Hacker News Reader

Comment by chongli | Hacker News Reader

Loot boxes have been defined as “features in video games which may be accessed through gameplay, or purchased with in-game items, virtual currencies, or directly with real-world money”. They often appear as chests, crates, or card packs.

This definition is way too broad. It would move ALL RPGs into the category of “gambling”. The definition should be narrowed to only include real money transactions that can be (directly or indirectly) traded for loot boxes in game.

We don’t regulate gambling video games as gambling. The distinction we always make is whether or not real money is involved.

View on HN

I’d had said i’d never really encountered loot boxes, but yeah, i guess in an RPG, they are “loot boxes”, but they make sense in the game, they could all have been preprogrammed or random, i wouldn’t have noticed.

I’ve managed to avoid most games where they’re these little extra things that are obviously presented as, get this for a random thing, and you can also pay cash to try.

But I’ve recently been playing Gran Turismo 7 where you get these roulette awards, and while i like the rest of the game, i find those awards really irritating. They’re presented as a little spinning wheel of items and it sure looks as if you would have an even chance of winning anything on the board, but it’s weighted so you nearly always get the lowest valued one. This seems deliberately deceptive and scummy, it should at least show the chance of winning any item.

I was nodding along, but it occurs to me that most RPGs have a sanctioned money -> in game currency mechanic. As long as you can draw a line from being able to give the game money and use it for a gambling mechanic, there’s the potential for shady behavior. Developers will figure out where the line is and stay just on the other side of it.

I believe this language isn’t just thinking about games of today, but how games may change to get around this wording.

It's not clear to me whether this is a "someone somewhere once defined it as such (and we'll use this working definition to not make things unnecessarily complicated and will reserve a proper definition for after we've looked at the problem broadly)", or an actual "this is how we are defining this for legislation purposes".

This goes far beyond a "working definition" in that it encompasses literally every game that unlocks content in any way. /Some/ distinction is needed to differentiate a "loot box" from every other game mechanic.

It would be like using "a metal object that can harm people" as a working definition of an assault weapon. If the definition also includes ladders, cars, and push-pins, it's far too broad to be useful in any discussion.

Firstly, this is a white paper way before formulation of actual law.

Secondly, that's kind of how UK law works, read up on the knife crime regulation:

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/offensive-weapons-kniv...

It's formulated as, "Carrying an article with a blade or point or an offensive weapon in a public place".

Which of course covers everything from legitimate things to non-legitimate. Which is why the law also allows for a "reasonable excuse" to be carrying such an article.

By the time any regulation is made into legislation it'll iron out the difference or define things in such a way that a reasonable person can tell the difference between an actual game mechanic and a problematic "loot box".

The trouble is that with many games loot boxes are purchased with an in game currency that can be both earned through game-play and purchased with real money. This blurs the line between what is and is not a real money transaction.

Games have had mechanics like this for a long time though

Diablo 2 for instance, you could use in-game gold to buy Unidentified Items, which when Identified could turn out to be a lot of things. Arguably the same as a loot box mechanic.

The thing that makes Loot Boxes insidious to me isn't just the RNG, or the "purchase", it's the real world money part.

Also, in the instance of Diablo 2 (and many other games), I wouldn't call the Gold earned in-game a "Digital Currency". It's a game currency sure, but I think a game currency needs some way to be expressed as in real world dollars to be considered "Digital Currency"

My example for that is Destiny 2. There is the game currency "glimmer". Then there is the digital currency you can earn through playing "bright dust". Then the premium digital currency you purchase with money "silver". Silver and Bright dust can purchase the same items, so there's more or less a conversion rate between Bright Dust and Real Money even though you can't actually convert it into real money.

So, defining digital currency this way allows Diablo 2 to skirt past the digital currency problem, but it's still "RNG rewards that are earned through playing the game"

The real money blurring line of loot boxes is terrible of course, but the real problems I have are the enforced scarcity, and the fanfare when you open them.

Game devs use all sorts of time gating tricks to make sure you can only earn so many loot boxes through gameplay in a period of time, so if you want more faster you are encouraged to buy with real money. They make sure to give a big reveal when you open a loot box to really sell the idea that opening it is exciting and fun, making you want to do it more.

It's just overall an extremely exploitative and miserable practice. I hate loot boxes.

I am completely in agreement that loot boxes are exploitative.

I think we are partially in disagreement at what constitutes a digital currency, but we might be in agreement just discussing it in different terms.

For me, I think the best analogy for in game currencies is foreign currency. To give an example, I play a FTP game that has an in game currency called Units. You can earn Units playing the game or you can get Units more immediately by purchasing Unit packs for real money. You could liken this to either going to another country and earning their currency by working, or buying their currency through a foreign exchange with your own currency. However, in game currencies can't be converted back to your local currency, so it is a synchronous transaction.

Thanks for the detailed and well expressed reply by the way.

Just wanted to add that one of the worst things about digital currencies is how they turn us into serfs, toiling away for currency that can only be used to purchase different ways to toil away in the same hamster wheel.

I don't know if it's that blurry. You described it well in a single sentence.

> features in video games which may be accessed through gameplay, or…

Well, that’s every game ever. The author needs to learn to write and to think critically

Even worse, the definition doesn't even say anything about an element of chance!

If when my character levels up through gameplay they unlock a new ability, that would also seem to meet this absurdly overbroad definition of a "loot box".

Even if we added the requirement of real money purchase, offering some features of a game only as part of a paid expansion also has nothing to do with "loot boxes".

Curiously arbitrary to then not require that the definition include the ability to pay out whatever you got from the loot boxes in real money.

To phrase this in the most cautious way: The potential to win more money than you started with needs to be considered as a factor in the potential addictiveness or more importantly destructiveness of the entire process.

I used to think that, but I think that even ones you can't redeem back (such as FIFA?) can still be extremely problematic with people still spending thousands to get the item they want from the loot box.

I don't think it is - when you introduce a real money cash out you are firmly over the line into gambling territory. Something doesn't need to have _monetary_ value to be considered desirable by a wider group.

I think the key is "or purchased" being interpreted as an option but instead it's is a requirement to be one pathway to the loot boxes.

This seems like the intent. Consider Overwatch loot boxes which may be earned in-game or purchased with money.

It's been regulated for years in Japan (gacha lootboxes). Basically meant to specify the actual chance of winning

Reply on news.ycombinator.com