ESA's Mike Gallagher warns against over-reactions to loot boxes
54 replies, posted
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-05-25-esa-we-cant-go-to-the-lowest-common-denominator-of-government-on-loot-boxes
""Most importantly, these in-game transactions are not gambling," said Gallagher, "video games never take money from a player and leave them with nothing. They never do. Players always receive an in-game feature that aids in customising their experience"
I'm not convinced.
"Video games never take money from a player and leave them with nothing."
Hey, Mike, let me introduce you to gacha games where you get a billion duplicates trying to pull your desired choice, and those pulls quickly start to cost real money and generate real addicted behaviors. Stick that in your lootbox and open it.
This guy is probably basing this off a very traditional definition of gambling, like a slot machine or a blackjack table where you can put in $200 and walk away with literally nothing. By that definition a loot box doesn't fall under it because even if you get a dupe you're still getting something out of it.
Not saying I agree but that's probably where he's coming from.
just because slot machines don't spit bile back at you and claim that's your reward doesn't mean me spending 2.50 bucks on a 0.59 cent skin isn't gambling
"Company with financial interest in something asks you not to ban them".
So you are telling me, if I go down to the Pokies, put in 3 dollars, and leave with 1 dollar, it isn't gambling?
According to this idiots if I make a slot machine where you pay me a dollar and have a 1 in 1 trillion chance (that I don't disclose of course because it's "not gambling") of winning $1000, and if you lose, you get back a penny, it's not gambling because you're always getting something back in return.
Why do people who don't even play games insist on acting like they know what they're talking about.
Just to be the devil's advocado here, it kind of isn't. You just unknowingly bought a $.59 for $2.50. Lootboxes are no more gambling than retail stores selling shitty 'mystery bags' of old crap they want to get rid of for a certain price.
Its the same old story. "It is not gambling" according to current laws. Bold part which they don't say but imply.
As per usual they are just bending the public definition because they get away with them to current laws in most places.
Nothing new to see here.
Okay, how about this: Loot boxes aren't gambling, like you so insisted.
We just don't like that we, as consumers, can't exercise rights to purchase selective items that are relevant to us, but instead, forced into a system of randomized rewards. On top of that, if we are unsatisfied with our purchase, could not initiate a refund.
How about that?
The government should just make it so that all microtransactions have to be refundable. I wanna see the publishers try to justify why that shouldn't be the case without tripping up and acknowledging the fact that loot boxes are ridiculously unethical.
to back up this point
https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/89mun1/you_better_reach_into_your_jeannes_and_pull_out/dwshejd/
this game literally has a webcomic where it makes fun of gacha addicts as well
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/58149/43daf906-d5fb-4d28-923c-82765c64004a/image.png
its fucked
"video games never take money from a player and leave them with nothing. They never do."
everything EA does tbh
Why do you say that it's your right to purchase the specific things you want?
Are companies obligated to offer up products for sale that they don't want to sell in that way?
Well ideally if they are offering you things that are randomized in such a way as to mess with human perception of chances, you’d recognize that for what it is, gambling, and accept that and go from there. The problem as I see it is they want to have gambling in everything but name.
Fair, but separate from his claim that it's his right to have things offered for sale in the form he wants.
I'd say the key difference is that you have to physically travel to a store with limited stock to buy trading card packages.
With loot boxes, you can sit and spend money all day long.
People would have far fewer issues if these companies simply used boxed gacha systems. At least with boxed gacha you know that if you spend enough you WILL get everything in the box, even if its random along the way. The issue most people have, and rightly so, is that these other gacha style systems have no limit to the amount that has to be pulled before you get the thing you were after all along.
"customising their experience"
Nothing to put a smile on your face like customized poverty and a crippling gambling addiction.
lets not forget the games where you pay 2.75 to get 3 cents in return most of the times
I'd say they are still technically gambling, but the format of them makes it a lot more subtle. For a start, as Geel mentioned, them being physical purchases alleviates some of the addictive potential. You don't generally go to the store, buy a pack of YuGiOh cards, open them in the store, and then immediately buy another pack until you get the card you want. There's also nothing stopping you from reselling the cards you don't want and, conversely, buying the specific card you do want off Ebay. Alternatively there are also often starter decks you can buy with a number of specific cards inside. There's also more cards per pack which averages out the luck a bit, and regardless of what you do get, you can at least be sure you will get a set number of trading cards. It's not like there's a chance each card could be replaced with a damage counter, or a dice, or a decorative card sleeve - as opposed to Lootboxes in which there are generally several vastly different categories of item all rolled into one box, some worth far less than others. The fact that most lootbox systems have a category of items that are worth basically nothing (and by worth I mean what they're worth to the player) is a big part of why people despise them so much I feel. Even with common cards, they are at least still usable as cards. If you get nothing but sprays out of a lootbox and you don't use sprays then you're shit out of luck.
I feel like blind bags and trading cards are kind of an excellent example of what you can get away with if you don't or, perhaps more realistically, can't attempt to exploit your customers to the fullest possible extent. They're gambling, but because it's done in a way that is less outrageous and predatory, they've gone untouched.
Yes
Because players buy loot boxes for the content inside, not for the loot box itself.
Consumers have little to no control over what they receive, and there are often no alternatives.
Duplicates either amount to nothing or reimbursed at less than half the supposed value.
They may refuse to sell the product within the loot boxes, yet they continue to advertise them.
They may alter their deal (odds) without notice.
Is that not enough ground for exploitation?
Maybe they shouldn't not be coerced to sell in one specific way but it needs intervention.
The thing about trading cards is also that they're physical goods and inherently limited as a result of that, on top of being the pivotal element in the games. If you buy a booster pack that doesn't have the cards you want for whatever deck you're playing, you can start a new deck or sell them or even just keep them for the art. There's no reason for a CS:GO skin to cost more than 1 or 2 moneys, other than arbitrary rarity to drive up market prices and thus profit for Valve. The idea of having a lucky drop pay for your Steam games, optimally just for 3 real dollarydoos, for the next couple years is pretty attractive, to say the least, so it hits a note with people who don't want to spend a lot of money on games, which also includes kids.
You don't buy trading cards with the expectation of getting one that sells for 500 bucks. The more valuable cards are out of print anyway.
Why are you entitled to the contents of a box in a game though?
If I want to offer stuff up to the public but only through an arbitrary mechanism I decide upon, I'm certainly able to do so.
People do not buy loot boxes for the contents inside, there are no contents inside. A box is a voucher for a random selection of items.
Rare cards are not harder to make.
Things being scarce inherently gives them more value. There is literally no point to cosmetics if everybody has all of them. Also, of course they're doing things to drive market prices up... they're a corporation. That's what they do, they make money. That's literally the entire point of their existence.
Also, you say that
You don't buy booster packs with the expectation of getting a card that sells for 500 bucks
but trading card games are actually way worse about this. You may not be vying for a 500 dollar card, but you could be attempting to roll boosters to get just the one or two planeswalkers that would reeeally round out your deck. On a consistent basis. For every single new set, if you're playing by modern rules in most games.
well shit you are right, it is just a fancy repackage and people can just walk away from it if they don't fancy it.
that does bring about the current practices having no form of consumer protection whatsoever.
Semantics.
Nothing more.
ESA can suck my cock, they'll only push the agenda of the big gaming corporations and pass it off as them working for the benefit of gamers everywhere.
I get what you're saying, but IMO that's not really a defensible practice either. It may not technically be gambling, but it's so close to gambling in intent and effect that it's still questionable.
A law requiring that the contents of a transaction be disclosed in advance would kill all these predatory, exploitative schemes dead, regardless of whether they're technically gambling or not. Businesses like curated monthly subscription boxes would still survive, you'd just have the option of viewing the contents in advance or letting it be a surprise. But any sale that hinges on a user not knowing what they're getting is unethical in my book. And that's not even touching on the Skinner box tricks that microtransaction-focused games use to keep you hooked.
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