ESRB to slap on a "In Game Purchases" label to games with Microtransactions

[ItsMitch]

ESRB are now adding on "In Game Purchase" labels to their ratings to try and stem the intense criticism they've been receieving in wake of the fuck fest of Starwars Battlefront 2. 

Quote

 

The Entertainment Software Rating Board will begin labeling video games that contain in-game purchases, a response to lawmakers who have noticed the outcry over so-called loot crate systems and have signaled a willingness to legislate them.

The labeling will “be applied to games with in-game offers to purchase digital goods or premiums with real world currency,” the ESRB said in a news release this morning, “including but not limited to bonus levels, skins, surprise items (such as item packs, loot boxes, mystery awards), music, virtual coins and other forms of in-game currency, subscriptions, season passes and upgrades (e.g., to disable ads).”

The label will appear separate from the familiar ESRB rating label (T-for-Teen, M-for-Mature, etc.) and not inside it.

Additionally, the ESRB has begun an awareness campaign meant to highlight the controls available to parents whose households have a video game console

 

ESRB also posted on Twitter this little statement. Personally I'm still not satisfied with this, would be nice for more to be done. 

 

Quote

 

“We tried to find research on that,” Vance said, “but we were unable to find any evidence that children were specifically impacted by loot boxes, or that they were leading them toward some tendency to gambling. We truly don’t know of any evidence supporting those claims. We continue to believe loot boxes are a fun way to acquire virtual items; most of them are cosmetic. But they’re always earned and they’re always optional.”

 

ESRB trying to justify that "It's always optional" yeah that excuse can get fucked too in my eyes, people who struggle with gambling problems will say differently. 

[Hiitchy]

About time. ESRB needed to step up its game. 

[silberdrachi]

I want to see a legit study of parents with children who play games to see how many of them look at or care about them after say the age of 10. Just speaking from personal experience my parents cares a bunch when i was a kid, but later unless i was buying a M rated game they couldnt care less.

 

Just saying because i dont think this will cause any harm, but i think its kinda stupid and wont fix anything.

[Yoinkerman]

They expect that to be enough?  Lol I hope us legislators break them the way they deserve

[GoodBytes]

For those who don't know. ESRB is an association of game publishers. Fully. No government.

They are doing this, because they don't wants the government ban gambling in games and micro-transactions. So now, if it goes to court like it is in Hawaii, they can say "Now we have the ESRB informing parents about it, so if hey don't like it, they don't have the buy the game". Imagine if they actually used the term "Gambling" on a game rated "E - Everyone". Parents would freak out. So "in game purchase" is used. Nice.

 

Anyway, all to say that they are defending this massive revenue stream that the game publishers are enjoying from a governmental ban, when/if the whole topic about gambling in games and micro-transaction comes in court.

 

[Guest The Viking]

that's pure lazyness.

 

steam already tells you if it has in-app purchases and it still doesn't change anything, and, besides, does anybody really use the ratings? Pretty sure the average parent doesn't even check what their kids are doing at this point.

 

instead of ESRB we have PEGI, but same, nobody cares about it.

 

 

 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Let's be real, no one gave a pigs' arse about these ESRB ratings and warnings. How else do you have 9 year olds screaming on Call on Duty? It's not going to change anything. 

[Master Disaster]

17 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

For those who don't know. ESRB is an association of game publishers. Fully. No government.

They are doing this, because they don't wants the government ban gambling in games and micro-transactions. So now, if it goes to court like it is in Hawaii, they can say "Now we have the ESRB informing parents about it, so if hey don't like it, they don't have the buy the game". Imagine if they actually used the term "Gambling" on a game rated "E - Everyone". Parents would freak out. It is to hide it.

 

In other words, they are defending this massive revenue stream that the game publishers are enjoying, when/if it comes to court.

 

Exactly this, the ESRB was set up in the 90s in the wake of growing video game violence (some would say Night Trap but in truth it's a bit more complicated) by the publishers as a way of avoiding government legislation against violent video games.

 

Basically people kicked off, the US government threatened to legislate so the industry (actually mostly Sega at the time but within 2 years everyone else was onboard too) promised to self regulate and created the ESRB as a result. To be more accurate Sega created their own rating system first, shortly followed by Nintendo then within a year every major publisher had their own rating system so in the end they all say down together and agreed to create a ratings board that would rate all games by the same criteria hence allowing parents to know that the rating on a Sega game was equal to that of a Nintendo game etc.

 

This again is a reaction to the threat of government interference, it's basically the industry doing the bare minimum it thinks is required to protect its own interests. They're not going to call this gambling and they're going to do everything they can to stop governments from calling this gambling.

[Derangel]

Its a start but nowhere near enough. It is crazy that they're still beating the "its optional"drum after their moronic rep had that argument torn apart by Chris Lee. All this is going to do is make it seem like they don't care and are lazy. This can address things like microtransactions well enough but loot boxes are gambling and should fall under the ESRB gambling guidelines.

[FirstArmada]

See! The industry can regulate itself. Of course loot boxes don't need an extra warning on the label, and of course, the industry-funded rating board doesn't consider them to be gambling. They're way too profitable to be bad!

[Master Disaster]

Gonna drop this here, not because it says anything new on the subject per se but more because Jim's last thought in this video is spot on

 

 

With publishers pushing live services so hard what exactly is there to stop them from adding or changing the in app purchases after the ratings process is completed?

[bcredeur97]

ok cool.

it's not going to change anything... like the fact that WE ALL HATE THIS

[ItsMitch]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

Gonna drop this here, not because it says anything new on the subject per se but more because Jim's last thought in this video is spot on

 

I just linked that in the OP BibleThump

[Suika]

I'm not going to be content until I see games like Battlefront 2, that explicitly offer player advantages for those that shell out, rated as AO for promoting a form of P2W gambling. Purely cosmetic based lootboxes should sit at M at least, but I'm less worried about that.

[Froody129]

The thing is... not all in-game purchases are bad. I couldn't care less about skins that have no impact on gameplay (see CS) but then you start effectively locking away progression to the point where you basically can't play the content you paid $60 for (see Battlefront 2)

[Murasaki]

In-app purchases, contains ads.

[FirstArmada]

36 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Gonna drop this here, not because it says anything new on the subject per se but more because Jim's last thought in this video is spot on

 

 

With publishers pushing live services so hard what exactly is there to stop them from adding or changing the in app purchases after the ratings process is completed?

it is in OP's post?

[Ryujin2003]

1 hour ago, Suika said:

I'm not going to be content until I see games like Battlefront 2, that explicitly offer player advantages for those that shell out, rated as AO for promoting a form of P2W gambling. Purely cosmetic based lootboxes should sit at M at least, but I'm less worried about that.

I don't like the idea of reaching kids that they are better because they have money. It's freaking garbage. I agree with you completely.

 

2 hours ago, silberdrachi said:

I want to see a legit study of parents with children who play games to see how many of them look at or care about them after say the age of 10.

As with ESRB's statement on the lack of evidence in studies... Do you know how long those types of things take? Years. Today's what ESRB is counting on. You cannot show that children using Lootboxes links to other gambling issues until you have a large population over time. They don't have to worry about that for a bit.

 

I believe they majority of parents aren't aware of these things. I don't let my child play games with Lootboxes, and refuse to participate in then myself.

 

Unfortunately, I think the only change will picture at the federal level of forcing gambling taxes on videogames incorporating gambling mechanics. Casinos don't get away with it, but EA and Activision can.... For now...

[Dabombinable]

MX aren't always optional. In fact EA had to rework SWBFII because the games was designed around them.

[JuztBe]

 

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

Gonna drop this here, not because it says anything new on the subject per se but more because Jim's last thought in this video is spot on

 

 

With publishers pushing live services so hard what exactly is there to stop them from adding or changing the in app purchases after the ratings process is completed?

Nothing is stopping them. Not that it matters in any case. 
IMO this is move from ESRB side to get back government legislations from happening. If they can avoid that then they can deal with consumers without any problems - by ignoring them.

[Memories4K]

2 hours ago, Yoinkerman said:

They expect that to be enough?  Lol I hope us legislators break them the way they deserve

 

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

For those who don't know. ESRB is an association of game publishers. Fully. No government.

They are doing this, because they don't wants the government ban gambling in games and micro-transactions. So now, if it goes to court like it is in Hawaii, they can say "Now we have the ESRB informing parents about it, so if hey don't like it, they don't have the buy the game". Imagine if they actually used the term "Gambling" on a game rated "E - Everyone". Parents would freak out. So "in game purchase" is used. Nice.

While it'd be nice to see micro-transactions/in-game purchases that are similar to the case like SW:BattleFront 2 get banned, we have to be weary with making it law.
The legal system has a lot of nuances and, yes, this could permanently ban/heavily censor games that have gambling or open precedence for banning other "unsavory" content.

[PocketNerd]

They know for a fact that those labels are going to get ignored by kids AND parents alike, they know all this does is makes them appear to be doing something and the general public will lap it up as them doing so...

It's a meaningless gesture, and pisses me right the fuck off.

I may not have a true solution to the problem, mainly cause I don't think you can anything outside of outlawing the practice (and that would be ludicrous in of itself). But this is just worse than doing nothing at all.

[ravenshrike]

4 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

For those who don't know. ESRB is an association of game publishers. Fully. No government.

They are doing this, because they don't wants the government ban gambling in games and micro-transactions. So now, if it goes to court like it is in Hawaii, they can say "Now we have the ESRB informing parents about it, so if hey don't like it, they don't have the buy the game". Imagine if they actually used the term "Gambling" on a game rated "E - Everyone". Parents would freak out. So "in game purchase" is used. Nice.

 

 

3 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Exactly this, the ESRB was set up in the 90s in the wake of growing video game violence (some would say Night Trap but in truth it's a bit more complicated) by the publishers as a way of avoiding government legislation against violent video games.

 

Basically people kicked off, the US government threatened to legislate so the industry (actually mostly Sega at the time but within 2 years everyone else was onboard too) promised to self regulate and created the ESRB as a result. To be more accurate Sega created their own rating system first, shortly followed by Nintendo then within a year every major publisher had their own rating system so in the end they all say down together and agreed to create a ratings board that would rate all games by the same criteria hence allowing parents to know that the rating on a Sega game was equal to that of a Nintendo game etc.

 

It was also marketed at the time as the gaming equivalent of the MPAA ratings. If they had been smart, they would have kept to that, made lootboxes adult only, and avoided the whole situation. They've gotten lazy and arrogant, so now they get to deal with the govt. hammer.

[apm]

2 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

MX aren't always optional. In fact EA had to rework SWBFII because the games was designed around them.

did they now? IIRC they just changed a small thing on release, which didnt do shit in the end and just disabled MTX after all the drama.

EA wont change shit and just enable it again after a few months, they wont change the whole progression system. 

 

like most people here already said, its meaningless. most games will now have that on the box, because like 90%+ of games have additional paid content in some form.

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, silberdrachi said:

I want to see a legit study of parents with children who play games to see how many of them look at or care about them after say the age of 10. Just speaking from personal experience my parents cares a bunch when i was a kid, but later unless i was buying a M rated game they couldnt care less.

 

Just saying because i dont think this will cause any harm, but i think its kinda stupid and wont fix anything.

I do, I try to promote independence in my kids (13 and 16), but I also acknowledge that self control and wisdom are things that generally don't come till later in life with things like this, so i still parent them.  What this means is that I let them play all manner of games and styles, but certain content I won't have in my house on principal and I won't let them spend real world money on anything that doesn't give them a solid product e.g more content to play as opposed to clothing for a character.