(Loot Box's) Number of child gamblers quadruples in just two years....

[justandulas]

I find it amusing that the ESA is trying to compare loot boxes and egregious microtransactions as being comparable to gambling. That isn't the issue, it's the predatory practices that are targeting kids and youth.

it's worse than gambling. At least with gambling, you can win something of real value.

What do loot boxes do besides prey upon the weak willed, children, or force gamers into spending against their will?

I stopped playing sports games over the MUT

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I find it amusing that the ESA is trying to compare loot boxes and egregious microtransactions as being comparable to gambling. That isn't the issue, it's the predatory practices that are targeting kids and youth.

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Faking your age is quite possibly the easiest thing to do on the internet.

"ARE YOU 18+? Click yes or no"

[Rennadrel]

I absolutely agree, but where was the ESRB when people started raising these concerns?

I mean, rating these games +18 and some sort of “randomized purchases” sticker wouldn’t really fix the issue, but it would allow us to just dump the responsibility on the kids parents, because let’s face it, parental controls might be a fine ass tool, however, it requires the parents to know about it’s existence and how to use it, and lots of parents, if not most of them, don’t really know jack shit about gaming =/

One of the biggest problems with society today is that people constantly want to pass the blame for their own failures onto others. Anyone who is a parent and is dumb enough to let their kids have access to their credit cards, that is their failure as parents. Apparently parents these days don't want to be held accountable, but that is a common trend among all of society today.

[PenguinChan]

Now, that' I highly disagree with, it ain't nice, at all, it ain't just really surprising at this point.

Also the problem with the account age is that... people lie, especially kids.

Well yes, but we don't see governments cracking down on porn sites or advertisers for very blatantly abusing kids either. Porn sites for the 18+ checks, and advertising being just as fucking awful at targeting children. TBH they should treat all equally and that means either letting companies get away with minimum requirements or actually giving a shit.

[alturic]

Regardless of people buying loot boxes or not, and while it is fundamentally gambling (chance of getting what you want), isn't it a little more than simple gambling? You are (almost always?) getting something from the loot box. The chance of getting something that is worth way more than what the cost of the box price is extremely low and the chance of you getting something that is worth less than the box price is extremely high, you are still getting something.

It's a tough call on it because it's no different than someone paying $25 for a $5 item at the end of the day. I guess it's more a matter of "zomg I can get a $300 item for $25!" but... meh. I chalk that line of thinking up to darwinism.

[Pooti]

Is it lootboxes or that we see Poker on TV like it's a soccer game?

I think it is a stretch to compare poker to slot machines. Yes they are both "gambling" but one at least has a bit of player agency. Loot box gambling is a slot machine. Poker has a bit of skill involved.

[PenguinChan]

Regardless of people buying loot boxes or not, and while it is fundamentally gambling (chance of getting what you want), isn't it a little more than simple gambling? You are (almost always?) getting something from the loot box. The chance of getting something that is worth way more than what the cost of the box price is extremely low and the chance of you getting something that is worth less than the box price is extremely high, you are still getting something.

It's a tough call on it because it's no different than someone paying $25 for a $5 item at the end of the day. I guess it's more a matter of "zomg I can get a $300 item for $25!" but... meh. I chalk that line of thinking up to darwinism.

It's a matter of exploiting children and addicting idiots above 21. Granted, the latter is not wholly on the sellers fault - and honestly, anyone who is over fucking 21 and doesn't understand lootboxes are gambling / chance simulators aren't exactly ever going to be well-to-do anyways. But I get that people want more warnings on things and restrictions so that it's less exploitable.

[gondrin]

I absolutely agree, but where was the ESRB when people started raising these concerns?

I mean, rating these games +18 and some sort of “randomized purchases” sticker wouldn’t really fix the issue, but it would allow us to just dump the responsibility on the kids parents, because let’s face it, parental controls might be a fine ass tool, however, it requires the parents to know about it’s existence and how to use it, and lots of parents, if not most of them, don’t really know jack shit about gaming =/

The ESRB basically has become what nobody wants nowadays and that is why the government is probably going to step in. Instead of doing what they originally were doing and getting ahead of an issue, they generally wait for something to become an issue then deal with it when it is too late.

[Linkedblade]

Acting like this is a new practice. Things have been targeted at children to entice parent purchases. Look back at Pokemon: Gotta catch em all. How all tcg's are. There's plenty of these toys in stores where you can't tell what you're getting until you open it. Toys with dozens or more different figures from dozens of different IPs.

But honestly the problem isn't the game developers it's the parents. As a parent you should be monitoring what you child is doing, if the content is appropriate, what your child is doing with your card information

[gondrin]

In all honesty the ESRB are crap at their jobs and quite frequently miss games target groups completely - even failing to find things in games that are rather damning. Video game companies are just as bad, if not worse at labeling their games for what they need to be too. They are just at fault for not bringing things up with them or completely forgetting things. It's whatever, but y'know.

Also it's pretty nice that the government is stepping in, but honestly heavy handed approaches is way worse than just making sure the people participating in lootboxes (With real money) are over 18.

Naturally, shouldn't the age you make an account at be the indicator that you're old enough to purchase them without a parent or guardian there? It baffles me how something like this hasn't been used to help counteract the heavy handed bills. But whatever, I guess the game companies will take their maximized profits from children to the very last second.

While age check verification is nice, it is the easiest thing to bypass. However, it is generally used as a means to offset any blame from the companies as they then can state that they put something in place to try and prevent it and without actually requiring showing some form of ID like you would at a club or bar, it is minimal at best.

[alturic]

It's a matter of exploiting children and addicting idiots above 21. Granted, the latter is not wholly on the sellers fault - and honestly, anyone who is over fucking 21 and doesn't understand lootboxes are gambling / chance simulators aren't exactly ever going to be well-to-do anyways. But I get that people want more warnings on things and restrictions so that it's less exploitable.

While I'm indifferent on whatever ends up happening, or nothing ends up happening, I will say this is just another thing in the digital age that reinforces my thoughts that there needs to be term limits and honestly, age restrictions, on politicians.

We have politicians who think (literally) that tech companies advertising structures are selling your data. We have people, ESPECIALLY on committees, who visibly shake (due to age, not medical reasons!), who get so confused on what the other members on the committee are doing (procedures, etc) that they visibly get confused and have to lean back to ask their young staffers what the hell was just done, etc.

[gondrin]

Regardless of people buying loot boxes or not, and while it is fundamentally gambling (chance of getting what you want), isn't it a little more than simple gambling? You are (almost always?) getting something from the loot box. The chance of getting something that is worth way more than what the cost of the box price is extremely low and the chance of you getting something that is worth less than the box price is extremely high, you are still getting something.

It's a tough call on it because it's no different than someone paying $25 for a $5 item at the end of the day. I guess it's more a matter of "zomg I can get a $300 item for $25!" but... meh. I chalk that line of thinking up to darwinism.

The big issue, and the reason why the government is probably going to step in, is that children in all 50 states are not allowed to play any games of chance, regardless of what they are unless it has no cost. That is why casinos, lotteries and any other place generally has signs that state that no one under 18 is allowed to play as they cannot even claim the winnings even if they won. Their parents must do so.

[PenguinChan]

While age check verification is nice, it is the easiest thing to bypass. However, it is generally used as a means to offset any blame from the companies as they then can state that they put something in place to try and prevent it and without actually requiring showing some form of ID like you would at a club or bar, it is minimal at best.

Of course but, it does work. Like - parents would be way more wary if they saw this and started talking about it to other parents. Children wouldn't always accept (because you know, that's why rules and laws are a thing). Even if it's pretty minimal it still does actually affect who will visit your site, or in this case, buy your lootboxes. And clearly, game companies don't want that loss of money.

[Linkedblade]

it's worse than gambling. At least with gambling, you can win something of real value.

What do loot boxes do besides prey upon the weak willed, children, or force gamers into spending against their will?

I stopped playing sports games over the MUT

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"ARE YOU 18+? Click yes or no"

If a parent was concerned they could create a monitored or parental controlled account with admin rights and addons for whichever browser. It's not very difficult. And by the time a child is old enough to try to bypass those things they would be seemingly mature enough to look at it imho

[Eleccybubb]

Lootboxes are just flat out trash.

What's worse is it's the ONLY way of getting cosmetics in games like Overwatch. You can't buy the currency directly, you can't earn it directly from let's say winning a game and whatnot. And before anyone jumps on me you know perfectly well that I mean a bit of it for winning like 50 or 100.

I want an option to buy the skin for like £10 or whatever. Or the currency. I don't want to play a game of RNG for a skin. It's not fun.

As for that bill I hope it passes. Game devs are getting away with far too much shady/disgusting practices these days.

[PenguinChan]

Kids don't need a credit cards to buy loot boxes.



Balance cards are a thing for most platforms and easily accessible.



Actually...



Also, do you really believe that those kids are spending cash on sugoi premium porn accounts?

Oh right, I forgot that they actually want to somehow control people viewing porn. It would be a real shame if you could obscure your connections and pretend like you're elsewhere in the world to just ignore said ban that they won't enforce on users legally - unless they want terrible backlash of privacy invasion. Huh!

And, there probably are kids who have access to cards that their parents don't follow very closely will be using it for things like that. It's not exactly unknown, and quite hilarious if not a bit sad. And for balance cards, what 12 year old has $20? Allowances is what I think of, and that puts the blame on the parent really. Then they also have to be 16 at least to get money to even buy one. And I'm in the boat that a 16 year old may not be mature enough to understand gambling, but they sure as hell know what a lootbox is.

Honestly proper warnings and education to the user when they try and purchase things will go a long way versus harsh restrictions that hurt the consumer just as bad, if not more annoyingly worse than the companies. A company will find more ways to make up the money if they choose to, a user has to stick with the annoyance.

Loot boxes are not gambling. You are not winning anything. You are PURCHASING a randomly selected loot WHICH YOU DO GET. It's not like throwing a dice in order to WIN or LOSE nothing else than money. And if you lack knowledge, gambling word is 99.999999% used for money gambling.

Semantics at that point, and most people agree that anything to do with chance and money is basically going to be considered gambling. What, do you want it to be called eGambling instead? Kind of like how eSports is a thing?

[alturic]

it's worse than gambling. At least with gambling, you can win something of real value.

What do loot boxes do besides prey upon the weak willed, children, or force gamers into spending against their will?

I'd honestly argue that it's "better" (as in the opposite of "worse than gambling") since every loot box I've ever seen you actually get something. Rarely do you win at gambling, at least in terms of making back more than what the cost of the initial gamble was.

I think people's problem with loot boxes are the ease and speed of being able to just spend gobs of money without really realising it. But, and unless you know of loot boxes from some really shit sites, you are ultimately buying a blind-bag with the hopes of the bling-bag containing something much more expensive than it's cost.

For example, blind-bags have become extremely common-place in childrens toy sections. From LPS, to Lollipop things to squishy things, etc. Now, at its core, why are digital loot boxes so different? The typical blind-bag at a store is $3-5. That item cost pennies to produce. Isn't that equivalent to the loot boxes of the digital world?

I've seen loot boxes that promise (and on the image have) Razer hardware, $500 graphics cards, etc for like $25 and you typically get Razer stickers and the like but how is that fundamentally different than the real-world blind-bag equivalent?

[gondrin]

Not comparing anything. Just saying that if you broadcast gambling, nothing is surprising. it's logical outcome.

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Loot boxes are not gambling. You are not winning anything. You are PURCHASING a randomly selected loot WHICH YOU DO GET. It's not like throwing a dice in order to WIN or LOSE nothing else than money. And if you lack knowledge, gambling word is 99.999999% used for money gambling.

While they aren't gambling as most people see gambling, they are a game of chance which for the most part is illegal to allow children to play any games of chance unless they are have no cost.

[Rennadrel]

Kids don't need a credit cards to buy loot boxes.



Balance cards are a thing for most platforms and easily accessible.



Actually...



Also, do you really believe that those kids are spending cash on sugoi premium porn accounts?

How many kids are actually able to buy those cards with any level of frequency compared to owning or having access to a credit card?

[PenguinChan]

Completely irrelevant to the statement you made, you said that you don't see governments cracking down on porn-sites, fact is, you do.

There are ways to bypass it? Of course there are... just are there are plenty of ways for kids to still acquire alcohol and tobacco from stores, should it be legal to sell that shit to minors since they can still get them via other means?

You literally quoted a paragraph of me sarcastically acknowledging it. Would you like me to say, "Yes, there are governments actually trying to regulate porn. I either forgot or didn't realize." There. Not everything needs to be that black and white.

For porn it's kind of silly because you can just tunnel to other parts of the world through a VPN and access it with reduced speeds... But that doesn't matter because a lot of videos and VPNs are going to be just fine in that instance. It's quite a pathetic attempt to stop something so easily bypassed. Which is my point - it's about as effective as a [Are you 18?] prompts. People who really care can just download a VPN in 10 seconds and enable it through a random part of the world and get their jill or jack on. Or in this case, off.

No. It's not gambling and it should not be called that.

So you're disagreeing with basically every literal definition of gambling and what people use the word as?

[alturic]

So you're disagreeing with basically every literal definition of gambling and what people use the word as?

I'm curious, in my example of ~10+ variants of blind-bags that are in every retail store containing LPS, Lollipop things, squishies, etc that's gambling as well? Did the stores not get the memo that it's illegal to sell those to minors?

I'm not harping on you, but trying to use the literal definition of gambling for digital loot boxes, you would have to apply the same literal definition to those, no?