The UK House Of Lords says lootboxes are gambling, calls for immediate reclassification and regulation on their sale

[Beskamir]

6 hours ago, lewdicrous said:

Hopefully this doesn't just mean that they'll rebrand them instead of getting rid of them.

Knowing companies like EA, though, I don't that they'll stop that easily.

lol I can already see it, "these aren't lootboxes, they're 'surprise mechanics', that's like totally different!"

[Trik'Stari]

7 minutes ago, Kisai said:

imagine playing a JRPG where every brand in the game is a real brand.

[Master Disaster]

19 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

In the end it will depend entirely on the exact phrasing of the change in law.

 

Any amount of given vagueness will be immediately seized on by the predatory Game publishers.

 

This outcome was a given. The UK government has a history of approving any law that is in any way put forward as 'for the protection of children'.

 

it will be interesting to see when and how EA will fight the UK government on this, given that we know they are willing to go to court over this. All eyes on EA again

I love to watch them squirm, they really are a giant massive stain on the genre of digital gaming.

 

i cant think of another entity , individual or otherwise, that has been on my shit list for so long ,, EA has been their since 2004!  (closure of Earth & Beyond after acquisition of Westwood for the C&C franchise)

There will be no change to the law required. They're not going to create a new classification just for Lootboxes, they're going to reclassify them so existing laws will apply to them.

 

They will be classed as gambling in the same way as slot machines are currently.

[mr moose]

They're not loot boxes anyway, they are surprise murchanics.  

[SolarNova]

10 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

There will be no change to the law required. They're not going to create a new classification just for Lootboxes, they're going to reclassify them so existing laws will apply to them.

 

They will be classed as gambling in the same way as slot machines are currently.

Yes i know ..sorry i see now i didnt phrase that well.

 

What i mean is, it will depend on the phrasing of what they 'add' to the existing law.

If they literally just add 'lootboxes' to the classification then publisher will just change the name.

If they classify anything that 'is chance based', publisher will just sell boxes with set contents of which the buyer does not know whats in them. You can buy 10 of them and all 10 will have the exact same contents, but they will just sell 100 different boxes separately ..or some other BS workaround.

 

They have to be very specific and very thorough.

 

I fully expect the next big problem to be a massive upswing in the prevalence of standard MTXs in games... to even more ridiculous levels than what we already see. That will need to be the next thing regulated.

[Kisai]

4 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Yes i know ..sorry i see now i didnt phrase that well.

 

What i mean is, it will depend on the phrasing of what they 'add' to the existing law.

If they literally just add 'lootboxes' to the classification then publisher will just change the name.

If they classify anything that 'is chance based', publisher will just sell boxes with set contents of which the buyer does not know whats in them. You can buy 10 of them and all 10 will have the exact same contents, but they will just sell 100 different boxes separately ..or some other BS workaround.

 

They have to be very specific and very thorough.

 

It will probably just classify digital Lootbox and Gachapon mechanics as being "any game of chance where the prize is not known in advance" That put's it closer in scope to a UFO catcher machine than a scratch ticket/one-armed-bandit where the odds and payouts are known, but they're always small prizes, the chance of a large prize is basically nil unless you buy all the tickets.

 

Gacha games have been sidestepping this by listing the chance of winning, but then having like a "gauranteed win" after 100 boxes, which might still be a duplicate of something you have. The only way to keep it fair is to have a winners list public with a realtime "chance of winning" so you know exactly how often the thing you want is handed out.

 

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, SolarNova said:

Yes i know ..sorry i see now i didnt phrase that well.

 

What i mean is, it will depend on the phrasing of what they 'add' to the existing law.

If they literally just add 'lootboxes' to the classification then publisher will just change the name.

If they classify anything that 'is chance based', publisher will just sell boxes with set contents of which the buyer does not know whats in them. You can buy 10 of them and all 10 will have the exact same contents, but they will just sell 100 different boxes separately ..or some other BS workaround.

 

They have to be very specific and very thorough.

Yeah, I see your point and I totally agree with it but in this instance I feel like we've already gone beyond that point. Most sensible publishers have already abandoned paid Lootboxes, those that remain only do so because it wasn't strictly forbidden. Belgium and Holland already took similar steps to the UK months ago, now its happened here I would expect more countries to begin announcing changes to their own rules.

 

At this point EA & 2K have to realise the fight is lost.

 

The answer is Shark Cards. They cannot be classified as games of chance since you're paying for a guaranteed amount of in game cash.

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Yeah, I see your point and I totally agree with it but in this instance I feel like we've already gone beyond that point. Most sensible publishers have already abandoned paid Lootboxes, those that remain only do so because it wasn't strictly forbidden. Belgium and Holland already took similar steps to the UK months ago, now its happened here I would expect more countries to begin announcing changes to their own rules.

 

At this point EA & 2K have to realise the fight is lost.

 

The answer is Shark Cards. They cannot be classified as games of chance since you're paying for a guaranteed amount of in game cash.

 

I think it's pretty simple, if the actual value of an unknown product varies by more than a few % of what you pay for it then it is gambling.  This gives people the chance to lucky dip for game skins etc and all the game dev's have to do is ensure everyone gets their monies worth out of it.   If you know you can't make more money from your loot box than what you paid or you can buy those contents outright from a store for the same price then it is not gambling.

[Franck]

That mean it the end of every Trading Card Game, monthly subscription loot crate, Bazooka Joe bubblegum, Kinder surprise chocolate ?

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Franck said:

That mean it the end of every Trading Card Game, monthly subscription loot crate, Bazooka Joe bubblegum, Kinder surprise chocolate ?

If they are chance based and you can gain monetary value from the chance then likely yes.  But it depends on if the government actually act on it or not.

 

 

[KaitouX]

My biggest issue with gacha/loot boxes in games is the fact that I can neither buy directly the item with in-game/real money or trade for it with other players, usually at best you get bonuses for duplicates or number of draws but they are often really badly balanced to make harder to get the items.

I wouldn't mind the gambling as much if it was an option and not a requirement to get the items, for example if 10 rolls on the gacha costs 3000 in-game currency, I would like to get the option to buy the item I want for 2000~5000 depending on the rarity. I had a really bad experience with gambling with games that even after getting over 100 rolls(farmed them, didn't buy it), I still wasn't able to get the one i wanted, and the bonus for rolling a lot which in this case would be the ability to choose the drop you get, needed over 300 rolls and that I believe I calculated it would cost $750+, as the ~100 rolls I did were equivalent to something around $250.

[Thaldor]

56 minutes ago, mr moose said:

They're not loot boxes anyway, they are surprise murchanics.  

"It's not stealing your cars tires, it's..."

 

I can't get enough of that joke (Thank god for Jim Sterling)

 

But for real, not a surprise that yet another country finds out that lootboxes (currently in their usual form) are gambling. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some countries with more insight would find the other gambling aspects of modern games gambling ("premium currency" aka. currency only available with real money or from small faucets are the same as chips in casinos and serve the exact same purpose as chips in casinos, ask any game monetization designer or just game designer; hiding the winning chances; daily "gifts"; pestering notifications about almost everything). Gaming industry's "self-regulation" is a joke on so many levels that no one really knows anymore where it started and who started it and why no one is doing anything about it and who even should be doing something for it (like on so many levels, not only topic related but like unionization is highly banned for devs (apart from IGDA which, well let's just say that when Star Wars: Walletfront 2 fiasco started reacted first by keeping "round-table meeting" at GDC with a topic something like "Governments looking to limit creative freedom: Game Monetization and gambling laws") and finding loopholes from every law regulating something is the favorite past time activity, also "what copyright? it's not a copyright infringement, it's just a ripoff").

 

Where the line is drawn will be seen and how other countries will follow one can only speculate. I kind of hope they will put game industry in a tight spot to really start doing things more morally correct and really think again ages old "habits" but at the same time give some slack so there is still possibilities. Like on the case of lootboxes: developers or selling platforms couldn't put up user markets but they could tier their "lootboxes", which would be more like random collection of items sold with microtransactions, everything they include could be bought individually with the same price as in the lootbox (as in if there were 10 swords that cost 1X/piece, 10 shields costing 2X/piece and 10 armors costing 5X/piece, the lootbox could cost like 8X and would include one from each pools guaranteed that player won't get duplicates before having every possible item) and as so it would be clearly told what the lootbox includes (not specifically, but clearly that it includes 1 sword, 1 shield and 1 armor, no duplicates).

This is also kind of how trading card games do things (at least what I remember from playing MtG and collecting Pokemon cards). At least in Finland WotC doesn't uphold any "official" card trading and packs included X amount of cards from different "rarity" pools with certain things guaranteed (like you cannot get full pack of MtG lands if you don't specifically buy land only pack and the normal small pack includes certain amount of common cards with couple uncommon and one or two rarer cards; I haven't really looked this up and be free to correct me but the point is that the pack is far away from completely random).

It is completely possible to make lootboxes a good thing, something that isn't gambling but more a variety pack kind of thing. But trust game devs to do something like that and most of them will find ways to abuse the fuck out of that too, you can trust them on that if there isn't more strict monitoring on the matter.

[Doobeedoo]

I mean they are. Personally I don't have appeal for them at all in few games I play and they have them. I just don't care, most cosmetics are trash or in general need to be bought directly for insane price. That's insulting. 

[Kisai]

17 hours ago, Franck said:

That mean it the end of every Trading Card Game, monthly subscription loot crate, Bazooka Joe bubblegum, Kinder surprise chocolate ?

There's a fundamental difference between physical prizes in physical products (eg UFO Catcher games, where the machine is simply rigged to screw with you, or the operator packs the prizes in so hard the claw can't pick one up.) In UFO Catchers, you know exactly what prizes are in it, so you won't play it without knowing the prize you want is there. It's a game of chance, but it's not gambling. In Kinder eggs, Gacha(Capsule machines), and Bazooka Joe gum, the prizes are known but the one you get is the next one in line unless you get to weigh all the ones in the store (which you can actually kinda do if you take a bunch from where they're displayed to the scales in the bulk food department) and somehow know what the weight is in advance.

 

With digital gacha/lootboxes, even one-arm bandit and scratch tickets, the prizes that can be handed out are unlimited and the RNG just decides how often to hand out that prize so the operator doesn't lose money. So with scratch tickets, if a ticket costs $1, and the chances of winning the grand prize of $50,000 is one in 100,000, then they have to purposely print 50,000 tickets with no winner so they recoup the cost of the grand prize. Like no lottery is ever a loss for the operator.

 

So if gacha/lootboxes are setup to never give the "good" items until you've spent $100, that's exactly what they can program into it. I've seen this kind of thing with the game I'm playing right now where every 100th pull is a guaranteed 4* prize, but you can also get a 4* between the first and 99th pull, which rarely happens. I've had to hit the 100th pull at least 90% of the time, which means that if I were paying money for the game it would cost me $250 in premium currency per 4* win. By any account that's not even in the same price tier as a typical scratcher or casino game which would be a more typical $1 per try unless you're doing a high-stakes table game.

[porina]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

unless you get to weigh all the ones in the store (which you can actually kinda do if you take a bunch from where they're displayed to the scales in the bulk food department) and somehow know what the weight is in advance.

I've bought some Japanese collectable figures a while back. I found it interesting in some of them, there was a small plastic weight. Presumably put in there to foil such attempts. I didn't measure to see if all the variations were the same weight, or if it might have just been a randomising factor. I still have boxes of these unopened so I could still do it if I ever get the motivation...

[SolarNova]

4 hours ago, porina said:

I've bought some Japanese collectable figures a while back. I found it interesting in some of them, there was a small plastic weight. Presumably put in there to foil such attempts. I didn't measure to see if all the variations were the same weight, or if it might have just been a randomising factor. I still have boxes of these unopened so I could still do it if I ever get the motivation...

Nendoroids / Nendoroid petites ?

 

[GumblesGrambles]

The idea that its "indefensible" is based on gamers having no sense of self control

 

 

You know what else can harm your life?  Gaming in general, how about we regulate it even further, you have too many games, how about we limit that.  I could go on.  and as said, card games are games of chance.  The people complaining generally didn't know what they were complaining about, their idea of "unfair" was like a childs.  If its pay to win, don't play, why would you do that to yourself. If its pay for cosmetics, why be envious at digital vanity, the problem isn't with the companies, its with the people who can't control themselves.

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, GumblesGrambles said:

The idea that its "indefensible" is based on gamers having no sense of self control

 

 

You know what else can harm your life?  Gaming in general, how about we regulate it even further, you have too many games, how about we limit that.  I could go on.  and as said, card games are games of chance.  The people complaining generally didn't know what they were complaining about, their idea of "unfair" was like a childs.  If its pay to win, don't play, why would you do that to yourself. If its pay for cosmetics, why be envious at digital vanity, the problem isn't with the companies, its with the people who can't control themselves.

And I suppose we should also let people with mental health issues commit suicide, or people with anger management issues murder people etc etc. Gambling addiction is very real and its just as much of an issue as sexual disorders, personality disorders, drug abuse and anger management disorders. The people suffering from gambling addiction are not only ready to "do that to themselves" but they're willing to lose EVERYTHING they own in the process. Its ironic you say other peoples beliefs are childish when the TLDR of your post is "well I don't suffer from this problem therefore its not really a problem and anybody who says it is a problem only has themselves to blame".

 

On the whole card game subject, if you're talking about MtG & Pokemon type collectable cards then that argument doesn't even pass zoom level one on the microscope. When you buy a pack of cards you're receiving a tangible product, it exists and it has a resale value. You're guaranteed to get something for your money. Digital items don't exist in the real world, they have to real world value and anybody with an addiction can easily pump all of their money into a video game and walk away with literally nothing to show for it.

[Kisai]

15 hours ago, GumblesGrambles said:

The idea that its "indefensible" is based on gamers having no sense of self control

 

 

You know what else can harm your life?  Gaming in general, how about we regulate it even further, you have too many games, how about we limit that.  I could go on.  and as said, card games are games of chance.  The people complaining generally didn't know what they were complaining about, their idea of "unfair" was like a childs.  If its pay to win, don't play, why would you do that to yourself. If its pay for cosmetics, why be envious at digital vanity, the problem isn't with the companies, its with the people who can't control themselves.

This is not a good post.

 

Swap "gaming" with "drug use", and re-read it. There are actual processes that go on in the brain that affect the reward center. You can't tell a drug addict to stop using drugs any more than you can stop someone with tattoos from getting more tattoos. There is an addiction to the process once you start. With gaming and gambling, it lights up the same part of the brain, and that's why slot machines do what they do, and why loot boxes do the same thing. It gives you that antipation of a reward and then snatches it away from you, so you keep playing. With gambling addiction, the gambler is constantly going "Oh, I can just make it back" so they keep going. With loot boxes it's the exact same thing, and sooner or later they've spent $10,000 on nothing tangible. They would have wound up with the exact same thing by lighting $10,000 on fire, but that's not as fun to do.

 

People can become addicted to problematic behaviors, and just because it's not recognized as one because of legislation doesn't specifically call it out, does not mean that it doesn't exist. Gambling, drinking, tobacco and cannabis use are all regulated to adults because children lack the self-control to stop, but we mistakenly believe that as soon as they turn 19 or 21 they are all magically in control of all their functions. Anyone who has ever spoken to a kid who has done any underage activity will tell you you they did it because it was forbidden, a law isn't going to stop anyone from doing it themselves, but it will prevent the marketing and sales directly to them. 

 

And that's all that regulation of lootboxes aims to do. Get it out of kids hands. To actually go any further requires that game publishers pay into anti-addiction funds that casinos already pay into to operate, and that's going to be fun to see get regulated, given how long many digital services weren't paying taxes. It may very well encourage game developers to excise these abusive practices from the games entirely so they don't have to pay.

 

[Delicieuxz]

Jim Sterling's video on the news.

 

 

[Trik'Stari]

On 7/2/2020 at 11:51 AM, huilun02 said:

Which is useless because gambling can be legalized. They just want the taxes

 

The end result will be effectively no change for consumers, and government pinches money from game publishers

 

A new cow to milk like Google and Facebook...

And the price of lootboxes will go up a disproportionate amount.

[Mark Kaine]

 

 

So, errr, what happened to "immediate reclassification" btw???

[narrdarr]

I think paying for lootbox should just be banned all together. It's fine as a reward system I guess. But that will get turned into a loophole. So just get rid of them.

[SolarNova]

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

 

So, errr, what happened to "immediate reclassification" btw???

"immediate" ..in UK politics (or any for that matter) is ...variable... to say the least.

[spartaman64]

some people are missing the point. the problem is children play games and they dont have the same impulse control as adults. this is why children are not allowed to gamble.