• ESA's Mike Gallagher warns against over-reactions to loot boxes
    54 replies, posted
Oh it's still absolutely a garbage practice, I'm not arguing against that at all. Lootboxes are utter trash. But they're simply not gambling through a few important details, and thus are not and should not be affected by current gambling legislation.
Karl Marx is going to come out of his grave and write Kapital vol. 4 starting with addressing this post.
If the definition of gambling is so narrowly-defined that a slot machine handing you a small cup of peanuts when you lose would allow it to no longer be considered gambling, then I think the definition is overly literal and not very useful. Lootboxes should not be allowed to be exempt from gambling regulation simply because they always offer some form of reward; if that reward is typically useless then it's functionally equivalent. When lootboxes are explicitly designed to prey upon the same vulnerabilities of human psychology as 'real' gambling, the parallel is obvious. It shouldn't escape on a technicality.
I laughed at this more than I should have. In response to the OP, I think they're actually shooting themselves in the foot when they do this. It's so transparent and I don't see how any normal, reasonable people would accept this explanation.
Trading card packs have the same problems as loot boxes. The difference I see is that the card games actual gameplay is tied very closely to the cards a player has, so to some extent the game relies on scarcity of certain cards. But in a market of cosmetic items there is no reason for certain skins to be "rare" except for the company selling them to make more money.
Frankly, I think TCGs are probably under-regulated as well, especially when they primarily target children. That said, they don't use the same predatory psychological tricks as lootboxes, so they're a more mild example.
Also, for TCG's, I would argue that most kids will need their parents to actually buy the packs for them, which will severely limit how much money there'll be spent. But as we've seen before, that restriction doesn't exist in the same way in online video-games. Lootboxes will typically be cheaper than a physical pack of cards, which might mean that the parents will let their kids buy more of them. Or the kids, with their own money, will spend it all on lootboxes in the hopes of getting some sweet skin or whatever, and end up using all their money in the process. Or perhaps worse, a few (maybe even somewhat many) will go so far as to steal their parents credit cards and spends hundreds, and even in a few cases, thousands of dollars on cosmetic shit and RNG lootboxes. When online, there's a lot less to restrict you, and it's easily accessible.
I feel like the main difference between trading cards and loot noxes is you can trade the contents of them. This way if there’s a specific card you want, you can trade to get it instead of buying a booster pack. I wouldn’t mind lootboxes so much if it were the same case
TCGS are the exact same as loot boxes insofar as the booster pack mechanic is concerned. Any argument saying otherwise is splitting hairs in a convenient way.
Not really physical objects are quite different from digital goods as an inherent property. A TCG is limited by a physical print, a certain number of rates exist in actuality. Any digital version of this differs quite severely, so much so that we’re not splitting hairs but logs.
If their contents cannot be turned into money through a device that the developers created or intended, they don't fit the definition of gambling whatsoever. This line of reasoning is not consistent at all. Trading cards are solely valuable because of the idea of the card. They have no inherent value whatsoever, they're IP in the exact same way that something in software is.
There's a physical representation of it that you can hold, and physically trade. That gives it a consistently different type of value than a digital good that is locked to your digital signature. Not to mention, trading cards are limited by the actual printing count of a given card. Say there's 10,000 of a certain card printed, and inserted randomly into any of a 1,000,000 with the certainity of a maximum of 1 per pack. That is quantifiably different than an endless supply of said "rares". A trading card is valuable because of the IP it's related to, sure, I don't think i ever disputed this, and I also don't think it's actually relevant here. The digital good you have is also related to the IP in order to hold value. But it isn't rare, or limited, so it's value is dramatically shifted from the value of a limited print of a physical object. I mean I feel a bit fucking crazy here for honestly recognizing that physical and digital goods are distinctly different in a wide variety of ways that is considerably different than "Splitting hairs", and is by no means inconsistent.
Even IF it wasn't gambling, it's gambling-adjacent enough yet the ESA is willing to bet that eventually the government won't be forced to eventually regulate these things. You know, the same government where most of the decision-makers are barely computer-literate enough to open their emails. Yeah, I wanna trust THOSE guys with making laws that make sense. The industry is going for broke betting on lootboxes and that's a really, really bad idea.
The funny thing to me about the 'it's not gambling because it's not for money' argument is that this means that the only difference between the two is that you can't get a potential return in investment from Lootboxes. They still play off the same psychological manipulation and induced dopamine responses that promote compulsive behavior in the user, and design elements are incredibly similar to the point that it's now going back the other way (I work in iGaming and I'm seeing more and more videoslots taking direct inspiration from scummy mobile gacha games rather than the other way around as of the past few years) I personally find it insane that these companies aren't forced to at least regulate and disclose their payout ratios, gambling aside it's such a clear failure of consumer protection.
Trading cards are still gambling. I've played MTG for many years now, and through it I have seen some really sad shit and have many stories of gambling addiction when it comes to packs. The story is the exact same, because you can just go to nearby game shops and clean them out too.
Yeah and so is money and a lot of other things. Value can't be objectively just by the absolute fundemental material makeup and manufacturing, etc costs. Ofc this gets really silly with shit like brand clothing, etc. but value is driven by what people are willing to pay for something.
If you are wondering, digital goods can be also rare and limited. Why do you think some CSGO items can worth up to thousands? The psychological process behind card packs and loot boxes are almost no difference. People keep confusing that digital goods have "no inherit value" because it got no manufacture cost but they do still have other costs. Limited stock rarely applies as it is common for someone to preorder large bulks during release window, or sit in stores and buy packs until they got what they wanted. Items being tangible is merely a sense of ownership. Having an alternative to skip the gamble part and buy/sell select cards is TCG's escape clause.
Imo, there's a world of difference between spinning the wheel on something that will never be resold vs something that can be converted into rent or, good forbid, more spins.
I find Valve's model to be slightly scummier due to the fact you can infact profit off of it, so it has that extra incentive.
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