> "Dan Hewitt, Vice President of Media Relations for the Entertainment Software Association, has argued that “loot boxes are not gambling because they provide something to use in the game. They offer an alternate experience and players are not required to buy them . . . .”"
This is like the Tobacco companies hiring a media company saying smoking is good for you.
I've yet to hear a good argument from a truly independent party that says "no, it's not gambling". Because really, loot boxes are gambling.
I think what's happening is that they found out that instead of making real compelling content, they would just get their customers addicted to gambling. So they got used to a higher revenue stream that also allowed them to fire all of their highly skilled content creators.
It's kind of like if a drug company discovered they could get a lot of money by selling heroin and then they fired all of their chemists who were busy trying to create drugs that would actually be helpful to society.
Now that they're being called out on it, they're scrambling to try and find a way to avoid having to go back to working for a living.
A responsible adult would say something like, "You know, we thought that we were simply giving the market what it wanted, but really it does look a lot like gambling when you think about it. We're taking it all out."
And if they wanted to turn those lemons into lemonade, "Oh, by the way, we're releasing half life 3 and portal 3. It's the same game. Oh and we're releasing a Cave Johnson miniseries. J. K. Simmons is reprising his role."
Yeah, that sounds like a lot of work. But it also sounds like it's providing real entertainment value to society instead of selling electronic heroin to kids.
100% agree with you, though I'm skeptical that we'd see an improvement in quality of content if loot boxes and their like become untenable.
Aside from getting people hooked, loot boxes tend to feed into a larger aspect of a kind of collection game. I don't see that stopping, and it'll likely continue to be a cheap way to keep people engaged in whatever platform is available.
Instead of a loot box, I'd expect to see more stuff like EA's Apex Battlepass or Blizzard's War Chest in Starcraft 2.
PS: I would happily throw money at any reasonable attempt to expand on Half-Life or Portal. C'mon Valve!
> though I'm skeptical that we'd see an improvement in quality of content if loot boxes and their like become untenable.
Yeah, I agree. Once you get used to the easy and cheap workflow of creating the loot boxes it's going to be a hard sell to go back to paying premium talent to create engaging an original content that takes longer to produce and has a lower chance of appealing to arbitrary markets.
Of course in the non-video game world there are companies that create sodas and cigarettes and slot machines. And there are companies that create high quality food, cancer battling drugs, and entertainment that stays relevant for centuries.
I think with a little regulation we'll get the same sorts of divisions in the video game industry.
A coworker and I went to lunch randomly a number of months back and I discovered that he and his wife are avid WoW players on the server that I played on nearly 10 years ago. This sparked me to impulsively purchase 30 days of game time on my character, which was surprisingly still available on my Battle.NET account. I happily dinked around for a bit, leveled up my character from 70 to 90, and discovered the VAST amount of collectables that are present these days, which was quite shocking.
When I stopped playing WoW, players could collect pets by redeeming tokens/codes from blizzcon or other real world fan or collector activities, but today there is an entire mini-game surrounding battle-pets which can be collected in-game and also purchased via earned gold or simply cash. Additionally, Raid or PvP gear sets can be supplemented with purchased "cosmetics" and "heirlooms" which again can be purchased through earned gold or through the store with cash. It seems like every side-game activity has some kind of purchase available to "speed up" the time it takes to "earn" the appropriate currency required to redeem the reward. I've been out of the gaming loop for far too long to really see how bad it's become, but it was absolutely shocking to see it.
literally the only game I intend to buy on release day at full price from now until the the day I can't hold a mouse/game controller would be either Portal or half life or even better, "Half Port Life" ;)
I rarely have time to play any of the games in my steam library (and there are many, most of with have not been played once - gee thanks, humble bundle!) but just as when portal 2 came out, I will make time for the next Black Mesa/Aperture Labs game.
but it seems, Valve no longer want my money (unless it's tied to VR it would seem...)
I hate lootboxes but I'm on the fence about making regulations around random prizes.
Are Happy Meals gambling? Crackerjacks? Baseball cards?
You receive 1 out of n items, most undesirable but a few rare things that kids want.
In hindsight, I liked the way Everquest 1 did their loot. The jackpot almost always included something highly desirable to someone that had not farmed the encounter. Especially in contrast to some games that give all shit except you have a 0.02% chance of getting the good stuff.
I wonder what the effect would be on people if you take away all the fancy animations, lights and sounds when opening a loot box (take away the imaginary box too) and replaced it with click "open", get "name of item" (no picture). It'd be less entertaining than rolling a pair of dice and would draw attention to what's really happening, flipping a bit with extra steps.
Seems like a good summary of the state of the law.
This below, however, seems like very poor reasoning on ESRB's part.
Similarly, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), a self-regulatory organization responsible for flagging games for mature content and providing content descriptors, refuses to classify loot boxes as gambling.[15]An ESRB spokesperson recently stated, “While there’s an element of chance in these mechanics, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content (even if the player unfortunately receives something they don’t want).”
This argument differentiates loot boxes from slot machines and lotteries where the participant is not always guaranteed a prize. Additionally, some foreign governments, such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, have declared that loot boxes are in fact not gambling.
The guarantee of 'any' prize really isn't substantive given the vast differences in rarity/value placed on on the range of reward
Agreed - if that was all it took to make something no longer "gambling", it would be simple enough to modify slot machines to dispense a small piece of paper with a random joke printed on it as the prize when no monetary prize was won.
This is almost exactly the system Japan has(had?) with Pachinko machines, where you don't get a monetary reward directly but a building next door will 'buy' the prizes that you do receive for real money, effectively skirting the gambling legislation.
The irony is that when Gamefreak implemented this as a gameplay mechanic in the Pokemon games in the form of the Game Corner the games got a 12+ rating[0] from Pegi, the European equivalent to the American ESRB, as the games featured 'games of chance that are played as a traditional means of gambling'. The games in this region also renamed the machines to 'Game Machines' from 'Slot Machines' although I can't find out whether this was before or after the games originally released or whether it happened while the games were being rated. The ESRB rated the Pokemon games as E for Everybody but noted that some of the games contain 'simulated gambling'[1], although not all Pokemon games with the Game Corner got similar notices. Nintento decided to remove the Games Corner entirely from European releases because of the 12+ rating.
It's absolutely astounding then that games like NBA 2K20 can feature actual factual slot machines[2] and other de facto gambling machines on top of lootboxes and neither Pegi or the ESRB mention this at all[3][4] and happily gave the game a 3+ rating. Part of me has to wonder why this is, in the Pokemon games the gambling is entirely self contained within the game and there's absolutely no real world monetary value attached to it, while NBA and other games featuring loot boxes are sitting on absolute cash cows not only for the developers who can sell keys to boxes but also for the players who have the chance of opening rare skins that can be worth hundreds of dollars.
But we've had those 25c toy machines at your local grocers forever. And places like Chuck E Cheese have always been basically Vegas for children. The concept isn't new, it's just mainstream. I'm still of the opinion that parents should parent instead of over-regulating this
As a high level statement that makes no sense. We as a society place age restrictions on all sorts of activities. You have to be specific and focus on the problem at hand.
Yet back in the real world where children aren't spending hundreds of dollars to fuel their 25c toy machine addiction, parents are parenting by saying "this is bad". This also effects adults, let's not pretend this is an issue isolated to ten year olds. It makes our games _worse_ across the board.
Where are these children getting hundreds of dollars? How is this different from buying baseball cards, pokemon cards, etc.? It doesn't make any games I play worse, it makes the playerbase bigger which is better.
>How is this different from buying baseball cards, pokemon cards, etc.?
There are at least two obvious differences.
First, you can't divorce the problem from reality and expect to win an argument based upon the fact that loot boxes are analogous to e.g. baseball cards. They are similar in concept, sure, but the scale is completely different. Video games are played by hundreds of millions (more?) of people around the world.
If some drug came out that was extremely dangerous, but accounted for a handful of deaths each year, no one would much care. Up that number to a few hundred thousand and you'll hear about it nearly every night on the news. Obviously, scale and relevance matter.
Secondly, video games are able to hit your serotonin and dopamine producing brain centers much more effectively than does a pack of baseball cards. Companies are pouring vast resources into finding ways to trick people into craving that next button click.
>It doesn't make any games I play worse, it makes the playerbase bigger which is better.
Yes, they do, and I'd like to see some basis for that last claim. It certainly spawns new forms of crappy, content-lite games, but it doesn't in any way increase quality. MTX's have led to a shift away from providing quality gameplay and toward maximizing roulette wheel spins. I'd be interested in hearing some specific examples of how they have made games "better".
The scale isn't all that different though: Pokemon, Digimon, Yugioh, Silly Bandz were all insanely popular and operated under the same principal.
If you're willing to allow the skinner box to in in-game then we have to include arcade games and pinball machines which all optimized for quarters.
Another precursor was WoW in which the rewards are entirely in-game but aggressively designed with random rewards and growth to keep players paying their subscription. I lost years of my life to WoW and everyone I know who used to play it talks about like they're in recovery.
Look, I think the trend of lootboxes is terrible and has made a lot of games worse but I think your argument falls flat since cash for serotonin is basically the definition of the entertainment and gaming. "High replay-ability" is basically code for how addictive a game is and people actively seek out these types of games.
The thing that feels different is that in modern games you can waste money instead of just time with your addition.
> How is this different from buying baseball cards, pokemon cards, etc.?
You can trade your cards with other players, or buy/sell them with local vendors. This gives you the option to pay money to get the exact cards you want.
You can't do the same in most games with lootboxes. If I have an extra item that you want, tough luck. You need to continuously give money to The Man in hope that you'll get the item you need.
If I ask you for money and give you an empty box 10 times in a row, in the hope that there is something in the box, would you not be losing money? Arguing you are still getting a box is sort of silly.
> JOHNSON: This is Thomas Hansfield. He's a law student at the University of Minnesota who wrote the perfect article for our story today. And we didn't even ask him to. Maybe nobody asked him to.
> HANSFIELD: Pretty shocked that anyone had actually read this.
> JOHNSON: Tommy's blog post for the Minnesota Law Review is all about how Loot Box lawsuits may end up a lot like a bunch of lawsuits that happened way back - ancient history - in the '90s.
> HANSFIELD: The title of the article is "Loot Box Lottery: How The Backlash Against Video Game Loot Boxes Is Affecting Game Developers, Retailers, And Consumers In The Legal Sphere."
His summarized conclusion is that the class action lawsuits that failed against baseball card makers suggest that loot box-related lawsuits might be similarly defeated.
So, a different-but-related question: Putting aside the desired addictive nature, are there any gamers out there who actually prefer microtransaction-driven loot box mechanics to more conventional item drops?
Or is this just a UX element that most people dislike or don't care about, but some people get badly addicted to?
There's so much argument about gambling, etc, but I'm yet to hear a compelling argument for why these should be allowed to exist, from a game design perspective, short of "we can make a lot of money from gamblers".
Because that's the default state, in our society at least. If you want something banned/made illegal/etc you need a compelling argument for why it shouldn't be allowed to exist.
I kind of like how Path of Exile[0] handles that entire issue:
* PoE is a Free-to-Play game. On paper, it's totally possible to play without giving them one cent.
* PoE offers 2 pay-only features: account modifiers (such as stash tabs to hold items that drop while playing, and your personal premium hideout if you want one); and character skins + vanity portraits + in-game pets that don't help you + ....
Only the skins are in lootboxes, and you may also get the one skin you want at a fixed price (a $3 lootbox can hold any items that are $3+ combined). Not sure about the odds though - I havent seen them published anywhere.
As a gamer, I enjoy playing a game where I'm not a cash cow: my items in-game have the same drop rate as that of my neighbor; and I don't mind paying for nice-to-have "optional" features (the game is quite fun BTW).
It can be used to make a decent game free. I generally don't buy any microtransactions and I'll play a free game or at least try it out. If whales want to subsidize a game, the devs are happy, and the whales don't feel bad about it, I don't really care about changing the situation. I don't like the attitude of blaming the addictive nature, even if they specifically work on making a skinner box, because I think there should be some self control.
I think people who aren't looking for something specific (i.e. they already own all the "basic" stuff they really want) and just enjoy getting more stuff probably like random loot boxes? Because if you want to get everything, it's usually cheaper to buy those.
Personally, I don't understand the desire to want every single skin or item in a game even if you never use it, especially when you have to pay like $5000-$20000 to get that, but some people seem to have that urge. Whether that's unhealthy spending or just a hobby depends on the person, I guess.
I believe there is an argument to be made for loot boxes not returning any value when you receive a duplicate item. If the item is something you can equip and it only matters if you have either one of them or none of them, then receiving a duplicate could be argued that you received something of zero worth.
I know some loot box systems work around this by giving the player something else when it rolls a duplicate like a minimal amount of the currency.
Regardless, rolling and opening loot boxes are usually designed to be addictive which is my main issue with them.
The fortnite allusion at the beginning is sort-of unfortunate; its one of the few massive games out there which doesn't sell loot boxes in the traditional sense. The Battle Royale mode has never had a loot box system remotly like this; their billions are made simply by selling cosmetic items. The single-player Save the World mode, which, relatively speaking no one plays, did have a system like this for a bit, but at the beginning of 2019 they replaced it with "X-Ray Llamas" which show you exactly what items you'll get before you spend the VBucks on it.
There's a hundred other popular games they could have picked on which would be more accurate: Counterstrike: Global Offensive, Team Fortress 2, Apex Legends, the list goes on.
Maybe not, but my 11 year old nephew definitely spent $1600 of my sisters money on Fortnite. Then she got the charges reversed and he got the keep the stuff! What a good lesson for him.
The problem that I see, and that I don't think was addressed and may differentiate from trading card games and the like, is that many of these games are created to be addictive, and the money thrown out is on top of that addiction.
How are loot boxes any different to Kinder eggs, where you don't know what toy you're going to get when you buy one?
(I appreciate that Kinder eggs are banned in the US, but not for that reason!)
It seems to me that the key thing about real gambling is that you win money. You put money in, and you might end up with more money than you started with, but probably won't. That's what generates the dynamic where once you lose some money, you keep playing to try and win it back.
With loot boxes, you put money in, and you get virtual goods out. The good vary, and there may be ways to sell the goods for money. But you're fundamentally just buying goods.
EDIT OF EDIT: This is the closest the article gets to touching on this:
> At least one case in the early 2000s had potential to resolve the issue of whether activity similar to loot boxes is considered gambling, but it was dismissed due to lack of standing. In Chaset v. Fleer/Skybox Int’l, LP, 300 F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 2002), purchasers of baseball cards and Pokémon trading cards brought a RICO suit against, inter alia, the manufacturers and distributors of the trading cards. [...] The Court dismissed the suit for lack of standing based solely on plaintiff’s failure to satisfy this element.[26] It held that “at the time plaintiffs purchased the cards, . . . they received value . . . for what they paid,” and “[t]heir disappointment upon not finding [a rare] card in the package is not an injury to property.”[27]
That's an interesting question! At first I thought they were pretty similar, but I had a think about this, and there are several key differences:
* With loot boxes, you can often trade the items that you won
* Loot boxes often show you the rarity (and sometimes the value) of an item that you've won.
* Loot boxes often show a spinning wheel or similar device that adds a level of excitement and a feeling of a "near miss" by showing the wheel "almost" land on an item.
* Some loot boxes allow you to "roll again" if you're not happy with the item you received.
* Loot boxes play sounds and show effects depending on the rarity of the item won.
* Loot boxes are given out for free, but you have to buy a "key" to open them.
* Games with loot boxes emphasize items that can be won from them, and encourage players to display these items for in-game prestige.
* Some loot box items give you an in-game advantage.
I was thinking about this and I think the key thing is that with say, a Kinder surprise, in all cases it's a low value item and all of the items are of comparable value. Whereas with a loot box there's usually some very high value items with very low odds.
Not to mention how stupidly easy games make it to buy these lootboxes, and how they usually make a pretty big point of obscuring their true cost (i.e. behind gems or other artificial currencies).
> With loot boxes, you can often trade the items that you won
When Kinder eggs were introduced to the market in 90s in Poland, kids were exchanging the figurines to get complete sets. The DYI models of cars or small toys were what's in gaming nomenclature is considered as "trash loot".
> Loot boxes often show you the rarity (and sometimes the value) of an item that you've won.
Some ladies before buying eggs for their kids were checking the weight of these - the "heavier" ones had chance to contain a figurine. Shop assistants had no problem with that.
> Loot boxes play sounds and show effects depending on the rarity of the item won.
Again, back then, eggs were advertised in tv around afternoon cartoons or other kind of entertaining blocks for kids. Nowadays it's a well known product that it doesn't need any heavy campaign - the generation that grew up with it already has own children. And the addictive part of Kinder eggs would be the milk chocolate shell.
"Blind Bag" toys and collectables are actually quite common. A web or Amazon search returns an abundance of such products which range from different IPs (Video games, tv shows, etcetera..)
There are also YouTube channels devoted to opening these products in bulk.
Pokemon cards, baseball cards, hell, even these subscription box services that are popular nowadays could be considered 'real life loot boxes'. The idea of a product that you purchase not knowing it's contents is not new idea, but it seems like we have decided that loot boxes in games are different from these products.
Nobody I know ever bought Kinder eggs for the toy, it was always for the chocolate with a random toy as an added bonus. With that said, as others have said, collectible card games and such still do it though, so your point stands.
If CCG's like Magic: The Gathering is not gambling then I cannot fathom how loot boxes are.
With loot boxes you cannot cash out. That changes the dynamic completely, in my opinion.
When one gambles you put in a small amount of money in the hopes of getting out something of greater value. If that value is perma-locked in a video game, non-transferable, non-redeemable, then I don't buy that it is gambling.
At least with MTG you would pay for a pack, maybe get a rare card worth some money and you could sell it / trade it and get monetary value for your "gamble"
Why do they open up with "Save the world", which is the fortnite mode that no one plays? BR Fortnite has no lootboxes. There are many prime examples just like they are describing, but they seem to have chosen the worst example.
This is like the Tobacco companies hiring a media company saying smoking is good for you.
I've yet to hear a good argument from a truly independent party that says "no, it's not gambling". Because really, loot boxes are gambling.