Loot boxes in Heroes of the Storm & Overwatch will be partially removed in Belgium due to regulations

[ItsMitch]

S: Blizzard 

Heroes of the Storm (MOBA) and Overwatch will have their loot boxes stripped in Belgium in order to comply with Belgium's new regulations around gambling. The ruling was endorsed by the Belgium Ministry of Justice. Blizzard has since responded in a statement on their community forums, community manager Vaneras stated the following: 

 

Quote

In April 2018, the Belgian Gaming Commission published a report that was endorsed by the Belgian Ministry of Justice in which they concluded that paid loot boxes in Overwatch are considered gambling under local law. While we at Blizzard were surprised by this conclusion and do not share the same opinion, we have decided to comply with their interpretation of Belgian law. As a result, we have no choice but to implement measures that will prevent Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm players located in Belgium from purchasing in-game loot boxes and loot chests with real money and gems.

 

No matter what, we want to make sure that our players around the world have the best entertainment experience possible. While players in Belgium will no longer be able to purchase paid loot boxes in Overwatch and loot chests in Heroes of the Storm, they’ll still be able to earn them by playing the games, and they’ll still have access to all in-game content.

 

These measures will be implemented shortly. We also remain open to further discussions with the Belgian Gaming Commission and Ministry of Justice on this topic.

 

Heroes of the Storm players in Belgium will still be able to earn loot boxes via leveling characters, completing ARAM brawls, etc, they will not be able to purchase loot boxes via the Gems system. 

 

Since I play Heroes almost religiously I'm happy with this change for Belgium players, I just want this whole loot box thing stripped from the game completely and let us pay via Shards, fuck paying with actual cash to buy stimpacks, pah

[Techstorm970]

I mean, in the case of Overwatch, the things you get in the loot boxes add nothing significant to the gameplay.  You get skins, catchphrases, logos...it's all cosmetic!  I honestly don't really care...if people want to waste their money on something like that, then just let them.

[samcool55]

Oh good, I'm wondering what the effect of this will be in Belgium compared to other regions.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

For reference, here is the topic from back then :

 

 

[ARikozuM]

I’m glad that we’re tackling this lootbox trend faster than I would have thought. I don’t mind boxes being in the game (I like how Siege does it), but the game needs to have paid options rather than probability.

[Drak3]

18 minutes ago, The White Lady said:

It's not about whether they impact gameplay or not, it's about gambling. They are gambling. You can get the same experience as a slot machine with those overwatch boxes.

"I want that one Dva skin!"

Spend 50 dollars, never get the Dva skin.

If you're burning huge amounts of money that you cannot afford on games, you just get what you deserve 

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, The White Lady said:

For some people it's an actual problem, though. Compulsive types who spend thousands of dollars on this stuff are getting taken advantage of by game publishers - it needs to be stopped or restricted one way or another.

Why should we be punished for the failings of the few. Bar them specifically if you want, don't punish those of us that like lootboxes.

[PlayStation 2]

Crates and cases in Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive were disabled from being used with their respective keys in the Netherlands (and, I think Belgium) like a month ago, so this is probably Blizzard's effort in this.

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, The White Lady said:

DRABLY OLIVE IS THE BEST COLOR

well it's true

[ScratchCat]

4 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

well it's true

Mmmmpfhhh!!!

[Franck]

This whole thing technically make a ton load of android games illegal. I would say from those i play at least 9 out 10 has random payable "loot box style"

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, ScratchCat said:

Mmmmpfhhh!!!

[earrape domination cue]

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, The White Lady said:

It's not about whether they impact gameplay or not, it's about gambling. They are gambling. You can get the same experience as a slot machine with those overwatch boxes.

"I want that one Dva skin!"

Spend 50 dollars, never get the Dva skin.

You would get enough gold to buy the skin with 50 dollars worth of lootboxes. 

[Brooksie359]

6 hours ago, The White Lady said:

For some people it's an actual problem, though. Compulsive types who spend thousands of dollars on this stuff are getting taken advantage of by game publishers - it needs to be stopped or restricted one way or another.

Compulsive buyers would still spend a ton of money on the microtransactions regardless if it is of the lootbox type. You can't prevent this type of behavior by trying to banning lootboxes. 

 

5 hours ago, The White Lady said:

So how is that preferable to just buying the skin you want for a fixed price? $5 vs $50. 

Who says the price would be $5? Obviously the 5 dollar option would be preferable but the fact is nobody knows what the cost would be. 

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, The White Lady said:

You can't charge more than $5 for a skin or you're a dick, but even if they charge $12 for a skin it's guaranteed. No gambling. Stop speaking to me you are too basic.

League of legends charges up to 25 dollars for a skin and their legendary skins cost 15 dollars. Most people want the legendary overwatch skins so the price would probably be similar. The cost of the overwatch league skins which are simple color changes to the original skins are 10 dollars a pop and the special skins they released for the world cup are 20 dollars a peice. The charity mercy skin was 15 dollars. All evidence would point to the skins cost more than 5 dollars so I think you are the moron here. 

[Brooksie359]

8 minutes ago, The White Lady said:

If they SOLD what you WANTED and you didn't have to rely on RNG to get it then nobody would spend THOUSANDS. They could get the SKIN or WHATEVER for a set PRICE that was reasonable, and not get SCAMMED out of their FUCKING money. 

You following this real base logic right now or not.?

You do understand how compulsive buying works right? As someone who had a family member who had issues with compulsive buying I would say you are very much wrong about that. They buy things because the like the act of it more than wanting the actual product. I think you don't understand how addiction works. 

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, The White Lady said:

If you're playing LoL you're already a proven autist and braindead heathen so you deserve your losses. Stop messaging me dad, I came here to talk to cool kids.

Just ignore the fact that overwatch already sells skins for fixed prices that range from 10 dollars for basic ones and 20 dollars for the best ones. How about you don't call people morons on the internet when you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. 

 

5 hours ago, The White Lady said:

Spend 50 dollars trying to get the skin I want from a lootbox.

Spend 36 bucks and get the exact 3 skins I want without being played by knowingly manipulative publisher gambling schemes.

You are the most hypocritical person I have her met. You say that this is good because it helps people suffering from a serious condition and yet when confronted with the fact that people with the actual condition need other forms of help you proceed to insult them? Don't go talking about how you think this is good for helping people when you clearly could care less. If you want to discuss the actual topic the go ahead but if you just want to start calling people names then you should get out of here. This forum is for disscusion not to start fights with other people on the internet. 

[DarkBlade2117]

2 hours ago, The White Lady said:

It's not about whether they impact gameplay or not, it's about gambling. They are gambling. You can get the same experience as a slot machine with those overwatch boxes.

"I want that one Dva skin!"

Spend 50 dollars, never get the Dva skin.

As much as it is bad, we need to enforce it on games that people actually sink life savings into. OW I feel no significant need to open boxes, selling an account can get you banned, You can't sell any of them for money, get duplicates until you own like 80% of the items. People target the fuck out of OW but it's not even half as bad as fucking PUBG, CS and other games. PUBG... one item was like a 0.000014% chance to get or something dumb like that. Even in Rocket League, the rarest items to get now are like 0.001% which is bad, but not as bad as PUBG. These other games where you have to chance to buy and sell the items for real money is where gambling comes into play. I'm not saying we ignore OW, but we need to take a step towards making them better first. Obliterating them just will not happen overnight.

[Brooksie359]

17 minutes ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

As much as it is bad, we need to enforce it on games that people actually sink life savings into. OW I feel no significant need to open boxes, selling an account can get you banned, You can't sell any of them for money, get duplicates until you own like 80% of the items. People target the fuck out of OW but it's not even half as bad as fucking PUBG, CS and other games. PUBG... one item was like a 0.000014% chance to get or something dumb like that. Even in Rocket League, the rarest items to get now are like 0.001% which is bad, but not as bad as PUBG. These other games where you have to chance to buy and sell the items for real money is where gambling comes into play. I'm not saying we ignore OW, but we need to take a step towards making them better first. Obliterating them just will not happen overnight.

Overwatch also reduced the chance of duplicates by a good amount as well making duplicates quite uncommon until you have the majority of the skins. 

[thorhammerz]

42 minutes ago, The White Lady said:

If they SOLD what you WANTED and you didn't have to rely on RNG to get it then nobody would spend THOUSANDS. They could get the SKIN or WHATEVER for a set PRICE that was reasonable, and not get SCAMMED out of their FUCKING money. 

 

Isn't that the point of loot-boxes? To induce the poor, poor gamers on spending (much, much) more than they otherwise would? 

Great for profits, not-so-great for whomever those profits are coming from .

[Brooksie359]

4 minutes ago, thorhammerz said:

Isn't that the point of loot-boxes? To induce the poor, poor gamers on spending (much, much) more than they otherwise would? 

Great for profits, not-so-great for whomever those profits are coming from .

Say I want 3 legendary skins on overwatch. That would likely cost me 45 dollars if they priced it at 15 per skins based on the pricing of their other skins. Now if I buy 40 dollars worth of loot boxes I will get 3 legendary skins easily as well as other things and gold. So I wouldn't say it's as much of a pure money grab as you make it out to be. 

[Muffin_man17]

2 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Say I want 3 legendary skins on overwatch. That would likely cost me 45 dollars if they priced it at 15 per skins based on the pricing of their other skins. Now if I buy 40 dollars worth of loot boxes I will get 3 legendary skins easily as well as other things and gold. So I wouldn't say it's as much of a pure money grab as you make it out to be. 

What game were you playing where you got all 3 skins you wanted in a single Lootbox?!

[thorhammerz]

8 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Say I want 3 legendary skins on overwatch. That would likely cost me 45 dollars if they priced it at 15 per skins based on the pricing of their other skins. Now if I buy 40 dollars worth of loot boxes I will get 3 legendary skins easily as well as other things and gold. So I wouldn't say it's as much of a pure money grab as you make it out to be. 

It's all about filling up the area-under-the-curve (someone remind me what the technical term for this is) when you want to extract the maximum amount of money each player is willing to pay - the more granular you make the payment options (cheaper lootboxes vs. more expensive direct-purchase items), the more efficiently you can extract. 

 

Suppose we have 3 consumers: player A is able to pay $20, player B $45, and player C $100 (for a total potential pool of $165), you want as much of each pool of money as you can get (which is to say, sell them lootboxes because probability dictates they'll probably have to buy quite a few), rather than charging a mere $15 from each (a meagre $45 of revenue, with $120 of untapped potential revenue).

[SolarNova]

One day i hope the rest of atleast the western world follows suit.

 

I have been against micro-transactions sicne they first infected western games years back, but now they have festered and grown to a point where they are even in what most would consider single player games, or atleast in games with limited multiplayer attributes.

 

Lootboxes are by far the worst offender within all micro-transactions however, as they are simply a slot machine, gambling, skirting around some countries laws and definitions by using ingame credits but which they themselve are brought with real cash.

 

In the end, I personaly think that while all micro-transaction are a cancer, the only form they ,imo, can ever be tollerable is if any and all items that can be bought via a MT, should also be obtainable ingame within a realistic timeframe without restrictions, be them limits or time sinks (i.e a limit to the amount of times u can farm somthing for a drop chance, or a limit to the amount of ingame currency u can 'convert' to MT currency, or time sinks that force non MT users to wait obscene amounts of time for somthing to build or some such).

 

If MT's have to exist, they should only be a time saving feature for those who have less free time to play and thus grind but have the real money to spend, whilst those who have the time can choose to grind it out within a reasonable time period and without restriction. it doesnt matter if its just cosmetic or not.

[Brooksie359]

4 hours ago, Muffin_man17 said:

What game were you playing where you got all 3 skins you wanted in a single Lootbox?!

40 dollars worth of loot boxes. Obviously no single loot box would contain 3 legendaries. 

 

4 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

It's all about filling up the area-under-the-curve (someone remind me what the technical term for this is) when you want to extract the maximum amount of money each player is willing to pay - the more granular you make the payment options (cheaper lootboxes vs. more expensive direct-purchase items), the more efficiently you can extract. 

 

Suppose we have 3 consumers: player A is able to pay $20, player B $45, and player C $100 (for a total potential pool of $165), you want as much of each pool of money as you can get (which is to say, sell them lootboxes because probability dictates they'll probably have to buy quite a few), rather than charging a mere $15 from each (a meagre $45 of revenue, with $120 of untapped potential revenue).

I think you are going under the assumption that the players want only one skin. If you only want one skin then yeah the single time fixed payment is better but if you want multiple skins then the loot box method is a good deal. I mean I usually pay 40 bucks and get all the legendaries I want save maybe 1 and I get enough gold to purchase that one legendary I wasn't lucky enough to get outright from the gold I got from the lootboxes. Is the system perfect? No but it isn't a ripoff either. 

 

4 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

It's all about filling up the area-under-the-curve (someone remind me what the technical term for this is) when you want to extract the maximum amount of money each player is willing to pay - the more granular you make the payment options (cheaper lootboxes vs. more expensive direct-purchase items), the more efficiently you can extract. 

 

Suppose we have 3 consumers: player A is able to pay $20, player B $45, and player C $100 (for a total potential pool of $165), you want as much of each pool of money as you can get (which is to say, sell them lootboxes because probability dictates they'll probably have to buy quite a few), rather than charging a mere $15 from each (a meagre $45 of revenue, with $120 of untapped potential revenue).

It's also important to note that you can get loot idea from simply playing the game. I don't think they would have a system to unlock skins without paying money if it went to a fixed payment system.