You want a deck in HS? Better throw money at blizzard or be prepared to farm your ass off for it (which will take ages, if the RNG doesn't love you). Want a specific deck in MTG? You can go buy each individual card directly, with the same currency you would buy packs with, and be done with it.

So yeah, hearthstone should probly be a part of it too.

- - - Updated - - -

There's a blurry line there that game companies want to keep as blurry as possible (while milking that money cow) and governments want to stamp on cos they want their taste. Don't think this is about protecting people. It's all about getting money.

Yes, but it protects people all the same. If those companies have to get and maintain a gambling license in every country they want to sell that game in, it may no longer be profitable enough to bother, or profitable at all, to have real money lootboxes in their games, so they stop doing it, and the bullshit ends.

So it's good for us all the same.

[Deleted]

honestly looks to me like a cheap attempt to get a lot of money from Blizzard and EA twisting the laws and the etimology :| meanwhile there are internet and informatic companies that continue skipping on taxes or paying super reduced versions of em all across Europe (and the World i'd dare presume), and the Old Continent's nations kind of went "oooh we realized it 2 months ago, would ya know? Guys like Apple and Google have huge dark zones concerning their taxes payment and regulamentations? never noticed in the last 20 years while they piled up literally billions of bucks!), but i wouldn't be surprised if the cause of this wasn't always the simple lack of consciousness about internet of the governments, but the fact that after agreeing with those companies someone found magically a limo out of the garaga or Fabergè eggs in the mailbox or whatever with a "thanks dude!" paper on them... anyway pardon me, but if you apply the gambling etimology in the juridic law in the adamantine way you'd want, there would be tons of things in life that would become gambling game, and probably as a side effect becoming VM 18 too (wait works like this everywhere? sorry for the ignorance xD)

[lawow74]

Yes, but it protects people all the same. If those companies have to get and maintain a gambling license in every country they want to sell that game in, it may no longer be profitable enough to bother, or profitable at all, to have real money lootboxes in their games, so they stop doing it, and the bullshit ends.

So it's good for us all the same.

Yeah, I don't see that happening. They'll find a way to keep it profitable if they want it enough. If it gets classed as gambling, that line they ride to try and keep out of the legal definition? POOF! Gone! They'll make them much much worse to increase market share, I pretty much guarantee it. And no great union of gamers will rise to stop it. No one rose to stop DLC, IMO no one's gonna rise to stop any other monetization scheme.

[stellvia]

The difference between these and a CCG is you can trade the dupes, whereas in most of these games its money entirely down the hole. At the very least, I think much like the gacha market in Japan: The odds for every draw should be clearly marked and maybe even an example of average cost to get each draw in parens next to it. Especially with how they're available to minors.

[Fenixhart]

At the end of the day, It's Consumer Hostile, Predatory, and I can't wait to see them choke