Discussion Sh!t is hitting the fan for Glorified Gambling Part 2

Totally agreed.

I get it when companies are to make money, and I get there are people who don't really care about those titles. Despite all my rant I personally am not very affected by that, I'm just not interested in any of those titles with most obnoxious gambling elements. However I do understand that if you just allow them to fully indulge to their greed, that will affect entire industry, as you say once again "companies are to make money ", current games we like the way they are now may not be, after seeing such a lucrative way to make insane amount of money, without consequences even if it means throwing away ethics and pride, and exploiting consumers as much as possible, why not, after all it brings soo much dough. The question is - Where's the line for that? The answer is - "nowhere". Unless the consumers draw it themselves.

 

If you don't like lootboxes the answer is simple. Don't buy them. If you don't like the games with lootboxes in them then don't buy those games. It's that simple.
If people are willing to pay money for those games then they think the games are worth their money. If people are willing to buy lootboxes then that means they think lootboxes are worth the amount spent.

On the other hand the regulators who are concerned about minors buying lootboxes/currency in games are right to be concerned because that's a huge issue. They need proper legislation and to cooperate with game developers to make the consumers aware of the gambling issues.

It's a good thing it doesn't affect your directly so you have less to worry about but the problem with this is the legislation. Banning or removing loot boxes from games is not the solution. There is a need for proper thought and research done into the legislation and Netherlands and Belgium clearly just couldn't be bothered since they just outright banned them.

 

Well when I read your arguments, it's like I hear the echo of what the publishers say all the time "Don't like it, don't buy it", the thing is if it would be that simple, then this type of conversations would never happen. It's easy for us to just ignore those lootboxes, but not so easy for people who are big fans of those games. You think it's not a problem that Star wars BF 2 initially required more than 4,500 hours of painstaking grinding to fully unlock everything, or spend "humble" $2100 to get it quickly instead? What about Lord of the rings, Middle-earth: Shadow of War? You get orcs from packages you buy in a goddamn shop for your army, and if you don't do that, there's a risk other players will destroy your fortress with their better orcs they got from packages they bought in goddamn shop. They fully removed this feature only after a year when the game lost entire relevancy. Not to mention that basically in all examples lootboxes are completely random, not even shielding you from getting duplicates, so you could most likely waste even more for the $#^& gambling. Plus all the example games already cost full price of 60$ intitial price. You're probably getting my point, people are not as willing to buy them as being pressured to do that.

Sure, not all lootboxes are this outrageous, your previously mentioned Overwatch is relatively tame indeed. But did you know, that when China implemented new legislation, which would force all lootboxes to display the drop rate percentage of items, Blizzard immediately jumped in to abuse loopholes and avoid doing that? And they succeeded sadly. Really unusual if they think this is perfectly clear, legit business...

And don't you dare to mention that banning this is somehow wrong, all the publishers were warned numerous times to fix this shit, make their own system to regulate this uncontrollable gambling, yet did any of them did it? Absolutely none, complete ignore, so that they are being banned is nothing else than their own fault, and hopefully more countries will follow their example.

If you still don't think there's a problem with this at all, let me ask it in a simple manner then.
What if your favorite game implements these predatory lootboxes because others managed to do that unregulated?
You'll probably find a different favorite game.
What if all the games start to do that without exception, will you drop gaming as a hobby entirely then?
Yes, that is also an option, but isn't it a bit sad to just let one of your favorite hobbies to just be destroyed and not do anything?

 

Hell yeah, EA gonna get fucked hard

 

People once said: "too much of anything can be poisonous". And apparently they was right. EA thought those indie game Studios & large comapny follow the trait of Microtransaction. And blame the lack of "salaries" of their personel over their customer. And this is what they abusively overuse Lootbox( in Asia have a simpler name: Gacha) looks like.
Burn baby... ahem, BURN EA! BURN!
:v

 

The issue here is, there are people out there who can't control themselves. Children and gambling addicts. Guess who lootboxes target? And you can just tell them not to play, but they don't know it's a problem until they start buying lootboxes and find out they can't stop.

Lootboxes (and gacha) should be treated under law as gambling, pure and simple.

 

Maybe I didn't make my opinion clear. I think lootboxes aren't inherently evil, just as I think people aren't inherently evil. There are many bad practices of lootboxes out there but just because some companies are exploiting their consumers does that mean all companies are doing it? Of course not. The lootboxes in China issue was an exploit that Blizzard actively evaded by selling currency and attaching lootboxes to the currency. So what? It's as if you think following the law is some shady business. It's just business as usual. When it's time to pay tax some people go to accountants to try to reduce the amount of tax they have to pay. I think that's perfectly normal in today's society.

I haven't played the other games you listed so I don't have personal experience with how annoying they are but I do know of BF2. So what if you have to play 5000 hours in order to unlock everything in the game? Just don't unlock everything in the game. If you really want to unlock everything then just spend 5000 hours playing it. You should look into some RPGs. Some of them take 1000 hours to unlock everything in the game. In fact I like games like Disgaea or Last Dream. They have tons of grinding but they try to make the gameplay itself enjoyable and thus allowing you to grind away to your hearts content. You can clear the game in under 100 hours but they give you the option to play for way longer to unlock everything.

There's a clear difference of opinion here. At this point I think you just dislike the concept of lootboxes. Lootboxes are just a mechanic that game developers use. Do you really think all games with lootboxes should be banned?

I see Overwatch lootboxes and I only see a waste of money because they change the way I play the game, they don't add any new characters, not even new weapons. They're just paint, skins or extra sounds. You can't even trade them. This is important. You can't trade them. The worst of the predatory practices comes from targeting the trading feature in games or though applications like steam. The worst of them is probably CS:GO where people are actively creating a gambling industry.

So why wouldn't I dare to say that banning lootboxes is wrong? I won't say it's the worst decision either. It's just not solving the problem. They're just putting the problem on hold or pausing it for a moment. When new games come out with lootboxes or whatever similar game mechanic companies want to call it there will have to be new legislation written for it.

Finally you asked what I would do it my favourite game implemented these 'predatory lootboxes'... I play quite a few gacha games and they already have the same 'predatory' practices. Have I found a different game to play yet? Nope. I'm still playing it and enjoying it. I can control my spending just fine. The game highly encourages spending and if you want to compete with rank in the top 1% of the game (whales) then you're pretty much forced to spend money.

Will I eventually get mad I can never compete with these pay-to-win players? Maybe.
Will I ever start spending ridiculous amounts of money on these games? Not unless I win the lottery (which would also be gambling).

Spoiler

I'm interested in further discussion so feel free to send me a private message if you're also willing to continue this discourse.

I think I wrote a paragraph after the one you quoted. I either didn't make it clear enough or you just skimmed over it so I'll say it again. The regulators who are concerned about minors buying lootboxes/currency in games are right to be concerned because that's a huge issue. They need to cooperate with game developers to make the consumers aware of the gambling issues.

Why should all lootboxes be treated as gambling? Gambling is paying money for the chance of getting more money or something worth money back. Lootboxes rarely do that. I say rarely because there are rare cases like CS:GO. To ensure that lootboxes don't become gambling they only need to make only change. The Overwatch route is that they can't trade anything. If you can't trade anything then these lootboxes become worthless once opened. They're a sunk cost into the game. They're linked to the account and that's it.

Also if you consider all lootboxes gambling then trading cards would also be gambling. Buying a booster pack full of trading cards from Magic or Yugioh or even Pokemon cards would be considered gambling. It's literally gambling under the premise of a game. There are literally people who make livings off of gambling with trading cards. They open a booster pack worth $10 in an attempt to find cards which total more than that, sometimes they can find a rare card worth $100. Shop owners used to weigh booster packs to check if any were above average in weight because it used to be easy to find foil cards (worth more money, of course).

I simply don't think lootboxes should be treated as gambling because there are many ways to fix it that don't involve taking away the fun that games like Overwatch can bring. It's a good game. I do think CS:GO should be shut down though.

 

Because they target the same impulsive/compulsive behavior patterns that gambling does. And yes, so do trading cards. People who don't have the weakness to gambling don't understand how bad it is, and pretending lootboxes aren't gambling makes it easier for people with problems to get addicted.

 

I can understand where you're coming from now. If you're only concerned with the impulse-control disorder then they should be consider loot boxes, booster packs, gacha games, lottery tickets etc. all gambling. It's not good that they're targeting people with lower levels of self-control but they're trying to make money and those people are most willing to part with their money.

So you classify it as gambling. Then what?
The trading card game industry will get screwed. Most game will become restricted to 18/20+ in most countries. Some countries ban them. They'll still be there though and people with gambling problems will still be able to play them. Hmm, at least the kids will find it harder to play them and parents will be more aware of them because they're not classified as gambling games.

 

It's not like I can consider a clever technique made by others inherently evil, it's not a living thing, but you're right about one thing, I absolutely despise lootbox usage, because it's being shoved in our faces by the industry more and more. Really, not that long ago we had times when you can buy a 60$ game and all fun experience the game had to offer was given to you in that single package, you probably remember those times too, while now we only buy the right to spend more money on "live services" with those 60$...
And I'm fully aware what you're going to answer to that, yet again "companies are to make money", so you don't care how much they trample you while doing that..?

However, I fail to see the relation between your mentioned indie single player games and something like SW:BF2 which is multiplayer orientated tripple A. Ofc it's fine for a single player to take a lot of time, especially for RPGs, they have a story to tell after all, and it would be quite a shit game if it can be rushed trough in several hours (movie adapted video games anyone?). Plus does either Disgea or Last dream have lootboxes? Don't think so, and it would be ridiculous, but looking at what we're going at, it's possible we'll come to that eventually...
But it's quite different with multiplayer orientated game, unlocking things there usually not only contributes to progression, but how competitive you are as well, you know, something that is the core of the fun of said game. And if you don't have neat loot...boxes, you'll just be a slaughter lamb for more "wealthy" opponents, who would think being a slaughter lamb is fun? Do you find that fun? I certainly don't. So yeah I don't think such a comparison is valid.

So currently it's fine for now, not all publishers are shitheads like EA, Dice, 2K and others, but this lootbox debacle is continuing for a bout 2 years now, and not only it doesn't settle down, but it gets more and more bold (I mean the governments are getting involved in all this for Christ's sake). So the danger that this type of disgusting tactic will only spread further is all the more real. You don't seem to be very fond of it, as you mentioned CS:GO but such passive attitude of your's puzzles me all the more for it.

Of course, you have my utmost respect that you managed to fully enjoy a game which is based around predatory lootboxes without succumbing to lootboxes, I probably wouldn't be able to do so, unless it's a free game I don't really care that much about. But then as a player, can you honestly tell me those lootboxes bring you anything adding to the game, do they make any game's experience any richer, more fun? I sincerely doubt it, the only thing they give is more ways for you to throw your money in the toilet. At least when you go to real gambling machines, you have a tangible chance to win some real cash, while in these gambling machines you spend real cash to win virtual trash, which will completely disappear one day when publisher's servers will go down.

Another thing that confuses me, you admit that gambling for minors is a big issue, yet don't approve of governments banning games for that reason? Well tell me what the hell do you expect them to do? I'm already repeating myself saying that the publishers were asked to find a solution for this as it is their responsibility as the sole owners and distributors of this service. Yet publishers did jack shit, so their service have been put out of commission. Are you saying that governments should've wasted their valuable time to do this job for them, and find ways to continue service without causing indirect harm to others? That's not how things work you know.
Or are you saying that we should be sorry for those consumers who lost their chance to try those games. Well I do feel sorry their freedom got a bit restricted, but if local juice trader would be found out to be using car oil as an ingredient in their product for "unique taste", then the obvious choice is to shut it down, the trader thrown to prison and be done with it, even if there'd would be individuals who're totally fine to continue to kill themselves by drinking car oil juice. And I see no problem with it whatsoever.

And I agree that a lot of things freely available everywhere contain some amount of gambling elements, but I think comparing children's card game booster packs with this is a bit ridiculous. The amount of psychological manipulation and rate is on whole different level, I had bought both yu-gi-oh and pokemon cards when I was a kid. Spend like 50$ for in total, was fun until I grew out of it. But when was the last time you heard someone spent 20,000$ on Pokemon cards? I guess you could find one or two individuals somewhere, either hardcore collectors or just a bit.."unique".

What about gaming industry, I'm sure you already heard quite a few stories how children stole their parents credit cards to spend thousands, and some poor guys dropped several hundred grands because they couldn't control themselves...and these stories might increase if nothing's going to be done for this.
In conclusion, not all gambling are equal, and lootbox gambling is like casino gambling. There's a reason casinos have age restriction as well as special taxes to pay...So why don't you apply the same to lootboxes and we'll have no problem then.

And when publishers proudly defend their lootboxes from allegations of casino gambling by using a technicality, a loophole in law, then you know we have a problem. And if you don't see any problem in that, then I feel a bit sorry for you.

P.S. Apologies for essays in posts..it's tiring but fun.

 

After reading your response I realise that we're arguing for the same thing but your opinion is that game publishers should fix the games while my opinion is that governments should regulate it properly. You're trying to make companies like EA, Dice, 2K fix 'problems' that they have no reason to fix. They have no incentive to change anything. Governments try to stop them from making money. I don't have a problem with that. it's the your attitude that "companies shouldn't be fighting back against the government" is I have a problem with.

I have an even bigger problem with governments lumping games like CS:GO and Overwatch together just because they have "lootboxes" and are making a lot of money. They have completely different types of lootboxes and when they're brought up and lumped together it clearly shows the regulators haven't done any research into the game or the market. CS:GO lootboxes is definitely gambling. Overwatch is nothing like gambling.

I have nothing against regulations. Only banning Overwatch lootboxes in particular (Even though I've never bought one... I know. Irony.).

Spoiler

I'll make a full response later in the day to address the points you brought up.
It's the game publisher's job to publish games that make money. Each employee is part of making that a reality. Some people try to come up with fun ideas, some try to make the fun into a game, some try to make the fun as accessible as possible. Then their bosses tells them to create features that can make money. They're just doing their job. What's wrong with that?

 

I think I see your point, but I can't agree to it. So you are saying that publishers shouldn't care at all about THEIR lootboxes, if governments find it's against the law, because it's not good for their business? If you park a car in a wrong spot, should the police just kindly push it to the right spot and wish you a merry day? No, they're going to fine you, and if you still refuse to do anything they will tow your car away, where you will have to pay a lot more to get it back.

Of course clear regulations needs to be done eventually and as we see, steps are being made towards that at long last. However more research are being done into this, like Australia's latest publicized report, how dangerously addicting lootboxes are, still a lot more will have to be done to actually give a deathblow to publisher's greed, but by the looks of it, it's slowly moving towards it. And you can't expect for governments to be so lenient about this, especially since not a single publisher shown a slightest intention in co-operating with it, on the contrary, every single one of them plays a victim and consider it as " incorrect interpretation"...Yeah, around 4 countries decided that it's dangerous, 16 countries started to perform deep investigation in it, plus international research are showing quite a negative direction to it, so interpretation my ass.

Yes I admit that Blizzard's Overwatch is not into the loathsome category of lootboxes, but aren't you giving too much of free pass to them? Altough they don't sell essential items to force you into buying them, but their lootboxes are just as shiny and giving same sparkling effects as all others, they manipulate gambling addictions just the same. The amount of dollars they get for this, most certainly, is off the charts as well. They wouldn't go to great lengths to avoid the China's law and everything else just to continue peddling their crap if it would be just a minor bonus to them. EA, Dice and others simply took it one step further.

Naturally in every business number one goal is to make money, but if you get notices from everyone that there's a high chance your business may be violating laws, it doesn't matter how juicy that business of yours is, it is YOUR obligation to make it so it wouldn't violate laws. And if you either ignore it or even openly defy it, then it's only natural your business will be shut down where it violates law. That's why I find no fault in either of those governments at all.

 

Doesn't really work that way unfortunately. The fact is that lootboxes and microtransactions do lose users for companies doing this. Lots of users actually. APB is a game I remember very rapidly becoming a ghost town because of how much of an advantage microtransaction sales gave in a game with frequent skirmish PVP. (Also hackers, monotony, and litany of other sins).

The problem is that lootboxes and microtransaction profit models are about whales. People willing to drop thousands of dollars on lootboxes/microtransactions. They expect the average user to only spend a little, get crushed by whales who spent thousands, and quit. They rely on advertising to provide a steady stream of targets/(average users) for their whales.

So, you can't easily starve a company out by refusing to buy their product. In fact they don't care about you. They only barely care if you spend the minimum amount. What they care the most about is hooking as many whales as they can. They are economically encouraged to do so by the profits of this sales model and that leads to pushing game design to favor the whales.

Note: Whales don't have to be rich. They have to be willing to spend money. If the money involves accumulating lots of debt. So long as the gaming company makes money they won't ever know if one of their whales is being foreclosed because of credit card payments.

 

The government should fine them. Restrict them from being sold to those underage and look at digital purchases more closely. If they really want to classify lootboxes that's also their choice. Also, I'm pretty sure most of the game companies are in fact cooperating with the governments when legislation got passed. 3/4 of the games which got banned in Belgium took down their lootboxes. Only EA refused, that's pretty bad though. The governments are doing whatever they want to do. If they really want to do anything then they can pass new laws and regulations. If the interpretation is unclear then that's purely the government's fault.

If they want to classify lootboxes as gambling then they need to change their definition of gambling. I've spent a lot of time playing fgo and feh so I know exactly what the Addiction paper is referring to. The paper itself is just another opinion though or to be precise an editorial. I agree with most of the points they brought up that require further research and the amount of harm it does to those with the newly classified gaming disorder.

Spoiler

I laughed when I read that passage clearly targeting gacha games. Especially in the case of gacha games like feh where the pull rate is at 6% but for every 5 non-5* heroes you pull it rises. So if you're unlucky eventually the rate might rise to 10% but you might be out of orbs. Then there's the temptation to spend $$$ because the rate is higher but you've run out of free orbs. LOL

Ever since the freemium model blew up and microtransactions became mainstream there has been much concern for the unlimited possible spending on a game if one truly wanted to unlock 100% of everything. What I really don't understand is this obsession with lootboxes in particular. Most modern games have microtransactions and most people complain about them too but there hasn't been nearly as much attention of the more general kind of microtransaction. They do get the occasional click-bait article but the focus is generally on preventing kids from spending their parents money.

Why unfortunately? That's what I said isn't it? I completely agree with your point that games lose players when lootboxes provide an unfair advantage over players who don't buy them. As I said, if you don't like lootboxes then don't buy them. They didn't like the lootboxes so they didn't buy them. Then the game wasn't fun without lootboxes so they quit. Pretty simple right?

You analogy with whales isn't completely wrong but your point about is companies not caring about normal users (like me) is wrong. Whales do sustain the continued operation of free-to-play games but you can easily starve out whales. In fact you already know how. You already pointed it out yourself. You said that in APB people who bought lootboxes (whales) had an advantage but what if everyone bought lootboxes? Then there would be no advantage.

Long story short: If a lot of the player base quits then the whales also drowns in the ocean which is only full of other whales. It becomes a ghost town other than the whales since whales are only killing other whales there's advantage. It's happened before and it'll continue to happen. This is why apps and games which are pay-to-win and heavily whale-favoured only have a lifespan of 1 year, in the rare case up to 2 years.

Spoiler: You reminded me of the biggest whale I've ever heard of

Someone spent $400,000 whaling on fgo

 

"Unfortunately" because it's not something average users can change on their own easily at all. A 1 year lifetime is still enough to make a profit. Gaming has had a massive crash before in 1983. We don't want something of that scale to happen again and it easily could. It's better to take proactive steps and the only way is legislation.

Mind that loot boxes is a bit of catch all term. Legislating against them can be tricky because RNG is common in gaming and not in a bad way usually. However, spending real money on a very small (less then 0.1%) chance at a specific item you want with no other method of acquisition is very different then having to farm a boss 20 times for his rare drop.

As for moving too quick to legislate. I'm not really sure why not? If the concerns are the psychological and financial health of individuals whose addiction leads to their exploitation of whales: Shouldn't legislature move swifter and then refine later? Who should have to carry the burden of proof on this subject? EA is clearly interacting in bad faith if they are going to outright state they will ignore a new law. Should someone operating in such bad faith be trusted to police themselves and show good ethical concern for how they negatively impact others? or should the bluff be called and the cards shown on the table?

 

I don't think those 1 year games have any large effect on the market. Most players wouldn't touch them or would quit fast enough when they encounter such a toxic community.

I think legislation is a great step forward and the recent focus on lootboxes is still a step forward no matter how small. Moving fast isn't bad in itself but most of the governments that are moving too fast aren't actually fixing anything. They're banning certain games or in the case of the EU in general they restricted free-to-play with microtransactions that children might play. A lot of the legislation they're doing is just to please their voters and the media. Refine later? That's naive bullshit that pretty much never happens.

Vulnerable consumers should be protected. I really just want the regulator to properly research ways to fix this problem instead of doing whatever is quick just to please the public. Children? Gambling? None of these address the issue.

 

Ah well if your base complaint is legislators not being well informed and just trying to please the public. Then I can only go "yup".

 

My base complaint is that people are complaining about lootboxes for the wrong reasons but yes. The legislators aren't trying to solve the problem. Most of them are just trying to please the public, especially governments who just straight out ban lootboxes.

 

I'm fine with lootbox as long as i don't have to spend a single penny on a paid game to win. I don't really see any problem whatsoever with lootbox.

 

Well I know what I'm complaining for, publishers who are making the games, majority cares about, using gambling elements to make more money in gamer's expense, because they are greedy. This results in quality of said games being drastically reduced, and "fun experience" which we used to get just by buying our games once, suddenly increases in price for no reason whatsoever. I pay for game when I buy it, and I want it to be a complete game. I don't want to find that parts of it are hidden behind paid gambling. The publishers think otherwise with their lootboxes, therefore I hate them, and complain about them. It's that simple.

Legislations were always slow on the uptake since the dawn of time, it's actually a miracle it moved so fast on this one. That can only mean that they received enough complaints from their own people. Is lootbox gambling really that detrimental to livelihood? That remains to be seen with more research. Since government is way too slow to just conjure quick accurate legistlations, they shut down the source that poses a threat. If publishers want to release their games to those countries, all they have to do is release them without lootbox mechanics until more clear guidelines will be drawn, oh they can't do that because they now bet everything on lootboxes...well sucks to be them.