U.S bill to ban loot boxes, your thoughts?

ReasonablyBored

The bill is called The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act

Few articles,

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/loot-boxes-could-become-illegal-in-us-if-new-bill-/1100-6466737/
https://www.wired.com/story/videogame-legislation-loot-boxes/

Kinda insane that you have to spend $400 for 1 outfit piece with gacha with abysmal probabilities. Countries such as Netherlands, China, Belgium, Australia, UK, and South Korea have already passed similar bills, some requiring you to be 18+ to purchase gambling packs and outright banning loot box purchases with real money. This is EA and Activision's worst nightmare, your thoughts?

In 2018, https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/10/south-korea-fines-game-studios-over-loot-boxes/

"The uproar over in-game loot boxes is leading to some real financial penalties -- in South Korea. The country's Fair Trade Commission has fined Nexon, Netmarble and NextFloor a total of 1 billion won (about $945,200) for allegedly deceptive loot box promotions. The regulator asserted that each of the studios either hid poor odds for obtaining in-game items with the purchases, or else advertised odds that were out of step with reality. Nexon didn't reveal that the chances of obtaining some in-game items in Sudden Attack (a popular first-person shooter) was just 0.5 percent, for example, while Netmarble's Monster Taming pitched odds of 1 percent for a key creature when the actual chance of winning was as low as 0.0005 percent."

"The problem, of course, is that this can lead to some gamers spending inordinate amounts of money to get items that are far more elusive than they seem. In one case, the Commission noted that a Sudden Attack player spent about $430."

Axxon

They should always reveal the % rate for each item (Strangely they didn't with Evil crystal but I remember then doing it for quite a few loot boxes... S tier is usually between 0.1 and 0.5%, can't remember. Their should be a 18 restriction at the very least (isn't the player base in their 20s tho ?).

Instead of banning there are a few solutions

1) Less tickets required for guaranteed loot
2) Better odds (maybe 1% and guaranteed to get it after 100 boxes ???)
3) Age restriction
4) Purchase limit per week (and suggestion 2) would be required)

Pretty sure more people would buy those if 100 boxes was guaranteed to get one S-tier outfit, so it would compensate the ''loss'' from whales. But right now it's 200+ Boxes for one S-Tier prize.

In general the best would be :

IF you buy 55 boxes for 95$ USD, you should be guaranteed to get one A or S-tier OUTFIT prize, but no control on which one you get (And only if you got nothing in the first 54, so it should be ''Rigged'' on #55). If you buy another 55 and you get nothing in the second round (or third etc, because whales), you get to choose a A-tier or S-tier OUTFIT of your choice.

PrettyPrincess

I doubt this will really do anything. For one, the bill is targeted specifically at kids, and most "whales" are presumably adults, so it doesn't really even protect adults from this rather predatory practice. Even if a kid does somehow drop thousands on a game, they had to get the credit card from someone else.

Even if this law does somehow include actual specific and realistically enforceable language that does manage to potentially change something, all games really need to do is just say "you need to be 18+ to sign up" -- which many games already do, and the EULA usually shrugs off all responsibility of sign-up fraud to the end user. 18+ game selling lockboxes = not selling lockboxes to kids = Nexon continuing business as usual.

While it'd be nice if gamers were smart enough to just stop buying this junk, I'll be very impressed if this law actually does anything other than become another tax-draining overhead burden on the already byzantine legal system. But hey, I bet it'll be a great career move for this previously-unknown senator!

DragonRider

PrettyPrincess wrote: »

I doubt this will really do anything. For one, the bill is targeted specifically at kids, and most "whales" are presumably adults, so it doesn't really even protect adults from this rather predatory practice. Even if a kid does somehow drop thousands on a game, they had to get the credit card from someone else.

Even if this law does somehow include actual specific and realistically enforceable language that does manage to potentially change something, all games really need to do is just say "you need to be 18+ to sign up" -- which many games already do, and the EULA usually shrugs off all responsibility of sign-up fraud to the end user. 18+ game selling lockboxes = not selling lockboxes to kids = Nexon continuing business as usual.

While it'd be nice if gamers were smart enough to just stop buying this junk, I'll be very impressed if this law actually does anything other than become another tax-draining overhead burden on the already byzantine legal system. But hey, I bet it'll be a great career move for this previously-unknown senator!

I like your post a lot. You just said everything perfectly.

Emerthyst

It's sad that a bill has to be specifically targeted at kids to even be considered. Are people with gambling addictions not real people either they have zero control over their addictive habits and there is rarely any safeguards in place for the mentally ill of which the number of ill people rises every year.

Prototypemind

Despite the potential loopholes, the main thing is that it's just part of the new trend the industry has pushed things to. China has new regulations requiring the rates of all lootboxes to be displayed, allowing for a maximum of 50 per day and only 3 purchases of bundles of 10 per day, then singles after that, and requiring that the chance to get the contained items increase with each opened box with a guaranteed reward after a specified number. How long do you think players in other regions will be okay with one zone getting guaranteed drops, drop rates shown, and fewer necessary purchases to get items while the rest get shafted? That's the great thing about this all being out in the open is that anyone can see and make others aware of the policies one region versus another are under.

We've also seen Belgium and the Netherlands deem loot boxes to be gambling, which was done after England and others declared them not to be, which likely means many countries across the EU re-evaluating their stances. Japan is currently looking into this as well. Odds are that this will be at worst one of the pricks that helps RNG boxes go by the wayside over time.

Twln

This bill and similar rules world wide the real reason Nexon done with gaming. It's inevitable

Satsue

As was said already, it wouldn't really affect nexon. The ToU you agree to by signing up for a nexon account states that you are 18+ or age of majority in your home country, which would mean this bill wouldn't affect them at all. Nexon has always required you be an adult to play, btw.

Emerthyst

you'd have to bring up that ToU line specifically cuz i don't recall it denying my account creation 10 years ago when i wasn't 18 and I didn't lie about my age.

Satsue

It doesn't make you check a box or anything, it's just that box that says that you agree to the Terms and Conditions of service, then if you read them, it says in there that by creating an account you state that you are 18+.

ReasonablyBored

" Game Studios hire PHD psychologists to engineer the most addictive micro transaction schemes. They have a term for people who are highly affected by the techniques employed. People who throw thousands of dollars at these loot boxes are called "whales" by these teams of suits and PHD’s. They have found that the loot boxes have nurtured gambling addiction in children. we are talking an industry that exploits human psychology to extract as much money from its consumer base. There are zero ethics involved in the way the game industry operates at the moment"

This is the argument being made, this bill doesn't say anything about age that's in other countries, I was just putting examples. It's under the guise of protecting children, its targeting predatory addictive gambling because it's now becoming a problem, to get any bill popular you gotta play the whole "THINK ABOUT DA CHILDREN" game.

Satsue

True, however note the actual bill itself stipulates children, so unless they broaden it in a rewrite, that's essentially what it will cover.

ReasonablyBored

Satsue wrote: »

True, however note the actual bill itself stipulates children, so unless they broaden it in a rewrite, that's essentially what it will cover.

The language is purposely broad and confusing to make it easier for the government to do whatever it wants to, that's pretty much how all bills are.

For example, flavored cigarettes were banned because even when the smoking age is 21, those flavors and commercials were purposely luring in kids so they can get addicted, this is the same argument that's being made. If you look at that popular vape, they had to change quickly because the government came in and forced them to stop advertising flavors to make it appealing to kids because the smoking rate of teens was starting to skyrocket. Just look at maplestory and all their other games, sure you may have tos that makes you be an adult but how much of them are actually children, and you can stretch that age definition from 1- 21, children, teen, pre-teens, pre - adult. There's been a significant rise in childhood gambling that it's starting to become a serious issue. The children is just put it there to make sound appealing when they vote and to get public support, how much of parents actually look at their kids spending? there are bad parents out there lol

If people wanna throw their money away at 0.00005 percent of drops of pixels, have at it, just state it out in the open of your chances, stop putting it in world chat so people can stop having the illusion of thinking they'll get it too, there are psychological tricks being purposely put to in to exploit people's bad behavior