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

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

#81

Post by shakna »

ubernostrum wrote: post #67
shakna wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay $x, with a chance to receive items worth between $0.1x and $10x. It's true that x might not be able to converted to fiat or resold. That makes it effectively equivalent to a raffle, which often put restrictions on reselling similar to these cases. Raffles are considered a form of gambling, and are heavily regulated, in the UK[0] and Australia [1]. [0] http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Fundra…

Is Mario Kart regulated as a gambling game in the UK? Sure, you can't convert its items into money, but you can convert them into wins in the game. And it has a "random" item drop system that's known to be rigged.

That's a disingenuous comparison at best.

No exchange takes place. No fiat is given for a chance to open a box.

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

#82

Post by jdietrich »

nkrisc wrote: post #48
jdietrich wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

I don't disagree with you, but what about cases where the contents of the loot box can't be traded or sold? Or I suppose one could sell their account with the desirable item but that may be disallowed by ToS and get the account banned. I dislike loot boxes but I have a hard time seeing it as gambling if you explicitly can not liquidate the assets you receive from it. Then it's just a grab bag.

There's a spectrum of activity.

CS:GO skins lie at one extreme. If you pay $2.49 to open a case and win a valuable skin, you can directly sell it for cash on the Steam community market, with Valve pocketing a cut of the transaction. Skins have also become a form of currency used in casino and sportsbook gambling.

You can buy skins for real money on the Steam community market, gamble them on a game of roulette on a site with Steam API integration, then cash out your winnings on the community market. Valve's role in the process is absolutely brazen.

The situation with FIFA Ultimate Team is slightly more murky - you can't directly cash out cards or coins, but the in-game trading mechanic effectively facilitates transactions in real money. You can open packs, sell the cards for FIFA coins, then trade your coins for cash through a third-party site. In-game items are used as tokens in third-party gambling activities. Unlike CS:GO, this third-party activity isn't facilitated by an API provided by EA.

This is vaguely reminiscent of the loophole used by pachinko parlours - you can only convert your pachinko balls for non-cash prizes, but a vendor just around the corner will give you cash for those prizes.

FIFA-related gambling has led to criminal prosecutions in the UK.

http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statist...

Overwatch skins can only be won from lootboxes and can't be traded in any way, so Blizzard probably have the strongest claim to legitimacy. Opening Overwatch lootboxes might mimic gambling in some respects, but the "prizes" unarguably have no cash value. The business model strikes me as a bit seedy, but it isn't obviously within the purview of a gambling regulator. There may be a case for regulation under consumer protection laws, but it's not obviously different to baseball cards or blind bags.

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

#83

Post by stonemetal »

shakna wrote: post #57
nkrisc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you, but what about cases where the contents of the loot box can't be traded or sold? Or I suppose one could sell their account with the desirable item but that may be disallowed by ToS and get the account banned. I dislike loot boxes but I have a hard time seeing it as gambling if you explicitly can not liquidate the assets you receive from it. Then it's just a grab bag.

You pay $x, with a chance to receive items worth between $0.1x and $10x. It's true that x might not be able to converted to fiat or resold. That makes it effectively equivalent to a raffle, which often put restrictions on reselling similar to these cases. Raffles are considered a form of gambling, and are heavily regulated, in the UK[0] and Australia [1]. [0] http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Fundra…

If you can't sell it, and it can't be paid for directly how can it be worth "between $0.1x and $10x" Some items might be more desirable but you can't pay more or less for them. That is rather different than a raffle where the prize is usually something easy to put a price on.

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

#84

Post by technion »

shakna wrote: post #57
nkrisc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you, but what about cases where the contents of the loot box can't be traded or sold? Or I suppose one could sell their account with the desirable item but that may be disallowed by ToS and get the account banned. I dislike loot boxes but I have a hard time seeing it as gambling if you explicitly can not liquidate the assets you receive from it. Then it's just a grab bag.

You pay $x, with a chance to receive items worth between $0.1x and $10x. It's true that x might not be able to converted to fiat or resold. That makes it effectively equivalent to a raffle, which often put restrictions on reselling similar to these cases. Raffles are considered a form of gambling, and are heavily regulated, in the UK[0] and Australia [1]. [0] http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Fundra…

Raffle regulation in Australia is commonly treated as a joke though. Everyone just calls them "guessing competitions", where you buy a raffle to "guess the name of the three letter easter chocolate that starts with e and ends in g".

Even schools - noting you can't promote gambling to children - get away with that regularly. With those loopholes, you could probably get away with a lot.

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

#85

Post by chillwaves »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #65
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I wonder about this because as a child I and my siblings were big into Pokémon cards. At the height of the hype my parents bought a 100 pack of booster packs and would periodically dangle them in front of us as rewards. In the end we got a lot of new cards and my parents got a decent amount of chores done. I’m about to turn 28 and I’ve never had any sort of gambling problem (but I have had my own other non Pokémon re…

They can manipulate the content in every way imaginable, that is a literal truth. They can skew the drops any way they like, there is no transparency. At least with packs the contents can't change with a backend update.

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

#86

Post by chillwaves »

mmirate wrote: post #63
ethbro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am. Unless it's not-for-profit or single use (e.g. lottery revenue going to schools), then it's a regressive tax on people who don't understand probability.

> a regressive tax on people who don't understand probability This is precisely why I support lotteries etc.

What you support is immoral. IF you want to live in a society where people prey on each other in every way possible, do not be surprised to eat a bullet. This shit is destabilizing because you advocate taking food off the tables of the poor.

Impressive karma btw.

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

#87

Post by akkat »

bko wrote: post #49
pixl97 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you think that will prevent the supposed harm? Which supposed harm in this case, there is more than one. Currently online games are free to swap out algorithms in realtime in order to maximize revenue. You have no idea what your chance of winning even is.

I don't think knowing the chances of winning would change behavior of the consumer, much like knowing the lottery payoff is abysmal doesn't stop people from playing. That was my point.

It doesn't stop everyone but it does stop me and most of my friends

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

#88

Post by oldcynic »

jdietrich wrote: post #40
eveningcoffee wrote: post #2

It is actually a very good point. Now that I look into it, I think we should also ban all the booster packages for the board games. These packages can contain or may not contain valuable card and you are effectively gambling when you buy one. It can also become very addictive.

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 m…

It was far better in the UK before the massive deregulation of gambling. It has gone much too far.

Our poorest areas have high streets with 4 or 5 betting shops in spitting distance of each other. Addiction and problem gambling has snowballed out of hand. The self exclusion scheme is widely abused by bookmakers. The levy on betting shops pays lip service to the damage done. Fixed odds betting machines are a licence to addict the public whilst printing money.

I don't wish to abolish gambling, but I sure wish the regulations simply returned to those of the 80s or early 90s (i.e. before Tony Blair broke it).

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

#89

Post by mmirate »

chillwaves wrote: post #86
mmirate wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a regressive tax on people who don't understand probability This is precisely why I support lotteries etc.

What you support is immoral. IF you want to live in a society where people prey on each other in every way possible, do not be surprised to eat a bullet. This shit is destabilizing because you advocate taking food off the tables of the poor. Impressive karma btw.

I mean, whoever is dumb enough to gamble, deserves to lose everything. And if they want to then shoot people, I'm sure the police will be more than obligated to do their jobs.

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

#90

Post by kakarot »

chimeracoder wrote: post #69
kakarot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are wrong because they are analyzing secondary market prices, while the discussion was about introductory market prices, which are indeed set by WotC and made to, on average, be higher than the payout for selling the cards within. I think there have been two, maaaaybe three expansion sets in the multi-decade history of the game where the average price for selling all cards in a booster pack exceeded the pric…

> I think there have been two, maaaaybe three expansion sets in the multi-decade history of the game where the average price for selling all cards in a booster pack exceeded the price of the booster pack itself. Which sets are those? I would be shocked if that were true for unlimited-run sets during the time when they were still in print (the first few sets were limited to a fixed number of cards, but every normal se…

I've been out of the game for a couple years now but I remember reading about an expansion pack coming out that had been calculated to have a (rather marginal) edge in favor of the consumer for crack packing. I assumed if there's been one, there may have been another.

Unfortunately I can't remember which set this was anymore as I lost all interest in Standard around that time due to power creep. It was some time around 2013-2014 I believe.

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