Finnish police investigating legality of loot boxes

[Thaldor]

Source in Finnish

 

And video by Jim Sterling:

 

Southwest-Finlands police has gotten request to investigate possible illegal sweepstake in unnamed video game. The investigation is at so early stage that police force refuses to tell which game is in question and nothing very specific information about the investigation.

 

But Finnish gambling administration that works under police forces has given a general statement about legality of loot boxes in games:

Quote

1. opening loot boxes can be made with other currency than gained in game;

2. player doesn't know before what's in a loot box;

3. content of loot boxes can be traded for money even through game publishers own or through third party market places; AND

4. game publisher or other business doesn't fullfill requirments of getting legal permission to keep item sweepstakes by gambling laws (by law game publisher or other commercial organisation cannot get permission for item sweepstakes).

Quote

Even if the virtual goods cannot be traded into money directly on the gameplatform, the requirments for monetary value seem to fullfill if it's possible to trade virtual goods into money outside of the game. The circumstance that game publisher makes trading and selling/buying virtual goods technically possible and turning the goods into money in aftermarkets talks in favor of this (goods having monetary value).

 

The task force behind this statement started to work in the November of 2017 out of the need to state how Finnish gambling laws relate on loot boxes. In the statement Valve has been named apparently with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Steam, but there's no correlation between the police investigation and the statement of the gambling administration.

 

Clearly Finnish gambling administration sees loot boxes as illegal sweepstakes and that makes things very interesting. If they would be seen as lottery or gambling there could be a chance for publishers to register as gambling offices and pay gambling related taxes and continue, but when loot boxes are seen as sweepstakes, publishers have no legal ground to make loot boxes legal (because only non-profit organisations can get the permission to keep monetary sweepstakes).

 

For me it was quite clear that if Finnish government administrations started to investigate loot boxes, they would find them illegal because there's clearly monetary value and loot boxes more than clearly pass the line of being gambling/sweepstakes. Card games (like Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon) go around these laws by not being card games with boosters but a collectible card games and IIRC there was some investigation to them in the 90's but they found them being more like collectibles than games (like stamps or something that someone collects for looks of them rather than their usability). I can't see EA or any other video game publisher doing the same as TCGs did just because they quite clearly state that you don't even own the game but only a permission to use it so you really cannot collect stuff in the game like you would collect stamps or TCG cards.

 

Spoiler

Also mandatory "Finland mentioned":

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

So this is basically just a continuation of what we've seen a while ago about countries banning lootboxes because it's a form of gambling?

 

1 minute ago, Thaldor said:

unnamed video game

Why bother unnaming it, it's not like we won't guess it's an EA game anyway...

[Fasauceome]

get these damn boxes outta here

[Thaldor]

10 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

So this is basically just a continuation of what we've seen a while ago about countries banning lootboxes because it's a form of gambling?

 

Why bother unnaming it, it's not like we won't guess it's an EA game anyway...

Basicly yeah. Only difference being that unless publishers turn loot boxes into giveaways they will be illegal sweepstakes and there's nothing they can do about it except remove them or make them so that they don't have any direct or in-direct monetary value.

 

Keeping the name of the game being investigated unpublic is just legal stuff because here it's really important that someone accused of crime remains innocent until they get convicted. And there's a lot of cases where too much information has been given to the public before conviction or any real evidences and the accused has been found innocent and demanded a compensation from the government from destroyed public image. Also the investigation hasn't really legally started, it's still in preliminary work to clarify grounds for what laws has been broken (if any) and what are the real terms of criminal classification (crimes done).

[lewdicrous]

*Finnish police during the investigation*

[ravenshrike]

52 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

*Finnish police during the investigation*

Don't go giving EA any ideas.

[pzspah]

In before there's a game about playing a cop that investigates loot boxes and is targeted by an evil gaming fortune 500 corporation.

[ZacoAttaco]

This is an interesting development, although for major companies, North America is still the biggest market, so unless the US Government has a real issue with the loot boxes, they're here to stay in most markets.

[Mihle]

41 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

This is an interesting development, although for major companies, North America is still the biggest market, so unless the US Government has a real issue with the loot boxes, they're here to stay in most markets.

Some sport games sell much more in US than Europe while some sell much more in Europe than US, so it will at least effect spesific games that sells the most in Europe.

[handymanshandle]

7 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

So this is basically just a continuation of what we've seen a while ago about countries banning lootboxes because it's a form of gambling?

 

Why bother unnaming it, it's not like we won't guess it's an EA game anyway...

Or Valve, or Blizzard. EA isn't the only one guilty of loot boxes...

 

But frankly, how valve does it for the most part is highly optional.

 

And in TF2 it makes sense because it's a f2p game and I think that should be the exception.

[ARikozuM]

Does it still count as mentioned "outside of Finland" if a Finlandian (Fin?) is the one doing so? 

 

I still think that these gambling laws shouldn't require that the prize be redeemable for cash. Otherwise, gumball machines are gambling since I can give a failed gamble-gumball to someone else. 

[mr moose]

Interesting comparison to collecting stamps,  it gives the games devs the ability to claim the content of loot boxes are just collectable items and carry the same value as stamps.  If precedent has been set then a case can be made.

 

On the other hand game devs also have the ability to make contents of loot boxes non transferable and avoid the whole issue but seeing as they don't seem to want to do that then it's on their head.

[Magnetorheological]

Glad this is happening all over Europe, but I highly doubt it will happen in the US anytime soon (aside from the effort put forth in Hawaii), given the amount of lobbying and army of crooked politicians here ready to defend their fat corporate paychecks to the death.

[ZacoAttaco]

Maybe an unpopular opinion, Overwatch lootboxes are fine. I have nothing wrong with them and they should not be in the same categories as FIFA and the Battefront fiasco.

[Mooshi]

Imagine spending resources on going after stuff that actually matters.

[asus killer]

if you have something to sell just do it, create an item and a price. They do lootboxes instead because it's addictive, because it's gambling, because it gives them more money. Because selling stuff is less appealing and people will only buy what they really care for, and that's the all point of gambling, everybody spends a lot more than they care to.

 

Selling stuff directly only gets the "whales", lootboxes gets everyone.

 

I could see the similarities to card games (even if they are worlds apart, videogames are addictive in itself, and lootboxes pray on it) but stamps? who buys packets of random stamps to get that hard to find stamp 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

 who buys packets of random stamps to get that hard to find stamp 

People addicted to stamp collecting.  You see them in alley ways hiding their albums under their trench coats. Their eyes are bloodshot and the left one twitches as they stutter out their question; "yu chasen, yu chasen,  I have the guiana w w w w 1 c c cent, gud price"?

 

 

[Trik'Stari]

Good, burn their playhouse to the ground.

 

(totally butthurt over how EA has ruined Battlefield. Not talking about all the political BS they've injected into the game either, but how they've ruined the medic class and some of the game play)

[D13H4RD]

9 hours ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Maybe an unpopular opinion, Overwatch lootboxes are fine. I have nothing wrong with them and they should not be in the same categories as FIFA and the Battefront fiasco.

Overwatch's loot boxes aren't nearly as insulting. 

 

As you only receive cosmetic items and many of which can be bought with IGC, not to mention they are earned on every single rank up. 

[Master Disaster]

14 hours ago, ZacoAttaco said:

This is an interesting development, although for major companies, North America is still the biggest market, so unless the US Government has a real issue with the loot boxes, they're here to stay in most markets.

Not even remotely true. EA made over a billion dollars in 2017 from FIFA microtransactions alone and FIFA doesn't sell at all in North America.

 

This is why EA is currently fighting the lootbox lawsuit in Belgium, if they lose FIFA lootboxes in Europe the lose the vast majority of their extra income in one go.

 

Star Wars Battlefront they didn't care about but they will never back down from FIFA.

[Doobeedoo]

Such waste resource for games, specially payed ones and AAA games. Focus needs to be gameplay not hanging in menu with boxes and being only incentive to play. 

[callumb-314]

14 hours ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Maybe an unpopular opinion, Overwatch lootboxes are fine. I have nothing wrong with them and they should not be in the same categories as FIFA and the Battefront fiasco.

Id say they are all cancerous if they are marketing towards kids, its basically gambling which comes with the same feelings as gambling and the same dopamine hits as gambling and the same lows as gambling. If you're an adult and you have the knowledge to understand the risks involved then id say all of them aren't that bad, besides the facts they're pretty scammy.

[ZacoAttaco]

8 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Not even remotely true. EA made over a billion dollars in 2017 from FIFA microtransactions alone and FIFA doesn't sell at all in North America.

 

This is why EA is currently fighting the lootbox lawsuit in Belgium, if they lose FIFA lootboxes in Europe the lose the vast majority of their extra income in one go.

 

Star Wars Battlefront they didn't care about but they will never back down from FIFA.

If we're talking about FIFA alone, sure, most of the their revenue is from Europe, so you're not wrong there. But Belgium, Finland etc. are not just fighting FIFA, in games like Battlefront 2 and the recent Need For Speed game they have also had these lootboxes. Not to mention NHL and Madden games have the same Ultimate Team model and which I assume sells mostly in the NA area and make most of their micro-transaction money in that region also.

 

FIFA is their biggest money maker, Europe is their biggest money making region. So obviously they're going to fight to protect that.

 

What I'm saying is as long as they're legal in the US, these companies are going to continue to put lootboxes in because the NA market is so large, maybe they won't make much from FIFA but if you think about the other products that have lootboxes in them there's nothing stopping them.

 

If somehow the US banned lootboxes, then that would have a far greater affect on the gaming landscape than some of Europe banning them. But like I said, it's an interesting development and we'll see how things progress.

[Master Disaster]

13 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

If we're talking about FIFA alone, sure, most of the their revenue is from Europe, so you're not wrong there. But Belgium, Finland etc. are not just fighting FIFA, in games like Battlefront 2 and the recent Need For Speed game they have also had these lootboxes. Not to mention NHL and Madden games have the same Ultimate Team model and which I assume sells mostly in the NA area and make most of their micro-transaction money in that region also.

 

FIFA is their biggest money maker, Europe is their biggest money making region. So obviously they're going to fight to protect that.

 

What I'm saying is as long as they're legal in the US, these companies are going to continue to put lootboxes in because the NA market is so large, maybe they won't make much from FIFA but if you think about the other products that have lootboxes in them there's nothing stopping them.

 

If somehow the US banned lootboxes, then that would have a far greater affect on the gaming landscape than some of Europe banning them. But like I said, it's an interesting development and we'll see how things progress.

Yeah I see your point and FIFA is certainly not the rule in video gaming. There's plenty of other games that sell really well across the globe.

 

It is crazy how (an estimated) 33% of EAs total global extra monetisation revenue comes from a single game though. Kind of makes you think.

[ZacoAttaco]

8 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Yeah I see your point and FIFA is certainly not the rule in video gaming. There's plenty of other games that sell really well across the globe.

 

It is crazy how (an estimated) 33% of EAs total global extra monetisation revenue comes from a single game though. Kind of makes you think.

Yeah, here in Australia, FIFA is the most popular sports game, 2K close second but no one plays Madden or NHL.

 

As soon as they realized FIFA Ultimate Team made money they injected that system into all the other sports games, I assume Madden Ultimate Team would sell reasonably well also. It's insane how well Ultimate Team packs sells, like frightening. And it's so easy for them, FIFA is just minor tweaks each year, it costs them little to iterate each year and brings in a lot of revenue each year. Insane.