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eveningcoffee

It is actually a very good point.

Now that I look into it, I think we should also ban all the booster packages for the board games.

These packages can contain or may not contain valuable card and you are effectively gambling when you buy one.

It can also become very addictive.

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Unlike the US, the UK has quite liberal gambling legislation. You can legally bet online, there's a casino in every town, there's a betting shop on every high street, pubs can legally install slot machines, you'll see adverts for bookmakers during football matches.

Crucially, it's all regulated. You have to be 18 to enter a betting shop or a casino. A slot machine has to be inspected by the Gambling Commission and must clearly state the payout ratio. Every business and employee involved in gambling has to be licensed. There's a voluntary self-exclusion scheme, so problem gamblers can ban themselves from being able to place a bet.

Lootboxes are effectively a form of gambling - you pay x, but you get a prize worth anything from 0.01x to 1000x based on a random number generator. That RNG isn't audited. Customers don't know the odds. There's no age restriction or controls on advertising. Nobody involved in the business is licensed or subject to scrutiny by a suitable regulator. The operators have no social responsibility obligations.

I'm a gambler myself. I think that US gambling laws are a bit weird. I don't want to ban gambling, but it needs to be properly regulated, regardless of the form it takes. I don't want to see children being stealthily introduced to gambling by predatory game developers.

It was far better in the UK before the massive deregulation of gambling. It has gone much too far.

Our poorest areas have high streets with 4 or 5 betting shops in spitting distance of each other. Addiction and problem gambling has snowballed out of hand. The self exclusion scheme is widely abused by bookmakers. The levy on betting shops pays lip service to the damage done. Fixed odds betting machines are a licence to addict the public whilst printing money.

I don't wish to abolish gambling, but I sure wish the regulations simply returned to those of the 80s or early 90s (i.e. before Tony Blair broke it).

The singular problem is FOBTs. Pretty much everyone in the industry hates them, except of course for the big four bookmakers who profit from them. They're the reason for the absurd over-concentration of betting shops in certain areas, they're the reason for the failure of self-exclusion, they're killing the racing industry and they're a gift to petty money-launderers. As a gambler, I can't stand them - local betting shops used to be rather convivial places, but FOBTs have completely poisoned the atmosphere.

It's looking near-certain that the maximum stake for FOBTs will be reduced to £2, which is a reasonable starting point. The big four bookies are extremely nervous about the upcoming triennial review of gambling regulation, which is good news for everyone else.

https://sbcnews.co.uk/retail/2018/01/22/dcms-deliver-uk-book...

I don't disagree with you, but what about cases where the contents of the loot box can't be traded or sold? Or I suppose one could sell their account with the desirable item but that may be disallowed by ToS and get the account banned.

I dislike loot boxes but I have a hard time seeing it as gambling if you explicitly can not liquidate the assets you receive from it. Then it's just a grab bag.

You pay $x, with a chance to receive items worth between $0.1x and $10x.

It's true that x might not be able to converted to fiat or resold.

That makes it effectively equivalent to a raffle, which often put restrictions on reselling similar to these cases.

Raffles are considered a form of gambling, and are heavily regulated, in the UK[0] and Australia [1].

[0] http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Fundrais...

[1] https://www.vcglr.vic.gov.au/gambling/raffle/licensee-resour...

If you can't sell it, and it can't be paid for directly how can it be worth "between $0.1x and $10x" Some items might be more desirable but you can't pay more or less for them. That is rather different than a raffle where the prize is usually something easy to put a price on.

We also raffle off dates with celebrities, and other things where value isn't clear-cut. It still usually falls under the same rules.

Raffle regulation in Australia is commonly treated as a joke though. Everyone just calls them "guessing competitions", where you buy a raffle to "guess the name of the three letter easter chocolate that starts with e and ends in g".

Even schools - noting you can't promote gambling to children - get away with that regularly. With those loopholes, you could probably get away with a lot.

Guessing games still fall under regs in Australia [0].

Schools can run them fine, as most schools fall under "charitable organisation", so they just need written consent from the board, and a prize less than the state's maximum unlicensed game competition amount. ($5000 in Victoria, $2000 in Queensland).

[0 PDF] https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/fc2f9cdd-8799-45bf-9...

Fair point.

Is Mario Kart regulated as a gambling game in the UK?

Sure, you can't convert its items into money, but you can convert them into wins in the game. And it has a "random" item drop system that's known to be rigged.

You do not pay to open a Mario Kart item box.

That's a disingenuous comparison at best.

No exchange takes place. No fiat is given for a chance to open a box.

Is the game sold for free?

If I buy a video game and play it and occasionally get loot boxes that may have ultra-powerful items or may not, that's gambling. But if I buy a video game and play it and occasionally get items that aren't called loot boxes but may be ultra-powerful or may not, that's not gambling?

> If I buy a video game and play it and occasionally get loot boxes

Why do you hide the repeated purchase?

The game is bought, once.

Loot-boxes require another purchase - an uninformed one. You purchase an item for a chance at something else, a chance that you don't actually know.

Mario Kart would be gambling, if you had to buy every crate as you hit it. As it is, with no additional purchase, it is simply a randomised strategic feature. Currency of some form needs to be exchanged to create gambling.

There's a spectrum of activity.

CS:GO skins lie at one extreme. If you pay $2.49 to open a case and win a valuable skin, you can directly sell it for cash on the Steam community market, with Valve pocketing a cut of the transaction. Skins have also become a form of currency used in casino and sportsbook gambling.

You can buy skins for real money on the Steam community market, gamble them on a game of roulette on a site with Steam API integration, then cash out your winnings on the community market. Valve's role in the process is absolutely brazen.

The situation with FIFA Ultimate Team is slightly more murky - you can't directly cash out cards or coins, but the in-game trading mechanic effectively facilitates transactions in real money. You can open packs, sell the cards for FIFA coins, then trade your coins for cash through a third-party site. In-game items are used as tokens in third-party gambling activities. Unlike CS:GO, this third-party activity isn't facilitated by an API provided by EA.

This is vaguely reminiscent of the loophole used by pachinko parlours - you can only convert your pachinko balls for non-cash prizes, but a vendor just around the corner will give you cash for those prizes.

FIFA-related gambling has led to criminal prosecutions in the UK.

http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statist...

Overwatch skins can only be won from lootboxes and can't be traded in any way, so Blizzard probably have the strongest claim to legitimacy. Opening Overwatch lootboxes might mimic gambling in some respects, but the "prizes" unarguably have no cash value. The business model strikes me as a bit seedy, but it isn't obviously within the purview of a gambling regulator. There may be a case for regulation under consumer protection laws, but it's not obviously different to baseball cards or blind bags.

As an European, I can't understand this beancounting. Yes, technically it may not be gambling, but that does not heal the issue. The problem a predatory practices that ultimately harm the victim in any way e.g. money but also time spent unwisely on collecting lootboxes instead of exercizing for college.

> As an European, I can't understand this beancounting. Yes, technically it may not be gambling, but that does not heal the issue. The problem a predatory practices that ultimately harm the victim in any way e.g. money but also time spent unwisely on collecting lootboxes instead of exercizing for college.

To be clear, you're saying that lootboxes in a video game are a problem because they distract people from studying for college?

I saw that a ton as a teen. I always felt sick at the idea so I had a built deck at a set price. But friends would buy a pack. Then just one more. Just one more. Okay last one.

My friends son is constantly asking for more Pokémon cards.

I’m not sure if there is any harm, but he’s in to it.

I do wonder if regulation is the answer though. Shouldn’t we expect people (parents, here) to make their own choices?

I agree. I think regulation should focus on ensuring people have the facts and can make an informed decision, not make the decision for them.

Surely part of the concern here is that the audience for these games include children who are incapable of making an informed decision.

> Hassan urged the ESRB in the letter to examine whether loot boxes are being marketed "in an ethical and transparent way that adequately protects the developing minds of young children from predatory practices."

There's been plenty of time to decide whether to regulate this stuff. Loot boxes are fairly new but I was a Pokemon card addict like your friend's son, at age 10 in 1998. No one cared much back then, so now you have former Pokemon card addicts like me designing more elaborate game systems like this, and spending real money is like a bonus thrill in the game.

Ultimately people will make the decisions about what they do. Paid DLC is nearly loot boxing, but I guess the difference is there is more reasonable pressure when deciding whether to buy the DLC vs. a loot box? It's less pressure than a perceived threat in the game provoking your purchase, but it's funny how there is still a lot of pressure to buy DLC when you're simply on the Steam store page (giant green buy button, videos with 25% actual gameplay flashing at you, reviews urging you to buy the game, etc). But that's not a problem, it's only a problem when a real-money store is moved inside the game.

I wonder about this because as a child I and my siblings were big into Pokémon cards. At the height of the hype my parents bought a 100 pack of booster packs and would periodically dangle them in front of us as rewards.

In the end we got a lot of new cards and my parents got a decent amount of chores done. I’m about to turn 28 and I’ve never had any sort of gambling problem (but I have had my own other non Pokémon related problems that were probably at least somewhat related to my parents)

They can manipulate the content in every way imaginable, that is a literal truth. They can skew the drops any way they like, there is no transparency. At least with packs the contents can't change with a backend update.

I think that the lootboxes are far more optimized to exploit human tendencies. It's like a comparison between Facebook and letters.

I'm not sure how this would work out for Magic the Gathering. Currently card prices are mostly set by the community, because of relative power, rareness, and demand. I'm not sure if WotC can make accurate prices up front.

Actually, WotC and the community are quite good at predicting price and market forces on their game. They have ~20,000 cards and 25 years of sales, and numerous quick factors for determining approx. card value.

Concepts like the "curve" (mana vs P/T), and the value of evergreen keywords greatly help. If there was ever a topic for big data.

Naturally, there are surprises (ex: Standard deck that becomes overly popular and drives demand), but sites like mtggoldfish generally predict prices for most cards to within a few percent and then follow all cards and box prices like stock tickers.

Frankly, I've often thought that investing in MtG cards is more stable than gold. Many cards, like "Liliana of the Veil" [cur $88] are worth more by weight - ~$75/ 1.8 gram card = $41.7 / gram, approx gold price. Plus, value cards generally only rise and are supported by a trading base of a few million yearly players.

This is completely backwards.

Each card is assigned a rarity (common, uncommon, rare, mythic rare) based on its power. All cards of a given rarity have the exact same probability of showing up in a given booster pack. It's possible for a card to get reassigned during a reprint, but it's pretty unusual.

Wizards doesn't set the secondary market prices; the secondary market prices are determined by the demand for that card[0] and the outstanding supply. The outstanding supply is also fairly straightforward: with the exception of cards in pre-built decks[1], cards are basically only printed through booster packs. So, if two cards are both printed at "rare" in a single set (and not printed in any other sets), there will be exactly the same number of each card available in the market - the price there is solely driven by the demand. Wizards has some control in the sense that they can decide which cards to reprint in a given set, or which new cards to print to alter the metagame, but that's very difficult to actually predict, as anybody who plays Magic regularly is aware.

As for the expected value of cards in booster packs: that's always going to be lower than the price of the booster pack. Why? Because stores purchase packs wholesale, and if the expected value of the pack is greater than the MSRP of the pack, they'll just open the packs instead and sell the cards individually.

So Wizards can't tell you the expected value of a given pack, or even predict the price of a given card on the secondary market.

[0] The demand is determined by the metagame, which Wizards has only very loose control over in the short- and medium- term.

[1] Pre-built decks almost never contain cards that are particularly valuable; they're meant for beginners or casual players, whereas the players who care about the valuable cards are "power players", so to speak.

Each card is assigned a rarity (common, uncommon, rare, mythic rare) based on its power

This is not really true. Rarity is a combination of power level, complexity and some other design principles. For example, cards which appear at common rarity can have powerful effects, but they must be simple and straightforward effects, easy for a newer player to understand (since commons will be the majority of the cards a new player sees). Uncommons are permitted to be slightly more complex, and rares and mythics more complex yet.

Several cards which even in recent years appeared at common in their respective sets are considered too powerful to reprint in the Standard format at any rarity. And of the seven cards currently banned in Standard (which is a massive failure on the part of the set design/development teams, and almost unprecedented in the game's history), one (Attune with Aether) is a common, and three (Felidar Guardian, Ramunap Ruins, Rogue Refiner) are uncommons.

All cards of a given rarity have the exact same probability of showing up in a given booster pack.

This is also not always true due to the logistics of the printing process.

A while back I posted a comment on reddit about how it can happen, sometimes, that not all cards of a given rarity are equally likely to appear in a booster pack:

https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/2fblta/odds_of_...

The tl;dr is that the math of setting up the printing sheets doesn't always work out perfectly with the number of cards the set needs at a given rarity (commons are printed on one set of sheets, uncommons on another, and rares/mythics on a third set of sheets). Which sometimes -- though not always -- can lead to a card being slightly underprinted relative to other cards of the same rarity.

I stand corrected.

No, they are wrong because they are analyzing secondary market prices, while the discussion was about introductory market prices, which are indeed set by WotC and made to, on average, be higher than the payout for selling the cards within.

I think there have been two, maaaaybe three expansion sets in the multi-decade history of the game where the average price for selling all cards in a booster pack exceeded the price of the booster pack itself.

> I think there have been two, maaaaybe three expansion sets in the multi-decade history of the game where the average price for selling all cards in a booster pack exceeded the price of the booster pack itself.

Which sets are those? I would be shocked if that were true for unlimited-run sets during the time when they were still in print (the first few sets were limited to a fixed number of cards, but every normal set since has been printed to demand).

I've been out of the game for a couple years now but I remember reading about an expansion pack coming out that had been calculated to have a (rather marginal) edge in favor of the consumer for crack packing. I assumed if there's been one, there may have been another.

Unfortunately I can't remember which set this was anymore as I lost all interest in Standard around that time due to power creep. It was some time around 2013-2014 I believe.

WotC could price individual cards based on the price of a pack, and the chance of getting a card in a pack.

For example, if a booster pack costs $10, and the chance of including a given card is X%, then price the card a la carte at X% * $10 and allow people to buy it directly. I wouldn't be opposed to them selling randomized boosters as well, based on gambling concerns [1], if it were possible to buy individual cards for this price. You could additionally offer a bulk discount.

(OK, it's a little more complicated than that because the library of cards is larger than a booster pack, so it's not just a flat percentage chance to include each card, but you could normalize the probabilities to account for this.)

[1] I'm not sure that I'm actually opposed to this, but I understand the argument.

This seems like an argument to remove all randomization from purchases.

At the very least, all purchases should include info about the randomization. It shouldn't be legal to sell randomized products while keeping the randomization secret.

Do you think that will prevent the supposed harm?

Lottery tickets include odds on the back of the cards. I think that has a very small effects on discouraging play. And those odds are pretty straight forward (1 in 2,000,000 for a 500k payout). I imagine information about how randomization works would be even more indecipherable.

>Do you think that will prevent the supposed harm?

Which supposed harm in this case, there is more than one.

Currently online games are free to swap out algorithms in realtime in order to maximize revenue. You have no idea what your chance of winning even is.

I don't think knowing the chances of winning would change behavior of the consumer, much like knowing the lottery payoff is abysmal doesn't stop people from playing. That was my point.

It doesn't stop everyone but it does stop me and most of my friends

No, but it requires the purchaser to be informed of the odds. The only reason a company wouldn't want to inform a customer about their product is when they are hiding something.

Yes.

I hate the Lego minifig series, and Panini sticker albums, and Pokemon cards.

They should all have to include how many packets you'd expect to buy to complete a collection.

At least with the Lego minifig series, if you buy them in a store, you can feel the polybag to get some kind of an idea what might be contained.

Sure, but for a series of 16 figures you'd expect to buy about 55 packets to complete the collection.

I don't think parents (or children) are aware of that, or have any idea how to work it out. (I didn't, I just searched until I found this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon_collector%27s_problem

That seems like a reasonable step in the right direction. You wouldn't be forcing companies to abandon products (and preventing consumers from buying things that they potentially do actually want), but you do help the consumer make informed decisions and weigh the costs versus the potential benefits.

I am fully supportive of that.

Good to hear you want to combat companies like CDPR who use techniques to like this to sell to children.

Does that mean you're also in favor of ending state sponsored lottories, raffles, etc...?

I am.

Unless it's not-for-profit or single use (e.g. lottery revenue going to schools), then it's a regressive tax on people who don't understand probability.

Are there any lotteries in the US that don't directly fund public sectors like education or elderly care? I thought that was how lotteries became legal across the states.

Well, that's how they sell it. When they started the lottery in my state, they sold it as a wonderful benefit to society, because all the proceeds would be used to fund education.

What they didn't tell us is it wasn't additional funds to existing budgets, but they would pilfer the existing budget and replace it with lottery proceeds.

Lying, smarmy politicians. You'd figure we'd learn by now.

Even if it’s funding education, it’s doing so through what is essentially a tax on the poor. Why not tax those that can afford it instead?

Money is fungible single-use funding doesn't exist in reality.

> a regressive tax on people who don't understand probability

This is precisely why I support lotteries etc.

What you support is immoral. IF you want to live in a society where people prey on each other in every way possible, do not be surprised to eat a bullet. This shit is destabilizing because you advocate taking food off the tables of the poor.

Impressive karma btw.

I mean, whoever is dumb enough to gamble, deserves to lose everything. And if they want to then shoot people, I'm sure the police will be more than obligated to do their jobs.

Do the minor, elderly, disabled or other types of dependenents deserve to lose everything too because the person charged with their care loses everything?

I would be in favor of ending state sponsored lotteries.

I could see an argument in favor of them if:

* Sellers were obligated to disclose the odds of winning the jackpot at the time of purchase punishable to the same extent as underage liquor sales

* The state was required to render, upon request, financial consultation at the burden of the state to winners whose consultation can, at the winner's discretion, be recorded and later reviewed to understand the advice rendered and its context with respect to the winner's financial situation and risk profile

What does bullet 3 even mean

I’m not the parent poster, but yes, that sounds like a great idea.

Supportive of it being illegal for one individual or group of individuals to give an item with an agreed upon element of randomization to another individual in exchange for money?

That is more than a little heavy handed, if not a downright Draconian economic policy.

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