Official UK Report regarding Loot Boxes in Games - clearly calls them gambling

[Danj86]

7 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Update on things, the ESA (the Entertainment Software Association, who you might know from their recent scandals involving defending EA at the previously mentioned hearing that had Surprise Mechanics, as well as leaking tons of E3 attendees personal info) have made an absolutely pathetic response towards the UK's report, trying to bring up their same nonsense from before where they said that all odds would be required to be disclosed (which was their attempt to defend themselves at the last hearing). 

Put simply, it doesn't very much paint them in a good light considering the fact that the UK report outright accuses these companies as being purposefully obtuse as to misinform, and hide information.  

I watched that video today. YongYea doesn't swear often and I almost fell out of my chair. It was justified though. He was super pissed at the 2K20 ads with YouTube shills featured. The ad itself was pretty cringe.

I've never heard of anyone disagreeing with evidence until now. I wont sympathize with these f*cking corrupt companies and if they lose money and eventually go bankrupt, I'll start a freakin' street party! The only problem is that more often than not, it seems the actual developers have no say in these monetization scams and they are bound to suffer due to publisher greed.

[Blacklightning]

21 hours ago, Polkadi~☆ said:

 At the very least, put a warning on the age rating label to dissuade the easily influenced.

I just wanted to come back to this real quick to point out a few things. Point one: they already do that in multiple regions. Point two: some publishers (most notably Activision off the top of my head) patch in premium economies of this nature post launch, specifically to hook in people who might not have bought the game at all because of them. And while I'm pretty sure digital storefronts are updated with the new disclaimers, I've yet to hear of physical editions of games being recalled for misleading ratings. Which is kind of fucking irritating to be perfectly honest, thinking back to how quickly the industry was pressured into acting on Hot Coffee - a dummied out feature that wasn't even accessible without modifying your game files - or how often games here in Australia have been censored if not outright denied sale for the most absurd and childish of reasons.

[Dr. Detective]

The game industry's desire that the backlash would eventually go away doesn't seem to be working. 

I'd like to give EA a special round of applause though. I hope they feel a sense of "pride and accomplishment" for doing the most to help us reach this point.

If this actually does lead anywhere, I want them to know that they shouldn't think of this as regulation. Just call it "Surprise Legislation". 

[superman43]

I like how you talk about EA or Bethesda, but don't mention their cousin Demiurge. (I am looking at SEGA Heroes, smh.)

[Ryannumber1gamer]

EA have issued a response - 

 

[Tarnish]

I think the AAA gaming industry is a lost cause at this point. At best, we'll get rid of loot boxes, but they'll get to keep all their other bullshit tactics: pre-order bonuses, dozens of special editions, release unfinished/broken games with the 'ship now, fix later (if ever) mentality', introduce microtransactions after the review cycle, make mountains of money by selling virtual currency because earning them by playing is gonna take forever, make games with unconvinient features/mechanics to sell the convinient solutions back to you. Not to mention all the "games as a service" trend. And of course mobiles games will forever remain a cesspool of monetization with virtual currencies and time gates.

The 'golden age' of gaming is truly long behind us.

[Tornado]

On 9/13/2019 at 9:57 AM, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Microtransactions are an essential part of the lootbox system.

They are, but loot boxes specifically have an element of chance that microtransactions before the current console generation (ish) never fussed with. You pay a buck or two, you get a gun or whatever that let's you immediately fuck up people online. You pay a buck or two (or, increasingly, 4 or 5) and you get some cosmetic item that the developer spent probably an hour putting together. It can be scummy, especially when it went hand in hand with developers fine tuning games to make it deliberately beneficial to buy such things and especially when they were limited-use; but it's the gambling element where you don't even know what you're getting for the money you spend that makes it so it should have run afoul gambling laws earlier and make it inherently nasty (instead of just potentially so based on implementation).

[Jango]

Is there anything that we the players can actually do besides making YouTube videos about it (unless it comes from BIG influencers) or discussing in online forums? We're fighting against multi billionaire companies... I'm an optimistic person, but I am also very skeptical when it comes to stuff like this. It's been like this for a while and I doubt it's gonna change that much... I actually don't mind paying some extra bucks for cosmetic stuff in games when and if I please, but I see a problem when you have these two scenarios: 1. The game sells itens/weapons/power-ups that give you instantaneous advantage in competitive games, the infamous pay-to-win; 2. The game sells whole characters when these same characters were playable from the go and for free in games before it, like Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite and Dragon Ball FighterZ. You lock a character that was always playable in previous installments or lock a very desired character like Darth Vader behind pay walls. Dragon Ball FighterZ probably had the smallest cast of playable characters at launch in recent years, and Bandai charged 5 bucks for each "new" characters, some of which where always playable before, like Broly, Videl, Bardock... It doesn't help that the game itself was already TOO fucking expensive around here. It's almost like Bandai games have some kind of extra tax.

IIRC, Skullgirls also was released with a tiny roster, but it eventually got more playable characters... All for free. Because indies aren't assholes like these huge companies and we can dialogue with the devs with transparency, unlike EA or Activision.

As for the loot boxes, there are games where you pay REAL money without knowing what you'll get, like a slot machine? I didn't knew. I knew some games allowed you to try those gacha-like machines, but all with in-game currency, not real money, wow.

You know what is funny (but not ha-ha funny)? Here in Brazil, videogames were under the "gambling games" category for decades, just like slot machines and casinos. I shit you not. This meant that any kind of game or videogame console would have a ton of extra taxes added to its price, making the final product cost almost 4 times more than it should by doing the currency convertion. That's why most people would rather buy pirated games for 5 bucks instead of 200 bucks original games... Myself included. Gamers around here still fight against all these absurd crazy taxes, and we did managed to convince the government to put videogames in other category (I think right now is under the "arts" category? Gotta confirm that), but we still pay for over priced games...

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Jango said:

Is there anything that we the players can actually do besides making YouTube videos about it (unless it comes from BIG influencers) or discussing in online forums? We're fighting against multi billionaire companies...

Simple - you don't pay for them. That's ultimately what these companies want by infesting their games with live service bullshit, making the game as grindy as possible to wear out patience and convince people to pay up. If you want to take a stand, don't support it, don't buy it, and spread the word of these manipulative tactics. 

2 minutes ago, Jango said:

I'm an optimistic person, but I am also very skeptical when it comes to stuff like this. It's been like this for a while and I doubt it's gonna change that much...

It's been around for awhile because it was a slow build-up, and that's always how it starts, especially when the big companies want to jump on a bandwagon. First it was Day 1 DLC, then when people were sick of that, they jumped to season passes and pre-order bonuses, then it was microtransactions, and now it was loot boxes. It was a slow burn because it started small with cosmetic things like in Overwatch, until the game industry pushed it's luck over and over and over again.

The unfortunate thing about that is when you push your luck, eventually it runs out, and that's the case here, especially since EA were the one that started the landslide via FIFA and especially Battlefront 2. They pushed it so far that it ended up directly in the sights of the government and gambling laws, and frankly, it was a matter of time before the law caught up with them.

Game companies can keep claiming up and down that "they care" and "we strongly disagree with blah blah blah", but at the end of the day, it does not change undeniable facts - this is gambling, and it's being promoted to children. The government is not gonna stand aside and allow a technical grey area to let this continue, and it's already happening worldwide - Belgium banned them months ago (or rather - they wanted these game companies to go through the proper legal channels to acquire a gambling license, and they wouldn't take it), and both the UK and USA have been looking at them extensively, the UK having talks with representatives from EA and other companies, while IIRC, in the USA, there's a bill in progress regarding loot box regulation.

7 minutes ago, Jango said:

like Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite and Dragon Ball FighterZ. You lock a character that was always playable in previous installments or lock a very desired character like Darth Vader behind pay walls. Dragon Ball FighterZ probably had the smallest cast of playable characters at launch in recent years, and Bandai charged 5 bucks for each "new" characters, some of which where always playable before, like Broly, Videl, Bardock... It doesn't help that the game itself was already TOO fucking expensive around here.times more than it should by doing the currency convertion. That's why most people would rather buy pirated games for 5 bucks instead of 200 bucks original games... 

 This is entirely irrelevant and not even scummy, at least in FighterZ's case. Those are additional DLC characters and Bandai/other companies aren't entitled to give you free characters for nothing when they take time and resources to develop. When you paid for FighterZ, you paid for the base game with the launch set of characters, and then Bandai released two DLC seasons worth of characters that were developed after FighterZ's initial development concluded. 

You might have a point with MvC:I because it's been documented that Capcom pulled their usual bullshit of taking already completed characters, and caging them off for DLC. Meaning said characters should have been on the base disc, but weren't so Capcom could sell them back to you. In that case, no additional resources and money was spent to make them, therefore you have a right to be angry regarding that.

But all of that is irrelevant to the case at hand. Paid DLC is a very very very different case to loot boxes.

11 minutes ago, Jango said:

As for the loot boxes, there are games where you pay REAL money without knowing what you'll get, like a slot machine?! I didn't knew. I knew some games allowed you to try those gacha-like machines, but all with in-game currency, not real money, wow.

 That's how you get the in-game currency, and that's how these companies attempt to sneak around the subject - "you don't use real money, you just use virtual currency", while leaving out the fact that you use real money to buy said virtual currency to gamble it. 

This is also their attempt to defend against gambling, by claiming that since you can't cash out for real money, it doesn't fall under gambling laws. However, the UK's report in this topic stands against that by stating that these items clearly have an inherit value if players are throwing money into the game to get a chance to obtain said item, therefore regardless of cashing out, it still retains a real world value and therefore falls under gambling laws.

[Jango]

30 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Simple - you don't pay for them. 

Never did and likely never will. But I'm ONE person. And I know for a fact that as long as there's still one person willing to spend real money in cosmetic stuff through MTX, these companies will keep playing this game.

30 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

This is entirely irrelevant and not even scummy, at least in FighterZ's case. Those are additional DLC characters and Bandai/other companies aren't entitled to give you free characters for nothing when they take time and resources to develop. When you paid for FighterZ, you paid for the base game with the launch set of characters, and then Bandai released two DLC seasons worth of characters that were developed after FighterZ's initial development concluded. 

You might have a point with MvC:I because it's been documented that Capcom pulled their usual bullshit of taking already completed characters, and caging them off for DLC. Meaning said characters should have been on the base disc, but weren't so Capcom could sell them back to you. In that case, no additional resources and money was spent to make them, therefore you have a right to be angry regarding that.

But all of that is irrelevant to the case at hand. Paid DLC is a very very very different case to loot boxes.

How is it irrelevant if it's something that happens? And even then, calling someone's view irrelevant is kinda rude of you. I would excuse Dragon Ball FighterZ case, eventhough we don't have the same kind of confirmation that it was only planned after release, but I still find it bullshit charging 5 extra bucks for characters there were always free in previous games. They never even allow you to unlock them in-game anymore. The game is already over priced as hell for such a tiny roster, and don't forget we're talking about DBZ, which always had huge rosters.

I know paid DLC isn't the same as loot boxes, I was comparing it to MTX, Ryan.

30 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

That's how you get the in-game currency, and that's how these companies attempt to sneak around the subject - "you don't use real money, you just use virtual currency", while leaving out the fact that you use real money to buy said virtual currency to gamble it. 

This is also their attempt to defend against gambling, by claiming that since you can't cash out for real money, it doesn't fall under gambling laws. However, the UK's report in this topic stands against that by stating that these items clearly have an inherit value if players are throwing money into the game to get a chance to obtain said item, therefore regardless of cashing out, it still retains a real world value and therefore falls under gambling laws.

The bastards.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, Jango said:

How is it irrelevant if it's something that happens? And even then, calling someone's view irrelevant is kinda rude of you.

Because the situation at hand is loot boxes and their legality, as well as the effect they have on games. Microtransactions and DLC are two different things altogether with their own situations, and it’s important to know said differences if you’re going to discuss it. DLC covers additional post launch development, typically created after the initial game’s development while micro transactions cover small purchases of items, consumables, and what have you. 

Because of that, the situations are different. With DLC, the usual issues you will find is day one DLC, I.E - content that was gated off and should’ve been present on the original release, pre order DLC - similar to the above, only its spaced out to different retailers, Season Passes, trying to incentivise you to pre order DLC, and especially gated off DLC, such as the on-disc DLC that Capcom was infamous for last gen. 

Microtransactions on the other hand causes developers to make games extremely grindy and frustrating to play, as well as usually gating content behind a grind in order to incentivise players to pay for them, as well as offering advantages to players, such as XP boosts, among other things. 

So yes, bringing up FighterZ and MvC is irrelevant to the case at hand because it’s a different set of circumstances, situations and controversies surrounding it. It isn’t rude to point out the fact that in the current line of discussion, what you’re pointing out isn’t relevant because not only is it a different situation altogether, but additional characters, expansions, stories, and what have you can justify a price point better than loot boxes, microtransactions, or what have you.

[Jango]

I disagree with you, if it's still under the subject of "using real life money in games", it could be discussed. It feels more like you're disregarding my points because of some personal thing rather than reading into it, because other people have brought MTX and DLC before in this thread and you didn't acted the same. But fine, whatever. It's not even my problem, I don't live in the UK or buy loot boxes anyways.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Jango said:

I disagree with you, if it's still under the subject of "using real life money in games", it could be discussed. It feels more like you're disregarding my points because of some personal thing rather than reading into it, because other people have brought MTX and DLC before in this thread and you didn't acted the same. But fine, whatever. 

Why on earth would I have some personal thing to defend DLC? I literally said you had a point with MvC because that was actual content developed for the game on launch gated off to be sold at a higher price. 

Furthermore, I never said MTX was irrelevant, I said post launch DLC was irrelevant, because it’s a completely different situation altogether. MTX and loot boxes are part of each other and requires discussion with each other, if you read my initial post, what I said was irrelevant was your discussion of FighterZ and MvC:I, because not only is that a different situation with its own controversies, but in the case of FighterZ, you’re essentially asking Bandai to supply you with full new characters with additional support, unique move sets, and cost additional money to develop for free, which is a different situation altogether to locking content intended and developed before launch to make people pay for it later.

On top of that, your point on said characters being present in earlier games rings pretty hollow when said games like Budokai Tenkaichi and Xenoverse are arena brawlers that basically copy paste the majority of characters, changing their models, their ki attacks, and dialogue, while FighterZ develops unique movesets, animations and more, making everyone feel unique as a character. 

I also checked through the topic and found no discussion of DLC. Plenty of discussion of MTX, which is fair enough, since I was saying DLC was irrelevant to the case at hand, not microtranscations. 

If anything, it feels like you’re trying to take personal insult at me simply saying that DLC is a different case altogether and doesn’t hold much water in the issues of Microtransactions, and isn’t anywhere near as scummy as them from a manipulative point of view. Instead of trying to claim I’ve got a personal bias to try stop discussion of DLC, which is downright silly, look at my explanation and see why I believe it irrelevant to the case at hand. Simply saying “you pay money for it on top of the game” isn’t enough to justify a connection, because one actually justifies an additional price point because it’s actual additional content developed using additional money, time and expenses, and the other is just content created from the beginning gated off behind microtransactions, loot mechanics, and gambling for a chance to get a cosmetic, or item.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 hour ago, Jango said:

Never did and likely never will. But I'm ONE person. And I know for a fact that as long as there's still one person willing to spend real money in cosmetic stuff through MTX, these companies will keep playing this game.

Have you not noticed the trend of companies getting in trouble, having to move their scummy efforts to new variants, the multiple governments getting involved?

To say things aren't progressing with the mass effort people have already been making is an affront of ignorance. 

[Jango]

1 hour ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Have you not noticed the trend of companies getting in trouble, having to move their scummy efforts to new variants, the multiple governments getting involved?

To say things aren't progressing with the mass effort people have already been making is an affront of ignorance. 

Good, because I didn't said Also "big companies getting in trouble" does not equals progress, it's only giving these suits more opportunities to work around the system instead of providing a solution to the problem on the table, which is happening.

Videogames are often brought up by the media in a negative form, but actually making them better for the people, kids and people with addiction especially, is ultimately not high on the government's agenda, which is why despite said progress, I'm not looking forward to a big change any time soon. If a politician promisses these kinds of "change", it's more than likely that him or his party are just trying to apppeal to a demographic of potential supporters for an election of sorts. We live in the real world, man, they don't care, the government don't care. The companies will have to pay a big fine and move on to the next scummy tactic, that's how things are.

1 hour ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

at me simply saying that DLC is a different case altogether and doesn’t hold much water in the issues of Microtransactions, and isn’t anywhere near as scummy as them from a manipulative point of view. 

Funny you say that, because IIRC, and I do, everytime I tried to argue that I didn't find the MTX in CTR as scummy, because ultimately you CAN unlock 99% of the stuff in the game without spending a cent, it was said that I was "defending these companies", which I wasn't, but this extreme polarization "you're either with them or against them" took control of any kind of reasonable discussion. It sounds hypocrite of you saying that now. 

[Tornado]

2 hours ago, Jango said:

How is it irrelevant if it's something that happens?

Because with DLC you are exchanging cash for actual goods, digital or not. MvC:I's scumminess has to do with whether Capcom held back finished content to include in the game for extra money after the fact. If we give Capcom the benefit of the doubt on that, MvC:I was a completely different game from MvC 3 seemingly made from the ground up (no matter how much of a dumpster fire it always looked like as a result), so no assumptions should be made about whether you'll get ground up recreations of popular characters.

 

Remember how Infinite looked fucking disgusting, with an atrocious art style and nasty looking character models? That's because they didn't port seemingly anything from the fantastic looking (but old) MvC 3 and instead actually (seemingly) made everything from scratch. If you want to dictate that you should always get the same characters in every game in a fighting game franchise, that's how you get the running joke of "MvC 3 Morrigan Model Leaked" from before she was actually shown:

 

Because up until that point Capcom had done that, and her sprites looked terrible by the time CvS 2/MvC 2 came around.

2 hours ago, Jango said:

but I still find it bullshit charging 5 extra bucks for characters there were always free in previous games. They never even allow you to unlock them in-game anymore. The game is already over priced as hell for such a tiny roster, and don't forget we're talking about DBZ, which always had huge rosters.

Previous games made by different developers with different gameplay and a different art style on different platforms.

Not only is the discussion about post-release DLC irrelevant to a discussion about loot box-based microtransactions, but it is extra irrelevant when you're making the argument that you are owed characters from other games in this completely unrelated game made from scratch by someone who had nothing to do with those other games.

 

 

Yes, if you see a developer basically just lying through their teeth to justify low content count (Forza 5 was an infamous example early this generation with it's "scratch built" car models that somehow had the exact same modeling errors as the ones from the 360 titles in the series; Pokemon Sword and Shield hasn't come out yet and it looks all the world like they are doing the same thing), it's perfectly acceptable to call them out on it. Especially if they are buttressing that low content count with paid DLC after release, because that's certainly explotatitive. But even in that situation (which doesn't apply to the two games you brought up) it wouldn't be the same thing as exchanging real money for theoretical chance at game advancement; which is what the thread is about.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

16 minutes ago, Jango said:

Funny you say that, because IIRC, and I do, everytime I tried to argue that I didn't find the MTX in CTR as scummy, because ultimately you CAN unlock 99% of the stuff in the game without spending a cent, it was said that I was "defending these companies", which I wasn't, but this extreme polarization "you're either with them or against them" took control of any kind of reasonable discussion.

My point literally doesn't relate to what you've said about CTR whatsoever. I said DLC is a different case altogether and that DLC doesn't hold water when discussing microtransactions. 

The reason that CTR is considered bad with it's microtransactions, and what's been explained time and time again is that they hindered the game by adding awful grind mechanics, and that is one of the points you will regularly find people argue about in regards to microtransactions, so I frankly don't understand where you're going with that, or how that relates whatsoever to the point you quoted. Yes, DLC is a different situation altogether, except CTR falls squarely into inserting unneeded grind mechanics to pressure people into buying wumpa coins at a later date. Nothing I said changed that fact.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

11 minutes ago, Jango said:

Also "big companies getting in trouble" does not equals progress, it's only giving these suits more opportunities to work around the system instead of providing a solution to the problem on the table, which is happening.

Again, this doesn't get the point of the matter.

You can't circumvent the fact that companies having to fall back on alternative methods of scumminess are a result of the gaming community coming together against them. A fact which negates your opinion of no progress being made.

11 minutes ago, Jango said:

I'm not looking forward to a big change any time soon. If a politician promisses this kinds of "change", it's more than likely that him or his party are just trying to apppeal to a demographic of potential supporters for an election of sorts. We live in the real world, man, they don't care, the government don't care. The companies will have to pay a big fine and move on to the next scummy tactic, that's how things are.

See, where we differ is that, I don't prescribe to some defeatist attitude that dictates that we should just lie down and take what game companies force on us out of government paranoia. Especially when we've already seen non-corrupt examples of progress like with Belgium.

And I like many will support the progress that's being made.

[Plasme]

There are real ways to protest loot boxes and the best tactic is to buy the game second hand. You are denying the company money but still get to play the game. Obviously you resist buying into loot boxes. But boycotting is too difficult for some people, which is where second hand purchases can be useful.

And I think it's untrue that backlash against loot boxes has had no effect. DICE has been upfront about how the loot box controversy utterly wrecked Battlefront 2 commercially. Other games, such as Shadow of War, were once popular franchises but then instantly flopped (comparatively) because of them. Some games, such as Halo Wars 2, have entire game modes which are heavily marketed (blitz) completely fail because of loot boxes. I can't think of many modern games other than Overwatch and FIFA that have been successful with them.

The real kicker is that some games which were promising and had cult audiences, such as Shadow of War (Mordor series) will probably now be dead for good because of the wholw fiasco. I imagine Star Wars Battlefront's chamces aren't great now, especially considering how the first game was already controversial. But we cant be blamed for that.

[Tarnish]

16 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Simple - you don't pay for them.

To quote someone: "Sounds good, doesn't work." If a AAA game lets say sells 5 million copies (these days they would consider that a disappointment/failure), and 99% of those people don't pay a singe cent on microtransactions, while the remaining 1% does, that's still 50 000 people (be it casuals who don't know this isn't how games are supposed to be, hardcore fansboy who pay for anything that has the name of their favorite developer/brand/game or just whales who took the hook) paying a ton of money for loot boxes, microtransactions, what have you. If only that many people are willing to pay for every item they keep adding to the game, I'm pretty sure that's still quite profitable. And I have a feeling it's more than 1% of the consumers that are like this.

[Jango]

21 hours ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

You can't circumvent the fact that companies having to fall back on alternative methods of scumminess are a result of the gaming community coming together against them. A fact which negates your opinion of no progress being made.

I ain't, and I wouldn't call "companies changing their scummy method to another scummy method" progress, save for Belgium which in fact banned all this, but that's due to the country already been heavily strict about gambling in general. They did that in early 2018, and so far nothing has progressed regarding other countries. The companies changed their methods, EA even tried to pass loot boxes by renaming them.

There are talks and support from gamers of the ban, but I come back to my question: will it matter? Like Tarnish put:

7 hours ago, Tarnish said:

On 9/18/2019 at 12:59 PM, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Simple - you don't pay for them.

To quote someone: "Sounds good, doesn't work." If a AAA game lets say sells 5 million copies (these days they would consider that a disappointment/failure), and 99% of those people don't pay a singe cent on microtransactions, while the remaining 1% does, that's still 50 000 people (be it casuals who don't know this isn't how games are supposed to be, hardcore fansboy who pay for anything that has the name of their favorite developer/brand/game or just whales who took the hook) paying a ton of money for loot boxes, microtransactions, what have you. If only that many people are willing to pay for every item they keep adding to the game, I'm pretty sure that's still quite profitable. And I have a feeling it's more than 1% of the consumers that are like this.

 

Heck, Rockstar Games added an actual casino to GTA 5, which indeed led the update to be banned in many countries: https://www.dexerto.com/gta/gta-online-casino-list-banned-countries-843539

At the end of the day, the government can forbid and ban it all, companies will still find ways to circumvent the law and act in a grey area, like they've been doing already. They will pay the fines every time they fuck up (if ever, like Rockstar does with taxes ), and will keep doing it, because no matter what, there will always be players willing to pay. Look: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/gta-online-diamond-casino-resort-sets-user-records-1228386

Even with the ban in all those countries, since the casino update roll out, the players' base raised more than ever. Even if Rockstar couldn't or shouldn't do it, they did, and it got results.

The real change comes down to the companies' integrity and good will. So ultimately, they will have to change, not the laws. And even if they come out and say: "-Yes, we changed", can the players still trust them, especially the likes of EA? 

[Plasme]

1 hour ago, Jango said:

At the end of the day, the government can forbid and ban it all, companies will still find ways to circumvent the law and act in a grey area, like they've been doing already. They will pay the fines every time they fuck up (if ever, like Rockstar does with taxes ), and will keep doing it, because no matter what, there will always be players willing to pay. Look: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/gta-online-diamond-casino-resort-sets-user-records-1228386

Even with the ban in all those countries, since the casino update roll out, the players' base raised more than ever. Even if Rockstar couldn't or shouldn't do it, they did, and it got results.

The real change comes down to the companies' integrity and good will. So ultimately, they will have to change, not the laws. And even if they come out and say: "-Yes, we changed", can the players still trust them, especially the likes of EA? 

I think that's a bit disingenuous, because GTA Online is one of the most popular games of all time. It's also very old and mostly populated by people who are such hardcore fans that they would tolerate stuff like this. If we want to talk about the effect loot boxes have on a game franchise's long term viability, we should look at the examples I provided above.

Also, laws do force companies to change tract, it's pure nihilism and also incorrect to say otherwise. Belgium's law has been successful over there, it hasn't elsewhere because we aren't compelled to obey Belgian law. It's the responsibility of world governments to regulate this stuff, and even if companies were scummy and tried to circumvent the laws, it would be much harder and more frowned upon to do so.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

9 hours ago, Plasme said:

There are real ways to protest loot boxes and the best tactic is to buy the game second hand. You are denying the company money but still get to play the game. Obviously you resist buying into loot boxes. But boycotting is too difficult for some people, which is where second hand purchases can be useful.

And I think it's untrue that backlash against loot boxes has had no effect. DICE has been upfront about how the loot box controversy utterly wrecked Battlefront 2 commercially. Other games, such as Shadow of War, were once popular franchises but then instantly flopped (comparatively) because of them. Some games, such as Halo Wars 2, have entire game modes which are heavily marketed (blitz) completely fail because of loot boxes. I can't think of many modern games other than Overwatch and FIFA that have been successful with them.

The real kicker is that some games which were promising and had cult audiences, such as Shadow of War (Mordor series) will probably now be dead for good because of the wholw fiasco. I imagine Star Wars Battlefront's chamces aren't great now, especially considering how the first game was already controversial. But we cant be blamed for that.

This is why I can't really stand ignorant folk who try to suggest that no progress has ever been made against these companies. You'd almost think they were on their payrolls, just trying to demoralize people when they try and circumvent the fact the fight against greedy companies has actually yielded results and that we should just give in to them.

Like you yourself said, it's quite disingenuous at least.

22 hours ago, Jango said:

Funny you say that, because IIRC, and I do, everytime I tried to argue that I didn't find the MTX in CTR as scummy, because ultimately you CAN unlock 99% of the stuff in the game without spending a cent, it was said that I was "defending these companies", which I wasn't, but this extreme polarization "you're either with them or against them" took control of any kind of reasonable discussion. It sounds hypocrite of you saying that now.  

Pardoneme? That stunt of yours where you tried to vilify anyone bringing up the problems with the legit problems of CTR as entitled crybabies was anything but a reasonable discussion from you. Especially when it was explained in detail how the scheme was unfair to anyone without online, how it was explicitly made to encourage paying for MTX, employing a drag cycle, etc, all of which you tried to ignore ind defense of the game.

[Plasme]

I mean I do have sympathy for people's unease of government regulation, because it could potentially lead to regulation/censorship elsewhere. I'm a lefty anti-censorship type, so I get that fear.

That said, this lootbox fiasco has become so scummy that government regulation at this point is long overdue. When companies get this predatory and greedy then the only way to make progress is to get the government involved, even if that isn't ideal.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Just now, Plasme said:

I mean I do have sympathy for people's unease of government regulation, because it could potentially lead to regulation/censorship elsewhere. I'm a lefty anti-censorship type, so I get that fear.

Government unease, I get. What I don't have sympathy for is people suggesting that the gaming public have never made progress against gaming companies, trying to belittle the success and progress that has been made. Especially if it's used as part of a flimsy argument not to get the government involved.

That's when it stoops to outrageous government paranoia.

4 minutes ago, Plasme said:

That said, this lootbox fiasco has become so scummy that government regulation at this point is long overdue. When companies get this predatory and greedy then the only way to make progress is to get the government involved, even if that isn't ideal.

Took the words right out of my mouth. The fault lies with the gaming companies trying to force their scummy practices on us. If government aid is the only means of fighting back that we have then so be it.