sometimes innovation pushes boundaries in the wrong way that hurts the customer, but it feels like rarely there is successful pushback
while there is probably nothing we can do about monetization schemes after gaming became a mass market as well as more costly to produce games in, this a nice small victory
Shame the publishers would probably respond by simply disabling lootbox purchases in Belgium, blocking people off the content. More countries need to follow the principle.
Casinos are legal, why the fuck would this be straight off illegal? At least just put an age restriction if you're worried about kids and teens addiction to gambling.
Plus some of the lootboxes listed in the article are cosmetic only. Are card game packages like Magic the Gatheric, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon TCG illegal too? Those are technically pay to win on top of being "lootboxes". What about websites that offer a random t-shirt for a smaller price?
This ruling is ridiculous and completely arbitrary.
Casino very specifically caters to people +18 of age. Lootboxes in video-games caters to anyone who want an advantage or a very cool skin - and those someone could be children as young as 10, perhaps even younger. This is one of the very, very rare cases where "think of the children" is completely valid.
If devs want to fuck over consumers they'll do it in another way. All this does is move the problem to another and prevents potential legitimate random loot from being a thing.
The government starting to dictate what can and cannot be put legally in video games is a dangerous slippery slope. I'd rather have them create laws that helps prevent the problem from being a thing in the first place.
Here's an idea. If the problem is about minors spending money on a random chance of getting something, then slap a 18+ rating on the box and card customers when they're buying 18+ games just like you would with alcohol. Another solution could be to sell the games like usual, but with no access to microtransactions, and to have access to lootboxes you have to physically buy the equivalent of a gift card that proves you're 18.
Based on the article it doesn't seem to say what's happening, so what you said may well be what happens in belgium.
The issue is that gambling takes advantage of certain psychological biases and flaws that can make it exceptionally damaging. Of course, games like runescape just being skinner boxes is pretty exploitative as well, it's not as severe.
"at least just put an age restriction"
lol
what makes you think an age gate is going to keep people under 18 from spending money on lootboxes? casinos check your ID at the door before letting you gamble, no such way of verifying age exists for video games
While Casinos and Lootboxes both prey on people with addictive personalities, one of them is stringently regulated and aimed at adults and the other is notoriously unregulated and featured in games partly targeted at teen or pre-teen audiences.
Not to mention that Casinos are a place people have to actively enter to partake. Lootboxes are a part of larger titles which often have a completely separate purpose from obtaining and opening lootboxes: people with addictive personalities who in the past twenty or so years have started using video games to escape their problems now have to face them instead because those problems have seeped into their entertainment even further.
It's actually brilliant because unlike most times where people try to push a law, if you don't push it when it's the most relevant, it'll never pass. But because so many shitty companies put them in their games so frequently, they're brought up again and again at least every year.
I mean, age gates also doesn't prevent all minors from drinking and smoking, but it does lower the impact a lot.
Fair point.
Devs will likely move towards time-limited, fancy looking cosmetics that are super expensive or locked behind subscription+grinding to capitalize on whales, which is still predatory but at least doesn't step into gambling territory. Fortnite does both of those things already.
And yet if it weren't for the Battlefront situation this would have likely never reached such massive outcry. The juxtaposition of something many people still consider a very niche interest with something as broadly known and appreciated as Star Wars really helped with bringing the issue to light when perhaps it used to be ignored.
Good, fuck lootboxes. The only people who lose out on this are people who buy em and they're not important to anyone except the exectives
Looks like its less cosmetics for you bois lmao
that's true, if it was something like battlefield it probably would have gone completely under the radar.
they did the one thing wrong that should have been obvious: don't fuck with star wars fans
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