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EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

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Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#151

Post by georgeecollins »

al_chemist wrote: post #150
georgeecollins wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I WONT BUY YOUR GAME! - I wont buy your game unless you let me try a demo. (PC-CDROM days) - I won't buy your game if the demo is too short. - I won't buy your game if I played your demo for hours and now I am bored of it. - I won't buy your game unless it has online multiplayer. - I won't buy your game unless it has twenty hours of single player content. - I won't buy your game if it has licensed content. - I won't…

Those are valid reasons to not to buy a game. You sound offended by customers voicing their opinions what they want.

I didn't mean to sound offended if I did. I was joking.

But I guess if I were trying to be more serious I would point out that people who develop games are extremely aware of the pain points of gamers.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#152

Post by pixl97 »

simion314 wrote: post #36
Spooky23 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The culture has changed and is ok with gambling being inserted everywhere, especially in tech circles. Look at the threads about daily fantasy sports in HN. Many impassioned comments about how the ability to bet on sports is freedom, etc..

Not OP, not everyone wants to make gambling illegal just regulate it so some categories of people don't get abused. If the game is gambling then the existing rules for gambling need to apply, if you don't like the existing rules then you need to try to change them.

A very strong lobby exist to prevent gambling rules from applying to games. This discussion is just one battle over it.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#154

Post by pixl97 »

m000z0rz wrote: post #142
s73v3r_ wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I don't even understand the appeal of wanting to play games that have this sort of predatory feature." I mean, it's not like you get to choose between the version of the game that has this vs the one that doesn't.

But you can choose to play games that don't have the feature. When Android was first starting, I wanted to get into gaming on my phone - but these days I don't bother, even if I hear good things about a game, because the odds are too great that it's ruined with freemium crap if it's on mobile.

Social pressures are another problem though with multiplayer games.

Your friends play x

You dont like x for reason y

Which is stronger, your dislike of y or the enjoyment of playing x with friends.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#155

Post by xg15 »

swebs wrote: post #55
xg15 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguments like this is what I find entertaining about (pure) free-market advocates. They argue that regulation is not needed because, if there is a problem, consumers would vote with their wallets to remove it - and when the consumers inexplicably fail to do so, the advocates get mad and blame the consumers instead of adjusting their theory.

Who specifically? You're just building a strawman to attack, while framing it as us-vs-them. Comments like these lower the quality of discussion by removing nuance and pushing people into tribalism.

How would a more nuanced counter-argument look?

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#156

Post by xg15 »

pitaj wrote: post #135
xg15 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguments like this is what I find entertaining about (pure) free-market advocates. They argue that regulation is not needed because, if there is a problem, consumers would vote with their wallets to remove it - and when the consumers inexplicably fail to do so, the advocates get mad and blame the consumers instead of adjusting their theory.

Gaming is one of the most competitive industries I can think of. It's very easily accessible by new developers and there's an entire industry of indie games. > They argue that regulation is not needed because, if there is a problem, consumers would vote with their wallets to remove it Loots boxes exist because they aren't actually a problem. A consumer has a choice between games with varying degrees of loot boxes and…

That assumes all consumers are connoisseur gamers who are well-informed about the verious upcoming indie games and not just kids who want to play Battlefront because they like Star Wars.

In other words, this assumes, as the efficient market hypothesis requires, that consumers are perfectly rational and have perfect information about the market. And I hold that, as always, this is not actually the case in the real world.

Moreoever, loot boxes aren't just some random game design feature. They are currently the best way to make money with a game. (And I believe they are well-known to the vast majority of developers). So there are actual economic forces pushing developers to implement loot boxes unless they explicitly reject the idea and have enough resources to do so.

> Obviously if people buy games with loot boxes, they don't oppose them strongly.

This is exactly the circular reasoning I'm talking about in the parent post. If that were the case, then people wouldn't at the same time complain about them so much.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#158

Post by daemin »

edcarter wrote: post #149
daemin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how they can have it both ways. Either the game is an eSport where the most skillful person wins, or they can have lootboxes where the person that spends the most wins. So in the first case there is no super significant difference between the players on the field, which means there is no point to buy loot boxes to get better players. Or in the second case it isn't really an eSport because the person that…

What you are essentially describing is "pay to compete". Many sports have a barrier to entry to compete at the top levels. For example, take a look at Magic the Gathering. A top tier deck can cost thousands of dollars, but it only puts you on an even playing field with other top players. Past that point your success as a Magic player is based upon your skill and consistency.

Yes, but you can buy those cards and decks directly without having to pay thousands of dollars more in boosters in order to find those cards.

It's the difference between going to the shop and buying the thing you want versus going to a casino and pulling a slot machine handle until you get lucky and win the prize that you want.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#159

Post by ionised »

ensignavenger wrote: post #146
village-idiot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another area where the arbitrariness of the 18 year majority limit is exposed: 18 year olds are not neurologically adults. That doesn’t happen until like 25-29.

Is there a commonly accepted definition for "neurologically adult"?

I believe the poster you are replying to is referring to the brain continuing to develop until your mid-to-late twenties.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#160

Post by ionised »

smhost wrote: post #58
xg15 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguments like this is what I find entertaining about (pure) free-market advocates. They argue that regulation is not needed because, if there is a problem, consumers would vote with their wallets to remove it - and when the consumers inexplicably fail to do so, the advocates get mad and blame the consumers instead of adjusting their theory.

It's also pretty funny that the thing that is finally shifting the typical reddit/youtube hardcore gamer-atheist demographic away from their ancap ideology is lootcrates.

What's atheism got to do with any of this?
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