US Senate Against Lootboxes and Pay2Win Micro-Transactions

[Drak3]

3 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

know that most people don't agree with you.

False. Most people don't care.

 

3 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

The biggest reason they want it banned is to protect the kids, which is fine.

It's not government's job to make up for bad parenting.

 

4 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

but then we should regulate who is allowed to have kids and everything that comes with parenting and regulating that is a LOT more difficult and sensitive people don't even want to talk about it. Let alone create laws about it.

No, we shouldn't. It is simply tyrannical and evil to use government to remove personal choice.

[Thaldor]

29 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Because it's blatant government overreach.

Is it also government overreach when they highly regulate casinos and make them pay extra taxes because they are casinos? Why should it be any different with games that use exactly same tactics as casinos to milk money out of people?

[samcool55]

21 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

It's not government's job to make up for bad parenting.

So what you say is that kids that get that physically, emotionally or sexually abused shouldn't get any help because it's not the governments job to do something about it because you know, why take care of kids? It's up to the parents and if they do something bad, what even is bad? who cares right?

 

I'm really happy the gov here DOES do something about bad parents but if you don't agree, that's fine.

[Tristerin]

Me: Why do people need a Federal Government to mandate they are not allowed to do something, rather than having some self control.  From my perspective if someone wants to take their amassed wealth (or lack thereof) and spend it however they want to - its not my problem, but is their bed to sleep in. Why do people think its OKAY to try to hem up someones ability to make money over a digital creation, using the strong arm of the Federal Government and SOCIETIES DEFINED CURRENT MORALITIES (see also, Slavery) to make something illegal.

 

Its capitalism, stop spending your rent money on entertainment hmmm?

 

If Society decided tomorrow that Gambling was the next Holy Grail of how to Get to Heaven - this wouldn't even be brought up by a Government.  In fact, Government would try to find a way to sell Loot boxes then.

[Tristerin]

As a Missourian, gamer, and Patriot - I will oppose this bill vehemently.

[Drak3]

23 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Is it also government overreach when they highly regulate casinos and make them pay extra taxes because they are casinos? 

Yes.

 

13 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

So what you say is that kids that get that physically, emotionally or sexually abused shouldn't get any help because it's not the governments job to do something about it because you know, why take care of kids? 

1. Strawman.
2. It's not government's job to prevent people from hurting themselves.

 

10 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Why do people need a Federal Government to mandate they are not allowed to do something, rather than having some self control

Because that requires self control, obviously.

 

/s

[Sorenson]

This shouldn't be a congressional issue since the ESRB exists. I think having paid loot boxes should just be an automatic M rating. 

[Nowak]

3 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

This shouldn't be a congressional issue since the ESRB exists. I think having paid loot boxes should just be an automatic M rating. 

The ESA and, by extension, ESRB has sided with the industry. Unsurprisingly.

[Drak3]

4 minutes ago, Nowak said:

The ESA and, by extension, ESRB has sided with the industry. Unsurprisingly.

Good. The government has no legitimate right to strip citizens of their economic power over issues of personal responsibility.

[Tristerin]

3 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Good. The government has no legitimate right to strip citizens of their economic power over issues of personal responsibility.

 

Ill march around Jeff City with my AR strapped to my back, Sig strapped to my thigh (yes I am one of those guys) with a sign if I have to!  Im a Patriot, and its what we do.

 

EDIT (its what Patriots do today, a few hundred years ago it was different.)

[Thaldor]

3 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

This shouldn't be a congressional issue since the ESRB exists. I think having paid loot boxes should just be an automatic M rating. 

ESBR and other similar instances were gaming industrys self-regulation attempt that failed quite a long time ago mostly because they are not forced and mostly the checks are made randomly (every game is rated by it's developer but not every game is checked if they are correctly rated).

16 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Me: Why do people need a Federal Government to mandate they are not allowed to do something, rather than having some self control.  From my perspective if someone wants to take their amassed wealth (or lack thereof) and spend it however they want to - its not my problem, but is their bed to sleep in. Why do people think its OKAY to try to hem up someones ability to make money over a digital creation, using the strong arm of the Federal Government and SOCIETIES DEFINED CURRENT MORALITIES (see also, Slavery) to make something illegal.

 

Its capitalism, stop spending your rent money on entertainment hmmm?

 

If Society decided tomorrow that Gambling was the next Holy Grail of how to Get to Heaven - this wouldn't even be brought up by a Government.  In fact, Government would try to find a way to sell Loot boxes then.

Mainly the same reasons why gambling is heavily regulated and taxed. It's very damaging for the society and really doesn't bring any positives to the table. You would probably be surprised how easy it would be for casinos to get most of the minors hooked into spending every last dime of their allowances to them and not even any kind of parenting would stop it because peer pressure and other social reasons. Gaming companies have tried the lines a long time starting with premium currencies (called "chips" in casinos,the second currency you buy with real money) which only reason to exist is to obscure the use of real money in the game and it's almost 1:1 copy from casinos except they are not forced to use 1:1 scale with the premium currency (1$=1gem, gaming companies can go with anything 100 gems for 1$ and whatever which only obscures the use of real money even more). Lootboxes just were the one thing that cracked the camels back and brought it to light how badly ESRB and PEGI failed.

(Not to even mention that almost every country taxes gambling quite harshly and gaming companies just slip through it.)

 

And I mean it's fucking stupidly easy how you can actually get people spent more money and they don't even understand how much they use, no matter how smart or educated they are. Simple things: use quite annoying animations which play faster with bigger bets and seem as annoying as possible with the lowest bets and BEHOLD most of the players up their bets; use HUUGE numbers, player wins in millions and they go into ecstacy and in a while they won't remember that that billion leafs you gave them are actually worth 0.0000000000001$, connect to this some small mini games that seem to cost fortunes and players use all those leafs and probably want more and then sell them leafs with very bad rates like 100 leafs for 99 cents. These and many more sound quite stupid, but when they are correctly implemented, they are extremely powerful strategies especialy against minors and that's why they are banned in gambling use in many countries.

[Nowak]

13 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Good. The government has no legitimate right to strip citizens of their economic power over issues of personal responsibility.

The ESA is a private corporation, my dude.

 

Also, you don't seem to understand how intentionally psychologically manipulative lootboxes are. You don't have to buy them, yes, but the way how they're designed, to try appealing to human euphoric emotions with fancy animations and the possibility that you might win this thing you want, they tempt you to buy them again and again for the remote possibility that you will win this thing.

 

You ever hear of "whales"? People with zero impulse control? Lootboxes prey on those types. That's what's causing the controversy. Are you saying that you want game companies to prey on these people, because "muh gubmint overreach"? Sorry, but your anecdotal evidence of lootboxes not being manipulative because you have impulse control doesn't stack up to the mounds of evidence that state the complete opposite.

[Sorenson]

1 minute ago, Thaldor said:

And I mean it's fucking stupidly easy how you can actually get people spent more money and they don't even understand how much they use, no matter how smart or educated they are. Simple things: use quite annoying animations which play faster with bigger bets and seem as annoying as possible with the lowest bets and BEHOLD most of the players up their bets; use HUUGE numbers, player wins in millions and they go into ecstacy and in a while they won't remember that that billion leafs you gave them are actually worth 0.0000000000001$, connect to this some small mini games that seem to cost fortunes and players use all those leafs and probably want more and then sell them leafs with very bad rates like 100 leafs for 99 cents. These and many more sound quite stupid, but when they are correctly implemented, they are extremely powerful strategies especialy against minors and that's why they are banned in gambling use in many countries.

How much have you spent on loot boxes? I mean is this really an epidemic? In the past 5 years i've spent probably 40$ on hearthstone cards. Are we going to ban those loot boxes? Can children no longer buy trading card packs because its "gambling"? 

 

This is an issue of liberty. You say the government needs to pass a law that says game developers can't have loot boxes in their games. Well then what happens to games like Xenoblade 2 were a random chance loot is at the core of gameplay. I agree loot boxes are annoying, but getting rid of them won't solve anything. Developers will just find another way of monetizing their games. 

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, Nowak said:

mounds of evidence that state the complete opposite.

That "mounds of evidence" is that a minority of people lack impulse control.

 

And I don't stand by fucking over a majority just because a small minority can't control themselves.

 

[Nowak]

4 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

That "mounds of evidence" is that a minority of people lack impulse control.

 

And I don't stand by fucking over a majority just because a small minority can't control themselves.

Okay, so how about if I bring up this game, Amazing World.

 

 

This game has since shut down, but this is a game explicitly targeted at children... and it was full of microtransactions and RNG mechanics, and even has free attempts at RNG-based minigames to try roping children into taking their parents' credit card and getting the family into debt because they wanted a specific thing but didn't get it in the free attempts, as well as a premium membership option. Is this okay? Because this is what the senator's bill is specifically targeting, games like this.

 

Is this okay?

[Sky Spark]

6 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

And I don't stand by fucking over a majority just because a small minority can't control themselves.

 

It's not a small minority, it's a large number, EA made millions from pay to win loot boxes in Battlefront 2 and FIFA.

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, Nowak said:

This game has since shut down, but this is a game explicitly targeted at children... and it was full of microtransactions and RNG mechanics, and even has free attempts at RNG-based minigames to try roping children into taking their parents' credit card and getting the family into debt because they wanted a specific thing but didn't get it in the free attempts, as well as a premium membership option. Is this okay? Because this is what the senator's bill is specifically targeting, games like this.

 

Is this okay?

No, still not the job of the government to deny the economic sovernty of citizens.

 

It is a failing of parents, and individuals, that they allow this to happen. Failings that do not affect the rest of us.

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, Celli said:

It's not a small minority, it's a large number, EA made millions from pay to win loot boxes in Battlefront 2 and FIFA.

It's a small minority.

 

It doesn't take much per person to make millions if you have a player base of millions.

[Sky Spark]

4 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

No, still not the job of the government to deny the economic sovernty of citizens.

 

It is a failing of parents, and individuals, that they allow this to happen. Failings that do not affect the rest of us.

"b-but muh gubmint overreach" Should the government not have any sort of regulating power?

[Nowak]

5 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

No, still not the job of the government to deny the economic sovernty of citizens.

 

It is a failing of parents, and individuals, that they allow this to happen. Failings that do not affect the rest of us.

And do you just expect the industry to stop preying on the "whales" because a few people complain about excessive grind in games that is "resolved" by buying a "few" lootboxes?

Because the answer is no. They're just gonna keep chasing unsustainable profits at the cost of peoples' psychological reactions to things unless something happens.

[JAKEBAB]

1 hour ago, Princess Luna said:

Yes? I always played CoD for the single player campaign which become worsen and worsen until there was no more SP campaign at all because gotta keep making Battle Royal with a shot load of loot boxes and micro transactions to profit from nowadays children.

 

I really miss the old times money was made by making a good game and not an elaborated gambling system that targets children's tendency to get addicted.

Lol COD will just flood the store with $15 weapons and skins then. At least with loot boxes we had a chance of getting stuff for "free".

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, Celli said:

Should the government not have any sort of regulating power?

They should have very limited power. This is a gross overstep.

 

3 minutes ago, Celli said:

b-but muh gubmint overreach

Nice attempt at character assassination.

[ThePD]

There are people who brag about how much they have spent on microtransactions. I heard this first hand on Apex Legends when my teammates were both bragging about spending hundreds on weapon skins. The game had been out for 4 days at that time.

It is absolutely a minority of people who are spending money irrationally. Those people are the reason the game I am playing is free. I love the whales, let them pay for my game. Also, it is complete government overreach.

[Drak3]

3 minutes ago, Nowak said:

And do you just expect the industry to stop preying on the "whales" because a few people complain about excessive grind in games that is "resolved" by buying a "few" lootboxes?

Because the answer is no. They're just gonna keep chasing unsustainable profits at the cost of peoples' psychological reactions to things unless something happens.

That's not the concern or problem of government, or me.

 

Personal responsibility. Consequence. These are inescapable, no matyer how one tries to make society pay for their personal problems.

[Sky Spark]

5 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

They should have very limited power. This is a gross overstep.

 

Well guess what, if it passes you're going to have to deal with it.