Will it happens ?
It already happened with Overwatch in China months ago. Here you can read about it.
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Depends how this goes. This can either fuck up some people (games being outright banned in some countries) or help everyone (the removal of the entire lootbox thing). Or perhaps a compromise - no more lootbox in some countries (different game versions).
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(games being outright banned in some countries) or [..] (the removal of the entire lootbox thing)
A lot of games already use a semi-random lootbox format (ie, a specific list of drops, and each time you get a drop, it's permanently removed from the total list), which may still be able to loophole out of the whole thing; so we may just see a (theoretically still quite positive) shift in direction for them.
I'm completely disinterested by the concept of pure-RNG lootboxes, so I can't say this doesn't seem anything but positive to me..
On the other hand, booster packs in online CCGs/TCGs are essentially the exact same concept, meaning those games would also be at risk. While many of the Asian microtransaction-driven CCGs are scammy, scummy affairs that desperately need some sort of regulation, most of the decent (but non-branded) games within the genre already have enough trouble keeping up strong enough userbases to remain active [without also limiting their access to the EU userbase], so we could be talking about something detrimental to an entire genre [one which I'm rather fond of].
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Though, in fairness, I wouldn't mind seeing more expansion-driven LCG games introduced into the market, either, so if things go that way, there may at least be that potential positive outcome to it.
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Makes sense to be concerned. It's quite an annoying situation - most of us just want to be rid of a certain kind of lootboxing. Unfortunately, in lawmaking, I doubt this would hold out quite nicely.
One solution would be to simply make CCGs mature games. This solves all problems - it's within the new regulation about under-aged gambling, and yet anyone can access and play it if they want to. Most bigger game publishers would not do this as they count on sales from all age groups.
Of course, I may be talking bullshit since I have very limited knowledge on how this all works (including regulations on gambling, especially in Europe) but I'm thinking there are a few loopholes in any rule/law.
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EA really screwed up on this one. Messing with Star Wars suddenly made their schemes into international news instead of business as usual.
Next up: We start seeing the regional microtransaction schemes so that they can continue selling lootboxes to America while complying with European law. Expect games where Europe can individually buy the items that are random for everyone else, games where Europe is banned from the loot systems entirely, and games with a free lootbox currency and a paid nonrandom currency.
Also probably a lot of lawsuits about how the boxes are available for in-game currency as well and nobody is forcing anyone to spend money and so it can't be gambling because there's no real money actually required.
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Here, if you'd like to add in proper quotation formatting, you can just copy this verbatim:
>Last week, Belgium's Gaming Commission announced that it had launched an investigation into whether the loot boxes available for purchase in games like Overwatch and Star Wars Battlefront 2 constitute a form of gambling. Today, VTM News reported that the ruling is in, and the answer is yes.
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>The Google translation is a little sloppy, as usual, but the message is clear enough. "The mixing of money and addiction is gambling," the Gaming Commission declared. Belgium's Minister of Justice Koen Geens also weighed in, saying, "Mixing gambling and gaming, especially at a young age, is dangerous for the mental health of the child."
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>Geens, according to the report, wants to ban in-game purchases outright (correction: if you don't know exactly what you're purchasing), and not just in Belgium: He said the process will take time, "because we have to go to Europe. We will certainly try to ban it."
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>And now, things will start to get interesting. I've reached out to the Gaming Commission for more information, and will update if I receive a reply.
At the very least, may want to copy over that correction that got added to the second-to-last paragraph. :)
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Thank you Belgium.
This is that decisive first step to regulating the hell out of this scumbaggery.
You want lootbox systems? Fine, then make a free-to-play game with microtransactions, or preferably just an in-game shop like LoL. Not a 60+ dollar/euro/whathaveyou title. There are a plethora of other systems available to use, but they go for the one system DESIGNED to make you "want" something specific, then get something else you don't want so that you're encouraged to spend money or an often ridiculous amount of time.
I do not play Overwatch so I don't know how the lootboxes work there, but if it resembles anything like BF2's system then it should definitely be looked at by someone. Same for Shadow of War.
If it doesn't affect you, then think about others. People who are more inclined to be addicted to something. "Don't play that game then" is not a solution but ignoring a problem.
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Amen. I don't play games with lootboxes, and I don't buy any microtransactions as a general rule (I made an exception once for Path of Exile, which I wanted to support), but it's been a troubling trend that I'm glad to see someone clamp down on.
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its fine to me to go into microtransaction in f2p game models.
- it is their only income possibility
- want to support the gamedevs
- mostly its not random what u get, u choose like skins or whatever directly
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For me, it's more about controlling my spending than it is about the ethics of microtransactions, which I'm more or less ok with, especially in f2p games. I don't really like the "pay2win" model of many f2p games, but if that's what other people want to spend their money on, I'm ok with it.
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ya right, p2w is aweful and doesnt help to improve the game cuz it forces other 2do the same or live with it :/
but if buying an item, brings that user onto a better situation and everyone can do it the same, its at least not gambling about the item ^^
u can choose to buy it also directly or well have some kinda bad luck if meeting such "premium" users ^^
wel who knows we will c whats coming up next ^^
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Overwatch is very tame compared to other games. You get given a lootbox every time you level up through experience gained through playing, as well as up to an extra three lootboxes per week for every 3 'arcade mode' wins. The boxes don't require keys or anything, and when opened they unlock various sprays, skins and emotes. The standard lootbox can unlock any piece of content but seasonal exclusives, and if you ever draw a duplicate item it instead rewards you with coins (that can be saved up so you can buy specific items directly rather than randomly). In a patch a few months back, they made it so that the chance of getting duplicates is very slim, to the point that I haven't had a single duplicate since the patch. Seasonal stuff is unlocked for normal in-game coin purchase during that season, and all earned lootboxes automatically spawn as seasonal boxes that can spawn the relevant items.
None of them confer gameplay advantages, and while you can purchase extra lootboxes with real money, they're pretty much just the same ones you get through normal play. The three arcade boxes are really easy to get even if you just play a round or two a day, and leveling up happens naturally over time given you get experience even on a loss, and you level up with about 5 wins in a standard quickplay match.
Sadly when it comes to lawmakers, they won't discriminate between such gentle loot systems and more exploitative systems that try to hook you with (exclusive?) gameplay enhancing things, or with sub-economies that lends itself to strange and potentially destructive behavior. I'd still be reluctant to overly moderate these things though, but measure to prevent gambling communities from forming around them would be good, if only to stop it from opening up to various rackets they can't even begin to moderate or investigate.
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Thanks for the info. :) I purposefully didn't "attack" it because I didn't hear nearly as much backlash on it, figured it must be more reasonable to some extent.
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Tame, but still really shit. Everyone that plays it wants the skins, and they are a key part of the game and the incentive that keeps people playing. I.e. I think they should be more regular and with fewer duplicates.
Level up is pretty slow and arcade win drops are arbitrarily capped. When you get something good every 20 crates and it takes hours per level to get that crate, the system is pretty shitty, even when it is only cosmetic.
In older games there would be no cap and you could have gotten as many crates as you wanted. Restricting it to make you pay doesn't make the game a better experience. They could still do it for the seasonal/post-launch content, and have the regular crates be easier to get.
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I disagree, having all content frontloaded or too quickly or easily unlocked and that lacking sense of progression can leave a game feeling hollow. You could argue that this makes the unlockables a form of false padding, but then we would have to then consider that in survival sandbox type games the progression of tools and materials is also a form of unnecessary padding, as are cash limits in the Sims and so on.
Incentives are not a bad thing, especially not when they don't effect gameplay. Since the patch that altered how the loot boxes work, I don't recall ever actually getting a single duplicate, so I can't even consider that an issue as they have been all but totally eradicated from my personal experience. While there is always that hunger for extra stuff, I think the ramp of lootbox rewards is in a good place, giving rewards frequently enough that if you play two or three matches a day, you're probably tripping over one of the criteria for four random unlocks.
At least, nothing in the Overwatch lootboxes warrants legal interference.
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No. There is no reason to jump to the other extreme.
I disagree. They affect (not effect) gameplay as it's what pushes you to play, schedule play sessions and so on, and then they dissapoint the player by their quality and rate, souring the experience. Hence saying they don't affect gameplay is absolutely false as shown by the shallowest analysis of how people interact with the game.
To the Chinese they did, and according to the current movement of politicians turning on lootboxes they do. If you don't see anything wrong with what they did to avoid revealing the odds of their boxes, I don't know what to tell you.
To each their own, but I'm not going to pretend it's good when I see how much it bugs my brother, and what it looked like to me when I played it.
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They don't effect gameplay. The gameplay itself is not altered by the customisations present. You knew exactly what I meant.
Yes, they 'affect gameplay' insomuch as they influence replay frequency, but that's not what I was talking about. Whether or not is sours your experience is entirely down to the individual, and my experience is that people are pretty universally happy about the lootbox situation aside from not getting seasonal items they wanted (but those repeat cyclically).
I just see no devil in the Overwatch method. Your mileage may vary, I suppose.
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Geens wants a ban on in-game purchases where you don't know exactly what you're getting. So microtransactions will presumably still be okay, but loot boxes with randomized contents will not.
So, what if the thing you're "buying" is in-game currency—gems, gold, crystals, whatnot—and one of the major things you happen to be able to buy with said in-game currency is a lootbox or other randomly generated reward? How would that be regulated? Lootboxes themselves will need to be the banned element.
Games often have randomly-generated rewards which you can purchase. Diablo II and other ARPGs have item gambling that you can do with your character's gold, for example. This kind of thing shouldn't be a problem. So you restrict any form of gambling/lootbox to a currency that you can earn through normal gameplay, right? But then, if you have microtransactions, and you can purchase character funds with microtransaction funds (a common element of microtransaction-fueled games), and you can gamble with character funds, then we're back to where we started. It's going to be hard to wholly get gambling out of games with microtransactions unless the games have absolutely no RNG-generated loot drops or there's absolutely no way to turn a microtransaction currency into the currency that offers you more chances for RNG-generated loot.
I'm all for this idea, but it will get complicated, and potentially ugly, before the situation resolves itself.
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From my nearly complete ignorance of EU politics, I generally imagine the major game devs/publishers will develop a scheme that creates a loophole, which could remove much of the impetus for a total EU ban. But maybe I'm wrong. They've certainly been obstinately tone deaf for a very long time.
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I wonder how it will pan out, given that gambling itself isn't illegal in the whole of the EU, so I wonder how the lawmakers are going to duck and weave about the issue, especially given they're typically unlikely to understand the content or communities they're moderating.
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Here’s a comic strip on lottery-gambling I thought was funny... but makes a point in a way...
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they will find a way around it like they did in CHAY-NA
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"Geens wants a ban on in-game purchases where you don't know exactly what you're getting. So microtransactions will presumably still be okay, but loot boxes with randomized contents will not."
So what about crate keys (RL, CS:GO, TF2 etc.)? You buy a key, so you know exactly what you're getting. But using it to open a crate is a whole different story...
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It seems everybody forgot about CSGO, DOTA2 and TF2 lootboxes.
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They're right. At least when speaking generally about the game-industry/environment trending towards de-facto lotteries and games of chance (with increasingly large real money value at stake) that would otherwise be blatantly illega; though, I'm not all that familiar with lootboxes and how they work specifically..
There's always such a lag from technology moving forward while law-as-applied needs to play catch-up. But, eventually, that other shoe drops and forces a serious reconciliation that changes things on both sides.
The game industry (and, even more-so, its intermediaries and surrounding atmosphere) definitely get away with a lot of shady shit that has essentially been on the books for ages. Its all goes back to others having done the exact same sorts of things trying to squeeze out their own spot in-between gambling regulations. There's a hefty amount of existing regulation (having already undergone that loophole / counter-loophole cycle over the years until it reached its current form) set up to cover such broad attempts. ; It's why you've got all the little disclaimers and fine print slapped on even the most typical of product promotions or giveaways.
Basically, if you've ever wondered why you can enter, say, the McDonalds monopoly game with "no purchase necessary," well, it's because video-gaming is hardly the first industry to come up with lotteries that "aren't really lotteries" (but really they are). And the same is true of all the other types of game being run by the gaming industry---all just new variations of those old songs.
It's not like this should be any surprise to an industry that's actively been--and for some time now--cribbing from the same playbooks you'd use to run a Casino to knowingly and intentionally cultivating an atmosphere of addiction.
Next on the chopping block: soap with a prize inside mystery keys
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I think that addicting kids into gambling is wrong in many ways, because even if the game is +18 we know what kind of little person ends up playing hardcore violent games. If we're talking about grown ups, i have nothing to say because we're not talking about my money since i'm not the one that gamble.
Indeed the government will setup something to tax those greed companies and i have no opinion about that.
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Blizzard has already loopholed its way out of the China ban by saying the lootboxes are a "free bonus" and the money you spend is on in-game currency.
It's an utter lie, of course, since the currency you buy is a MINISCULE fraction of what you'd need to buy anything.
IE 5 coins plus two "free" lootboxes for a 12RMB purchase. The CHEAPEST item a lootbox can contain is a 25 coin spray, and it has 4 items.
Nobody would EVER pay 12RMB for 5 coins. It'd take you 200 purchases before getting enough coin for 1 legendary skin, which you're expected to get one of per approximately 15 boxes (so that 200 purchases would get you ~26 legendaries already).
The sooner companies will stop trying to WEASEL their way through life the better. I hope the EU absolutely CRUSHES these practises. If there is ANY way of turning REAL MONEY into a gambling box, it has to be banned. That includes fictional "bonuses", or real money to in-game currency to loot boxes, anything.
If you want real money transactions, you CANNOT have loot boxes.
If you want RNG lootboxes in your game, you CANNOT make them purchaseable, directly OR indirectly, with real money.
1) RMT for direct-purchase skins/items? Sure.
2) In-game currency for RNG lootboxes? Fine.
3) RMT for in-game currency? NOT if you have item 2.
4) RMT for RNG lootboxes? HELL no.
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I don't think EU will start to work on it today or tomorrow, so they will have time to see example of China (and decide why it's not working) and came up with something that will work.
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Do they ban sealed packs of sports cards in Europe also? Or humble bundle monthly?
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Guess Disney's call to EA's execs came too little,too late.
Oh well.The corporate turds will probably weasel themselves out of this mess as well.
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Yay!
Tho regulations wouldn't be about certain game, but about whole industry in general. So it'd be also problem for TF2, Overwatch, Shadow of War, Mass Effect 3 and any other game that's not +18 and have any kind of lootboxes and in-game currency.
We'll see how it will play out. I wonder if they will try to ban in EU yt channels that have lootboxes openings. After all it's like showing how casino work and then post few illegal links where people can go and play. I don't even think it's legal to make streams from like roulette wheel on yt or somewhere.
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they may find a way (a pay) out of this and all laws & regulations coming from it in the nearer future but for now it's good that the whole topic gets a much bigger attention and wider audience.
and i am really happy to see these greedy fucks getting exposed to basically everybody and their dogs and getting their asses handed to them. not just by the gamers who got tired of being fucked over but also politics. that doesn't happen too often and certainly not this quickly.
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It is good thing that this form of gambling is stopped.
They could still change the lootbox system into: that always shows what you gett. Every box contains different items. Maybe with some crafting items, with the correct items you can craft some weapons/skin. Some boxes are limited, sothat people still can resell their rare items.
-$1-box 2 items
-$2-box 5 items
-$5-box 13 items
Example (depending on the game):
- 10 wood
- WeaponSkin
- 15 metal
- Sticker for weapon
- 5 gold
If you know what you gett, than it isn't a form a gambling. I think
Or maybe even: if you craft a weapon with those materials. There could be a certain chance that you will craft a special item. The higher your steamlevel is and other conditions are., the higher your chances are, but the increase of chance is still small.
This is maybe an indirect form of gambling. But you bought a box knowing which items you gott. I should maybe not give them to many ideas.
Or the gaming companies will just go for small DLCs and paid mods. They will find ways to make even more money.
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Hooray.
But of course the publishers, scumbags that they are, will probably find something other (even more?) despicable thing to cram in their games to ruin all our fun.
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It was going to happen someday.
I think it's just the publishers' problem with being so temporary that makes them push the limits further as it "works for now".
And that always makes them shoot themselves in the foot. For the better and for the worse.
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