US Senator demands review of loot box policies, citing potential harm

WotC could price individual cards based on the price of a pack, and the chance of getting a card in a pack.

For example, if a booster pack costs $10, and the chance of including a given card is X%, then price the card a la carte at X% * $10 and allow people to buy it directly. I wouldn't be opposed to them selling randomized boosters as well, based on gambling concerns [1], if it were possible to buy individual cards for this price. You could additionally offer a bulk discount.

(OK, it's a little more complicated than that because the library of cards is larger than a booster pack, so it's not just a flat percentage chance to include each card, but you could normalize the probabilities to account for this.)

[1] I'm not sure that I'm actually opposed to this, but I understand the argument.

My friends son is constantly asking for more Pokémon cards.

I’m not sure if there is any harm, but he’s in to it.

I do wonder if regulation is the answer though. Shouldn’t we expect people (parents, here) to make their own choices?

Up until 2008 in the Supreme Court Heller decision, the second amendment was not recognized as an unlimited individual right to firearms, and the 'well regulated militia' part of the amendment allowed states and localities to introduce their own ownership requirements, and indeed, many did, even in the 18th century, many local ordinances regulated firearms. A reactionary supreme court and aggressive NRA produced the overton window shift we now find ourselves in, where even banning those on mental health or terrorist watch lists from buying guns is perceived as a "slippery slope" too much to bear.

This is a stunning display of ignorance about how the games industry actually works today.

Loot boxes, like how Blizzard implements them in Overwatch, are the absolute best business model in an industry that's otherwise filled with predatory pay-to-play DLC business models.

With Overwatch, you pay $30 up-front for the game, and that's it. You don't have to pay a cent more, no matter how often or how long you play it. The more you play, the more XP you get. Every 20,000 XP[0], you get a free loot box that has purely cosmetic items with no impact on game play. If you want to, yes, you can buy extra loot boxes, if you really want a particular skin, but again, it has no impact on gameplay whatsoever. They also give out free loot boxes during promotional events, as well as an additional 3 free loot boxes each week for winning arcade games[1]. I play Overwatch, and I've never even thought to purchase loot boxes, partly because there are already so many ways to get free boxes that there's almost no point.

There's no pressure to buy boxes, no in-game reminders, no dark patterns - really, nothing. Last I checked, you have to click through three menus from the home screen to even get to the place to buy boxes. It's not particularly prominent.

For that $30, you get access to Overwatch for as long as they run servers (which, looking at Blizzard's track record, is probably years after you will stop caring). You get frequent upgrades to characters and maps, as well as free game lore (like the online comics).

The alternative to this business model is to have either a pay-to-win model, where you can spend extra money for superior items and weapons. Or, you can have people pay based on the amount of time they play. The latter is unsustainable for a multiplayer game that receives frequent updates. The former is what most other companies do, and it's incredibly predatory. Almost all the big published, from Zynga to EA to King, practice this heavily.

Actually, there is a third option: provide no support for the game after it ships. Once a player has paid for it, the game is sold, and it doesn't matter if it's so buggy that it's unplayable or if the game is imbalanced. This is by far the most common business model, as evidenced by the sea of Steam reviews for games like these. This may be the most manipulative model of all: release a game that's just tolerable enough that people will buy it, but insist that they buy next year's version at full price to fix any bugs or mechanical issues. EA is one of the worst offenders here.

I'm pretty disgusted with the fact that people like Hassan are zeroing in on the one games company that is actually executing successfully on a rather ethical business model, when pretty much every other company around is actively trying to optimize outright predatory business strategies.

[0] The XP rate depends on a lot of factors (such as how well you personally do), but that's somewhere between 5-10 Quick Play games (which usually take about 10 minutes).

[1] Which is pretty easy. The matchups are generally pretty balanced, so your winrate is usually around 50%. In other words, you get additional loot boxes by playing 6 arcade games, up to a total of 3 boxes per week.

Unlike the US, the UK has quite liberal gambling legislation. You can legally bet online, there's a casino in every town, there's a betting shop on every high street, pubs can legally install slot machines, you'll see adverts for bookmakers during football matches.

Crucially, it's all regulated. You have to be 18 to enter a betting shop or a casino. A slot machine has to be inspected by the Gambling Commission and must clearly state the payout ratio. Every business and employee involved in gambling has to be licensed. There's a voluntary self-exclusion scheme, so problem gamblers can ban themselves from being able to place a bet.

Lootboxes are effectively a form of gambling - you pay x, but you get a prize worth anything from 0.01x to 1000x based on a random number generator. That RNG isn't audited. Customers don't know the odds. There's no age restriction or controls on advertising. Nobody involved in the business is licensed or subject to scrutiny by a suitable regulator. The operators have no social responsibility obligations.

I'm a gambler myself. I think that US gambling laws are a bit weird. I don't want to ban gambling, but it needs to be properly regulated, regardless of the form it takes. I don't want to see children being stealthily introduced to gambling by predatory game developers.