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Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

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Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#191

Post by furyofantares »

hx8 wrote: post #164
hofrogs wrote: post #98

"Lootboxes", "cases", "packs" and other chance-based systems that involve spending real money or an in-game currency that could be obtained by spending real money should be banned completely, all of those systems exploit brain vulnerabilities for profit. Also, prediction markets, sports betting, online casinos, shitcoin exchanges.

It's interesting that your list skews entirely digital, and that more physical games of chance like lotteries and blackjack are not on the list. Do you see them as fundamentally different?

Here's a good read on the topic from Zvi Mowshowitz: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-online-sports-gambling-exp...

He was very much pro-legalizing online gambling. He had worked for sportsbooks, had done lots of sports betting himself, stuff like that. But has concluded that legalizing online gambling has been a disaster.

> When sports gambling was legalized in America, I was hopeful it too could prove a net positive force, far superior to the previous obnoxious wave of daily fantasy sports.

> It brings me no pleasure to conclude that this was not the case. The results are in. Legalized mobile gambling on sports, let alone casino games, has proven to be a huge mistake. The societal impacts are far worse than I expected.

The article makes a compelling argument that online gambling is a lot worse than other forms of gambling.

I have a take on this too. You know how scammers cast a really wide net, hoping to get lucky and find suckers? Well, that's really only part of the story, what actually happens is they get lucky and happen to find people when they are vulnerable. That's how smart people get scammed somewhat randomly.

When online gambling is in your pocket, it is guaranteed to be available when you're vulnerable.

Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#192

Post by create-username »

hofrogs wrote: post #98

"Lootboxes", "cases", "packs" and other chance-based systems that involve spending real money or an in-game currency that could be obtained by spending real money should be banned completely, all of those systems exploit brain vulnerabilities for profit. Also, prediction markets, sports betting, online casinos, shitcoin exchanges.

If you start banning everything that causes addiction, a market big enough to trade on the Nasdaq would collapse, vanish.

Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#194

Post by MandieD »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #18
nba456_ wrote: post #2

I never understood why video game lootboxes get regulated while real-life lootboxes like pokemon cards don't.

Pokemon cards have gone full circle, GameStop now has an online service where you can gamble on cards digitally just like lootboxes. You buy a roll at different price points to win a PSA graded card from a set of probabilities, and then you can sell it back for 90% market value to GameStop or have them ship it to you. The proliferation of gambling over so many domains has radicalized me against it in a way that I did…

I have rejected much of my Southern Baptist upbringing - I am pleased that the church I’m now a member of is accepting and affirming of various sexual and gender identities, I have a wide variety of non-Christian friends who I feel no need to convert, and I say a prayer of thanks on a regular basis that I was able to get an abortion without any questions when I had an ectopic pregnancy and support anyone else’s decision about what to do with their own body.

I am right with my late grandfather, a Baptist preacher, on the subject of gambling after watching people back home constantly checking their phones during the college bowl games and periodically sighing and cussing over the performance of teams they had never cared about before.

Between the 24/7 gambling and the easy answers machine being in their pockets (“well, ChatGPT says…”), the resulting brain rot hurts my soul.

Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#195

Post by AngryData »

NeutralForest wrote: post #155
hofrogs wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thrill rides? Probably not, I don't think there are many people having their life ruined by their addiction to amusement parks. Alcoholic drinks? History of bans like that suggests that it's not a good idea. However that doesn't mean that nothing can be done. Addictions to alcohol, drugs, smoking, gambling damage both the person suffering from them and the friends/loved ones around that person. It is most likely impo…

The current generation is already consuming much less alcohol! Just keep taxing and it'll be virtually gone.

I don't believe that the taxes on it has that much of an affect on usage and is mostly just a rregressive tax on the already poor and desperate.

Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#196

Post by nkrisc »

rcxdude wrote: post #135
nkrisc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “gambling” aspect of CCGs is mostly tacked on by outsiders, though driven by decisions of the manufacturer. That said, when you have a deck of, say, Pokémon cards in your hand, there’s nothing about it that encourages a gambler’s mindset. My 8yo has a bunch of Pokémon cards and he just likes playing with them, he has no idea of any monetary value they might have. There’s nothing about the physical product or game…

The manufacturers are absolutely working to create and profit off of that culture though. For constructed play, booster packs are no different to loot boxes: they only have the effect of increasing and obfuscating the amount of product you need to buy to get the cards you need for a given deck. And they will make very rare, powerful cards precisely because they know it will move boxes. The games themselves are fine:…

Yes, I don’t mean to let the CCG manufacturers off the hook, but while you can play the card game and have the cards without being exposed to the gambling aspect, that’s not the case in video games where it’s practically forced upon you just by playing.

Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#197

Post by throaway197512 »

aboardRat4 wrote: post #117
freehorse wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulating gambling is not "nanny state", esp in relation to kids. Your personal experience as a kid, about whether you had money or not, is completely irrelevant as an argument.

Not at all. My experience in this case indicates that there is a correct behavioural pattern which avoids the issue entirely and requires zero government's intervention. But if you insist on having a regulation, okay, I'm fine with it. What about the following regulation: each time a minor is found gambling or smoking, his/her parents are fined 100x times the stake/the price of cigarettes?

So now you've made it impossible to actually stop a child from smoking. They're free to smoke as much as they want, because it's the parents that get punished, not them. And regardless of who gets punished, the fact remains, they can go to the store and buy cigarettes.

You really think not being given money by parents is going to stop kids from accessing smokes?

Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#198

Post by Paianni »

PeterStuer wrote: post #193

Tbh, pokemon cards were already banned over here in many primary school playgrounds 20 years ago. Not because of "gambling", but because rule disputes and outright theft started too many teen fisticuffs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon#Reaction_to_Pok%C...

Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#199

Post by Sammi »

stavros wrote: post #176
Sammi wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been tried. Not possible to ban something that can be made in a basement.

Such as gambling.

Very easy to find a basement Casino compared to a basement moonshine brewery. Don't know how you'd run a major gaming title with loot boxes from your basement.

Re: Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

#200

Post by hsuduebc2 »

tjpnz wrote: post #22
hsuduebc2 wrote: post #11

Ok, so we all agreed that it is gambling. But for some reason we let kids gamble but only after they reach sixteen? This feels weird.

Brain development of a 16 year old is at least further along than a 13 year old.

Well ok, but why they do not allow them other type of gambling. This is not "child gambling". It's just gambling.
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