Other than being digital, how are loot boxes different than being M:TG cards or baseball card packs?
Not much, except that a.) probabilities of cards with given rarity are well known b.) M:TG are niche product.
EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
51–60 of 164 posts
Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#52So, once again a government tries to dictate what people can and cannot spend their money on. I don't like games with lootboxes. I don't buy lootboxes. I don't buy games that have them. As a game developer, I don't work on games with lootboxes. But this is my personal preference, and I am an adult who is capable of making such a decision. I respect other people who decide to buy lootboxes, even if I wouldn't do it my…
Either make all games 18+ so adults can be making such decisions, or restrict gambling within games available without age restriction.
Promoting gambling to minors is something I find completely unethical.
Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#53I'm so happy with this, it will create a precedent. I know people that have spent a lot of money in counter-strike boxes, it works like slots machines, designed to keep you exited while you get a reward. The worst thing is now is the rule in every game (pubg, heartstone and so on..). Good job Belgium!
Hearthstone is pretty reasonable imo. You get a fairly consistent amount of dust per pack and even like a ‘lucky’ pack isn’t that great. Just saves you from having to dust a few extra cards to get the one you want. I wish the prices were lower given how many cards they release a year now, but it’s not very much like gambling.
Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is EA after all, a company I don't have a lot of faith in. Why are you playing their games then?
It was a free beta weekend, and it seemed like an interesting thing to try. Now, it's not that DICE is per se a bad developer, but the deadlines pushed on by EA give rise to lots of bugs on release.(But, I've not played an EA/DICE game since BF3 so I could be wrong there, things might've changed.) The games are usually playable some time after release. And things like this: https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-g…
The first year of BF4 after release was pretty much a very long open beta.
Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is EA after all, a company I don't have a lot of faith in. Why are you playing their games then?
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.
Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#56When playing Battlefield 5 beta last weekend, I was actually thinking about this. I'm wondering how they'll approach it in that game. I have a bit of a double feeling about this as a Belgian - on the one hand I think it's a good direction for the industry. We didn't have that crap a decade ago and I'll be happy to see it removed. OTOH, I hope they don't just remove content for the Belgian market as it'd potentially c…
EA has publicly stated that there will not be lootboxes [1] or even DLCs [2]. I'm especially content about there not being DLCs that divide the player base so much that there are only enough players available to play the base maps. If only they'd bring back a usable server browser, or (god forbid) release the server software for community game servers. [1] https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/23/17386912/battlefield-5-loo.…
Oh that's nice :)
The server browser was both nice and annoying. Nice to see it have a server browser which apperantly you can't take for granted anymore.
But the server browser was buggy..
Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#57Should all gambling be illegal then? I fail to see the problem with it. If somebody feels that's where she wants to put her money - great. If you arguing that's poor use of somebody's money then you may also want to ban whole lot of foods and gadgets. Those can be addictive too.
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Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is EA after all, a company I don't have a lot of faith in. Why are you playing their games then?
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.
Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#59So, once again a government tries to dictate what people can and cannot spend their money on. I don't like games with lootboxes. I don't buy lootboxes. I don't buy games that have them. As a game developer, I don't work on games with lootboxes. But this is my personal preference, and I am an adult who is capable of making such a decision. I respect other people who decide to buy lootboxes, even if I wouldn't do it my…
>I am an adult who is capable of making such a decision.
Many are not the first part. Many who are the first part are not the second part.
Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes
#60Should all gambling be illegal then? I fail to see the problem with it. If somebody feels that's where she wants to put her money - great. If you arguing that's poor use of somebody's money then you may also want to ban whole lot of foods and gadgets. Those can be addictive too.
Gambling, both online and at casinos is perfectly legal in Belgium (and most EU countries) so this is not in any way about making gambling illegal. This is just about making companies that sell gambling 'products' adhere to the regulations that exist for gambling.