It's good news, loot boxes unregulated extravaganza is going to end.
I posted in the other thread, there's also news in the US side against loot boxes:
Who would have imagined, politicians and gamers on the same page. Expect Gdemami cause reasons.
Just to clarify, this video, from the US does not state that loot boxes are gambling, or that they are illegal (at this time). They do state that legislation should be added to prevent predatory sales.
I have not seen the actual statement from Belgium to see if it is similar (I suspect it is).
Sounds great, in theory. What will they require players to do to offset the lost revenue? It isn't like they voluntarily financially support games through less predatory means, like subscription, in a substantial way.
Yeah well, a EU member ruling that loot boxes are gambling is one thing. The EU implementing a ban on said boxes is another. A whole different ballgame.
So, hold your horses.
The Dutch gambling comity just has started investigating it as well. More over, in The Netherlands online gambling is prohibited, making a ruling as in Belgium even worse for lootboxes/ingame gambling mechanics in general.
But yeah, before the EU comes with a general ban we're at least years further, unless Germany or France also hop on the (lootboxes ban) boat...
About time. It's been well-known by the companies implementing these things that they prey on the exact same addictions that gambling does, which is why they make so much money in the first place. It was akin to profiting off of the same psychosis that gambling profits off of but with none of the regulations! Talk about loophole abuse.
As for how it personally benefits me and presumably most other gamers, paying money and not getting what you wanted for it is one of the most infuriating things ever. ...and is one of the reasons why I and many others hate gambling in the first place too.
Sure, a lot of games might die because they can no longer abuse peoples' addictions for the money they need to stay afloat, but on the bright side at least it'll weed out the weak and get companies back to focusing on making good games instead of spending so much time trying to figure out how to abuse human psychology for their money.
hope some laws get passed against loot boxes. especially in MOBILE gaming. man its just stupid. buy these keys with currency you can buy with cash and you can open a box! well lets hope they get a law passed in the u.s. that covers all this crap on all platforms
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I honestly have doubts about any meaningful legislation coming from this. But I also don't really care unless it becomes the last straw for Disney to drop EA from the Star Wars franchise.
As far as I know the study of the Kansspelen Comissie (gaming commission) hasn't been concluded yet. There's no mention of it on their official website. This sounded more like a minister already speaking ahead of it.
Edit: Suspicion rises since none of the Belgian newspapers are reporting it. Just some ambiguous mention on VTM. Which sounds more like when the news broke about the investigation the stance of the gaming commission was that: money+addiction is gambling and they will investigate it.
Meanwhile the entire batch of gaming 'journalists' are copying the story. Let's hope I'm just wrong, since I'm tired of no one checking stories these days.
Brilliant news, it just makes me even more disgusted with EA who stated that loot boxes weren't gambling despite the investigations, and makes me wonder how high the fines will be against these publishers with loot boxes in their games.
As far as I know the study of the Kansspelen Comissie (gaming commission) hasn't been concluded yet. There's no mention of it on their official website. This sounded more like a minister already speaking ahead of it.
Yep, but the (oddly single one) news article said nothing about the concluded report, just what the Minister plans to do.
Personally I think it's a good start, but of course a detailed study would be useful too. That was the greedy f.cks' 'escape card' for all these years, stating that boxes are not gambling. If there will be a concluded study that they indeed are, which politicians can wave around, that will change everything, and not out of goodwill of course, but because states and governments are greedy f.cks as well. If they see it as gambling, they will either want their levy from it, or ban it. And since it's all digital, after the decision is made, they can act pretty fast, the regulation of outside-Eu betting sites was rolled over in months.
I'm more curious about the response. They can't rally up protesters (since who would march with signs "we want boxes" and "boxes are good", right? ), they can't ignore the market if it will be a Eu-wide regulation, since it has a pretty big market share. And (in many games, without a separate NA and Eu server) they can't lose the boxes just for one part of the playerbase. Not to mention, for the mobile market... it will be a huge blow if it goes through. Which they absolutely deserve
Good for the EU & all countries taking a stand against this form of gambling. In the USA our government will keep allowing big business to fleece the consumers. I don't think these loot box type mechanisms, any sort of random-number-generator (RNG), are a terrible evil, but the businesses that deploy them in game should be required to, at least, officially announce the statistics whenever they do. It's the lack of knowing the odds that makes it exactly gambling. That ESRB board is just a puppet mouth piece anyways for the companies.
Gambling isn't illegal. The only difference they can make is to brand it gambling, and then put an 18 year age limit on them..This won't be popular among the overwatch community where most of them are between 12-14, so blizzard will have to take steps
Myabe EA (or DICE? ) is a good guy here and they made it on purpose ? ? ? ? ? :D ??
Well i am not for goverment putting their nose into stuff like this, gamers should vote with their wallets, if ppl are stupid enough to buy shit like this, let them waste the money .
Gambling isn't illegal. The only difference they can make is to brand it gambling, and then put an 18 year age limit on them..This won't be popular among the overwatch community where most of them are between 12-14, so blizzard will have to take steps
Nobody said it is. But (at least around these parts of the Atlantic) it is government-only, with occasional passes on the side. And unlegislated gambling indeed is illegal. Guess what, since the companies yelled out as loud as they could for years that their boxes are not gambling, they -of course- don't have any legislation for it. That's the whole point of having a study about it, with the conclusion it really is gambling.
It's about time. The loot crate issue is one that's needed looking into for quite some time. It's not the only one though. When a AAA comes out and they expect me to pay £55 for it I don't then want to see parts off the game locked behind a paywall. I already bought the game so why am I being asked to pay more?
Not that I bought this one. The whole loot crate fiasco put me off. As much as I love Star Wars I refuse to pad EA's wallet any more. I just wish more people would take a stand against these publishers and vote with their wallets. It's the only message they understand.
Now if we can just get them to start looking at day 1 DLC and pre-orders.
That loot boxes with rng items are now classed as gambling is a good move, if it means that in the future that cash shops have to sell the items these loot boxes contained directly, for a set price, then everybody wins, although apparently wall street is not happy because profit margins won't be quite so 'extravagant' in the future, but they aren't us and i don't think we should really give a damn what they think either It is however going to be very hard for EA to reintroduce mictrotransactions into SW:BF2 and further modification of the games progression system is likely to be a legal requirement, and with Disney now looking very hard at EA, mostly because they are likely worried about their upcoming StarWars Film being affected, particularly in regard to EA now likely to be hit with Charges for unlicenced gambling and the very real risk of SW:BF2 being removed from stores in the EU, and after the recent Hawaii thing, possibly spreading to NA also then this could have a negative impact on the whole StarWars IP particularly in light of the IP being in the public eye in such a negative fashion, which is likely the only thing that Disney is particularly worried about as damage to the IP would hurt them financially. EA is very much on the back foot, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
This is very good news indeed, more official recognition that paid for lootboxes constitute gambling. We've all known it for years but it's good to bring public attention to the issue - that is how we can put adequate pressure on lawmakers.
My predictions on what happens next:
1) High profile developers / publishers will remove lootboxes from their cash shops and instead add the items within lootboxes directly to the cash shop. They will do this to avoid further public relations issues whilst waiting to see what the new regulations will be.
2) Various governments around the world will implement new legislation to protect us against this type of gambling. My expectation is that this sort of gambling will now become regulated by existing gambling regulations, so games that include paid-for-gambling will get an automatic 18 age cert and developers will be required by law to put in additional safety checks to ensure minors aren't gambling.
3) The specific wording of the new regulations will undoubtedly leave open a loophole which developers will eventually exploit. We will then repeat this process in another 5 years time.
Gambling isn't illegal. The only difference they can make is to brand it gambling, and then put an 18 year age limit on them..This won't be popular among the overwatch community where most of them are between 12-14, so blizzard will have to take steps
Gambling may/may not be legal, depending on where you live. However, regardless of where you live it is a regulated industry. If lootboxes were determined to be gambling, they would fall under the existing rules.
As I stated in another thread, if they determined that this was gambling, it would require that they determine that virtual items have value, and that is a much bigger issue than any of this.
Comments
You're confusing choice with need.
Nobody needs to spend anything on luck based purchases. Many choose to.
But yeah, before the EU comes with a general ban we're at least years further, unless Germany or France also hop on the (lootboxes ban) boat...
hope some laws get passed against loot boxes. especially in MOBILE gaming. man its just stupid. buy these keys with currency you can buy with cash and you can open a box! well lets hope they get a law passed in the u.s. that covers all this crap on all platforms
Though if you want to check up on the story: http://www.gamingcommission.be/opencms/opencms/jhksweb_en/home/ and mail them about it. Do journalisty things!
Edit: Suspicion rises since none of the Belgian newspapers are reporting it. Just some ambiguous mention on VTM. Which sounds more like when the news broke about the investigation the stance of the gaming commission was that: money+addiction is gambling and they will investigate it.
Meanwhile the entire batch of gaming 'journalists' are copying the story.
Let's hope I'm just wrong, since I'm tired of no one checking stories these days.
Personally I think it's a good start, but of course a detailed study would be useful too. That was the greedy f.cks' 'escape card' for all these years, stating that boxes are not gambling. If there will be a concluded study that they indeed are, which politicians can wave around, that will change everything, and not out of goodwill of course, but because states and governments are greedy f.cks as well.
If they see it as gambling, they will either want their levy from it, or ban it.
And since it's all digital, after the decision is made, they can act pretty fast, the regulation of outside-Eu betting sites was rolled over in months.
I'm more curious about the response. They can't rally up protesters (since who would march with signs "we want boxes" and "boxes are good", right?
Not to mention, for the mobile market... it will be a huge blow if it goes through. Which they absolutely deserve
Netherlands also investigate it.
Well i am not for goverment putting their nose into stuff like this, gamers should vote with their wallets, if ppl are stupid enough to buy shit like this, let them waste the money .
Guess what, since the companies yelled out as loud as they could for years that their boxes are not gambling, they -of course- don't have any legislation for it. That's the whole point of having a study about it, with the conclusion it really is gambling.
Not that I bought this one. The whole loot crate fiasco put me off. As much as I love Star Wars I refuse to pad EA's wallet any more. I just wish more people would take a stand against these publishers and vote with their wallets. It's the only message they understand.
Now if we can just get them to start looking at day 1 DLC and pre-orders.
It is however going to be very hard for EA to reintroduce mictrotransactions into SW:BF2 and further modification of the games progression system is likely to be a legal requirement, and with Disney now looking very hard at EA, mostly because they are likely worried about their upcoming StarWars Film being affected, particularly in regard to EA now likely to be hit with Charges for unlicenced gambling and the very real risk of SW:BF2 being removed from stores in the EU, and after the recent Hawaii thing, possibly spreading to NA also then this could have a negative impact on the whole StarWars IP particularly in light of the IP being in the public eye in such a negative fashion, which is likely the only thing that Disney is particularly worried about as damage to the IP would hurt them financially.
EA is very much on the back foot, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
My predictions on what happens next:
1) High profile developers / publishers will remove lootboxes from their cash shops and instead add the items within lootboxes directly to the cash shop. They will do this to avoid further public relations issues whilst waiting to see what the new regulations will be.
2) Various governments around the world will implement new legislation to protect us against this type of gambling. My expectation is that this sort of gambling will now become regulated by existing gambling regulations, so games that include paid-for-gambling will get an automatic 18 age cert and developers will be required by law to put in additional safety checks to ensure minors aren't gambling.
3) The specific wording of the new regulations will undoubtedly leave open a loophole which developers will eventually exploit. We will then repeat this process in another 5 years time.
As I stated in another thread, if they determined that this was gambling, it would require that they determine that virtual items have value, and that is a much bigger issue than any of this.