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Legislators Take Aim At Star Wars Battlefront II, EA Over 'Gambling In Games' (polygon.com)
dryriver writes: A number of pay-to-win microtransaction FPS games, including Dirty Bomb and the $60 Star Wars Battlefront II, have drawn the ire of legislators in countries like Belgium and the United States. Not only are advanced characters like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader and various weapons and abilities in these games "locked" -- you pay for them in hard cash, or play for them for dozens and dozens of tedious hours -- the games also feature so called "Loot Boxes," which are boxes that contain a random item, weapon, character or ability. So like playing slot machines in Vegas, each time you can get something good, something mediocre or something totally crap. You cannot determine with any certainty what you will get for your real-world dollars or in-game achievements. Angry Reddit users recently downvoted a blundering statement by EA on the topic with a whopping 249,000 downvotes -- an all time downvote record on Reddit, shocking EA into retreating from its pay-to-win model and announcing unspecified "changes" now being made to Star Wars Battlefront II. Legislators in a number of countries have also sharply criticized "Loot Boxes" and "microtransactions" in games, with one legislator in Belgium vowing to have the sale of such games banned completely in the EU, because children are essentially being forced to "gamble with real money" in these games. Forbes has written a great piece about how EA is now essentially stuck with a $60 Star Wars game that cost a lot to make but probably cannot be monetized any further, because there is considerable risk of all games with loot boxes, microtransactions and "pay to win" monetization models being completely banned from sale in a number of different countries now. The morale of the story? Maybe people should not pay a game developer any more than the $40-60 they paid when they thought they "bought" the game in the first place.
You apparently don't know what gambling is.
I posted on the MassEffect:Andromeda forum asking why they called the loot-chest dealer a "store" and not a casino.
It's a store if you can go in and put down money and buy a specific item, like I go to grocery store, and put down a few bucks and can buy milk.
That's not gambling. What is gambling is if the store gives some "unknown" reward for your few dollars. You may get milk (5% chance), or you may get a dead rat 90% chance, or a character card for a random character. You don't get to choose before hand. In ME:Andromeda, they score items and characters in 4 levels (common, uncommon, rare, very rare, or bronze, silver, gold and platinum). The platinum/very rare stuff is powerful, w/good attributes, bronze/common -- not so much.
You can't sell or give items or chars to others -- so once you have an item or character, you won't get it again. Items like special ammo, or power bonuses, etc, are "disposable", but it's random there as well -- if you don't pay, you don't get the item.
I don't get your casino option -- if you don't pay, you don't get chance to
win prizes -- same as in game. If you want to win top prizes, you need to
pay. Then you are dealt some number of cards -- and when you want to look at the cards, you hear something reminiscent of a slot machine sound.
You don't *HAVE* to pay real money to get items, but highest "chance" boxes cost $3 or 500,000 points. You get about 10K points for a bronze game that takes about 10-15 minutes to play. Silver can net you about 25K, gold... maybe 40-50K and platinum--don't know too tough to even try, but likely 60-75K. Most play @ bronze -- so 50 games or about 15-20 hours of play to get 1 of those top boxes --- OR $3.
No matter which way you pay for your "chance-tickets", the odds are against you getting ANYTHING @ very-rare, are maybe 1 in 25, or about
1 win/500K points (or $3).
If you want to win -- you have to to pay, or "work" at earning points -- about 15-20 hours for a $3 chance at a reward.
So how is that not "gambling"?
Note in the "solo play", a "store" is a store -- you buy things -- no random reward chances and you can sell your surplus. But in multiplayer... it's all setup to encourage shelling out real money.