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Hawaiian Legislators Call EA Loot Boxes a 'Predatory Practice' - Star Wars: Battlefront II - MMORPG.
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Hawaiian Legislators Call EA Loot Boxes a 'Predatory Practice' - Star Wars: Battlefront II - MMORPG.com
Star Wars: Battlefront II News - Two Hawaiian legislators are initiating an investigation designed to limit loot boxes as a 'predatory practice'. Democratic State Representatives Sean Quinlan and Chris Lee conducted a press conference earlier this week in which they specifically called out Star Wars: Battlefront II as "a Star Wars themed online casino designed to lure kids into spending money. It's a trap." Lee said echoing Star Wars' Admiral Ackbar.
Comments
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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About damn time! Been saying this for years! The sole reason for these loot boxes is to get people addicted (especially ones that are vulnerable to addiction) and keep spending lots of money on these loot boxes to get the stuff they want!
This is precisely and exactly how Casino's operate and work. It's gambling. Period!
Games, like Battlefront II, are now entirely designed around Loot boxes / Microtransactions! The whole progression system is completely based around loot boxes!
This just doesn't have anything to do with gaming anymore other than trying to squeeze as much money as they can out of players!
Pure greed! Plain and simple!
PS. Just have a look at that document from ActiVision that got leaked on the internet! Pretty much confirms how games are designed these days. It's sickening!
These companies are trying to push the limit and keep pushing to see how far they can go, until consumers finally stand up and protest!
Battlefront II isn't the only controversy around this. The recent launched title NBA2K18 from 2K received a lot of backlash too due to how invasive micro transactions have become in that game!
2K's marketing team went even as far as to hunt down sites with negative reviews and threatened them to remove them or adjust their scores, as it negatively impacted the Metracritic score! /faceplam
It does show how insignificant MMO's are when this practice has been going on for years now.
Maybe so but Everquest is a prime example of designing a progression system behind a paid time sink.
Whether you found that time sink enjoyable is irrelevant.
That being said I'd love to know where things go from here, I mean there's plenty of companies who's already done stuff like this so are they going to target them next? I personally think this is rediculous cus it seems to me that just because EA rereleased a franchise and added loot boxes to it that media and certain people of the community are attacking it. Get with the programme people, this is the modern age, its been going on for a long time now, kind of too late to just wave a finger at one of em just because they dared to take a step further!
Thinking about it, it was Valve who popularized this in PC games before Blizzard or EA went on it, of course this was already ongoing for years within mobile games. Regulating this will fall upon everyone ofc, it just took a mainstream AAA game to create the necessary attention.
"...kind of too late to just wave a finger at one of em just because they dared to take a step further!"
Nope... if nothing is done now companies will continue to see how far they can push the envelope, it always been like that wouldn't change now.
I do agree with that last part regarding companies will continue to do so if nothing has been done but fact is the damage was done a long time ago, its the community who chose who to ignore and who to attack which I find quite petty and pathetic really. It's their fault for allowing companies to milk our money by paying them for stuff they obviously don't agree to and simple factor is if they weren't so keen on it then they wouldn't do it now would they?! I always say to people if ya don't want to pay for microtransactions then simply don't, no one's forcing you to and what makes me laugh most is this always seems to be more focused around PVP based games based on so-called unfair odds or P2W as people like to call the meme these days. Honestly I get so tired of seeing this kind of crap around the gaming community and feel thats whats ruined it entirely, both community and the gaming industry are to blame for this and EA have been put in the middle of your petty squables at the moment. Don't get me wrong I'm not siding with anyone nore playing devil's advocate but this sort of thing has gone on far enough, either take it as far as you can go, which means to attack ALL companies who do this or just drop the damn thing and stop making it about yourselves like you're some sort of personal victim. Hell even some people whine about it when it doesn't even affect them at all!
I don't mind loot boxes if they are earnable through game play but honestly believe that they should not ever be sold. Maybe this will see a return to box price / subscription-based games with full expansions, large DLC etc. rather than loot boxes to keep games funded.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That doesn't change anything, the point stands the games have and are marketed to kids even and expose them to this sort of addictive gambling for loot. And the current payment methods allow kids to easily spend money, as Steam.
I know personally some kids that have spent hundreds and hundreds in CS GO loot cases alone so, you can bet if you get hooked on it, you'll get the money somehow. The parents had no idea he wasn't eating in school to save up that money and top up his steam acc...
LOL! Are you serious? How can you even compare those two!
Everquest is an MMO with monthly subscription fee. This to pay for Devs, servers (much more complicated infrastructure than EA's multiplayer lobby servers), free regular content patches, etc.
I rather have this, since I can actually enjoy the game and pay a fix low monthly price. Same as I do now with FFXIV! without constantly running in a pay wall!
Everquest was designed as a game with longetivity in mind with classic RPG progression mechanics.
The progression is not based on "chance" / "RNG" and is the same for everyone!
Unlike games, like Battlefront II, where the entire progression system has been designed around Loot boxes / micro transactions!
This creates a terrible grind in the game for gamers they have absolutely NO CONTROL over whatsoever, where gamers with the deepest pockets can grind up in a few hours and gain an unfair advantage and the most unlucky players who don't spend any extra money can grind hundreds of hours and still not get anywhere due to bad luck with RNG Loot boxes.
This is typically referred to as a Paywall and Pay2Win!
It's terrible and doesn't belong in a AAA Multiplayer game, where people can buy significant advantage over others.
And now EA has scrambled, under pressure from Disney, and "TEMPORARY" removed the Pay for Money option from Battlefront II. It doesn't change anything other than you now having a completely broken progression system in the game with a terrible RNG grind. /Facepalm
We stand by regulations to ensure that kids can't go to a bar and drink alcohol, buy cigars or enter one casino (even on online ones!), we have a ton of regulations that ensure the limits of what companies can do and can't do, and what's happening here is companies to not feed gambling for loot addictions into minors.
And I don't blame the parents either, I think the vast majority of the parents has NO IDEA that when they buy a game like Battlefront 2 to their kids, or see they are playing it, that they are being exposed to this, there's no information, no warnings, there's only a PG 13 in the game box.
Don't come with the payment methods excuse because you can just top up your steam account easily, same in many other services, you need no credit cards or parent approval to do so.
Even if you want to blame the parents, you still to blame the companies to ensure the parents have the information about the monetized gambling and make a decision from there, if they allow their kid to play it, or spend money on such loot boxes.
However when it comes to an actual minor I'm sorry to say but it IS the parents responsability to make sure they are doing the right thing so I still stand by what I said about irresponsable parenting. And yes you can top up your steam account without a payment card or parents approval but they still need to obtain the damn money to begin with so that comes back to the parents and how that is monitored and maintained! Same with their gaming habbits really!
Also, here's a thought; don't sell top ups to minors! problem solved! However it still doesn't change the fact of how the gaming industry works and how the community goes on crying about it when thy too play a role in it! Ya just using the kids as a scapegoat, this is utter nonsense!
First, we are not talking about 6 year olds that have to bring their own packed lunch and/or get lunch served at school, included in the school fees.
We are talking about young teenagers above 12 years old. Then you often have schools with thousands of kids and big cantina's!
You can't expect the school to check on every single kid to see if he/she buys and eats lunch nor expect parents to go to the school during lunch time to see if their kids are buying and eating lunch!
Teenagers at hat that age often also leave the school ground to eat lunch in town, since school cantinas aren't exactly cheap these days.
So that is just stupid and ridiculous statement you make! One of the most stupid comments I have read in a while.
And like others have said, this is destructive gambling disorder. A known psychological disease.
It's exactly these people that are being deliberately targeted by these F2P mobile games, casino games and games with Loot boxes.
They don't care about you or other people who buy a single loot box now and then. NO! They specifically target these people who spends hundreds and thousands of dollars due to gambling addiction!
That's what makes this so sickening and immoral and why something needs to be done about it to stop it!
If you want to blame the parents, the parents NEED to have the information.
There's no information, no warnings, that would tell you, as a parent, that a certain game exposes its players to monetized gambling for loot. So your point here is what is utter nonsense.
You are also asking for one unreasonable monitoring just to excuse a company predatory practice that exploits the addiction to gambling that kids are exposed to.
Honestly? You call my statement stupid and rediculous?! I donno what planet you live on pal but your world seems more idiotic than my statement if thats the kind of society you live in where they don't take responsablity and quick to blame it on others due to their own flaws and faults! And don't tell me about the cost of food at school, thats the governemnts fault not the gaming industry.
Fact is this is all about the cry babies who don't want to spend their hard earned cash on a game, which is quite understandable, where as someone else is more than willing to and gets the upper hand! Sad fact is that someone decided to make it about an entirely different audience since they can't simply claim they are victimised for their own issues where they'd clearly need to think for themselves. "Oh! I know! kids have mentality issues where they simply can't think for themselves and are easily manipulated with pier pressure, lets say its all about them because people give a damn about that more than they do about us!". Like I said, this is nonsense, give me some real facts!
Can you get all the loot you want and drops are not restricted to a certain amount per week?
if the answer is no and no. . . .then FF14 has a time gated rng loot progression system that you pay to participate in. . .
think of it as loot boxes that fight back. . .
Or they could do some kind of pr stunt that repairs their image, such as give their game engine away for free without royalties and even have teams help new developers.
It would be better all around.
Sure the damage is real, but it wasn't technically illegal, so its more of a problem of the bureaucracies and at the end of the day these games need a credit card for people to buy these in game items. Thats probably where they can create an excuse that there was a level of 'protection' from kids buying it.
Anyways, i do hope something good can come from this. Would be better than just punishing people.
However giving reparations to victims is also a good thing, not saying it isnt but it doesn't have to only be that. Since it might not even get to that point from a legal point that they can be sued.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
There's really not much gaming companies will be able to say to counter cause it'll just make em' look like scoundrels trying to prey on kids.
It's got nothing to do with progression IMO. If people enjoy a game they are more than willing to pay additional fees to play.
However forcing them to is going to dent your player base by a huge margin. Whether through subscription/micro transactions.
If you're forced to pay £15 in the cash shop each month to carry on playing the game how is it any different than paying a mandatory sub?
I get the RNG element to loot-boxes, I'm just saying hypothetically, if you got what you wanted/needed to progress by spending the same amount you would on a sub what's the difference?
So in Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft and EverQuest one can buy loot from the bosses with real money?
As that is what you are insinuating.
PS. Random loot drops in FFXIV is only on High End raids! This is by design as Endgame activity and is on the par of MMORPG's.
Pretty much all other dungeons and activities give you guaranteed Tokens, so you can buy loot at vendors.
Looks to me like you are the one behind the times. Sometimes we realize that a behavior we used to tolerate is no longer acceptable. You should catch up to the modern age and stop living in the past where loot box gambling was prevalent.
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Exactly what I was thinking, EA have made themselves look even worse by denying loot boxes were gambling in the earlier statement. Blizzard did the smart thing and said nothing after they were implicated.