Australian investigation finds lootboxes "psychologically akin to gambling" - Sensationalist Headlines

IMO the people that are completely out of touch with video games (blame shootings on video games etc) would use something like this to forward their 'ban all video game!!!' agenda

Microsoft did for Forza Motorsport 7. It has lootboxes but they are in-game cash only. I admit it's a fun feature when I don't have to spend any actual money on it.

When the lootboxes stop, all eyes will turn to EA. The government will be force to deal with them.

Lootboxes like Overwatch or R6Siege don't bother me too much, but when you do it like CS:GO or PUBG where the rarest items are unobtainable unless you're actually wealthy, that pisses me off.

its funny because Australian government is investigating this shits similarity to gambling and yet every time it's time for the Melbourne Cup/other similar event the radio is blasted by betting ads. It's disgusting.

double or nothing

hell even when there aren't any major sporting events going on i still see betting ads everywhere. its no surprise australia has a gambling problem when you see just how many of those ads they throw around, among other things

We are at the stage where we can safely say 'Back in my day' in a serious tone and actually mean it for something good Fuck

RNG is fantastic when used properly though? Part of what makes poker so fun for example is that it's a game of risk management.

ESRB was specifically crafted to prevent government regulation. At least in the US they will not bother, in fact many younger politicians are very open about avoiding it.

On the contrary, if the past few years have shown us anything, it's that gaming is nowhere near ready to take care of itself yet. A responsible industry wouldn't be one that constantly excused and enabled Steam into becoming the cesspool it is today. Hell, the AAA industry alone is an utter wild west of sleaze and greed, and if it takes us having to bring in an impartial and unsympathetic outside party to knock some heads back into line, I welcome it. Because industry execs are going to try to bend and skirt around any rules we make for ourselves as they pursue maximum profit margins, and the old idiom of "vote with your wallet" is unreliable at best when it comes to the gaming industry, need I remind anyone of the amount of times a "boycott" has turned into most of those players day-one buying a game anyway. To be blunt, we need someone in a position of authority who doesn't trust any of what we've built here and isn't about to go, "Oh, well, if you say so, Mr. Kotick..."

I wish they would mostly go after lootboxes that offer items/skins that can be traded. That opens up the possibility to make them a currency and you get all the scam sites around them. Personally I'm still somewhat okay with how Overwatch has loot boxes, decent amount of ways to get them for free, can't be traded and its just cosmetics. I know that still gets people to spend money and seasonal events can be a problem but at least its not some "let me open 100 boxes to get that $1000 knife" kinda of boxes.

Neither are acceptable, really, so I don't see why we'd need to compare them.

Keep lootboxes that are given out for free Rid looboxes that costs monies and are the only way to acquire items

Australian governments will probably do nothing. Yes, the investigation found lootboxes akin to gambling. But gambling is so ridiculously ingrained in Australian culture; ‘going down to the pub to have a schooey and punt with the boys’, betting sites are constantly advertised on televised sports, Hell even on primetime TV when kids are watching. It’s a bloody joke.

Err, if anything free updates are way more common than they used to be.

I have more frequent memories of developers churning out quick and dirty sequels with minimal work and/or subpar design than I have memories of devs working hard to maintain (free) support of a single game over time. Expansions were also frankly overpriced for what they were most of the time, and that's without counting the slews of early shareware-era unofficial disks that were full of stolen mods and sold separately.

Except now a lot of people use the excuse of "they're giving us free content, so they need microtransactions to support the game!" or "Why would they add new content if they didn't have microtransactions?". It's a defense i've seen with games like Overwatch a lot - people saying "they'd have no reason to add free stuff without micro-transactions as an incentive to support the game, so they're fine!"...,missing that the 30 million or so more sales after the launch period would have been because there was that free content and a continued playerbase. They link the two together despite them being pretty unrelated. They don't take into account that in a full-price game that's still being sold, adding new free content keeps people playing, which in turn keeps game sales going. They already have an incentive to add free content even without the microtransactions, they're not needed to support the game.

I don't know if I am remembering this correctly but I could swear some early Asian MMORPGS and their International/English editions had the option to flat out buy premium items or buy themed loot boxes. The ideology was, for an example, $100 for an account bound full set of armor that leveled with you and changed its stat bonuses based on your chosen class(essentially removing the need to use any obtainable in game armor), or spend $5 for a (incredibly low, though on purpose) chance of getting the same thing from a loot box. It was once the whole loot box system caught on and was exploited in the States that it went from a "fun", though exploitive option to the only option in some cases. I say this as I find it funny how originally you were considered an asshole by the community for having the aforementioned Uber armor or some limited edition cosmetic when they were just a flat fee, but NOW getting such things through gambling makes you "awesome" in most communities. And that fuels the need to spend. Really sickening when you think about it. And I hate living in a nation where exploiting people is A-OK because profits rule all.

It's always nice to provide examples of this

The old halo games were a great example. They weren't adverse to releasing new map packs and such.

Devs released new maps and updates for free in the late-90s/early-00s because it was an easy way to get exposure in an era where most advertising game from word-of-mouth or gaming magazines. It wasn't out of the goodness of their hearts as delicate artists, it was business, which is why there were also tons and tons of half-assed expansion packs and sequels. And it is far easier to find games today with continuous, free content updates than it was back then. Game developers have gotten into some bad habits and lootboxes are particularly egregious, but let's not do this rose-tinted back in my day nonsense. The industry has always been a mixture of people with genuine passion for gaming and people who are looking to make a quick buck.

Unless I'm mistaken, this just found that those that have gambling problems buy more lootboxes; which makes sense, since those people are predisposed to all impulse purchases.

most free updates are hotfixes or balance reworks it's tough to find recent games that give actually new content for free

At a quick glance, I'd say at least half the games on my steam library have had free content. And even hotfixes and balance tend to be more involved than in the past where, more often then not, a game was dead to the developers upon shipping unless making an expansion.

It's mostly the AAA games that are plagued with horrible standards, so basically (almost) anything by Activison/Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, etc.