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Loot boxes are obviously gambling

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Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#101

Post by doubletgl »

dtech wrote: post #89
SmallDeadGuy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HotS and Overwatch really aren't exploitative sure, but Hearthstone is incredibly exploitative. Unless you are so good you can go "infinite" in arena (always make your gold entry fee back and then some, on average), you have to buy packs for every expansion that comes out. Or you have to play with lower-tier cards, which some people do successfully, but to get the most out of the game or be "competitive" they will ne…

That is very much the nature of a CGC though. Hearthstone seems less exploitative than Magic the Gathering, Pokemon TCG or Yu-Gi-Oh because you can trade in unwanted card and those have been around for a long time.

The initial investment in MTG is higher, since you start with zero cards, but there is an independent market where you can purchase almost any card directly. I personally prefer this over the gambling and crafting mechanic in HS.

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#102

Post by baud147258 »

m12k wrote: post #57

I think there's a pattern here: 'Highly talented company makes highly praised product but eventually realizes there is much more money in exploitative products instead'. Valve made the amazing Half-Life series, then later seems to have come to the conclusion that their return on investment is just much higher if they focus on multiplayer games with loot boxes (plus selling other people's games and taking a cut). Bliz…

For Blizzard, you forgot about Diablo 3, which was designed to push people toward the (real-money) auction house (a good write-up here:http://www.sullla.com/D3/unsatisfying.html).

But I agree that, right now, they are not the worst offender, at least with Overwatch (I haven't played Hearstone and I haven't played enough of HotS to reach the lootboxes).

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#103

Post by PhasmaFelis »

This sort of thing is going to keep happening, and not just because game publishers are greedy bastards.

These days, it's very, very difficult to make a profit on a AAA game at only $60 a pop, but if anyone tries to raise that price the fans will cry bloody murder. So publishers are desperately trying to find ways to make up the difference. Cosmetic sales, DLC packs, loot boxes, anything. Making loot boxes illegal doesn't fix the problem; it just pushes it somewhere else.

Source, among others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhWGQCzAtl8

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#104

Post by joekrill »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #96

>> The loot box mechanism is straightforward: you buy a box for a fixed price, and you receive a random reward. Some rewards are commonplace and low value; others are rare and high value. So far, so gambling: these essential features are found in roulette, slot machines, betting on horses, raffles, and lotteries. Er. And Magic: the Gathering booster packs. Does that mean I have a gambling problem then? Because I had…

> Does that mean I have a gambling problem then? Because I had hoped that despite my M:tG habit [1], I was not really-really a gambler.

Just because someone gambles doesn't automatically mean they have a "gambling problem". But I certainly don't see why M:tG booster packs wouldn't be considered gambling, as well.

> And let's not discuss my DnD etc RPG habit. I flip cards and roll dice way too much for someone who sincerely thinks she's not into games of chance.

But do you have to pay a fixed price each time you roll the dice or flip the card?

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#105

Post by baud147258 »

bsder wrote: post #95
pavlov wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but it's a very niche audience. What's the revenue of the company that makes MtG? Some mobile game companies do billions per year. That kind of sales attract regulatory attention.

Hasbro gets roughly a billion a year in the gaming category and explicitly calls out Monopoly and Magic the Gathering as the vast majority of that. https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-detai...

But that's a lot less than what Blizzard is making on lootboxes (4 billion, just on lootboxes). And MtG is the biggest of its type, whereas the lootbox industry is much bigger. So I think the difference of scale is important before a legislation is considered.

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#106

Post by called_it »

pfisch wrote: post #52
oldcynic wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Loot boxes give you variable entertainment, but for that to be gambling you have now defined entertainment as the element of prize Variable entertainment? Then a lottery scratch card is "variable entertainment", whatever that is supposed to be. As is I can't distinguish a scratchcard from a lootbox except one has some regulation. They have a feature prize that is the reason for purchase, they have small odds of ach…

Let me clear it up for you. The entertainment you derive from a scratch lottery ticket is not the "prize" element of gambling. The prize is the money you win from the scratch off. Gambling devices pay out a prize that is worth a real redeemable cash value and can be sold on an open market. What prize does a loot box give you that is not purely for entertainment value? They do not give you a prize that is redeemable f…

Hmmm.

> the activity or practice of playing at a game of chance for money or other stakes

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#107

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

kossTKR wrote: post #65

Seems to me like we are in a race to to the bottom in all parts of the software and entertainment industry. When behavioural economics and data mining became all encompassing we lost all that was positive and good in this field. This modeling of the human psyche has existed in PR and the commercial industry for a century, but the incredible multiplier that lies in the constant connection and the advancement of fast a…

And yet, there was a time when Behaviourism was all but snuffed out by Chomsky's criticism of Skinner's Verbal Behaviour, and the subsequent rise of cognitive science.

What happened? My guess is we got trapped by the short-term rewards of systems that seem to work for a while- until they don't; and create an ocean of social and other problems in the meanwhile (e.g. the use of "AI" systems to predict recidivism that overfit on race, etc).

_______________

[1] https://chomsky.info/1967____/

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#108

Post by PhasmaFelis »

Cub3 wrote: post #66

I still haven't heard anyone take on physical vs digital card games as part of this. Typically cards are sold in random 'packs' (see Hearthstone, Gwent and Valves 'up and coming' card game) which should fall under this definition. But blind card packs (Magic the Gathering, Pokemon) physically are not banned by any government, nor, have I ever heard them talked about in the same umbrella as gambling?

There were some legal rumblings many years ago about Magic being gambling, and assertions that the government should step in and stop Wizards from selling gambling to kids. I don't remember how it blew over exactly.

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#109

Post by Jaruzel »

There are different classes of gambling, and in the UK at least they are regulated differently:

1. Proper full-on skill-based gambling; Poker, Blackjack, type games, plus arguably Horse Racing and other sports where you learn the starts and make judgement calls.

2. 'Luck' based games; Pay money, get 'prize' - this is where loot boxes fall into, and in also in the real world, CTGs and LEGO Minifig bags (for example). You always get a prize no matter how small.

3. Raffles; Buy a ticket for a fixed sum, win a prize. The prizes on offer are known up front. Viewed slightly different (for some reason) - most non-business places can run one of these without a licence. However the nationwide Lottery does require a licence, even though it's basically just a raffle.

Types 1 and 2 require different licences if you want to operate them, type one definitely has to have all the GambleAware[1] stuff prominently shown.

You'll see on many daytime and light entertainment programs on TV that they run 'competitions' for the viewers where the question is stupidly simple. They do this to step around the 'gambling' licence issue. By asking a question (no matter how simple) it legally occludes the fact that the text-in/phone-in competition is basically a Lottery.

Back to the point of Games... All games publishers have to do is get a gambling licence (for the region they want to sell the game in) and be up front that their game contains 'some gambling'.

Of course though, if they do that, then they can't sell their game to minors...

--

[1] http://www.whenthefunstops.co.uk/

Re: Loot boxes are obviously gambling

#110

Post by Grangar »

FrozenVoid wrote: post #47

The lootbox mechanic can be easily disguised without making it seem like gambling: 1.Buy lots in-game currency with cash or grind X hours for it. 2.Buy "A ticket to dungeon Y" with in-game currency. 3.The dungeon has a boss that is essentially a easy to kill walking lootbox. Tada, all gambling regulations bypassed. If you want to play loot-centric games this is your choice. All MMOs that revolve around items and loot…

I think the easy-to-kill-walking-lootbox-boss isn't as as much gambling as the current lootbox system. An important element is that the game shows you all these possible rewards much like a slot machine. I'd be surprised if they'd include that as a gameplay element.
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