Is Loot Box Regulation Censorship Of Art? (The Jimquisition) - General

The greatest lie ever told was that AAA games don't make enough money, and some people bought it hook-line-sinker

I hate when people make that argument. When it comes to triple A games, you can never, ever tell how much the developer makes compared to the higher ups and publishers. It's impossible to make an argument of that stance without the literal papers from the company itself, detailing the split and every potential faucet of income.

Remember how Battlefront 2 needed lootboxes to justify them developing an even acceptable level of content? Oh wait, EA is one of the few companies that releases their financial earnings and they made, in profit, nearly ten fucking times the game and its marketing and its DLC cost. Oh but they needed more money though

Loot boxes are now in games filled with kids around 6-10 of age. You can't expect those young kids to even understand the concept of addiction to begin with

The fact that I know TONS of people with Gacha game related spending problems is evidence alone at how much of a problem they are, now imagine how someone with a possible addictive personality doesn't need to go anywhere to gamble. And it's for game stuff, that doesn't seem to bad, lets just roll one, two, five, ten. Trust me, it's -so- easy, I've done it, I clearly have an addictive personality so I have to stop myself from dropping money, and I've got like, the most control, I know people who drop easily hundreds in one session without thinking because 'it's not gambling'

Of course the Fallout 76 guy is ready to die on the hill of shitty business practices

You're so wrong on many levels. Video games are just interactive media. They tell stories, have player experiences in them, and depending on how well made can still be very relevant forms of media. Yes, games are designed to make money, but recently in the past few years they've taken that motto a bit to far. Your argument is so flawed. I do not buy lootboxes for games and that doesn't change the fact they need to be regulated. Just like I don't gamble and realize that it is important for gambling to be regulated due to its predatory nature. Video games used to be a story of what you see is what you get. You pay 60 dollars and you get the game. Sometimes expansion packs got released to add more content. Video games slowly changed toward pay base-game and buy DLC. Which that in itself was fine, but it did get predatory depending on the publisher. Video games are now pay-base game which is deliberately gutted so they can insert micro-transactions and lootboxes. If you do not buy them the experience you can have in the game can be negative. This is why a lot of games went back on lootboxes and patched their games so they could be played normally. You are likely the only one who holds the ideals do you. The government sees it enough as a issue to begin an investigation, I'm going to take people's word who work in the health sector and public safety over yours. Stock prices don't really mean shit in regards to CEO bonuses. A company can lose their ass in profits and the CEO can still get a bonus. A company can lay off all its employees and a CEO can still get a bonus.

Oh no. If Fallout 76 had them (which according to datamining, they were deeply considered as something attached to perk cards, bobbleheads, some consumables and other crap) then my position on the game would go from "Don't buy it now, but if you love fallout consider buying it only if they actually improve many of the games issues" to "Don't. Just don't. But do reveiewbomb the crap out of it". Because honestly, if they went through with it then the game would be more monetized then Battlefront 2 on launch. It's funny, you know? That actually would have a much greater effect on stopping them (I think it's known as the Battlefront Effect) then some vaguely-worded law that someone would just find a loophole around. Like you know, if it says you can't have these things purchasable by anyone under 18? Boom, just make it so you purchase the currency to get the lootboxes which you'll totally get by playing the game. Like, 5 Gamebux an hour. And the box costs 100. Which probably sounds fair if you don't play videogames. Thankfully, the people we are voting into office know about these kinds of issues to a T, apparently. And I mean, when a loophole is found then it's really easy to patch up, only takes like a few days if not hours for a bill amending them to go into effect. I see the light now, regulation is clearly the solution!

What a genius. "You can't pass a law because someone might find a loophole!" Do you propose we stop passing any regulatory laws ever then? Stop passing tax laws? After all, someone might find a loophole, so why even try?

You know Helix, I really don't apricate you laughing at my condition a page back but you know that's not what I said. Because I like you, I'll repeat myself. You should not trust people who have no knowledge about the thing they are regulating to regulate it in a way that's effective and benifical

what

No one wants government regulation but it will happen eventually if the industry is unwilling to self regulate

Actually it is honestly inevitable like no sarcasm here, I just hope the laws are sensible like disclosing drop rates and holding companys accountable when they shall we say fudge the numbers some rather then "Uh... Yeah you can't sell these here uh... (What are they called again, Jim? 'Loot boxes'?) These here loot boxes for real world cash (The fucks a lootbox, Ted? I'm not hip with the current generation)". Actually that'd probably be an even worse law for triple-ayy moneygrubbing image of a kid holding lots of cash publishers because you know gamers who are obsessive nutjobs (like myself) will crunch the numbers so if they were to increase the rarity of ultra-rare items from 6% to .25% during a 50% off event then we'd actually be kicking them in the taint with a steel toed boot.

Disclosing drop rates won't do anything. Literally the only way to stop loot boxes is to cut them out of games, plain and simple. It doesn't matter how obvious you make it to people that loot boxes are a scam, people are still going to buy them regardless. Plus, loot boxes can't be justified in any way other than being a way to artificially get more money from people. Why can't companies just sell the contents of loot boxes at a set price? Oh, because then they can get the stuff they want, so they wouldn't spend more money. It's insidious.

Well, they used to do that sorta thing. Then they were called greedy for overloading a game with microtransactions. I remember particularly that Little Big Planet used to have fucking legions of that kind of stuff. Shock of all shock, you still have one or two whales buying everything. Surprisingly in a twist of fate, people seem to have accepted the idea of microtransaction skins though, although the word still has a sour meaning. Disclosing drop rates would do tons. More if there are fines for trying to pull a fast one and outright lie as you tweak the droprate levers. It's actually the kind of legislation I support because it's direct and to the point. Trading card games do this (although I don't know enough about it to know if it's due to legislation or they are doing it for goodwill) and lootboxes are little more then virtual trading card packs. Except you can't resell them. Unless it's a game on steam like TF2, CS:Go or Pubg. Games with rather putrefying drop rates would have to either re-adjust their levers or find a better way to do business. Did I mention I'm a fan of Fortnite's tier system? Why can't we see more of that?

I still say TF2's loot boxes are one of the most malicious iterations after all these years. Not only as the possibility of something super rare make themm far more addictive, dropping them in your inventory is akiin to leaving slot machines outside the houses of gambling addicts.

I miss when you could pay 15-30 dollars on a DLC and get damn near a whole new game. Now you get some shitty fucking skins or in game currency. I love game development will only attempt to make my own game when money is not an issue for me and it will be entirely a passion project.

Microtransactions for skins seems accepted nowadays not because everyone likes it, but because compared to what we have nowadays it doesnt seem so bad, and back then no one thought the monetization schmes couldnt get any worse ...until it did Horse armor in Oblivion (or LBP from your example) was outragerous when it first came out but comparing to what we have nowadays seems stupidly tame Thats not microtransaction for skins being liked, thats just everyone accepting the bar has gotten lower Disclosing drop rates would help stop lootboxes how? Loot boxes is still going to be loot boxes, youre not changing the mechaincs at all. I think gatcha games in Japan or Korea is already required to have rates shown but that didnt result in people buying less loot boxes and I have no reason to think it would work anywhere else. And I really wish games find better ways to do business but loot boxes and gatcha system make stupid amounts of money and theres enough whales in the world to pass up that they dont need to find a more ethical way to do business. I mean as dumb as this is you already said games exist first and foremost to make money so I thought this would be obvious. Were slowly seeing battle passes getting implemented but the game industry being the way they are already took the battle pass system and ruined it, just like how "just cosmetic" loot boxes got fucked over and turned into what it is now because the industry is so lacking in innovation but want to make money as much money as the popular ones I wouldnt be surprised at some point battle pass would go into the pile of hated monetization scheme like loot boxes, season pass, early access and even mobile games, until someone comes up with a new concept thats inevitably going to be fucked over, starting the cycle all over again And all this isnt saying games should have no monetization scheme whatsoever because thats stupid, and its fine that games games are being designed to make money because thats how business works. Its just that if the developers, or more likely publishers, are being a obvious cunt about it then they should rightfully be called a cunt Hate Jim all you want, but keep in mind its not helping to make things better for everyone if people like you make excuses like "oh just dont buy fall into them lol" and "their stock price is falling so its fine" You want to have more games with fair monetization like Fortnite, no?

I deem your base premise invalid and all arguments derived from it similarly moot. Next.

Bit late but: Just because you don't mind getting constantly screwed over doesn't really make it ok. At all.