Belgium Denounces Loot Boxes as Gambling; Hawaiian Legislator Calls Them 'Predatory' (arstechnica.co.uk)

Peter Bright, writing for ArsTechnica: Belgium's Gaming Commission has ruled that loot boxes -- in-game purchases where what you receive is randomized and only known once you open the box -- are gambling. The country's minister of justice, Koen Geens, has said that he wants to see them banned Europe-wide, reports PC Gamer. Amid outcry over the use of loot boxes in Overwatch and Star Wars Battlefront 2, the Belgian Gaming Commission decided last week to look into the issue, with Commission Director Peter Naessens specifically saying that the combination of paying money and receiving something "dependent on chance" prompted the investigation. Rather swiftly, it seems, the Commission has made its decision. In October, the US' Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rejected calls to classify loot boxes as gambling. It told Kotaku that since players receive some reward from opening the loot box -- even if it's useless or unwanted -- that it's not gambling. As such, loot box games will receive neither ESRB's "Real Gambling" nor "Simulated Gambling" labels, the former of which automatically gives a game an "Adults Only" rating. Many retailers refuse to sell A-O games, so giving every title that uses loot boxes such a rating would likely be harmful to their sales. The question of whether loot boxes are gambling may see some new scrutiny in the US. Hawaiian Democratic State Representative Chris Lee has described loot boxes as predatory behavior.

Comments

Absolutely is Gambling

[Anonymous Coward]

It is unregulated gambling. Just because you can't cash out, doesn't make it not gambling.

These Loot boxes, gachapon, etc are rigged against the player so they spend as much as possible to get whatever "rare" thing is in it.

If it was simply "buy this skin" no RNG involved, people would not be having a shit fit. But this RNG "slot machine" type of behavior is exactly designed to bilk players out of money and hand out as few valuable items as possible. You know where like a real slot machine pays out 93-97% of the time. Loot boxes may never pay out.

We've also had this argument for years, as Nexon Corp has been doing this for at least a fricken decade in their Maple Story and Mabinogi MMO games.

Captcha: Jackpot.

Re:Absolutely is Gambling

[Kiuas]

If it was simply "buy this skin" no RNG involved, people would not be having a shit fit. But this RNG "slot machine" type of behavior is exactly designed to bilk players out of money and hand out as few valuable items as possible. You know where like a real slot machine pays out 93-97% of the time. Loot boxes may never pay out.

Absolutely. The math has been done and the apprximate amount of money one has to spend if you wish to unlock all of the content (in the game you've already paid good money for) is 2100 $! Or, alternatively, without money, it takes over 4500 hours of gameplay to unlock everything!

The greed of EA is beyond disgusting. The SW license is one of the strongest out there, and heavily liked by kids and teens, and they purposefully use it to design a grind-marathon which is designed to incentive people at throwing money in the hopes of getting something useful. The business model is even greedier than most of the free to play models it's been copied from, and we're talking about a 60 to 80 dollars full-price release. Even more pathetic are the weak excuses the asswipes at EA tried to conjur up to defend this racket by saying it's desgined to 'give players a sense of accomplishment and pride', when the in game progression doesn't even relate to player skill in any way. It doesn't matter if you're a top player or a rookie, the rate at which you progress without microtransactions is simply tied to time in game. Skill and accomplishments have nothing to do with it. It's a 100 % pay-to-win system designed to do nothing but drive sales of the lootboxes.

This is why I prefer the game commentator/youtuber Jim Sterling's (whose made several videos about microtransaction BS this year, including this recent one about this EA/Battlefront situation) terminology for these 'triple AAA' releases with lootbox shit: 'fee-to-pay'. It's absolute BS and I do hope these shitty developers end up getting burned. Wanna include gambling mechanics to your full-price release? Fine, but can't sell it to underaged people then. And I do hope Disney ends up force chocking the license out of EAs hands if and hopefully when the sales of Battlefront II fall short of their expectations because of this.

As a longtime gamer and a SW fan I plead all here: do not buy this game. Don't buy it for yourself, don't buy it as a gift, don't even buy it at a discount. It's the only way the companies will ever learn. Don't be fooled by the decision to disable them for now, Dice admitted already that it's a temporary measure while they're 're-adjusting' the system. Meaning. they tried the waters out, now they're waiting for the holiday sales to pass and the dust to settle before introducing a watered down version of the same bullshit.

Compare this to proper publishers like CD Projekt Red: like I just recently picked up Wicher 3 with both of its expansions from a steam sale at 20 euros, and I do have to say CD Projekt Red are doing it right: you buy the game, you get all the content straight out of the box. And before someone points out that it's somehow 'different' for single-player games I remind you all that in this Year of the Lootbox WB included a shitton of mictrotransactions and grinding in Shadow of War's single player campaign.

This behavior is destructive and antithetical to the whole point of quality games, because introducing intentional grind-fests that are meant to bog the player down with menial repetitive tasks is sending a message of 'yeah, we know the base gameplay sucks, we intentionally designed it to suck, but hey, you can skip it by paying us more money and get to the good stuff'.

Fuck. These. Publishers. They need to fall and be replaced by companies that actual develop stuff gameplay first.

Re:Absolutely is Gambling

[AmiMoJo]

Is PTSD smart? Is depression stupid?

I don't think you can characterize illness in those terms. And that's what this is - these companies are deliberately trying to cause a mental illness to increase profits.