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

[Vespian]

I guess as long as you didn't mind playing without health, crime, fire risk, pollution, trade, tourism or cross region sharing of resources like utilities, emergency services and commodities.

The similarities with D3 come from the fact both companies could have made a game that worked offline, but both chose to make it only work online.

It only updated those values once so often. There was no online only component

[DesoPL]

So Belgium parlament agreed... Loot boxes are gambling and now US take action in this matter.

Too bad they see the problem too late.

[Deleted]

"Thou shalt not enjoy thyselves!"

[Jtbrig7390]

"Thou shalt not enjoy thyselves!"

No its "thou shalt not add gambling to our video games and try to sell the shit to minor's and addicts".

[Coldkil]

in the case of Overwatch none of the things you're "gambling on" effects your gameplay in the same way BFII does. I would think OW would slide but with how things were in battlefront 2 for a while there I wouldn't be too surprised if they get in shit for that.

Again, the fact it's only cosmetic or it's p2w has nothing to do with the practice. It's the core mechanic that's just wrong.

You spend money for a chance to get something you want, and most of the times you fail. They're designed to make you spend more money over time getting something of value for you only every once in a while, and that's addiction. It's literally gambling.

In my opinion it's even worse if the lootboxes are only cosmetics. Game-wise, their impact is lower for sure. But because of this they're suddendly more "acceptable" and people is more prone to spend money on them because they're not seen as negative as p2w ones.

Lootboxes just need to go away. They're just a cash grab independently from the contents but because of their design. I'm more than fine with cosmetic microtx and while i don't like stuff like xp boosts and similar, i usually avoid those games and people fine with them are not affected.

The point is that purchasing something directly is fine. Gaming or shopping addictive behaviours do exist, but shopping and gaming are differently regulated. Gambling money on something in a videogame is a big issue and steps are taken to get rid of it (finally).

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If lootboxes are banned (which probably is a solid idea) I'd expect they'd switch to just selling bundles which have one thing you want and 4 things you don't want/already have instead.

Which isn't really that different from buying the single thing you want. We're talking about digital good that don't have a production cost other than the initial design (example a skin).

[Dhrizzle]

It only updated those values once so often. There was no online only component

Those values were updated as you made adjustments for then city you had loaded. It may just have been periodic for other players in the region, but regardless of time frame it was still the servers that calculated those values and enabled any sort of trade between cities and the region.

[stellvia]

The thing you really need to ask yourself: Is there any positive gameplay or consumer benefit to having lootboxes in games?

IMHO the answer is no. At best they are benign, but still impact game design. At worst... we're seeing a lot of what that entails with COD:WW2 and BF2. There are just far too many negatives and avenues of abuse to be had with them. They were not introduced with benefiting the consumer in mind. They were introduced with benefiting their stock dividend in mind...

[GennGreymane]

https://powerup-gaming.com/2017/11/2...oxes-gambling/
Victorian Gambling Authority: “what occurs with loot boxes does constitute gambling”

[StrawberryZebra]

"The State of Hawaii announces action to address predatory practices at Electronic Arts and other companies. We will prohibit the sale of these games to people who are underage, this will become the norm for every game. Gambling is prohibited under 21."

I think this is, potentially, more damaging for companies like EA than anything else. Fifa, Madden and all their other Sports games are generally suitable for kids of all ages when judged on their content alone. Which is fair, the worst your 3 year old is going to see in Fifa is Wayne Roonies ugly mug. It cuts off a huge segment of their existing player base when that age rating goes up from a 3+ to an 18-21 depending on what the legal age you can gamble is in your area of the world.

The only way around this is company's start to charge more for DLC/Games to make up for the loss of lootbox's.

Or they could, crazy idea here, just be happy with the fact that they're already making good profits just by selling games? Games don't need to make Eleventy Bajillion in profits to be "successful", we've seen that more clearly than ever this year with Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

We've seen a shift in the past couple of years from major publishers where they've been releasing fewer games on average, but have never been more profitable as a result of the longer term profits from microtransactions and lootboxes. Having to step back on the microtransactions will probably cause a rethink of this kind of model and maybe, just maybe, mean that they're willing to move back to more releases in a year, which means that there's room for some smaller break out titles in the line up for the year. That kind of environment is a win for the consumer - It means more niche titles that wouldn't otherwise be made can be brought to market. Think games like Dead Space.

[Vespian]

Wow, for the first time ever, I believe we the people managed to get something done oO

[Jtbrig7390]

Or they could, crazy idea here, just be happy with the fact that they're already making good profits just by selling games? Games don't need to make Eleventy Bajillion in profits to be "successful", we've seen that more clearly than ever this year with Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

Oh I don't disagree at all. Games like Hellblade also show we do not need big publisher's like EA to get AAA quality gaming.

[Deleted]

No its "thou shalt not add gambling to our video games and try to sell the shit to minor's and addicts".

Oh yeah? What about grown adults that aren't addicts? Of course, instead of suggesting an age rating system it's all out bans. Very suspicious.

[Jtbrig7390]

Oh yeah? What about grown adults that aren't addicts? Of course, instead of suggesting an age rating system it's all out bans. Very suspicious.

The age rating system would be it getting labeled as gambling...

In order to gamble in the US you must be 21+(some places 18) That would be the age gate.

[Deleted]

The age rating system would be it getting labeled as gambling...

In order to gamble in the US you must be 21+ That would be the age gate.

I've no complaints against an age rating system introduced without a gambling label or with one. In fact I prefer it as the regulators will have to back off a game if it is 18+ or even 21+.

[Belize]

i'm sure there are better examples you could've used than GTA, considering its incessant focus on only GTA Online because it sells Shark Cards.

As for Overwatch, they could just, y'know, make a shop where you buy cosmetics rather than boxes with a chance at cosmetics.

What I meant was that GTA was profitable, prior to microtransactions, as per released financials.

[Hashtronaut]

Its not sorta gambling its 100% gambling.

Your bolded definition kind of just envelopes life, so wouldn't call these loot boxes "gambling" because of that definition.

[Coolit]

It's about time this was all investigated and its nice to see it's had a domino effect on other countries and organizations. I can only imagine how high the fines are going to be for the publishers who jumped on the loot box bandwagon.

[dope_danny]

Man the Hawaii speaker compared Star Wars to Joe Camel cigarettes. Disney is not gonna let EA keep that contract, no fucking way.

[GennGreymane]

We need to stop pretending that loot boxes keep games cheap. If games were more expensive, we would still have micro transactions, dlc, etc. The reason is not because games are too cheap, but because the gaming industry is bloated and wasteful. Hell physical sales in general are going down compared to digital sales, thats a money saver, but did we really need an 800 dollar physical release of AC:O? Did they really need to spend money on that? What about all the pre order physical editions with crazy amounts of merch... game not included? Is that not just being wasteful in terms of marketing and design? A game also does not need constant commercials during prime time television for millions of dollars each time. There are way cheaper methods of doing this.

smarter budgets, smarter ads, smarter spending can help the industry in general save plenty of money. But instead we have every company trying to turn every game into the only game we will buy (which is never the case), which is unhealthy for a games budget.

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Hell

Bethesda is selling wolfenstien at 25 bucks in some places on sale and it just came out
Same with Ubisoft with South Park and AC:O at 30, even Cod will be like 40 if you find the sale

These games just came out and they are already half price or lower

Sure 2 of these games have loot boxes as possible future sales, but 2 dont. 3 of these games dont even have multiplayer.

Also, why the fuck does square enix make a new engine every 5 minutes to make a cut scene to show that they can make an engine every 5 minutes?

[Greevir]

Couldn't EA just add a "currency" to Battlefront 2 and you pay money for that currency. And that currency can be used to buy lootboxes. Wouldn't that eliminate any gambling laws that may effect it?