Wrong! It would be if it were returning money, but it is not returning any money or even anything you can sell, just more credits which you can only use for more games. If you bothered to read what was written you would see that:
but does not include an automatic machine or slot machine that dispenses as prizes only one or more free games on that machine.
I thought this task would help you prove yourself wrong, but you still need to read what is written.
I did read, and guess what - Microsoft Jackpot doesn't dispense "free games" - ever. It dispenses "vending merchandise or services" which affect your chances of winning, fixes one or more "wheels", credits which are used to purchase various goods in game, etc. Nice try though.
You're right, there's no perfect amount but there's an amount that would not shock the majority.
Which is?
As stated, something that is up to businesses to figure out/re-evaluate based on market conditions. It's not a fixed point.
Many industries do have limits though and do just fine by their shareholders - retail is limited by MSRP
Nope, the S in MSRP stands for suggested.
It does mean suggested! Consumer protection laws, in my jurisdiction at least, deal with this in their "Price Maintenance" section. http://www.competitionbureau.g... Note they can include "dealer may sell for less" but not more.
housing by rent controls & property valuations
Rent controls are about the amount that the rent can rise for a tenant, there is nothing to stop you setting whatever price you want for a rental or selling your house for whatever price you want. It is up to the buyer whether they will pay.
Rent rise is a limit. It also limits the ability of tenants to rent their rented apartment out for more than they are paying. Housing market is definitely one that does not have restrictions and look how much disruption it has on our economy as it boom/busts.
stock markets by all sorts of regulations, and so on.
The stock markets have lots of regulations but what regulation exactly are you thinking is akin to this scenario? I don't think there is one.
It doesn't, it was merely pointing out that there are limits on all sorts of behaviours that would allow for greater profits in other industries, all in the interest of protecting individuals from hardship/the industries themselves from imploding.
Because it's a simulation, you cannot win money from it. It's really not that difficult to understand, but if you're right then show me which gambling legislation that game falls under. You don't have to take my word for it, your inability to do that will help you to prove yourself wrong.
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca... Surprisingly easy to find. Microsoft Jackpot would be considered a slot machine as it produces random results per section 198 (3)(b)(ii).
users could spend as much or as little as they wanted but... would limit the amount that any one user could be charged overall for a single game.
Yeah, you got yourself a contradiction right there. The word "limit" and the words "as much... as they wanted" are inherently contradictory.
As stated repeatedly, it would mean that although you may spend in-game you would not be charged anything beyond the limit
This would limit any hardship on any one individual
Hardship? HARDSHIP???? It is buying fake goddamn items in a fucking video game. There is no "hardship" here, just people who want to spend money on things and/or idiots who disable the built-in protections against allowing people (like children) who don't understand money to spend that money.
Hardship meaning you get drunk one night, buy $6k worth of crap cause you're just playing a game not paying attention to how much you're spending since your judgement is impaired, and bankrupt your family who can't absorb that much debt in such a short time. That's just one scenario I can think of that there can be genuine hardship from a system that imposes no limits on itself.
95% of us, myself included, are idiots in how we spend our money. Some people buy boats or airplanes. Some people spend every free dollar upgrading their rice rocket with spinning wheels and glowing license plates. Some people gamble, either in casinos or on lottery tickets. Some people buy $17 cocktails in Manhattan, others run through $8 packs of cigarettes like they were candy. Some people put themselves through grad school to get a Medieval History degree and go 5-6 figures in debt to do so. Some people buy houses that are bad investments, some buy bad stocks and others lavish hundreds or thousands on Kickstarters that never pay out. Some people spend thousands on vacations to far flung parts of the globe and come back with nothing more to show for it than a few T-shirts and trinkets. And plenty of others will spend cash happily on escorts or prostitutes for transitory sexual experiences.
Some people will read the above list and think "to each his own." Other people will read the list and think everyone is morons except for the people who indulge in their own personal money sink listed above. A fiscally conservative "objective" observer might see everyone involved as idiots. But those people are probably not much fun.
That's exactly why I wasn't suggesting a limit on what people could spend. This is about businesses self-regulating the amount of profit they generate from a single user - not limiting the user experience/choice.
The moral of the story: people of legal age who have the maturity...
How does an automated payment processing machine determine that? Can it tell if I'm drunk? Can it tell if I'm autistic? Can it tell if I figured out my parents password? Can it tell if I have an addiction? Can it tell if I have a concept of money at all? No.
When you put yourself in the position of deciding what people should be "allowed" to spend money on, and how much, you are objectively making them more financially sound at the expense of making them less free. Don't be too eager to take that role up, lest you eventually find someone else who thinks that what you spend money on should be capped or disallowed.
Again, it's about how much profit should be allowed to be earned, not limiting peoples spending choices.
Limiting hardship does not equate to affordability, it's an amount that wouldn't lead to an article on Slashdot.
So what is the amount then? I think you will find there is no single amount that can be applicable to everybody.
You're right, there's no perfect amount but there's an amount that would not shock the majority. It's also not a fixed point, it's something businesses would constantly be re-evaluating based on market conditions.
Limits imposed by government, by competition, by ethics, by common law, etc.
Of course businesses have these limits, but we are talking about artificially limiting their own profits, which is something they do not have and I doubt any for-profit company or shareholder of such a company would want.
Of course they don't want them, unlimited profits is a nice pipe dream, it's unsustainable and damaging. Many industries do have limits though and do just fine by their shareholders - retail is limited by MSRP, housing by rent controls & property valuations, stock markets by all sorts of regulations, and so on. Every industry has a balancing force of some sort and if gaming companies don't self-regulate someone will step in and do it for them.
The only desperation is coming from you, sorry mate.
A movie ticket is not the same, enjoyment isn't what's on sale, you aren't even guaranteed to see the show (if you're late you can't get into some shows and won't get a refund). You are just being sold a ticket which you can exchange for access to the theatre/a seat at a predetermined time. Enjoyment is what brings you back again.
Also there are games which have that random factor where the goods won can be sold for cash, the same way a lottery for a house as an example can be turned into cash.
Of course there are, that goes back even to the old days of Ultima Online, Diablo, etc... but that's not really anything to do with the "free to play" model. You seem very confused as to what you're upset about here. Is it still the "free to play" model or is it now being able to sell in-game digital goods for cash?
A secondary market is not what I'm talking about and you know it. You know I'm talking about exchanging funds for credits of some form (like you do in a casino), playing a game of chance (like slots), which comes with a reward that holds value to the person playing (like additional credits). It's gambling plain and simple... I mean how can you argue that Microsoft Jackpot, a literal slot machine style game, is not gambling? It's idiocy.
Limiting hardship does not equate to affordability, it's an amount that wouldn't lead to an article on Slashdot. The average person in my country makes ~43k/y so loosing 1-2% of that on a single game would be something that's not easy to swallow by any means but doesn't necessarily shock/cause undue hardship. $5,900 would be 13-14% of the average income - that could bankrupt someone who didn't have the credit/cashflow to be able to deal with it. Entertainment products should never run the risk of bankrupting someone.
And every business has limits.
What limit are you talking about? Quite clearly we are discussing placing an artificial limit on the profits of games, and no, every business does not have this...in fact i don't think any do.
Limits imposed by government, by competition, by ethics, by common law, etc. There are price gouging laws on the books for many industries, there are many common law protections which will invalidate unbalanced contracts where the value of goods received is so out of whack from the cash paid that it's unconscionable (I'm surprised there haven't been some of these lawsuits yet).
Gambling does not require a cash return just something of value for the person wagering the money on it. Also there are games which have that random factor where the goods won can be sold for cash, the same way a lottery for a house as an example can be turned into cash.
"such that $X limits any hardship on any one individual. Possible values for X is a quite a massive range, not everybody finds the same amount to be affordable."
As I said, that would be for the provider to determine based on their business decisions.
No, this is not wagering. That is something very different.
Isn't it in many cases? A common mechanism is a randomized reward for an expenditure of credits paid for with cash in games like Kingdoms & Lords, Microsoft Jackpot, Battle Islands, just to name a few examples.
If you read any of the other comments you'd know that's not the case.
What's not the case? I'm asking what your point is (is it either of the things I said?), are you just whining about society or are you proposing change?
The change I would propose is a limit on profit taking whereby users could spend as much or as little as they wanted but the providers like Steam or XBL would limit the amount that any one user could be charged overall for a single game. ie: charges up to $X per game will be charged beyond that the game is considered to be paid for in full. This would limit any hardship on any one individual, allow companies to still charge excessive rates to a degree, and keep the "nanny state" you fear out of it. It would also allow for differences between digital providers - it could be $500/year or $1000 total or $100/month or whatever is considered reasonable by the industry. Each provider could decide on their own based on their own business model/support costs/expected PR fallout if someone did hit the max, etc.
You're not being taken advantage of though, you're presumably a reasonable person paying the market rate which is based on a reasonable business model & profit margins. You'd be screaming holy hell if prices jumped from $300/jump to $5,000 per jump, you couldn't use your own equipment and it cost more than you could buy it for to rent every piece of equipment you needed each time, etc.
These kind of abuses hurt the industry as a whole, just like all skydiving shops did the above, far fewer people would actually be able to do it and the industry dies a slow painful death. The movie industry is learning this with ticket sales - they've jacked them up so high that only the biggest of the big movies make any money and fewer and fewer people are going on a regular basis which means less word of mouth/peer interactions/etc and the industry will keep shrinking.
Is an addict a legally competent adult? Is the password entered by an adult legal authorization for the child to make transactions? Can you distinguish impairment on a computer? ie: An impaired person signing a contract is generally not considered legal (ie: drunk, altered mental state, etc) - Assuming the person was impaired how do they get a refund for that?
There are many transactions where the human to human interaction prevents abuses of classes of individuals who cannot exercise the judgment necessary to enter into these contracts. Without that interaction other mechanisms will have to be developed to serve the same purpose.
Let me explain why it's not the same thing: First, there are laws which regulate cars to use less fuel than they could. It's called fuel efficiency and it's been regulated for quite some time.
Second, you stop putting fuel into a car, it stops functioning. You stop paying excessive amounts to scumbag publishers/developers they will still keep functioning from the earnings from the less excessive but still expensive limits imposed. A game company can easily function earning up to, say for arguments sake, $500 per game sold. Most do it on $10-60 depending on scale.
The closest comparison you could make would be to gambling which, in my jurisdiction, is heavily regulated with it being crown corporation operated, exclusion lists to prevent problem gamers from being taken advantage of, adult only, profits go to fund social programs (mostly healthcare), forced funding of education/advertising to encourage responsible gambling, etc. I don't think the gaming industry needs to go to those extremes if they can reign in their greed a little.
LOL - no, I was thinking something a little more reasonable like the "gatekeepers" (like Steam) put a policy in place where no one gamer will be charged in-excess of a reasonably large but not excessive amount for a single F2P game. Any purchases after that amount are approved in game but not processed so the gamer can continue to play without being abused by the publisher.
There is no reasonable person who would pay $4,000+ for a set of armour in a game like My Lands (they sell many for that amount) - only a child/addict/judgement impaired individual would do something like that.
I think it's something the industry should be mature enough to set, it will be a moving target as well with inflation. You're never going to eliminate it entirely but get Apple, Steam, Microsoft, Sony, and Google on board and you've got a significant chunk of the English speaking industry covered. From their perspective it's just good business as well, every one of these stories is bad PR, they likely have to issue refunds on a far more regular basis than we hear about, etc. By imposing a limit they keep the bulk of the casual revenue coming in while not exploiting any one individual to an extreme.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong! It would be if it were returning money, but it is not returning any money or even anything you can sell, just more credits which you can only use for more games. If you bothered to read what was written you would see that:
Definition of “slot machine”
but does not include an automatic machine or slot machine that dispenses as prizes only one or more free games on that machine.
I thought this task would help you prove yourself wrong, but you still need to read what is written.
I did read, and guess what - Microsoft Jackpot doesn't dispense "free games" - ever. It dispenses "vending merchandise or services" which affect your chances of winning, fixes one or more "wheels", credits which are used to purchase various goods in game, etc. Nice try though.
You're right, there's no perfect amount but there's an amount that would not shock the majority.
Which is?
As stated, something that is up to businesses to figure out/re-evaluate based on market conditions. It's not a fixed point.
Many industries do have limits though and do just fine by their shareholders - retail is limited by MSRP
Nope, the S in MSRP stands for suggested.
It does mean suggested! Consumer protection laws, in my jurisdiction at least, deal with this in their "Price Maintenance" section. http://www.competitionbureau.g... Note they can include "dealer may sell for less" but not more.
housing by rent controls & property valuations
Rent controls are about the amount that the rent can rise for a tenant, there is nothing to stop you setting whatever price you want for a rental or selling your house for whatever price you want. It is up to the buyer whether they will pay.
Rent rise is a limit. It also limits the ability of tenants to rent their rented apartment out for more than they are paying. Housing market is definitely one that does not have restrictions and look how much disruption it has on our economy as it boom/busts.
stock markets by all sorts of regulations, and so on.
The stock markets have lots of regulations but what regulation exactly are you thinking is akin to this scenario? I don't think there is one.
It doesn't, it was merely pointing out that there are limits on all sorts of behaviours that would allow for greater profits in other industries, all in the interest of protecting individuals from hardship/the industries themselves from imploding.
Because it's a simulation, you cannot win money from it. It's really not that difficult to understand, but if you're right then show me which gambling legislation that game falls under. You don't have to take my word for it, your inability to do that will help you to prove yourself wrong.
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca... Surprisingly easy to find. Microsoft Jackpot would be considered a slot machine as it produces random results per section 198 (3)(b)(ii).
users could spend as much or as little as they wanted but ... would limit the amount that any one user could be charged overall for a single game.
Yeah, you got yourself a contradiction right there. The word "limit" and the words "as much ... as they wanted" are inherently contradictory.
As stated repeatedly, it would mean that although you may spend in-game you would not be charged anything beyond the limit
This would limit any hardship on any one individual
Hardship? HARDSHIP???? It is buying fake goddamn items in a fucking video game. There is no "hardship" here, just people who want to spend money on things and/or idiots who disable the built-in protections against allowing people (like children) who don't understand money to spend that money.
Hardship meaning you get drunk one night, buy $6k worth of crap cause you're just playing a game not paying attention to how much you're spending since your judgement is impaired, and bankrupt your family who can't absorb that much debt in such a short time. That's just one scenario I can think of that there can be genuine hardship from a system that imposes no limits on itself.
95% of us, myself included, are idiots in how we spend our money. Some people buy boats or airplanes. Some people spend every free dollar upgrading their rice rocket with spinning wheels and glowing license plates. Some people gamble, either in casinos or on lottery tickets. Some people buy $17 cocktails in Manhattan, others run through $8 packs of cigarettes like they were candy. Some people put themselves through grad school to get a Medieval History degree and go 5-6 figures in debt to do so. Some people buy houses that are bad investments, some buy bad stocks and others lavish hundreds or thousands on Kickstarters that never pay out. Some people spend thousands on vacations to far flung parts of the globe and come back with nothing more to show for it than a few T-shirts and trinkets. And plenty of others will spend cash happily on escorts or prostitutes for transitory sexual experiences.
Some people will read the above list and think "to each his own." Other people will read the list and think everyone is morons except for the people who indulge in their own personal money sink listed above. A fiscally conservative "objective" observer might see everyone involved as idiots. But those people are probably not much fun.
That's exactly why I wasn't suggesting a limit on what people could spend. This is about businesses self-regulating the amount of profit they generate from a single user - not limiting the user experience/choice.
The moral of the story: people of legal age who have the maturity...
How does an automated payment processing machine determine that? Can it tell if I'm drunk? Can it tell if I'm autistic? Can it tell if I figured out my parents password? Can it tell if I have an addiction? Can it tell if I have a concept of money at all? No.
When you put yourself in the position of deciding what people should be "allowed" to spend money on, and how much, you are objectively making them more financially sound at the expense of making them less free. Don't be too eager to take that role up, lest you eventually find someone else who thinks that what you spend money on should be capped or disallowed.
Again, it's about how much profit should be allowed to be earned, not limiting peoples spending choices.
Limiting hardship does not equate to affordability, it's an amount that wouldn't lead to an article on Slashdot.
So what is the amount then? I think you will find there is no single amount that can be applicable to everybody.
You're right, there's no perfect amount but there's an amount that would not shock the majority. It's also not a fixed point, it's something businesses would constantly be re-evaluating based on market conditions.
Limits imposed by government, by competition, by ethics, by common law, etc.
Of course businesses have these limits, but we are talking about artificially limiting their own profits, which is something they do not have and I doubt any for-profit company or shareholder of such a company would want.
Of course they don't want them, unlimited profits is a nice pipe dream, it's unsustainable and damaging. Many industries do have limits though and do just fine by their shareholders - retail is limited by MSRP, housing by rent controls & property valuations, stock markets by all sorts of regulations, and so on. Every industry has a balancing force of some sort and if gaming companies don't self-regulate someone will step in and do it for them.
The only desperation is coming from you, sorry mate.
A movie ticket is not the same, enjoyment isn't what's on sale, you aren't even guaranteed to see the show (if you're late you can't get into some shows and won't get a refund). You are just being sold a ticket which you can exchange for access to the theatre/a seat at a predetermined time. Enjoyment is what brings you back again.
Also there are games which have that random factor where the goods won can be sold for cash, the same way a lottery for a house as an example can be turned into cash.
Of course there are, that goes back even to the old days of Ultima Online, Diablo, etc... but that's not really anything to do with the "free to play" model. You seem very confused as to what you're upset about here. Is it still the "free to play" model or is it now being able to sell in-game digital goods for cash?
A secondary market is not what I'm talking about and you know it. You know I'm talking about exchanging funds for credits of some form (like you do in a casino), playing a game of chance (like slots), which comes with a reward that holds value to the person playing (like additional credits). It's gambling plain and simple... I mean how can you argue that Microsoft Jackpot, a literal slot machine style game, is not gambling? It's idiocy.
Where did 'affordability' come in?
Well what did you mean by "limit any hardship on any one individual" if you aren't talking about affordability?
Limiting hardship does not equate to affordability, it's an amount that wouldn't lead to an article on Slashdot. The average person in my country makes ~43k/y so loosing 1-2% of that on a single game would be something that's not easy to swallow by any means but doesn't necessarily shock/cause undue hardship. $5,900 would be 13-14% of the average income - that could bankrupt someone who didn't have the credit/cashflow to be able to deal with it. Entertainment products should never run the risk of bankrupting someone.
And every business has limits.
What limit are you talking about? Quite clearly we are discussing placing an artificial limit on the profits of games, and no, every business does not have this...in fact i don't think any do.
Limits imposed by government, by competition, by ethics, by common law, etc. There are price gouging laws on the books for many industries, there are many common law protections which will invalidate unbalanced contracts where the value of goods received is so out of whack from the cash paid that it's unconscionable (I'm surprised there haven't been some of these lawsuits yet).
Gambling does not require a cash return just something of value for the person wagering the money on it. Also there are games which have that random factor where the goods won can be sold for cash, the same way a lottery for a house as an example can be turned into cash.
Where did 'affordability' come in? And every business has limits.
You've missed the crucial parts:
"such that $X limits any hardship on any one individual. Possible values for X is a quite a massive range, not everybody finds the same amount to be affordable."
As I said, that would be for the provider to determine based on their business decisions.
Yes, like gambling is "self-regulating"
No, this is not wagering. That is something very different.
Isn't it in many cases? A common mechanism is a randomized reward for an expenditure of credits paid for with cash in games like Kingdoms & Lords, Microsoft Jackpot, Battle Islands, just to name a few examples.
The provider, like PSN/Steam/XBL/etc.
Yes, like gambling is "self-regulating"
So if my spending is unlimited by the profit taking is limited then where does it all go?
It never leaves your pocket.
That obviously does not follow.
You hit the maximum for a particular game, the in-app purchases become free - what's hard to follow about that?
That just means that 99.9% of players will be dissatisfied with the product, lose interest and move on to other hobbies.
By imposing a limit they keep the bulk of the casual revenue coming in while not exploiting any one individual to an extreme.
You do realise these industries depend on high-spenders that they call 'whales', right?
Source?
So if my spending is unlimited by the profit taking is limited then where does it all go?
It never leaves your pocket.
If you read any of the other comments you'd know that's not the case.
What's not the case? I'm asking what your point is (is it either of the things I said?), are you just whining about society or are you proposing change?
The change I would propose is a limit on profit taking whereby users could spend as much or as little as they wanted but the providers like Steam or XBL would limit the amount that any one user could be charged overall for a single game. ie: charges up to $X per game will be charged beyond that the game is considered to be paid for in full. This would limit any hardship on any one individual, allow companies to still charge excessive rates to a degree, and keep the "nanny state" you fear out of it. It would also allow for differences between digital providers - it could be $500/year or $1000 total or $100/month or whatever is considered reasonable by the industry. Each provider could decide on their own based on their own business model/support costs/expected PR fallout if someone did hit the max, etc.
Also, no one is "trying to stop you [from spending whatever you want]" - the idea is to limit the profit taking.
You're not being taken advantage of though, you're presumably a reasonable person paying the market rate which is based on a reasonable business model & profit margins. You'd be screaming holy hell if prices jumped from $300/jump to $5,000 per jump, you couldn't use your own equipment and it cost more than you could buy it for to rent every piece of equipment you needed each time, etc.
These kind of abuses hurt the industry as a whole, just like all skydiving shops did the above, far fewer people would actually be able to do it and the industry dies a slow painful death. The movie industry is learning this with ticket sales - they've jacked them up so high that only the biggest of the big movies make any money and fewer and fewer people are going on a regular basis which means less word of mouth/peer interactions/etc and the industry will keep shrinking.
If you read any of the other comments you'd know that's not the case.
Is an addict a legally competent adult? Is the password entered by an adult legal authorization for the child to make transactions? Can you distinguish impairment on a computer? ie: An impaired person signing a contract is generally not considered legal (ie: drunk, altered mental state, etc) - Assuming the person was impaired how do they get a refund for that?
There are many transactions where the human to human interaction prevents abuses of classes of individuals who cannot exercise the judgment necessary to enter into these contracts. Without that interaction other mechanisms will have to be developed to serve the same purpose.
Fucking car analogies, they never work.
Let me explain why it's not the same thing:
First, there are laws which regulate cars to use less fuel than they could. It's called fuel efficiency and it's been regulated for quite some time.
Second, you stop putting fuel into a car, it stops functioning. You stop paying excessive amounts to scumbag publishers/developers they will still keep functioning from the earnings from the less excessive but still expensive limits imposed. A game company can easily function earning up to, say for arguments sake, $500 per game sold. Most do it on $10-60 depending on scale.
The closest comparison you could make would be to gambling which, in my jurisdiction, is heavily regulated with it being crown corporation operated, exclusion lists to prevent problem gamers from being taken advantage of, adult only, profits go to fund social programs (mostly healthcare), forced funding of education/advertising to encourage responsible gambling, etc. I don't think the gaming industry needs to go to those extremes if they can reign in their greed a little.
LOL - no, I was thinking something a little more reasonable like the "gatekeepers" (like Steam) put a policy in place where no one gamer will be charged in-excess of a reasonably large but not excessive amount for a single F2P game. Any purchases after that amount are approved in game but not processed so the gamer can continue to play without being abused by the publisher.
There is no reasonable person who would pay $4,000+ for a set of armour in a game like My Lands (they sell many for that amount) - only a child/addict/judgement impaired individual would do something like that.
I think it's something the industry should be mature enough to set, it will be a moving target as well with inflation. You're never going to eliminate it entirely but get Apple, Steam, Microsoft, Sony, and Google on board and you've got a significant chunk of the English speaking industry covered. From their perspective it's just good business as well, every one of these stories is bad PR, they likely have to issue refunds on a far more regular basis than we hear about, etc. By imposing a limit they keep the bulk of the casual revenue coming in while not exploiting any one individual to an extreme.