Belgium: Lootoboxes are gambling, potential EU wide ban

[Deleted]

Except is not about banning, it about applying the laws and regulating it like every other gambling system.

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Then why are GTA:O and LoL money printing machines?

Because they still sell the skins but for a much higher price?
I can buy 50 lootboxes for 40 euro's and I can get 20 skins from them.
1 Skin in LoL costs me 10 euro.

They will just change it up and raise the price per skin.

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You realize they can still sell cosmetic stuff for money.. just not random ones?

And they will have a far larger price tag on them. Like in League.

[Zeek Daniels]

Technically, it is not...yet.

However, it exploits same feelings and cause very similar behavior, just in a little bit different color.

You mean like the feeling in D3 when you wanna kills just a few more mobs because you think that oh so sweet legendary is gonna drop?

[Deleted]

Because they still sell the skins but for a much higher price?
I can buy 50 lootboxes for 40 euro's and I can get 20 skins from them.
1 Skin in LoL costs me 10 euro.

They will just change it up and raise the price per skin.

No, that's why it was considered gambling. You can buy 50 lootboxes for 40 euros and get a chance to get random skins. It's the same system as a slot machine, regulated by law as gambling.

You buy directly the skin that you want for 10 euros. It is overpriced, but it's not gambling.

[Seditian]

Except it gives free content and development to the normal people thats being paid for by the dribbling idiots that can't control them selfs.
Which is now going away, so the only people getting screwed is us. Seeing we will need to pay the money the company won't be making with these lootboxes.

But they also have to put in time to make those shop skins. Yeah I realize it's probably a lot less effort for a ton of money, compared with focusing on important parts in the game, but still.

I'll take X priced cosmetics in the shop over shitty cosmetic lootboxes any day of the week.

[Coldkil]

Except it gives free content and development to the normal people thats being paid for by the dribbling idiots that can't control them selfs.
Which is now going away, so the only people getting screwed is us. Seeing we will need to pay the money the company won't be making with these lootboxes.

Lootboxes is free content? You really just said that you're willing to pay a random amount of money for a skin that literally doesn't add anything with the excuse that the mopney is used for future development? Lol i've read everything now.

The ban of lootboxes doesn't affect microtransaction as a whole. Example OW can easily set up a store with the skins for people to buy - problem solved and additional revenue gained. Everyone is fine with that.

Lootboxes are just designed to trigger addiction on people and it's a scam. Doesn't matter how you put it, they're just a bad design aimed to gather money for next to zero effort/resource spent.

[melodramocracy]

Except is not about banning, it about applying the laws and regulating it like every other gambling system.

Straight from the article:

Geens now wants to prevent such functions from being able to occur in games at all. "But that takes time, because we have to go to Europe. We will certainly try to ban it. "

[Coldkil]

No, that's why it was considered gambling. You can buy 50 lootboxes for 40 euros and get a chance to get random skins. It's the same system as a slot machine, regulated by law as gambling.

You buy directly the skin that you want for 10 euros. It is overpriced, but it's not gambling.

Exactly. If they're going to overprice everything that was previously a lootbox in an in-game store, sales will just drop and they will get less. Pricing stuff the right way only makes more money.

[Deleted]

Straight from the article:

Because it's regulated and EA need licences to operate such system. Gambling is legal in the European countries, as long they follow each country's laws.

[Video Games]

It's funny that the esrb and pegi won't do anything about this when they had to remove the casino from pokemon games because of them.

[kenthovind]

RIOT games has to be sued for their hextech loot system gambling, it's rigged.

[Cloudoo]

I'm surprised no one has linked this youtube video yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_akwfRuL4os which the State of Hawaii announces action to address predatory practices at Electronic Arts and other companies.

Here's also a reddit link where Chris Lee talks more about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comm...dress/dq62w5m/

[Elbob]

if loot boxes are gambling and need to be banned. Does that mean TCG games that sell cards in covered packs are also gambling?
Is a pack of MTG cards really different than a lootbox?

Loot boxes provide a guaranteed reward for your purchase unlike actual gambling. And get out of here with the "casinos could say you aren't gambling if they give everyone a free mars bar at the end of the night". A loot box is an individual item for a purchasable cost that has a set number of rewards as options.

While I am not a fan of lootboxes, calling them gambling is a huge stretch in my eyes. Is the purchase of any "pack" of items I don't individually pick out now gambling?

[Teri]

Inb4 EU game prices increased by 50-100% to counter it.

DLC and Season Pass already is doing that in many cases.

[dope_danny]

Except it gives free content and development to the normal people thats being paid for by the dribbling idiots that can't control them selfs.
Which is now going away, so the only people getting screwed is us. Seeing we will need to pay the money the company won't be making with these lootboxes.

This is absolute madness. Do you think all the high quality releases this year like Mario Odyssey, Nier Automata, Splatoon 2, Pokken DX, Nioh or anything else were somehow lesser production quality experiences because they didn't double dip?

This is on disc content you are being charged to unlock. The fact that people do not find that absolutely disgusting is flabbergasting.

You cannot actually believe that fucking EA and activision of all companies NEED lockbox money to make full products when not a single indie dev needs to, can you?

because holy shit thats the most shill tier kool aid drinking mindset imaginable.

[Deleted]

if loot boxes are gambling and need to be banned. Does that mean TCG games that sell cards in covered packs are also gambling?
Is a pack of MTG cards really different than a lootbox?

They always runned on the grey area of the law. But now the focus can easily drop on the TCG games also.

[Teri]

It's still just Belgium. We don't know yet how it'll work.

Netherlands is investigating currently. So it's not "just" Belgium

France possibly as well.


Belgian and Hawaiian lawmakers call for loot box ban:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/11/22/belgiu...x-ban-7099044/

[Jtbrig7390]

This is absolute madness. Do you think all the high quality releases this year like Mario Odyssey, Nier Automata, Splatoon 2, Pokken DX, Nioh or anything else were somehow lesser production quality experiences because they didn't double dip?

This is on disc content you are being charged to unlock. The fact that people do not find that absolutely disgusting is flabbergasting.

You cannot actually believe that fucking EA and activision of all companies NEED lockbox money to make full products when not a single indie dev needs to, can you?

because holy shit thats the most shill tier kool aid drinking mindset imaginable.

Didn't you know that 14 million copy's of BF1 sold wasn't enough, They "HAD" to do loot box's in BF2 to make up for those lost sells.

......

I do love how people (not u) defend lootbox's but at the same time shit on DLC..

[Deleted]

This is absolute madness. Do you think all the high quality releases this year like Mario Odyssey, Nier Automata, Splatoon 2, Pokken DX, Nioh or anything else were somehow lesser production quality experiences because they didn't double dip?

This is on disc content you are being charged to unlock. The fact that people do not find that absolutely disgusting is flabbergasting.

You cannot actually believe that fucking EA and activision of all companies NEED lockbox money to make full products when not a single indie dev needs to, can you?

because holy shit thats the most shill tier kool aid drinking mindset imaginable.

None of those gave me 2 years of game play. So not sure what you're trying to say.

[Jtbrig7390]

None of those gave me 2 years of game play. So not sure what you're trying to say.

None of those games has been out for 2 years.......

[dope_danny]

None of those gave me 2 years of game play. So not sure what you're trying to say.

0.01 cent has been deposited into your origin account.