Are loot boxes legal? Is it one of the main money source from GGG?

"The use of loot boxes by game developers has caused controversy in many other countries around the globe, including the U.S, Germany, and the U.K., and is currently considered illegal in Belgium and the Netherlands."

"Today, with a few exceptions, most forms of loot boxes remain legal and unregulated worldwide. However, proponents of loot box regulation argue that the chance and rarity mechanics make loot boxes akin to gambling and constitute predatory practices toward minors."

"Loot boxes are considered part of the compulsion loop of game design to keep players invested in a game. Such compulsion loops are known to contribute towards video game addiction and are frequently compared to gambling addiction. This is in part due to the use of a "variable-rate reinforcement schedule" similar to how slot machines dole out prizes. While many players may never invest real-world money in a loot-box system, such addictive systems can bring large monetary investments from "whales", players who are willing to spend large amounts of money on virtual items."

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think about what your asking, your premise is that selling a thing that gives you a chance for reward (virtual items) should not be legal.

This doesn't just describe loot boxes it also literally describes every game you've ever bought. A game is literally the same thing as a loot box with an extra abstraction layer of "playing it".

So want to make games illegal as well? Because old male bankers in any given country should be in charge of your entertainment? Are you so happy to give power over what you're allowed to spend money on to such people?

Especially if said Old male Bankers have vested interests in driving entertainment dollars towards their own loot boxes: Casino's and Lotteries.

Yeah thats right, old male Bankers have their own Loot boxes don't they?

BTW Belgium is basically a country owned and operated by Bankers. Interesting that they are on the forefront of worrying about how their citizens spend their own money...

Also interesting: the lottery is not illegal in Belgium. Because of course that gambling is totally okay because it largely goes to the government and Banks, a portion of which is directed at social programs to make it seem more beneficial. Of course it's also mostly participated in by the poorest and least educated members of society so Lotteries are okay because who gives a shit about those pions AMIRIGHT?!?

Lesson learned? Gambling is okay if it lines the pockets of the right people and not okay if it doesn't.

there are alot of issues, especially regarding data protection, which are against european laws when i use american services that are directly in america and have no office in europe.

why should a american company running some free services care for every law in every country around the world? they don't.

all they would do is saying: "then just block access for your citicens to my service then" and that's what european countries do in that case by having their domains blocked in european dns servers.

which is provisional cause i can easily setup google's dns server (8.8.8.8) in my router and go on but i'm straying away from the topic.

there is nothing the european gov can do if ggg doesn't have a office in europe. well, except closing down their european servers. do we want that?

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alhazred70 wrote:

A game is literally the same thing as a loot box with an extra abstraction layer of "playing it".

Lol. No, really, LMAO. You know a lot of stuff man, I'm surprised you are not an article writer for a newspaper. I Envy you.

And again, lol.

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vio wrote:

there is nothing the european gov can do if ggg doesn't have a office in europe. well, except closing down their european servers. do we want that?

has a lot of variables, but beside closing european/american servers some ppl actually may want to sue GGG for this, which is interesting, and brings up a point about this being legal or not, what do you think about this?

IMO some ppl may succeed at sueing GGG.

Steam

"MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION
The developers describe the content like this:

This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages, or may not be appropriate for viewing at work: Nudity or Sexual Content, Frequent Violence or Gore, General Mature Content"



https://www.igdb.com/games/path-of-exile/age_rating

"Xbox One
This game has received a PEGI 18 which restricts availability to ADULTS ONLY and is not suitable for anyone below that age. This rating was given due to frequent strong violence."


I believe grown up people don't need government protection and can decide for themself if they want to interact with "lootboxes" or not.

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beside closing european/american servers some ppl actually may want to sue GGG for this, which is interesting, and brings up a point about this being legal or not, what do you think about this?

IMO some ppl may succeed at sueing GGG.

it's a new zealand sub company owned by the biggest it company on earth from china.

you can choose to sue either 10c in china or ggg in nz. they hold on on their own laws as far as i'm aware. chances are zero until the nz gov changes laws, which is not unlikely since jacinda runs a pretty progressive leadership which quickly adapts to the zeitgeist.

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alhazred70 wrote:

think about what your asking, your premise is that selling a thing that gives you a chance for reward (virtual items) should not be legal.

This doesn't just describe loot boxes it also literally describes every game you've ever bought. A game is literally the same thing as a loot box with an extra abstraction layer of "playing it".

So want to make games illegal as well? Because old male bankers in any given country should be in charge of your entertainment? Are you so happy to give power over what you're allowed to spend money on to such people?

Especially if said Old male Bankers have vested interests in driving entertainment dollars towards their own loot boxes: Casino's and Lotteries.

Yeah thats right, old male Bankers have their own Loot boxes don't they?

BTW Belgium is basically a country owned and operated by Bankers. Interesting that they are on the forefront of worrying about how their citizens spend their own money...

Also interesting: the lottery is not illegal in Belgium. Because of course that gambling is totally okay because it largely goes to the government and Banks, a portion of which is directed at social programs to make it seem more beneficial. Of course it's also mostly participated in by the poorest and least educated members of society so Lotteries are okay because who gives a shit about those pions AMIRIGHT?!?

Lesson learned? Gambling is okay if it lines the pockets of the right people and not okay if it doesn't.

Buying a game has nothing to do with gambling. Games affect and can easily corrupt MINORS, simple as that. Gambling is an addiction than can (and has) destoy a life in mere hours. You whole post is an insult to logic.

I feel context should matter here.

Lets look at "Loot boxes are considered part of the compulsion loop of game design to keep players invested in a game. Such compulsion loops are known to contribute towards video game addiction"

There are a number of ways loot boxes can be designed to do this, even if buying them for cash isn't the only way to get them.

They can incentivize a player to play more so they may earn more boxes to open, this isn't the case for Path of Exile.

There can be potential to make a profit through a secondary market. People will be drawn to the boxes regardless of what they think of the actual rewards or game, only caring about the opportunity to make money. Microtransactions in path of exile are account bound and have zero monetary value once acquired.

Boxes can create FOMO (fear of missing out) by only being available for a limited time. Pushing players to spend and play more to get the items they want. This also feeds into the previous point about secondary markets as some people use digital items as investment vehicles. Again, PoE microtransactions are account bound. And shortly after the box rotates out, all the the items become available for direct purchase.

The true odds of acquiring the item you want are often obscured, hiding the potential cost of getting the specific thing you are looking for. Which can lead to people ultimately spending more than they are comfortable with, especially if they fall into the sunken cost fallacy and don't know when to cut their loses. But PoE publishes the exact odds of each individual item and tier with new box announcements.


If you want a great example of a game that falls into all these categories look at some of Valves lootbox games like CSGO or TF2. They enable illegal gambling websites and blackmarkets filled with hackers and scammers dealing in hundreds of thousands of dollars of virtual items.

Just as a thought experiment, do you think trading card games with booster packs should be illegal? Some could argue they're different because it involves physical collectible items. But we're in an age where information and digital goods are increasingly valuable. Bitcoins, NFTs, etc. Does this distinction still hold up?

For the record, I believe Chris said boxes were around 30% of their revenue, and they have plans for if/when they eventually become an issue.

I don't think it's particularly ethical to make a profit on someone being dumb with their money, but I don't see what's illegal about this. You can easily do the math and determine if buying a box is worth it to you. Why spend hundreds of dollars on a box for a chance to get something you can buy directly for cheaper in a couple of months? On the other hand, if you like the majority of the cosmetics and would buy them anyway, why not get a couple of boxes and get some of those items at a massive discount? Just don't buy so many that you get a ton of duplicates and ruin the savings.

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alhazred70 wrote:

Gambling is okay if it lines the pockets of the right people and not okay if it doesn't.

A with many other activities, gambling is allowed because people enjoy it, and it has to be regulated because some can't hold back from enjoying themselves a bit too much.

Gambling is highly restricted in Belgium, and one of the main vehicles the restrictions ride on is limiting access to minors. For casinos it's easy to enforce and prove if someone broke the law, for games it's much harder because users are expected to enforce it themselves and it's hard to prove if the parent gambled or their kid.

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alhazred70 wrote:

think about what your asking, your premise is that selling a thing that gives you a chance for reward (virtual items) should not be legal.

This doesn't just describe loot boxes it also literally describes every game you've ever bought. A game is literally the same thing as a loot box with an extra abstraction layer of "playing it".

That isn't really the case, as you need three basic things to make a gamble, element of chance, a win of value and a wager. There's no chance involved in buying a game or paying subscription, you pay for the service - you get the service or ask for refund if you don't, what you do inside the boundaries of the game is of no importance.
Lootboxes are considered gambling by Belgian laws simply because they recognize the element of perceived value, where something can be valuable to the player even if it might not have a market value. So, you'd need an official license to hold a raffle in your backyard for your neighbors where everyone pays an euro and you can win a slip of paper that allows you to punch anyone in the face once.

Lootboxes tick all the... boxes there, there's an element of chance, there's a win of varying value, and there's a wager because you have to bring the assets from outside into the game. When we're 6-linking an item it isn't gambling because it lacks the third element.

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IMO some ppl may succeed at sueing GGG.

On what grounds? Cuz you think mystery boxes are gambling? I doubt that is a sufficient cause to sue a company. On top of that GGG is owned by tencent which is a gaming tycoon. I doubt that any sane person wants to clash with a multi billion dollar conglomerate in court. You would get crushed so badly that you would be in debt until you die :D Are you aware of the attorney costs? This is a huge risk and go for it if you can but be ready to become a slave for a small mystery box that is literally not a gambling item ^^
Not a smart move my friend ^^ Not at all...