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Comment by myhf | Hacker News Reader

V-bucks should be banned completely, along with all other illegal gambling.

I don't follow. The game is free, "V-bucks" you buy, I think you just get character/weapon skins that aren't required. I don't love the setup, but since kids are hanging out on fortnite having it free lets everyone who wants into that world.

I think they're referring to swapping in funny money to obfuscate customer ability to estimate the costs.

It's similar to how slot machines require tokens, but I don't think that's quite gambling. The gambling part comes in with loot boxes, where you're essentially paying to roll the dice to get something of value.

Since when do slot machines require tokens? I thought it's usually either cash, or a card with money loaded on to it.

Token slot machines used to be common prior to the early 2000s, but they were phased out mostly for cost reasons (minting tokens, refilling tokens, handling tokens, theft, etc). Cash ticket/cards quickly replaced them.

Some casinos still have an aisle or two of coin machines for nostalgia though. People collect these tokens, but I'm sure that hobby is on the way out since new mint is pretty rare.

It's not just obfuscation... you can only buy set amounts of V-Bucks, which not always match with the cost of the skins, etc.

Fortnite doesn't have loot boxes.

GP didn't say that Fortnite has loot boxes; they used loot boxes as a point of comparison with actual gambling.

what about those pinatas? are those still in the game? that's very much a loot box if so.

You mean the things that fall from the sky in the game? You don't pay for them, and the stuff in them only lasts for that one game.

Unlike CS:GO, Fortnite skins aren't gambling.

It takes work to implement an ingame premium currency. The only reason to perform that work is because some business person thinks they have discovered a new way to claim that what they are doing "isn't gambling."

It's a currency. There's no lootboxes. There's premium items you buy with that currency.

A microtransaction isn't gambling by default.

It’s simpler for a global game to have a single currency for pricing in-game items and rewards than twenty different ones.

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