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

[markos82]

Since you mentioned raids. How about this? Each boss, instead of dropping loot, it drops a locked box. To open that box you need to buy a key for 5$ each. Each box may contain the item you wanted OR a small sum of gold. Would you really be satisfied with the shitty gold you got? Would you feel there is nothing wrong with this system?

It would be ok if the gear isnt needed for progress but since it is then you can't really say it like that even though we already have something like that in WoW and that is either boss dropping and item or not dropping anything except complementary AP which you can get in 1min of doing some random WQ. If buying lootboxes is considered as gambling then entire World of Warcraft is a gambling game.

[Dhrizzle]

And this is the key. When you buy lootboxes you already won something, well not won but got something for your money, its not considered as prize.
If you wanna think of it like that then entire WoW is a gambling game, you either win an item or not, and now with TF and such its even a bigger gamble. And lets not talk about bonus rolls..

Well there is no single "key" to what makes loot-boxes gambling or not. In Belgium it's enough for the items to have a different perceived value to the player. In the UK it only becomes gambling once the prize is either real money or easily exchangable for such.

[markos82]

Well there is no single "key" to what makes loot-boxes gambling or not. In Belgium it's enough for the items to have a different perceived value to the player. In the UK it only becomes gambling once the prize is either real money or easily exchangable for such.

Yeah in that case WoW is gambling or became a gambling when Blizzard placed a money value on gold. Thus drops, rolls and everything is gambling since you can sell it for gold and use that gold to get realm money.

[Sarevokcz]

It would be ok if the gear isnt needed for progress but since it is then you can't really say it like that even though we already have something like that in WoW and that is either boss dropping and item or not dropping anything except complementary AP which you can get in 1min of doing some random WQ. If buying lootboxes is considered as gambling then entire World of Warcraft is a gambling game.

but you pay for the access to the game, not for the individual gambles OR for "rerolls" ?
you would have a point if coins were also priced in dollars and you could far exceed the coin limit with microtransaction purchases, then you could consider it gambling?

[markos82]

but you pay for the access to the game, not for the individual gambles OR for "rerolls" ?
you would have a point if coins were also priced in dollars and you could far exceed the coin limit with microtransaction purchases, then you could consider it gambling?

But i can buy bonus roll coins with gold or resources that can be used to get gold and since gold in WoW can be converted into money this means that everything in wow is gambling, from the trash item that drops to 970ilvl Boe...

[Ealyssa]

Is playing gambling ?

I bet X hours of my free time on Diablo III for a good drop.

That debate is really stupid. As every single games with a tiny bit of RPG in it are based on randomised reward.

[Yunru]

Actually they can't Because like I said when you gamble you have 2 options or end results, its either you will win or you will lose. WIth chips and like lootboxes you will get something, you can't open a bag or lootbox and see it empty and in case with chips you get chips + card.

I would agree if you said that if lets say Coca-Cola is having something like, look under the cap and you might win a ticket or a car as gambling but you still get something for your money in this case a Coca-cola...

This is how some scratch tickets work. You always win something, but what you usualy win its crap compared to what you paid. 5 euro ticket .. you get 1 euro back

[segara82]

I can't disagree with him.

[Dhrizzle]

Yeah in that case WoW is gambling or became a gambling when Blizzard placed a money value on gold. Thus drops, rolls and everything is gambling since you can sell it for gold and use that gold to get realm money.

Not really. Again I'm just going on UK law here but the small bits of RNG that you can use real money to partake in are also gated behind content that require a non-trivial degree of skill, effort, knowledge or judgement so they wouldn't fall under gambling laws.

[Krastyn]

My biggest point is that you can't really say WoW has loot-boxes as a revenue stream when the loot rerolls are so limited and hardly require you to buy gold with real money as they're so cheap. Sure you can say that Blizz are selling (or at least profiting from the sale of) in-game currency, but it's a massive stretch to turn that into a loot-box revenue stream.

Oh, I fully agree it's not a major part of the game, or even a major part of their revenue stream. It becomes a nightmare to legislate though. If you rule that loot boxes are gambling, do you make an exception that they are ok as long as the revenue threshold is below a certain % of total game revenue? How would a game company know what the revenue would be prior to release.

While I also agree that gold is easy to come by and the vast majority of people won't buy gold to spend on tokens I bet you there are the few that do, just like the vast majority of people don't spend $13k on loot boxes, but there are the outliers who do.

[/QUOTE]As for your ideas on gambling, there are (at least in UK law) certain requirements that games of skill/knowledge have to meet to exclude them from being considered gambling. If your "simple puzzles" can be completed by everyone who attempts them then the following game would still be considered gambling.[/QUOTE]

As mentioned before, that becomes a nightmare to legislate. It would be really easy to come up with puzzles that are hard, but then have a 3rd party pass on the answers to your whales so they could gamble freely. Who gets to decide what % of people have to fail? How do you monitor it?

[Yunru]

I can't disagree with him.

This video is a bullocks. He is talking lies. Its just the cosmetics!!!! It doesnt effect anyone.


................................what? Did you think i was for the real?

[Dhrizzle]

Oh, I fully agree it's not a major part of the game, or even a major part of their revenue stream. It becomes a nightmare to legislate though. If you rule that loot boxes are gambling, do you make an exception that they are ok as long as the revenue threshold is below a certain % of total game revenue? How would a game company know what the revenue would be prior to release.

While I also agree that gold is easy to come by and the vast majority of people won't buy gold to spend on tokens I bet you there are the few that do, just like the vast majority of people don't spend $13k on loot boxes, but there are the outliers who do.

There's still the issue that it isn't a simple matter of spend money > get box in WoW. Once you've bought the reroll you still have to go out and kill some sort of boss before you can use it.

As mentioned before, that becomes a nightmare to legislate. It would be really easy to come up with puzzles that are hard, but then have a 3rd party pass on the answers to your whales so they could gamble freely. Who gets to decide what % of people have to fail? How do you monitor it?

In the UK it's the UK Gambling Commission who monitor it and decide at which point the puzzle/activity becomes trivial enough to fall under gambling. As far as the 3rd party goes if it's publicly available (through Google for example) then the commission will consider it trivial. If there's something more underhand going on so whales are receiving the solution secretly then the company is heading into the realms of racketeering, and if they're willing to take those sorts of risks to make money there are probably more lucrative opportunities outside of the video-game world.

[Krastyn]

There's still the issue that it isn't a simple matter of spend money > get box in WoW. Once you've bought the reroll you still have to go out and kill some sort of boss before you can use it.

That is simply procedural, and something that could take almost zero effort (see LFR). Would you say that if instead of letting you buy a loot box for money at anytime, you could only do it once an hour, after you played a level that it would not longer be gambling?

In the UK it's the UK Gambling Commission who monitor it and decide at which point the puzzle/activity becomes trivial enough to fall under gambling. As far as the 3rd party goes if it's publicly available (through Google for example) then the commission will consider it trivial. If there's something more underhand going on so whales are receiving the solution secretly then the company is heading into the realms of racketeering, and if they're willing to take those sorts of risks to make money there are probably more lucrative opportunities outside of the video-game world.

That seems like such a convoluted, non-transparent, and arbitrary way of doing things though. I'm not limiting this to video games, but gambling in general. Because how they rule on this can bleed into all kinds of areas as collateral damage.

I'm not sure about the UK, but all over malls in Canada and the US there are machines like this. You put in a coin, and you get bubble that contains something. Usually junk, but often for kids there is one or two "cool" things they could try for.

I also don't see how you could ban loot boxes in video games, and not ban pretty much every TCG (except maybe Netrunner), and any kind of sports trading cards. I'm pretty sure if someone tried to ban collecting baseball cards in the US, it wouldn't go over well, yet is exactly the same as a loot box.

[Aliven]

I can't disagree with him.

I not always agree with Jim but this is spot on.

[Yunru]

Some good news.

[Elim Garak]

Some good news.

By good, you mean bad for the consumers.

[segara82]

How is it bad for the consumers when lootvboxes get reduced/removed and the companies have to put the contents back into the game?

[Elim Garak]

How is it bad for the consumers when lootvboxes get reduced/removed and the companies have to put the contents back into the game?

They are not putting anything back into the game. There's nothing to put back without lootboxes. They will just find another way to sell extras. Like I don't know an in-game shop for real money. Ever heard of those? I believe WoW has one.

[Bronan]

With the recent net neutrality thing, EA has added better connection speed, to the lootboxes inventory

[Yunru]

They are not putting anything back into the game. There's nothing to put back without lootboxes. They will just find another way to sell extras. Like I don't know an in-game shop for real money. Ever heard of those? I believe WoW has one.

And how is that a bad thing? At least its not shady and you dont have to spend 100.000$ to get items you want and instead just spend 1-5$ at max.
There is no lottery and that matters. Its even better if you can buy ingame store items with game gridable currency.