Ban kids from loot box gambling in games • Hacker News Board

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#191

Post by ihuman » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

scandinavegan wrote: post #52

ian0 wrote: post #6

Myself and my son play Apex legends. Its an online multiplayer game thats free, but you can optionally pay to unlock cosmetic items like character outfits (skins) etc. He came into some cash recently courtesy of the tooth fairy and asked if we could buy a skin for his favorite character. I said ok. However after id purchased some in game coins we realised that we couldn't actually buy the skin he wanted, instead we h…

No, you did good! He needs to learn how to handle this and you're right there guiding him. I have the same situation with my six-year old son and Rocket League loot boxes. He wants to spend all his limited money on them, I think he's wasting it, especially since I see the disappointment when he doesn't get the things he want, but that's a learning experience. It's worse when he once in a while gets a cool skin, becau…

Its not related to the point of your comment, but Rocket League's loot boxes are going away https://www.polygon.com/2019/8/6/20757348/rocket-league-crat...

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#192

Post by tonyedgecombe » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

FerretFred wrote: post #100

This is a good idea, but they really need to stop all the gambling advertising disguised as kids games on daytime TV. I've observed (UK) that daytime TV commercials mainly consist of Personal Injury Compensation, mail-order-fashion and "games that you can play on your phone, tablet or computer". Always brightly coloured, very animated, and always played by attractive people. Often there's a "social" theme were the pa…

But hey, it brings in lots of tax revenue, so it won't stop anytime soon.

The current government seems willing to crack down on other areas of gambling, Ladbrokes have announced they are closing 700 shops because of tighter regulations around slot machines.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#193

Post by Wowfunhappy » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #120

scandinavegan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you did good! He needs to learn how to handle this and you're right there guiding him. I have the same situation with my six-year old son and Rocket League loot boxes. He wants to spend all his limited money on them, I think he's wasting it, especially since I see the disappointment when he doesn't get the things he want, but that's a learning experience. It's worse when he once in a while gets a cool skin, becau…

I mean when I was a kid you'd get this sticker album for your favourite thing(be it football players, star wars, whatever) and I'd always beg mum to get me yet another sticker pack so I could complete my collection. There were always stickers that I really really wanted and yeah, the disappointment of going through a few packs and not getting what you wanted was very real. I think ultimately, this is the same thing -…

My feeling is that randomized packs of baseball cards were never great either—but they were never pervasive enough to be a "problem".

Video games have managed to make the items significantly more valuable. And it increasingly feels as though _most_ games are built around these gambling mechanics, as opposed to just the occasional game like Magic The Gathering which worked that way.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#194

Post by SkyBelow » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

ian0 wrote: post #6

Myself and my son play Apex legends. Its an online multiplayer game thats free, but you can optionally pay to unlock cosmetic items like character outfits (skins) etc. He came into some cash recently courtesy of the tooth fairy and asked if we could buy a skin for his favorite character. I said ok. However after id purchased some in game coins we realised that we couldn't actually buy the skin he wanted, instead we h…

I'm still not seeing how this is any different than Pokemon cards where I saw the same behavior in kids back then. Is it because these days companies have thrown far more psychology at optimizing it?

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#195

Post by beatgammit » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #49

lozenge wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't generational, it is part of your personality though. You just described two of the four player profiles in this talk on monetizing games: https://youtu.be/xNjI03CGkb4

Blech. Torulf Jernstrom. I'm surprised they left that one up. It's not going to age well.

Why do you say that? The content seems fine and generally applicable to a variety of games, even though mobile gaming was his focus. And yeah, he's not as successful as others in the area, but that doesn't mean the information is bad.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#196

Post by SkyBelow » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 3:18 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #181

losvedir wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this isn't correct. For instance, any drop has a chance of being "painted" and among painted items there's an equal chance of any of several colors. However, because of demand, Titanium White painted items are much more valuable than, say, Burnt Sienna.

That's a weird quibble. If there are ten variants and only one of them is Titanium White, the desirable one is only available in 10% of the drops and is thus rare. Yes, desirability plays a role, but it's still rare .

Desirability determines demand. Rarity determines supply (relative to the entire value on the market). Both are taken into account to determine the price.

My favorite place to view this is Path of Exile in game economy. They do have random loot boxes for cosmetics, but I'm talking about the actual in game economy around items that power up your character. None of which can be bought for real money and instead require time to farm them (RMT does exist but is against ToS and can get you banned).

There are extremely rare items that cost nothing because they aren't used. There are quite common items that have decent value because of how high the demand it. Technically the game doesn't even have a currency, but players found a small set of common but also highly useful items that have become the defacto currency so much so the developers even admit they now count as currency.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#197

Post by notTyler » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

tablethnuser wrote: post #189

Remember when loot boxes promising valuable rookie cards of baseball players captured America's youth and squandered the nation's fortune back in the 20th century? Or the countless families devastated by beanie baby addiction? Me neither. Collectibles aren't the problem. And it isn't gambling if you can't cash out. Why do you think there's so many casino games in the app stores even though digital gambling is illegal…

1) They have perceived value, which for children who don't know any better, is really important. 2) In many cases you can cash out. Fortnite accounts with'valuable' or rare skins getting hacked and sold is a real thing. Team Fortress 2 and DOTA 2 both have real actual economies where things that come out of loot boxes have listed values that someone will probably pay you for in REAL WORLD DOLLARS. 3) Gambling is gambling regardless of whether it fits into your worldview and these companies shouldn't be able to sidestep defined and enforced regulations that exist for a reason. That's the issue here.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#198

Post by tenebrisalietum » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

FerretFred wrote: post #100

This is a good idea, but they really need to stop all the gambling advertising disguised as kids games on daytime TV. I've observed (UK) that daytime TV commercials mainly consist of Personal Injury Compensation, mail-order-fashion and "games that you can play on your phone, tablet or computer". Always brightly coloured, very animated, and always played by attractive people. Often there's a "social" theme were the pa…

No one watches daytime TV anymore except old people in the US. Is it different in the UK?

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#199

Post by TheCapn » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

ssully wrote: post #172

skocznymroczny wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't allow you to buy the skins directly? In most F2P games I played (HotS, Paladins), you get random skins in lootboxes, but you can buy the skin directly, it just costs more than the lootbox (but obviously much cheaper than buying lootboxes hoping for that one specific skin).

Apex let's you buy most skins directly, but only using a currency you earn from playing or by getting duplicate items from boxes. You can also earn skins from boxes that you earn from leveling up, or by buying directly. There is also a store where you can buy certain skins/items directly with money, but these items rotate (I think weekly?). Finally, there is a "battle pass" that lets you earn rewards by doing in game…

I've always held Apex as an example of a Bad model when talking with people only tangentially knowledgeable of the topic.

1. Apex plays a real dirty game of hooking you on boxes then slowly phasing them out.

You start by getting a box every level. Then every second level. Then every 5th level, then, no more boxes at all. Sure, once every few months a battlepass will be introduced that gives you another crack at free boxes (as of Season 2, Season 1 had no free boxes I believe). But they tease you all through the game: "If you buy our Season pass you'd have gotten a box at this level".

2. Limited availability

You can never just go buy a skin unless its on the timed rotation. You miss that rotation? You're S.O.L.. Maybe it'll rotate in again? Maybe you need to gamble it to get it before the entire opportunity is gone (Limited events)

3. Hidden costs

You can't exchange cash for skins. First you buy a "currency" and then you exchange that currency for the cosmetic. This again, is done with seedy practices like encouraging you to buy more currency than you need (you can only buy intervals of the currency, never just an exact amount to afford the skin). Then they go around and do shitty things like "discounting" a skin from 1,800 coins to 1,200 coins... but you can only buy coins in 1,000 or 2,000 intervals?

4. They bait people with promises

You are guaranteed an heirloom item every 500 boxes. I'm pretty sure there's a 15 or 25 box limit on Legendaries too. So you get all your free boxes and didn't get a Legendary? Well just pay us for 10 more and you'll get it!

5. (Opinionated) The bang for your buck is low

Most games I have experience with tie in special bonuses for the highest rarity items. Either they're changing the graphics of more than just your model (such as affecting particle effects of abilities) or they change voice lines and other unique features. Apex does none of that and a "Legendary" item is essentially just a higher effort skin. I argue the value of an "$18" skin is not worth that cost.

Ranting further, "Legendary" is a loosely termed tier of cosmetic loot. A Legendary banner is far less valuable to people than a Legendary skin for their character or weapon. There's numerous guns that the developers have outright said are not meant to be late game viable so getting a Legendary skin for a gun you're suppose to discard eventually feels greedy. The boxes come with filler junk like "crafting material" that doesn't even afford you to buy a cosmetic item of the tier (Legendary skins are 1,200 materials, but a Legendary Crafting Material drop is only worth 600)

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With all that ranting done, I will say that I have like... 120 hours in Apex? I love the game, I do support the developers via Battle Pass but have no fantasy that their business model is "Good" and see many seedy practices occurring meant to hook people.

The game is an absolute blast, but don't encourage the Loot Box bullshit, you can play the game, enjoy it and get everything it has to offer without paying them a dime.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#200

Post by benologist » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

SkyBelow wrote: post #194

ian0 wrote: post #6

Myself and my son play Apex legends. Its an online multiplayer game thats free, but you can optionally pay to unlock cosmetic items like character outfits (skins) etc. He came into some cash recently courtesy of the tooth fairy and asked if we could buy a skin for his favorite character. I said ok. However after id purchased some in game coins we realised that we couldn't actually buy the skin he wanted, instead we h…

I'm still not seeing how this is any different than Pokemon cards where I saw the same behavior in kids back then. Is it because these days companies have thrown far more psychology at optimizing it?

The difference is you walked into a shop with cash and couldn't accidentally buy 100 packets in the space of five minutes. They couldn't take your parent's bank card and let you spend thousands of dollars because your parents would come back to the store. The transaction amount and cash exchange was not deliberately obfuscated with layers of contrived pseudo-currencies when we bought packets of cards either.

Facebook maliciously obfuscated virtual currency abstractions once they realized kids disassociating the cash transaction was a great way to bump their numbers - https://www.revealnews.org/article/facebook-knowingly-duped-...