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Lawmaker who called out Star Wars Battlefront 2 lays out plans for anti-loot box law
- Thread starter Alexander DeLarge
- Start date
OuterLimits
Member
Interesting fact about Hawaii. It has been very hostile towards gambling. ALL gambling is outlawed in Hawaii. Only one other state completely outlaws gambling similar to Hawaii.(If you guessed Utah, you are correct)
While Hawaii is a progressive blue state, they align themselves with typically very religious red states on gambling. Actually bible belt states are more lenient since many of them offer state lotteries and horse race betting.
In 2012, Hawaii police actually raided a dude's house because he was hosting a poker game in his living room with some friends. His bail was $400. Yeah, they are a bit crazy in regards to gambling in Hawaii.
While Hawaii is a progressive blue state, they align themselves with typically very religious red states on gambling. Actually bible belt states are more lenient since many of them offer state lotteries and horse race betting.
In 2012, Hawaii police actually raided a dude's house because he was hosting a poker game in his living room with some friends. His bail was $400. Yeah, they are a bit crazy in regards to gambling in Hawaii.
With the caveat that they will be re-activated at a later date, which was in the very same press release that announced their removal. Translation, they're coming back once the fervor dies down.
I'll make a prediction too, that they're going to roll them back out very soon and try to justify it by claiming they've 'added' the cosmetics that were mined out of the game's data last weekend, and are 'replacing' many of the higher level cards.
Liliana Eileen
Member
I never knew Hawaii was that serious. Is there a source on the poker game thing? 😂
BANGS
Banned
Please, you guys have been saying they'll put it back "next week" then "two weeks" then "After Christmas"...
They're not putting it back, only cosmetic stuff...
I wish I had your optimism! We'll be seeing what actually happens sooner rather than later.
BANGS
Banned
Let's make an account bet. Give a "soon" date...
GlitchF5
Neo Member
No, it doesn't. Loot boxes are pure greed, and completely unnecessary revenue. If your game is good, it will sell. We have countless points in history to refer to this point.
Sorry, I don't do gambling!
BANGS
Banned
Can't put your money where your mouth is, eh? It's not gambling if you know the outcome, so c'mon gimme a date... or are you just completely full of shit?
Alexander DeLarge
Member
We know they're coming back. EA admits it and they already said cosmetics are incompatible because of lore reasons. The details are TBD so anyone that buys the game knowing that the business model is completely up in the air is gambling whether or not they'll have the opportunity to gamble further.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
We have that already, so why would this bother you?
BANGS
Banned
Jesus fuck that is so much false...
EA said "crystals" are coming back. Crystals could be used to support any sort of microtransactions, be they cosmetic or whatever other bullshit people pay for these days...
They never said cosmetics were incompatible due to lore. They specifically said they didn't focus their microtransactions on cosmetics because they didn't want to break the lore. This was also complete lie as they already have cosmetic things in both battlefront games...
EA is scum and I don't trust them. They very well COULD bring P2W back in this game, but I just don't see it happening. They have an entire future as a company to hold on to, and something like that would destroy it. Nobody, not even the casuals, would buy games from them if they went back on their word like that. I think they've learned they lost this battle already...
Only as full of shit as you. We're just speculating here, no need to get pissy.
I'll give you my guess if it makes you happy. More than likely they'll roll it all back out with 'tweaks' alongside the rest of the 'Last Jedi' season or whatever. I don't have a date because I don't know when that's coming out, but I think it'll come bundled with that update or 1-2 weeks following it.
Maybe they'll pull a congress and push the update out during christmas!
cartman414
Member
I'd like him to also focus on p2w gacha in mobile.
Its easy. Do you have the opportunity to pay money to pull the slot machine? Then its gambling.
See how easy that is?
Some skins would have be priced at hundreds or thousands of dollars even, which would put them out of reach of the majority of players.
Agreed in principle, but this has turned into such a mustache twirling douchebag festival that I am eager to see the implosions. Any industry with common sense knows how to operate within certain parameters to keep things like this from happening. Video games have not been a common sense industry for some time now.
Havoc2049
Member
Loot boxes are more like buying a pack of sports cards, where you get a bunch of common cards, but there is also that chance you may get a star player or a coveted rookie card.
I don't like what EA did with SWBF II, but I say we let the consumer decide.
goldenpp72
Member
Letting the consumer decide isn't the answer for everything, especially when these can be purchased by children in games not rated M or above, etc. There definitely should be some kind of restrictions set in place in general to at least put the reigns on this practice.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Slippery Slopes are fears. But your fears have no basis in reality. That is one scenario that could happen, but there are countless other scenarios.
There are many things that the government regulates that doesn't cause slippery slopes. So this smells of a unsubstantiated fallacy. Slippery Slopes have their place, but then you need to make a compelling case of all the reasons why.
The government doesn't view video games as murder simulators. Some specific individuals do, but that comment has no basis until you can prove then that a overwhelming or significant amount of policy makers believe that to be true. Jack Thompson fought for years unsuccesfully running a populist campaign.
The reality is that video games is one of the most lucrative passtimes and it rakes in serious dough. As a result it's not going to come on the table of removing violent video games, anymore than people who thought MPAA would be the end of violent movies.
Lootboxes should not be targeted at young children and preteens. We're not talking about removing microtransaction, but removing the harmful predatory elements from the sights of young impressionable people.
We're talking about putting microtransactions in a different context.
Last Week Tonight covered topics that touch on some of these subjects like Daily Fantasy Sports and The Lottery.
It's not like the concept of hiding gambling inside other things and not calling it gambling is new.
Lastly, I think the video game industry can come up with better creative ways to make money of additional content in games. Someone just needs to come up with a delivery system where the consumer wants to spend his/her money for post content that is not based on gambling.
Stormblessed
Member
They'll still get to decide, it's just they'll need to be 21 to do so. An age where they're able to make informed decisions and all that. So really, it's only a problem for companies looking to peddle this shit to kids.
Fuz
Banned
ea shill spotted.
SonicSleuth
Member
Nice job, idiots. If you're pro-Washington control of video games, you are stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
SonicSleuth
Member
They have restrictions in place. They're called PARENTS. Any child with enough money to make purchases leading to legislative change can spend their money how they like.
Ya'll hate EA more than you have sense in your heads. Pokemon Go is aimed at kids, it's full of microtransactions, and it's encouraging people to get hit by cars (or hit others). Pick your battles.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
No they can't. We have age limits for a whole host of services and goods, for good reasons. Advocating for parents being a substitute for regulatory oversight is simply naive and cannot be taken seriously.
Furthermore, when we're talking teenagers who begin to earn their own money from side jobs next to school, parents should snoop into every aspect of their lives. People are not opposed to micro transactions. They are opposed to gambling. Lootboxes. The adrenaline rush of flushing your money down the toilet for the off chance of getting a prize.
Aces&Eights
Member
I know this is completely off-topic but this is the first mod in the wild spotting in weeks. Glad to see you in the thread!
OT: There needs to be something done about the loot box issue, for sure. I am not one to jump on the government bandwagon by any means but expecting the industry to self-regulate by cutting their income is like having the fox guard the hen house.
BlitzerRadic
Member
There is money involved. When you buy the game that is consideration.
If lootboxes are classified as gambling, then Diablo 3 would be gambling too and any game that you pay and has RNG would be gambling as well.
recursive
Member
You don't keep swiping the card everytime you want some new loot in Diablo. This is a really weird stance to take to defend gambleboxez.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
I wish they'd just bring back hidden characters. The player could do X, Y, or Z and unlock something. Fighting games lost the hidden character on the select screen e.g.: having Shadow as an assist in MvC or Orange Hulk. It's all under an advanced paywall. Even in D3 we knew what we were paying for. I don't like random chances.
I owned SWBF1 with the season pass, but I skipped this one.
Edit: opening cases in Gears 4 just got lame after a while because I never got anything good. That was $99 for a bunch of random ugly skins.
I owned SWBF1 with the season pass, but I skipped this one.
Edit: opening cases in Gears 4 just got lame after a while because I never got anything good. That was $99 for a bunch of random ugly skins.
martinstraka8282
Member
Nothing should be trusted with the current administration in power.
Mr. Grumpy
Grumpy see, Grumpy do.
This is the second general warning in this thread in less than twelve hours...
Thank you.
That point still stands. There are valid issues to discuss here and I would really like those discussions to continue, so lets not get in the way of them with personal comments and name calling. I'm sure that it doesn't need to be emphasised that there won't be a third general warning issued here.
Thank you.
Actually card packs have set distributions that are published. Typically if you buy a box youre near guaranteed a set. You can pull a loot box arm 1000 times and not hit what youre after
Martinski43
Member
You are an idiot if you trust corporations such as EA to do the right thing. Hint: they wont.
Petrae
Member
When the industry cant (or wont) regulate itself, then this kind of thing happens. Perhaps it will be a wake-up call to the business that it needs to try something else to extract money from its customer base. Or, perhaps nothing changes and governments get involved.
Either way, the industry has brought this mess onto itself. I have no sympathy for what happens if governmental regulation occurs.
OldBoyGamer
Banned
Apologies I miss understood the original point. 
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
- Yoshis Island (all three and Woolly World) - the Island games have no drops, Woolly World has predetermined drops of currency
- Pikmin 1 & 3 - 2 is a bit in question because there are randomly designed dungeons, so which enemy is required to kill is random, I would tend towards it does not count as rng loot drop, because each item is unique and it is assuredly sufficientto visit each dungeon once and just kill all enemies in there (which is feasible)
- Zelda games except Skyward Sword and BotW had no loot drops outside of hearts / rupees / magic refillers and it would not change the game much if they replaced the random nature by a deterministic counter-based decision; same for all of Metroid
- all Sonic platformers
- the full F-Zero franchise
- all Crash Bandicoot platformers
- Jak & Daxter 1 (I am not sure anymore about Jak 2 and 3, but if there is some random drops, they are miniscule similar to Zelda / Metroid as well and could just be determinised without any issue whatsoever)
- Banjo-Kazooie series - there is no random element whatsoever
- Burnout 1 & 2 (not sure about later ones) - no random elements in here
- Fire Emblem series (outside of Echoes) has no random item drops, they have a random element in hits / crits though. I do not know if you want to count that as RNG looot drop, but either way I would prefer them gone anyway
- Super Monkey Ball (full series) has no random elements
- Layton, Ace Attorney, Danganronpa (outside of maybe the order of appearance of some letters in some minigames, which does not matter much), Zero Escape, Science Adventure games and probably all other similar adventure / visual novel type of games have no random elements
- Rayman series has no random elements
- Donkey Kong series has no random elements
- Conker series has no random elements
- Picross series has no random elements outside of optional random helper at the start of a puzzle for beginners (which could just as well be dropped)
- Kameo has no random elements
Since loot is a disgusting game design element anyway, I could probably go on and on with games that have none or only miniscule ones that could be dropped with no harm.
As long as you cannot pay for rng loot, it is not gambling though. If it has a one-time price of admission (or only non-consumable additional items) it is not gambling.
unhealthy_skeptic
Neo Member
Oversimplified nonsense. There are many edge cases to think about, like the real money auction house that used to exist in Diablo, or paying for items that have a chance to increase or decrease in value on the steam marketplace. There's also systems like the World of Warcraft auction house which has for sale fortune card items that give gold based on RNG, which can in turn be sold for subscription tokens that have real money value. It's not so simple, and if we aren't careful, this kind of legislation may end up hurting us more than it helps us.
This isn't even really the true problem with this kind of legislation though. The main problem I have with this kind of legislation is that it's just about impossible in places like America to verify someone's age online, as we can see when we visit our favorite porn sites. Unless we want to put in place a dystopian system like in South Korea where you have to log in with your real ID to play games, we should really be careful with what kind of laws we support.
EventHorizon
Member
At the time of purchase, you know exactly what you are getting. The problem is giving real money for a random outcome. If you know exactly what you are getting, there is no gambling. From that point on there is no difference between if you bought the item or got it in game. There could still be legal issues after the sale, but it wouldn't be gambling. For example, the gaming company could manipulate the cost of items so they could buy low and sell high with real money to make a profit.
Why is RNG attached to this process at all? Real money shouldn't be part of gameplay. If the game wants to offer gold for real money, then make it a fixed exchange rate that is known at the time of purchase. There is no reason to make that random.
Louis Cyphre
Banned
I really wish people would stop using cards as an analogy. Cards can be traded and some could potentially be worth money. Loot boxes hold no value and are often just to mask poor game design.
BlitzerRadic
Member
So if I can buy a loot box one time, it's not gambling?
Diablo 3 has an expansion. So now it's a two time price of admission. Now it's gambling?
BlitzerRadic
Member
Gambling must have these three things: consideration, an element of chance, and a prize of (real world) value. If whatever activity in question doesn't have all three of these things, its not gambling.
As you've said, lootboxes dont have real world value so it doesn't meet the three criteria to be classified as gambling.
Baseball cards, on the other hand, it can be argued do have real world value and therefore gambling (its not, because it's a sale of goods, just like loot boxes).
unhealthy_skeptic
Neo Member
And I wish people would stop brushing off cards as a bad analogy. It depends on the game, but loot boxes DO hold monetary value in many games, and you don't have to look any further than the steam marketplace to see this.
If you really want to brush off cards as an analogy, you'll have to make a good argument for why cards hold monetary value in a different way than tradeable digital goods do, because I really don't see a difference. Cards are just pictures and text printed on worthless paper. Even the dollar is just pictures and text printed on worthless paper. So what justifies the double standard against digital random loot that can be traded for real money in the same way as worthless paper cards do?
Memorabilia
Member
Poor defense that needs to stop. You're utilizing artificial definitions to exclude loot-boxes from the definition of gambling when its clear that the mechanism itself that is designed to prey on addictive seretonin reinforcement is the real key to what should and should not be defined as gambling. Furthermore, even by the rules of your lame defense, the game's built-in economy qualifies as "items of value". Whether or not they have value in the real world is irrelevant. These game mechanisms are predatory and akin to gambling. Wishing it otherwise doesnt make it so.
EventHorizon
Member
The fact that gamers wouldn't buy loot boxes at the current prices if they didn't have a chance at premium loot establishes the real world value of that loot.
Prize Price = Market price chargeable with chance at premium loot - Market price chargeable without chance at premium loot
In addition, not being transferable isn't a get out of jail free card for premium loot. If I took money for a chance at a digital non-transferable $60 game, nobody would doubt that was gambling. Loot box prizes are no different.
No they are more likely to buy a car instead of walking. loot-boxes only have one real life value and that is saved time. If you do not want to play a game for a longer period of time you have an option to buy these boxes instead.
I have never heard of a game that actually requires you to buy loot-boxes.