Loot boxes are obviously gambling
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
When behavioural economics and data mining became all encompassing we lost all that was positive and good in this field.
This modeling of the human psyche has existed in PR and the commercial industry for a century, but the incredible multiplier that lies in the constant connection and the advancement of fast and agressive interfaces has now made us all like rats pushing levers in a Skinner box.
Hordes of psychologists, data analysts and digital designers has become like a mercenary army that whores itself out to the global-internet-consciousness that itself has become like a cancer that eats up peoples last moments of clarity.
We now stand completely naked and exposed as the irrational, animal, mamalian ape that we are in front of the extreme exponential technological whirlwind that has made everything so complex, fast changing and exploitative that we have no option but to completely drop out or ride the tiger.
Love the imagery in your writing... I think we do have an option for now (turn off your phone when you get home/go on vacation etc.) and that the animal were riding is not a tiger but a rabid monkey in heat stung by a scorpion, which is how some yogis describe the unquestioned mind.
The observation of my own patterns and relationship with media/attention grabbing tech it has become clear to me that if I am to be productive and healthy, I need to change my relationship with my mind.
It’s a challenge, but a worthy one.
Cat was out of the bag the day some shopkeeper figured out printing advertisements.
What happened? My guess is we got trapped by the short-term rewards of systems that seem to work for a while- until they don't; and create an ocean of social and other problems in the meanwhile (e.g. the use of "AI" systems to predict recidivism that overfit on race, etc).
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Everything the ad market touches becomes shit. They live in shit, and they feed off each other's shit, and it's overflowing everywhere into society like a pollution that has no cure, because it's built into capitalism.
Out of the 3 games, I probably played Overwatch the most, followed closely by Hearthstone, but the amount of money I invested in Hearthstone is easily 3-4x the initial price I paid for OW. I got fed up of the "pay or fall behind" nature of Hearthstone and stopped playing a long time ago though.
Hearthstone should be compared with other computer games, not with MTG & co.
I always thought a much more modern scenario would've been if they put like a code or something on physical packs so you could buy them once and have the same cards in both digital and physical form.
You can be perfectly competitive without playing arena or buying packs. I haven't paid a cent for the past 2 years and can play all the competitive decks I want in every meta. Blizzard has been very good with bumping up the rewards you get from playing normally.
But I agree that, right now, they are not the worst offender, at least with Overwatch (I haven't played Hearstone and I haven't played enough of HotS to reach the lootboxes).
" In March 2013, former Diablo III game director Jay Wilson stated that he felt the existence of the auction houses "really hurt" the game. "
1. Proper full-on skill-based gambling; Poker, Blackjack, type games, plus arguably Horse Racing and other sports where you learn the starts and make judgement calls.
2. 'Luck' based games; Pay money, get 'prize' - this is where loot boxes fall into, and in also in the real world, CTGs and LEGO Minifig bags (for example). You always get a prize no matter how small.
3. Raffles; Buy a ticket for a fixed sum, win a prize. The prizes on offer are known up front. Viewed slightly different (for some reason) - most non-business places can run one of these without a licence. However the nationwide Lottery does require a licence, even though it's basically just a raffle.
Types 1 and 2 require different licences if you want to operate them, type one definitely has to have all the GambleAware[1] stuff prominently shown.
You'll see on many daytime and light entertainment programs on TV that they run 'competitions' for the viewers where the question is stupidly simple. They do this to step around the 'gambling' licence issue. By asking a question (no matter how simple) it legally occludes the fact that the text-in/phone-in competition is basically a Lottery.
Back to the point of Games... All games publishers have to do is get a gambling licence (for the region they want to sell the game in) and be up front that their game contains 'some gambling'.
Of course though, if they do that, then they can't sell their game to minors...
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Regulation painted as 'economic harm' is hard to defend in an industry that's been around a long time without these kinds of practices being so widespread, and so user-hostile, that regulators are actually starting to care.
Games companies long ago figured out how to fill the monetary gap -- sell a game for money. The transaction is straightforward, transparent, and aligned with the expectations most people have for most goods and services exchanges.
What that kind of traditional transaction does not lend itself to is changing the contractual arrangement after the exchange (to the purchaser's disadvantage), or to orchestrate a situation where the vendor can continually identify, manipulate, and abuse the weaknesses of the purchaser.
Oh no, We wouldn't dream of having gambling in our game! That's why we don't have single-use dungeon tickets (which is just gambling with one extra step between).
You can do our dungeons as many times as you want, they aren't single use. Of course doing a dungeon run costs five purple crystals, which costs five bucks. After an epic story focused (cut-scenes that you can skip) showdown with a boss (that you can take down in one attack) you get random loot from a loot table, just like in good old games like Diablo (functionally the same as a lootbox).
Of course, the fact that it works out to 5 bucks for a random item is not gambling, since we now have two steps instead of just one.
Of course, if there's a freemium model, it's very hard to argue that it's not gambling, if people buy in-game-something to speed up grinding.
But in that regard simply wasting time for a low-probability-drop item is also gambling.
The problem is that in the direct microtransaction lootbox model there's just an insane feedback loop, to get that nice knife/gun/armor/breastplate.
It should be treated like addiction - which it is. People like to play hazard games, so gambling will be with us forever, and some people will not be able to handle the accompanying mental draw to that dopaminergic feedback loop.
Magic the Gathering and Pokemon sat around $500k in realy global market sales. Sport cards a few millions. Game with lootboxes is estimated around a half a billion. Regular gambling estimated around $400 billions.
This make in my view a rather simple answer why Magic the Gathering might not be a big concern for government but why regular gambling really is and why loot boxes currently sit in the middle. To simplify: 1x, 1000x, 1000000x.
Also, gambling is usually restricted, either by location or by age. Are games with lootboxes 18+?
I was just looking for those ultra-rare unique cosmetics in order to feel good and unique as well. There is a social dimension to this problem, if Dota 2 was a solo game, I wouldn't have spent a dime on cosmetics.
Ummmm, they call Magic the Gathering "cardboard crack" for a reason ...
Some mobile game companies do billions per year. That kind of sales attract regulatory attention.
https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-detai...
as long as you aren't hiding game changing content in loot boxes (ie. all skins or something) I think they are perfectly fine.
Essentially, it's a matter of practicality and extent of impact on the public. Industry regulation with regards to some widespread practice is usually the final step of an extended period of failure to self-regulate [the practice that is producing some undesired side-effect].
My parents minded very much.
Consequently, this limits the "whale effect"--even the most expensive decks of cards in "Standard" tops out at about $1200 ($20 times 60 cards), and generally MUCH less than that gets you championship level decks.
If the ONLY way to get an MtG card that was required to compete was to open $200 boxes over and over and over, I suspect that people WOULD start complaining.
Most of the "skinner box" games explicitly prevent you from being able to buy specific cards precisely to keep you on the hamster wheel.
Basically my point is this: it can be perfectly reasonable to allow one form of gambling-like transactions where it is easy to ensure that the house is playing fair while outlawing a superficially similar one were making sure that the house is not cheating would require enormous regulations and oversight efforts.
Ps: Also, a manipulative pretend-random drop function could easily be made to adhere to defined overall droprates without sacrificing any individual manipulation. Detecting "bad luck" that only strikes when the system detects willingness to keep rolling the dice until some local goal is achieved would not be easy even with a complete dataset.
However for the second point, given what I know about programming as a discipline, I'm not sure that the probable bad actors have gone through a lot of effort to hide their gaming of the system, or that if they have made the effort to make said function that it actually works as envisioned and does not leave its own telltale traces.
I have vague memories of reading about this kind of dark pattern when I first heard about loot boxes, but I failed to google any references now so maybe my memories are diluted with imagination.
But why wouldn't it happen? How would the public find out? Tipping the scales just a little bit, at the right times, for the right victims, could be very effective at "increasing engagement". The whole thing would even be a/b-testable, so any internal arguments against would be futile. (You'd want to keep the "a" implementation around anyways, in case you need to present source to someone who should not see how the sausage is made)
I'd expect that's part of the point of regulating something that appears to be gambling as gambling, to ensure that it is, at least, fair (for some definition of that word).
And then you possibly don't realize how much you've spent, because unlike real cards, digital ones don't pile up.
It's definitely different.
Maybe actually charge for the game that companies used to?
I hate free 2 play games because I am a whale and I know it. When I get hooked I can easily pay hundres of dollars of digital shit. Much more than I would ever have if I had just purchased the game.
Fuck loot boxes and fuck companies trying to defend the practice.
They use addictive techniques similar to gambling/casinos to encourage players to purchase more boxes, for a chance at a better reward, sometimes irresponsibly.
Using addictive techniques to encourage people to spend in an irresponsible manner can destroy lives, which is why gambling is highly regulated.
Loot boxes are using addictive techniques to encourage people to spend in an irresponsible manner, should be considered gambling, and should be regulated.
Gambling should be considered gambling. If paying for variable and unpredictable levels of entertainment is gambling, then you have broadened the definition so wide that it is now meaningless.
You have now created a definition where buying a ticket to a movie that you may or may not enjoy is a form of gambling.
The appropriate comparison would be buying a ticket to sit down and watch a movie, you don't get to choose the movie though, you have a chance to see the movie you want but there are maybe 9 other movies that you don't want to watch. Maybe the movie you want to watch is super popular and you've seen the other 9 movies several times already.
Probably the most basic comparison minus an analogy for all the addictive flashing lights and all that associated with gambling (incl. loot boxes)
That is the comparison that is more similar to loot boxes, but not to the definition you have decided upon.
Loot boxes give you variable entertainment, but for that to be gambling you have now defined entertainment value as the element of prize. Gambling requires chance, prize and consideration.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e7b39fc2-501e...
At the point where entertainment value is the prize, you have now created a definition of gambling that includes both your example of a random movie, and my example of any movie.
The thing I hate about all of these lootboxes as gambling arguments is that they have no appreciation for what gambling actually is. Instead gambling is now just whatever you feel like is gambling in your gut, not an actual real legal and enforceable definition.
You want to regulate lootboxes, fine, but trying to draw an equivalency to real gambling and lootboxes is just not possible without classifying almost every transaction as gambling.
But honestly, if you want to regulate loot boxes we should probably start by regulating video game addiction because it is a much larger problem that effects a much larger audience.
All of these deeply concerned people who want to regulate loot boxes somehow don't seem to overlap with the group of people who want to regulate video game addiction though. Because the deeper truth is that people want to wield the tools of government like a cudgel to force video game developers to make the kind of games they want.
This whole thing is just a fig leaf similar to how child porn is used to censor the internet and enforce copyright.
Variable entertainment? Then a lottery scratch card is "variable entertainment", whatever that is supposed to be.
As is I can't distinguish a scratchcard from a lootbox except one has some regulation. They have a feature prize that is the reason for purchase, they have small odds of achieving the feature/promoted prize (Game loot boxes frequently don't give the actual odds), they cost real currency, they can give something of value.
Do you then claim that a scratch card is not gambling?
Gambling devices pay out a prize that is worth a real redeemable cash value and can be sold on an open market.
What prize does a loot box give you that is not purely for entertainment value? They do not give you a prize that is redeemable for cash.
> the activity or practice of playing at a game of chance for money or other stakes
That is not the legal definition of gambling, and all court decisions on the subject clearly indicate that gambling requires real cash value to the prizes and not just entertainment that has no actual value.
Loot boxes do not have the 3rd element of gambling, which is the recognized legal definition in virtually every jurisdiction.
https://www.truthfinder.com/glossary/gambling-definition/
"In order for the activity to be considered gambling, it must contain three separate elements. These are consideration, chance, and a prize. If one or more of these elements is not present, then gambling is not taking place."
"The final element of gambling is the prize. If the player has the chance to win something of value, then gambling is taking place. Again, the amount or value of the prize is inconsequential. As long as it has some value, it is considered gambling."
Huh? I thought it was well established that there is value and that, in some cases, it could even be "legitimately" (even according to the rules of the game provider) traded for real-world money.
This may not apply to all constructs that could be considered "loot boxes", but I'm confident it's not the case that the vast majority lack the feature of of transferability of the "loot" that would give credence to the argument that any value is purely that of entermainment to the individual user.
I have never heard of any game provider doing that. I don't really believe you because they would have no legal protection if they did that.
All of their arguments are that the digital goods in the lootbox have no real cash value and are only meant for entertainment purposes.
Steam is the one who really rides the rails with these arguments when they let you turn digital goods into steam dollars. But you can't trade the steam dollars and you can't cash them out. They also actively pursue websites that do let you cash out the value of steam digital goods and try to shut them down and make it difficult for them to operate.
Ever heard of a third party? How about paypal? Is a gray market a concept foreign to you entirely?
I can exchange them to a bot, recieve Amazon gift card funds, and then turn that into USD.
I can trade them straight up for any cryptocurrency.
I can have a bank deposit made tomorrow.
I can exchange them for points on a website which get cashed out for USD/EUR/GBP.
The list goes on.
Just because you are ignorant and Steam isn't directly handing me a dollar for every Steam wallet dollar doesn't mean it is impossible.
Please educate yourself or stop feigning.
There's also the argument that, because Steam makes an active effort to resist the grey-market exchnges, that gives them some kind of deniability or "legal protection". I believe that both you and I agree that it does not, at least not in any meanigful sense. I also doubt that was their motivation in the first place, rather than, for example, maximizing their own profit in selling the digital goods themselves.
> Steam isn't directly handing me a dollar for every Steam wallet dollar doesn't mean it is impossible.
I think this is actually the most important point. It's not that grey markets have to be involved to convert digital goods into real money. It's that Steam has legitimized everything but the very last step of converting their in-game currency into real currency (and take a cut along the way, from what I understand from other comments in the thread).
This is espeically true if they permit the exchange of real dollars into Steam dollars and merely prohibit the reverse exchange. There's no claiming "entertainment value only" and being taken seriously.
They have done everything within their power to make this not legitimate.
If an operator buys a game that normally gives out tickets and uses it as an illegal gambling device is the game developer responsible for that, or is the operator?
Steam is not responsible for grey market transactions it is actively working to shut down. The grey market is the one operating the casino here.
There's no evidence they've done everything in their power to eliminate grey market transactions. It's in their power, for example, to remove transferability of items (or maybe just items from loot boxes, though I'm insufficiently familiar with them to know if that could be gamed).
However, it's almost entirely irrelevant, because that's only one piece of a much larger "puzzle".
> If an operator buys a game that normally gives out tickets and uses it as an illegal gambling device is the game developer responsible for that, or is the operator?
This questions seems immaterial, since Steam is both the game developer and the operator.
> The grey market is the one operating the casino here.
Steam is operating every single part of the casino, except the very last little bit of cashing out the chips. They even have a cashier from whom one can buy chips in the first place!
You actually have it backward. It's the grey market that is not responsible for Steam's operation of a casino. It would still exist if items were still transferable, still had real world value to someone, but were no longer available through a Steam-operated lottery system.
Why do they have to remove legitimate features?
> his questions seems immaterial, since Steam is both the game developer and the operator.
Steam is not the operator of the sites converting steam items into money, so it is very relevant.
> Steam is operating every single part of the casino, except the very last little bit of cashing out the chips.
So if you can transfer items in a video game between users it is now a casino? That is ridiculous and covers every MMO and a lot of other online games.
This sudden push for regulation throws up every single one of the “think of the children” red flags for bad legislation in my mind.
The difference is that CCG were rather niche thing most people dont know about and these games targetted at children are ever obvious and common. Meaning, people cared less because significantly less people knew you can buy CCG. Also, sports cards and CCG had known probabilities and were overall less sleazy then some of these games. They did not baited you with psychological trics and people were less routinelly trying to earn money by buying them solely in the hope of finding jackpot expensive item to sell.
There is also element of fake think of children where gamers who hate everything new and not for them use this to demonise games they don't like.
Games with loot boxes will constantly push them: Throw a loot box in your face while you play or at the end of the match, urging you to pay to open them. What's inside? Maybe something cool? Don't you want to find out? They will also typically show that you have "(3) Unopened Boxes" in your account when you are in the menus. With a CCG, I can browse my collection, play games with friends, or even tournaments, without having to turn down constant sales pitches.
Games with loot boxes often remind you, while you play, that this and that player in your game or your friend X just opened a loot box now and got something cool.
Anything you want in a CCG can be traded or bought fairly from other players. Few loot box implementations allow this.
Any duplicates you get in a CCG can be re-sold, or given away. Few loot box implementations allow this.
Any cards you get from a CCG have a physical presence, so you can store them in a box in the basement and dig them out again years later to either play or sell. Most loot box games will be dead in 5 years.
Opening a loot box is instant gratification. One click and fireworks you have spent the money and it's opening. CCGs require either mail order or physically going to a store. The time delay between feeling the urge and getting the crackle kaboom whoosh (loot boxes opening is very showy) of opening the thing is days or hours versus split seconds.
- "heavily advertised" is not necessarily a feature of gambling - Being able to easily resell reminds me of poker chips. - The longevity of the prize is not a requirement for gambling. - CCG could be instant gratification too. Time delay is not a feature of gambling.
CCGs have merely been overlooked by regulators because they've traditionally been a niche interest and none of the makers were dumb enough to decorate the card packs with one-armed bandits.
1) This is very prevalent in high budget desktop/console games as well, not just mobile games.
2) These games typically do little to nothing to abide by laws that prohibit gambling by minors. There are definitely concerns of whether this is ethical or legal.
1. Items are dropped randomly, or you can buy randomised "crates". By design, plain looking drops are common, while visually impressive drops are rare.
2. When you buy crates and unlock them, there is a "wheel of fortune" style visual system that indicates what item you will receive. There are audio and visual cues indicating how rare or common the item is.
4. There is an in-game trading system that allows users to buy and sell items at an agreed price. Rare items are naturally more expensive on this market. The majority of CS:GO's revenue comes from cuts of these trades.
5. Kids play CS:GO. It is very common to run into young teenagers (13-15) in matchmaking servers.
6. Kids who are exposed to gambling are much more likely to become addicted than adults, are much less likely to have the means to repay debt, and therefore are not held responsible for gambling losses in the eyes of the law. Gambling under the age of 16 is illegal in most countries, and in many cases under 18.
If this sounds kind of familiar, it's because a similar concept exists in many Arcades already, in the form of capsule machines. Japanese Gashapon are the oft-cited inspiration, but countless variations on this idea exist. Here in South Texas, they're a common sight in grocery stores and restaurants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gashapon
On their own, random rewards in a video game sound tame, but where this gets questionably ethical are games which (a) accept real money for in-game purchases, and (b) offer loot-boxes as an in-game purchase. This enables game players to pay real money to receive a random reward, and it's not hard to draw comparisons to real life slot machines. Unlike real-life gambling though, loot boxes have been popping up in games that are often targeted towards minors, making the issue even more complicated. I won't weigh in on the issue here, I just wanted to try to clarify what they are.
Many other loot box games offer items that increase player power or change gameplay in loot boxes. For example, the prerelease version of Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017) had a backlash because of items such as "Deal 30% more damage with ship blasters." Other games may have items such as "Deal 20% more damage, but reduce health by 30%" which open up additional strategic options.
Er. And Magic: the Gathering booster packs.
Does that mean I have a gambling problem then? Because I had hoped that despite my M:tG habit [1], I was not really-really a gambler.
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[1] And let's not discuss my DnD etc RPG habit. I flip cards and roll dice way too much for someone who sincerely thinks she's not into games of chance.
Just because someone gambles doesn't automatically mean they have a "gambling problem". But I certainly don't see why M:tG booster packs wouldn't be considered gambling, as well.
> And let's not discuss my DnD etc RPG habit. I flip cards and roll dice way too much for someone who sincerely thinks she's not into games of chance.
But do you have to pay a fixed price each time you roll the dice or flip the card?
Say you feel you need to wear a hat made of marshmallow. Is that a problem? Well, is it? For example if you lost your job because of the hat, that's a problem. If you spend so much on marshmallow hats that you can't afford your rent, that's a problem. If you killed somebody's dog because it tried to eat your hat, that's a problem, and so on.
If you spend money on MTG and enjoy it even if it's $5000 per week that could be fine, psychologically at least, if it didn't cause you or others to suffer. But if you find you're ruining your life, or other people's to buy cards, even if it's just $50 of cards per month then that's a gambling problem.
For example starving yourself to death is definitely a problem, but body-image mental health illness that causes it usually leave the sufferer unable to recognise this consequence of their actions.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/2/15517962/china-new-law-dot...
The way the weighted probabilities list is constructed changes from implementation to implementation.
The prevalent one so far is "box gacha", the spiritual successor to "complete gacha". The latter is now banned in Japan and the rest are somehow regulated.
The motivations are many. First, it distributes large payments over smaller payments making people lose control over their spending. Then, it complicates people's perception of how expensive an item is.
In a sense, lottery games are the same in spirit. For example, what's the probability of getting an arbitrary unique combination of 6 numbers out of 49 (lottery)? Very, very low. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery_mathematics
In mobile, they're usually coupled with "events" that have a leaderboard. Events are actually auctions were people "play" (bid) for a better place in the leaderboard. The rewards are usually not worth it, because through successive updates they're made worthless (e.g.: stats inflation).
All cosmetic items only, but you purchase the exact item you want directly. The items are a little more expensive than you might expect (I think on average $4-10 each) and it includes skins, different "axes" to break objects, different dances and different "gliders" that you fly into the game on.
It's quite fun, but also totally unnecessary and you only spend money on exactly what you want - no random chance.
On top of the fact that it's a free to play game in the first place, and you can also get quite a wide range of skins, axes and dances (10s of them) by playing to complete the battle pass which is only about $10 or so per season. Plus there are a few freebies even if you pay nothing, and some you can get from linking to Twitch Prime, etc.
I think this is winning partly because it is fun (the skins are quite comedic) but also just because you know what you're getting. By comparison I spent about $10 on keys for PUBG and stopped because I just got useless crap that isn't really exciting - they're just basic clothing items. Even the rarer items aren't as exciting which doesn't help but the chance of getting one is quite low.
The thing Epic/Fortnite have done to make them sell more (compared to the random chance) is that there is <10 items for sale per day for 24 hours, after 24 hours the set changes and you may not be able to buy that item again (though in practice many returns a few days or weeks later, you can't be certain). So instead of random chance gambling they're capitalising on missing out / time limited offers. Plus there's a constant influx of new items so instead of wasting time gambling for that ultra rare item - instead you can keep up with whats newer and cooler.
Sauce: https://www.finder.com.au/playerunknowns-battlegrounds-will-...
Just because A has some properties of B doesn't mean that A is B.
I think both gambling and loot-boxes could be categorized as subsets of the set of things that are "compulsive reward-seeking behavior".
Playing poker for matchsticks is just as much gambling as playing poker for a $50k pot. The only thing changing is the stakes of the gamble.
The general idea, I think is that addictive things shouldn't be regulated unless it is a significant threat to society. Gambling is, because it is known to put people into bankruptcy. Obviously, drugs, which alcohol and tobacco are, also pose serious problems. But lootboxes? I've never heard about families being destroyed by lootboxes. Yeah, people can spend more than intended, but for it to be a problem warranting heavy regulation, it has to be more than just scraping disposable income.
These days, it's very, very difficult to make a profit on a AAA game at only $60 a pop, but if anyone tries to raise that price the fans will cry bloody murder. So publishers are desperately trying to find ways to make up the difference. Cosmetic sales, DLC packs, loot boxes, anything. Making loot boxes illegal doesn't fix the problem; it just pushes it somewhere else.
Source, among others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhWGQCzAtl8
In some games you can. See: CS:GO.
As long as items can be traded, someone will make a 3rd party site to buy/sell the items.
There are games that just sell you the item, no randomness involved.
I can't distinguish a loot box from a scratch card -- except a scratch card must reveal odds.
I'm old-school in terms of paying for games: £xx for a complete game, £x for a month's access as they provide a known value exchange. Doubly so when it's the underage being sold to. My kids learnt never to ask - my answer was always no. Lootboxes and other variable rewards, time unlocks and so forth are just a piss-take driven by sheer greed of the GameCo that's ruined many games.
A lot of problem gamblers get in a bad way because they think that the only way to recoup their losses is by continuing to play until they win.
If you can't sell loot for cash, then it can't lead to this same kind of problem gambling because it's literally impossible to recoup your losses instead of merely unlikely. Therefore lootboxes should be regulated differently from actual gambling if at all.
The why does not matter. By removing that part of your text the behaviour applies equally to both.
Whether it is about recouping losses, or desiring the "ownership" of some pixels the same addictive behaviours are at work, and the same problems and financial losses can accrue.
Game companies employ psychologists and economists to try and ensure addictiveness - giving you a meaningless "almost a winner" tickets with 2 of 3 required tokens etc
> If you can't sell loot for cash
In a good proportion of games you can sell the loot for cash. Via Steam Marketplace and so on.
They deserve the same regulation and age limits as fixed odds betting terminals and fruit machines as that is essentially what they are.
I guess the line between games and gambling wasnt so clear cut after all.
Disgusting. This needs to be rooted out completely from the gaming industry.
New stuff come with new rules, may sound more resealable.
Also the rare skin itself can be the profit because you get a higher status and prestige within your peers.
That- and only that, is the acceptable gambling that i could accept existing.
You buy bonds, and like a lottery ticket they might randomly win a prize in a draw. But because it's a bank not a lottery the bonds themselves never go away if you don't win, it's basically a savings account except instead of boring percentage interest you randomly win prizes.
There is also a complex lottery where the process begins with chance. This covers things like scratchcards where you choose which things to scratch off but which card you are given, and what is printed on the card is governed by chance.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/19/section/14
Lotteries are one of 3 forms of gambling covered by this regulation, so in the uk at least it seems pretty obvious that lootboxes are gambling from a legal point of view. Lotteries are permitted for people older than 16 in the UK but it's an offence to allow a "child" (someone younger than 16 in this law) to participate (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/19/section/56)
It's also an offence if your company to manufacture, supply, install or adapt gambling software without a license. So they could be liable from that point of view also, in the UK at least.
edit: clarify one bit of wording
This part sounds leaky to me. Game producers might assign prizes which are based e.g. 99% on chance and 1% on skill.
You can (and at least two big companies do) make money from operating a lottery on behalf of a charity, but you can't run a lottery where the profits themselves go somewhere other than a "good cause" such as a charity. And the UK has tighter regulation than the US of charities so it's harder to have a "charity" that basically just puts money into your own pockets.