I never understood why video game lootboxes get regulated while real-life lootboxes like pokemon cards don't.
Loot boxes are an in-game feature allowing players to buy random mystery items with real or virtual currency
That's not how I use the term. I think of a loot box as a treasure chest or similar that you discover while exploring which, when opened, gives you some loot!
On the other hand if you're talking about a package with a random assortment of stuff in it that you buy without knowing what's inside, I call that a "grab bag" or "mystery bundle".
Am I too old? What games were primarily responsible for changing the vocabulary?
The term "loot box" has, since I want to say the early 2010s, referred to the mechanic described in the quote. It's hard for me to say what the earliest games were to create this mechanic, especially since its origin seems not to be in the traditional Western games but in East Asian games.
The model is very strongly associated with the rise of "live service" gaming, with Overwatch and Battlefield being some of the more notorious offenders.
I was under the impression Eastern games preferred the loan word 'gacha'.
I started seeing this term come up everywhere when Overwatch first released. The common usage is much closer to mystery bundles as you describe, and regulators tend to be upset about them when real money gets involved. It feels an awful lot like gambling at that point.
Do they let 16 year olds gamble in casinos in Europe? Odd to ban it for kids but only some kids.
If you're forbidding people from doing things they could do yesterday, it's best to be a little conservative with your scope.
16-yo kids might do some amount of part time work, and should at least have enough of a concept of money to understand why pressing the "more loot boxes" button is a Bad Idea. They're also old enough that they might potentially have their own bank account and their own card, which then caps the damages to their allowance.
That would require extra work to pass more legislation which has a chance to fail. I think it's better to do it all once instead of having to revisit the issue every couple years.
So what's the issue then? The minimum is 16 - or are you proposing kids 15 and younger have the right to gamble?
Pretty much all of Europe is 18-21.
should probably just ban gambling for children but seems like a good first step.
I wish they'd add mandatory labeling. I'm over 16 and have no interest in games with loot boxes.
I feel like labeling is probably the best approach here. While I personally hate the business model of "Gatcha" type games and wouldn't mind if we banned lot boxes, it is a model does seem to work for a lot of people.
I also think the odds should also be not only disclosed, but made prominent
> "Gatcha" type games
Typically spelled "gacha", although I have to admit that "gotcha" seems apt.
Ok, so we all agreed that it is gambling. But for some reason we let kids gamble but only after they reach sixteen? This feels weird.
Brain development of a 16 year old is at least further along than a 13 year old.
I guess it's not gambling, or it'd be covered by the UKs existing laws around gambling that set the minimum age to 18.
Okay? How will this actually change anything?
I don't think I have ever paid attention to a single age rating in my entire life. Does anyone do outside of fundamentalist parents who wouldn't let kids play most video games anyways?
Very spiritually European move.
What regulators should do is focus on easily applicable percentage-based fines. Make sure it's not just another line item.
This is not a regulators move. This is the industry slightly adjusting their recommendations to parents. Will this change anything? Maybe it will help the industry avoid being targeted by actual regulation.
Well, this is going along with all the new requirements for companies to actually verify ages, so it won't be up to the parents.
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Because in real life the store clerk won't let a child spend $1000 on their parents card making purchases again and again and again and again and again, but a video game will let a child do it in less than an hour and consider that a success and try to understand how to stimulate another child to do so.
With the rise of online storefronts and employees who just don't care I beg to differ.
A kid can’t clean out the Pokemon vending machines just the same. I’m in favor of not letting kids gamble but wish it was applied across the board.
Pokemon cards have gone full circle, GameStop now has an online service where you can gamble on cards digitally just like lootboxes. You buy a roll at different price points to win a PSA graded card from a set of probabilities, and then you can sell it back for 90% market value to GameStop or have them ship it to you.
The proliferation of gambling over so many domains has radicalized me against it in a way that I didn't think would've been possible a few years ago.
Woah, you can sell it back to them? That’s normally the line that isn’t crossed. You sell it at the store next door (pachinko) or on the open market (trading card games and digital items).
Pokemon cards are addictive and fun but they're kind of analogue. Loot boxes are more like slot machines - they have flashing lights, animations and jingles to hook you in deeper. And because the lootboxes are in game they can be tuned in frequency and payout just right to keep you playing in a way boring cards could never be (beyond just boring probabilities)
Idk about pokemon cards, but I'm sure the wotc guys use something to make sniffing newly opened packs addicting.
That’s funny. I don’t think I’ve opened a pack of Magic cards in about 25 years and I can still remember the smell.
Resale value protects The Pokémon Company. Your child spent all your money on Pokémon cards? Resell the cards. You've just realized your 15 years long obsession has broken your life? Resell the cards.
Aggrieved parties can partly get restoration. That way there never is enough political momentum to legiferate them. Try to resell your Fortnite account and they close it.
Those are gambling too, and were criticize as such not just now but also when they were new (but people ignored that criticism because pokemon was hype and adults complaining about trendy things are always uncool and ignored.)
There’s something to be said about the visibility of gambling as a signal to people that someone may have a problem. Gambling on your phone just looks like being on your phone. It even improves access to the addiction. Needing to go to a casino looks a lot different, provides some friction, and could spur intervention. The same could be said about loot boxes vs buying Pokemon cards in a store.
I will say card packs are somewhat useful for drafting formats where you need a sealed pack of random unknown cards.
Just ripping packs hurts my soul. What a waste.
When you buy a pokemon card at least you get a card
This is the same argument Valve is presenting.
(Opinions my own, naturally.)
I think they're right, really.
Obviously you need to require enough friction that the experiences are comparable (e.g. no letting someone impulse buy 100 times in half a second without having to re-type their "I am an adult" payment info or something analogous, possibly just a hard ceiling for everyone), but I don't think you can ban everything that touches the same sharp edge, and you can't mandate that parents teach their kids how to handle it.
So I think the best you can do is put hard limits on people's ability to hurt themselves without at least an "are you really sure" check, and maybe something like not allowing cash in the exchange without adult verification so the kids might, at worst, gamble their FunBux they earned playing a game and get burned on having lost a lot of FunBux, rather than their or their parents' cash. (This doesn't stop parents from giving their kids their credit card, but that's not really a problem you can solve...)
Physicality. You don’t even own digital games, let alone cosmetics for your digital game license.
Because neither loot boxes nor Pokémon cards are actually that addicting. There is no strong link to actual gambling and these mechanics. The reason loot boxes get regulated at all is because people simply don’t like them, and they scream the loudest for someone to fix it. Very bad precedent.