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Comment by smaryjerry | Hacker News Reader

How do you differentiate crypto from any other video game currency. You can buy in game currencies for real money and literally gamble with it inside a game with literally slots or loot boxes or whatever, then trade it to others as well, in exchange for real money. Every game is different though. I’m just struggling to find the difference between crypto and any other digital in a video game in regards to gambling. Both are code driven and if anything in game gambling seems worse because rather than paying a market value where everyone has the same risk, you are paying the game creator for loot boxes or info and currency which they can print infinitely. Of course if they did print too much of an item or currency it would crash their in game market and destroy the rarity of those items. Anyways it seems like if Twitch is going after crypto gambling websites they need to go after in game gambling as well.

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My threshold is "is there an intentional/permitted cash out to real money?"

Gatcha games for non-transferable characters: probably shouldn't be marketed to children, and should be legally required to display odds, but not quite capable of triggering the full gambling addiction.

Gambling for in-game items which can be resold for real money: this is just an illegal casino with extra steps.

> Gambling for in-game items which can be resold for real money: this is just an illegal casino with extra steps.

Yup, it's just a pachinko.

How is that better?

If I'm spending my money on a slot, I have the chance to get my money back. Gatcha takes my money forever and when the game is gone, so is everything I spent and won. For that reason, Gatcha games and loot boxes are even more predatory, because they are giving an advantage to people and pumping up their sense of pride.

If only I had kept more of the loot boxes I had instead of opening them... Not that the ones I have aren't worth hundreds of euros... Valve really did something special there.

>If I'm spending my money on a slot, I have the chance to get my money back.

The risk there is of gambling addicts "borrowing" money with the intent of winning back their losses/debts, losing and repeating (as claimed with the Sliker situation that prompted this all). Throwing good money after bad is presumably much less common/excessive when you can't cash out

> Gatcha takes my money forever and when the game is gone, so is everything I spent and won.

Yes - and you (and all the customers) know that upfront. Which means you can't use the "chance to get my money back" delusion as an excuse to throw good money after bad. Hardly anyone ever does that and then stops; inevitably they take the winnings back to the casino and lose them again.

> giving an advantage to people

Gatcha (or any other pay for improvement) + PVP is also a pretty terrible combination, since it encourages people to whale their way up the scoreboard.

> How do you differentiate crypto from any other video game currency. You can buy in game currencies for real money and literally gamble with it inside a game with literally slots or loot boxes or whatever, then trade it to others as well, in exchange for real money.

This has been and is still in danger as being banned as gambling. So the answer is that you don't bother, and you ban that too.

> How do you differentiate crypto from any other video game currency.

Don't. Don't differentiate those, and ban them all. Nothing of value would be lost.

With most in game currency, there does not appear to be a way to convert back to a liquid currency such as USD/EUR/Gold/etc. Thus, it is understood by all that any gambling proceeds are confined to the in game universe. With crypto-based video game currencies, especially those based on liquid cryptos such as ETH, there is an expectation of turning your in-game assets back into real spendable money. So, it actually seems to be a roundabout way of operating a casino.

I have to be honest 100% of the games I play with loot boxes don’t let you trade the rewards. So that is different because to me loot boxes are just a different way to get cosmetics that I can’t buy with real money from other ppl. That means I don’t view them as having value to anyone but myself.

> How do you differentiate crypto from any other video game currency.

Being able to use it literally anywhere but that game springs to mind as an easy check. If crypto is the same as game currency doesn’t that invalidate the vast majority of claims about the benefits of crypto?

You generally can't get your money out of a video game, I think that would be gambling. But if it only goes in and doesn't come out it's just consumption. If it comes out, gambling. Pretty sure that's how it works.

steam and valve games w trading like csgo skirt this no? buy a key for crate, get a say $100 skin, sell on their integrated market place and have steam wallet funds. its not out but can be as currency on the platform. garbage at any rate

Video game "currency" (bought with real money) should be considered as dangerous, if not more, as crypto. So, no need to differentiate.

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