Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court • Hacker News Board

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#41

Post by crayboff » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #35

animal_spirits wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they still have to pay for it right? How is this different than say if you bought your game cards, opened them up outside the store and after you realized you didn't get the card you wanted, you went back inside and bought another one? I'm confused how this is different

I agree; is the premise here that audiovisual spectacle of opening the box in the video game somehow compounds the problem? Or that there's some manipulation of scarcity or something? The "core mechanic" seems exactly the same.

I think the issue is the lower barrier of access. Every small step added to the process discourages the use: get driven to the store, walking to the counter, talking to the employee, physically pulling money out of your pocket, physically seeing how much money you have left.

All of those contribute to making it more difficult to buy cards.

Loot boxes, on the other hand, is much easier. Once you store your credit card info, all you have to do is press a button or two.

This is the general idea Nudge Theory (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory#:~:text=Nudge%2....) when shaping behavior.

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#42

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #25

icu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're way off the mark, or being a "grumps" on the subject. Young minds can be heavily influenced which is why many societies regulate experiences that may cause harm. I'm sure there are children who aren't impacted by EA lootboxes, as I'm sure there are children who are. It's the ones that are I'm concerned about, and the families that will end up dealing with the fallout. I don't see why it's not pos…

This is all really sad and I wonder how I'll ever protect my child from what these cooperations will come up with 10 years from now. I know probably every generation has lamented about this but I wonder if childhood these days is as fun as it used to be. Yesterday we overheard two kids, maybe 9 years old, discuss the local real estate market and how one house across the street went for a million bucks to which the ot…

Could be a sign of good parenting if they are aware of their future costs and that they should start investing their allowance in index funds to afford a house, as opposed to wasting it by gambling on lootboxes or yu gi oh cards.

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#43

Post by slg » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

animal_spirits wrote: post #32

_fat_santa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While loads of us may have had fun experiences trading cards and whatnot, this all still happens with kids but with a much more overt monetary component. The more I think about it, the more I realize loot boxes to kids now are what trading card packs were to kids back in the day. When I was in elementary school, I was deep into Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Card packs ran ~$4 and carried the chance that you got a super powerful…

But they still have to pay for it right? How is this different than say if you bought your game cards, opened them up outside the store and after you realized you didn't get the card you wanted, you went back inside and bought another one? I'm confused how this is different

Many of these games have different types of in game currency which can be used to purchase lootboxes. With FIFA, one of those currencies can be bought with money. The other one can't be purchased directly and is earned through playing the game or selling what is received in the lootboxes. This means that a person doesn't need to use real money to participate in the gambling aspect. They can instead gamble their time which might not be as damaging as gambling money, but is still just as addicting.

Also even the real money gambling in a game like FIFA is more dangerous than physical trading cards. With physical cards, you had to go to a store and pay at point of sale. You couldn't easily do that with your parent's credit card and there was always a person on the other end of the transaction to stop you or even just exist as a social obstacle to discourage obscene spending. Those obstacles don't exist with lootboxes. A parent's credit card can easily be added to an account and you don't have to look another human in the eyes to make a purchase.

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#44

Post by vanviegen » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:17 PM UTC

CommanderData wrote: post #19

willis936 wrote: post #5

State endorsed gambling laundering.

I'm not sure why this is down voted. This is exactly what I feel this is.

It's not state endorsed, just not illegal. It's hardly gambling, as there are no monetary rewards. And what has laundering got to do with anything?

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#45

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:20 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #43

animal_spirits wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they still have to pay for it right? How is this different than say if you bought your game cards, opened them up outside the store and after you realized you didn't get the card you wanted, you went back inside and bought another one? I'm confused how this is different

Many of these games have different types of in game currency which can be used to purchase lootboxes. With FIFA, one of those currencies can be bought with money. The other one can't be purchased directly and is earned through playing the game or selling what is received in the lootboxes. This means that a person doesn't need to use real money to participate in the gambling aspect. They can instead gamble their time…

> With physical cards, you had to go to a store and pay at point of sale.

No, you didn't; mail-order and then online retail in the hobby games industry has existed as long trading card games have.

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#46

Post by firekvz » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

kregasaurusrex wrote: post #29

As a kid I used to play the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game a lot, and the odds for getting cards of certain rarities were published on the packaging so you knew how many packs on average it would take to hit a super rare/ultra rare card. There were 8 commons and one rare slot per pack which had a 1:5 chance of being a super rare, 1:12 for an ultra rare, and 1:23 for a secret rare.[0] Additionally the cards had actual uti…

> My opinion is that players should spend time in games because they consider it to be fun rather than to be the best for the sake of being the best, and the in-game whales who spend the most $ on a game shouldn't be overpowered to the point where free to play players should feel they need to spend money to win.

this is very debateable

all games have (egaming and regular sports) have a competitive level, you always start playing for the fun, then you either become bored or you realize that you are good and want to start playing vs people with your same or more level of skill/ability, and thats where monetization comes.

You talk about whales being able to pay for the best cards/items/etc in a game, but those usually get quickly demoralized as having overpowered stats/items/etc doesn't mean you can enter competitive skill inmediatly, it's easy for people in those games ti quickly identificate players who bought their way to the pro scene of the game, usually called pay to win players and defeat them

I see it as something that needs to happen, in the past I've been the one in the other side of the trade, mostly in MMORPGS, where I was able to farm/craft/bot for really rare/unique items and sell to those willing to pay thousands of USD for them and yet, beat them in regular matches/pvp/etc, so it somehow encouraged the economy inside the game, and kept actual pro gamers happy, kept devs happy, kept the general population happy, the only ones really unhappy were the ones that paid for the items and got sad when it really didnt help

of course, I understand that it should be regulated and not to make it fully stupid, but well, at the end, all of this things keep people invested and interested in games, otherwise, they would generally just die.

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#47

Post by ravenstine » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

It's interesting how we've gone from heavily regulating content in shows and games made for children to putting kids in digital Skinner boxes that extract the wealth of their parents in exchange for conceptual things of which there is no shortage.

On the other hand, how different are loot boxes and DLC from the days where we played games at an arcade and had to insert 6 more quarters to complete a level, sometimes even if the player still has health? I guess the difference is that you leave behind an arcade, whereas modern video games stay with kids at all times and are designed to addict kids to an even greater degree than anything I ever played at TILT! arcades.

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#48

Post by BrS96bVxXBLzf5B » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

mFixman wrote: post #39

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #8

This is so disheartening. I work as an admin in a school that serves all grades, and the impact that this stuff has on kids is very real. I've witnessed first-hand a grown in sort of a "gambling" culture amongst kids, as early as elementary school. While loads of us may have had fun experiences trading cards and whatnot, this all still happens with kids but with a much more overt monetary component. Part of me, thoug…

I'm sure my parents would disagree that Pokémon trading cards weren't a giant money sink designed to take their money. I can see a lot of problems with giving children access to credit cards, but I honestly fail to see how loot boxes are different from trading cards marketed to children. My high school enacted and enforced a ban on all card and board games because some parents were worried about child gambling; I'm s…

This definitely isn't a universal experience and there are definitely a lot of trading card horror stories, but for me + friends growing up the purchase of trading cards had a different place in life. They were like one of life's small rewards you had a chance of rolling whenever going into a shop with a parent/guardian. Being at the checkout, putting on the little kid puppy-dog 'pleaseeeeeee' and the adult deciding if you've been 'good enough' and possibly giving you something for that. Acquisition was separate from their consumption and social role.

With lootboxes, you're actively pursuing the purchase to immediately try to meet a goal. You want the purchase, make it, have the question answered of whether your roll was good or not and that's mostly it. Trading cards were taken home (or at least to the car), physically admired, stored, socially shared even if they weren't 'worth' sharing, and had a larger variance in subjective value for trading or gifting later.

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#49

Post by autoexec » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

animal_spirits wrote: post #32

_fat_santa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While loads of us may have had fun experiences trading cards and whatnot, this all still happens with kids but with a much more overt monetary component. The more I think about it, the more I realize loot boxes to kids now are what trading card packs were to kids back in the day. When I was in elementary school, I was deep into Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Card packs ran ~$4 and carried the chance that you got a super powerful…

But they still have to pay for it right? How is this different than say if you bought your game cards, opened them up outside the store and after you realized you didn't get the card you wanted, you went back inside and bought another one? I'm confused how this is different

Packs of cards don't have psychologically manipulative lights and sounds which probably does make a difference, but a pack of cards also can't send you constant notifications, and isn't accessible 27/7. Opening a pack outside the store and going right back inside isn't the same unless the kid never leaves the store's property and the store never closes.

Packs of cards also released specific sets with set odds. Games can add or change the contents of lootboxes on the fly, as well as adjust the odds to keep you hooked. They can strategically give you a rare or very useful (for you) item when you've had a long streak of junk to keep you interested, or evaluate your play-style and chats to determine exactly when you're most vulnerable (tired, manic, just got your birthday money, etc).

Loot boxes and gacha mechanics have their place, and can be fun but they are gambling and can also be exploitative. It's worth keeping a close eye on how they're being used and limiting the impact they'll have on kids.

Re: Lootboxes in FIFA now allowed by highest Dutch court

#50

Post by VoodooJuJu » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

Authority (parents or otherwise) has a responsibility to protect people (particularly children) from vice and vultures. Children are particularly vulnerable because they are inexperienced in life, lacking will, consciousness, and wisdom.

This is irresponsible. This is a failure of authority to protect children.