Is regulating lootboxes censorship?

Is regulating lootboxes censorship?

metro.co.uk/2018/02/27/game-developers-call-loot-box-restrictions-censorship-ahead-gdc-conference-7345157/

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scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-companies-still-target-youth/
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fuck off you astroturfing air conditioned limp wristed sensationalist tabloid producing goober

>go up to and threaten a cop
>he arrests me
>REEEEEEEEEEE CENSORSHIP

:/

that's the worst analogy ever

Regulating lootboxes is exactly like regulating gambling, plain and simple. Lootboxes are predatory, and up until now it's been legal for kids to participate in gambling.

Lootboxes are slot machines.

It depends, if they just make it so you're not allowed to sell them for real money including the fake currency loophole, then no, because developers will still be allowed to have the lootboxes in the games, they aren't saying that you're not allowed to have lootboxes in your game, just that you're not allowed to sell them for real money.

Oh yeah nice defense you jew assholes
Damn these scumbags are smart
They both try to get into the muh censorship side of things while at the same time undermining said side which they actually hate

Just wow

>kids
fuck off. lootboxes exploit adult people with no spending supervision and the people who make it about kids are politicians who're fishing for voters and people who purposefully distract from the core issue.

Unless they make all lootbox games Adults Only, there's no censorship when they're being treated as unregulated gambling that also targets minors and people with gambling addictions.

Censoring what, access to people's wallets?

I can't wait for "trade laws are racist" headers.

It's gambling. They should be regulated like other forms of gambling are.

Are they fucking retarded? Censorship relates to not being able to express an idea or concept for fear of reprisal in some fashion. Not being able to perform a business model isn't censorship. The story or gameplay content of your game hasn't changed with the removal of loot boxes.

Fuck these scumbags, they all deserve to burn.

Loot boxes are a form of expression now? What's the message? That it's ok to be jewish?

Videogames where you can trade cash or "currency" bought with cash (gems, gold, dust, whatever they sell) for lootboxes should be rated AO.
There is a casino inside the game and casinos are for adults only
If they aren't rated AO then I should be able to give a whiskey bottle with every purchase of my E rated game. So what, the kids buying my game can simply choose not to drink the whiskey. It's not like they're forced to drink it to complete the game

Lootboxes are literal gambling with real currency for digital pixels. They operate on the exact same way as slot machines and ought to be regulated as such.

You could be a fucking retard if you think regulation of loot boxes is censorship on any level.

They are censoring my shekels
It's another shoa goy

>trying to use a buzzword (censorship) in order to make libtards fight for me
Subtle

sure it is, money = speech so preventing me from accidentally giving EA a lot of money = government censoring me and EA

HELP HELP IM BEING OPRESSED I CANT USE TRICKS TO TURN PEOPLE INTO GAMBLING ADDICTS FREE OF REGULATIONS

Devs showing their true colours as always

I wouldn't call it censorship but I think regulation is generally a bad idea
The people who would make the laws would have absolutely no understanding of video games and the people who would enforce them likely wouldn't care enough to make good judgement
Games develop faster than regulations would be updated and would just be inefficiently applied punishing unintended targets often

>Sup Forums accepts and believes in the free market
>Reeee!! lootboxes should be banned! keep them out!
I hate Sup Forums reddit

>H-hey guys you hate censorship, r-right? Well this is totally censorship! Give us your money goyim!

desperation

> It's not true free market unless kids can buy smokes and heroine at the corner store
Here's to (you)

Fuck lootboxes and fuck everyone who defends them. Good on the ESBR for forcing these scam artists to advertise their money grubbing ways on the box.

I'm fine with lootboxes if I can pirate them

They could have left the loot boxes without making player so dependable from them. How the fuck it's so hard to balance things in modern gaming today?

Games with lootboxes that can be bought with money should be rated AO
There's no discussion and they should not be willing to give ground on this
if they fail to regulate games and the conservative media picks up on this the government will step in and fuck everything up like they tried in the 90s

Well it kinda isnt a truly free market unless you can do just that

Its not gambling since you always get something, where as playing blackjack you lose your money and get nothing

i dont think they understand what the word censorship means

I hate children that don't understand the ideas behind gambling and why they should be restricted or outright banned, especially from dumb kids like yourself.

You're just embarrassing your mom, little tim.

Not how it works sorry

go away h3h3

No, fuck you, kids do buy these things and there are news stories after news stories of kids spending thousands of dollars of their parents' money by mistake on lootboxes.

>Implying cigarette and booze manufacturers would sell their stuff to kids if they could
Fuck off the world isn't your alex jones pipedream

One of the reasons casinos are regulated is to prevent an unfair house advantage or cheating. Yes, the house always wins is a saying for a reason, yes the house will always have better odds than you. But the odds of wining are calculable, the casino isn't allowed to rig the game in their favor. The problem with digital games though is the system is locked behind a proprietary game code, it's impossible to know what the odds of getting an item truly are. Sure, the game might tell you what's at stake, but you have no way of knowing your chances of winning, no way to know if the system is rigged against you. It's more of a consumer protection issue, you have no idea if you're getting what you paid for.

So if casinos gave you a piece of candy as a consolation prize they can avoid all regulations.

>you always get something
and that something almost always might as well be nothing
black jack would still be gambling if they gave you a penny when you loose

Who is this Sup Forums?
Why do you think free market means no rules?
Why dont you fuck off and come back when you are not underage?

You mostly get something that has little to no value in comparison to what you actually want. "Common" items are so saturated that they basically are nothing.

And this is why kids like you shouldn't gamble; you have no concept of value.

>implying they wouldn't

Wanna play a game?
Give me five dollars to play
You have a chance of winning anywhere from a penny to ten dollars
99% of the time you will get less than what you put in
Sounds kinda like a gamble to me

Oh okay so when you're trying to buy a car it's okay if I charge you $8,000 up front and spin a wheel to decide what car you'll get and if it lands on a tricycle that's totally fair right?

They used to do something similar actually. The government said nope

Regulation might be a bit much but there's nothing wrong with the ESRB slapping these games an M at least.

Holy shit that camel is so god damn radical and cool
I feel like smoking a pack now shit

That would be great if the ESRB and PEGI hadn't gone on record saying they won't regulate lootboxes in any way.
The industry brought this on itself.

Happen to have a link? Sounds funky.

Has to be AO
Gambling is strictly for adults.

>Government will step in
Probably already going to happen with the current POTUS being a sensational clown. He'll crack down on violent videogames before he moves on any common sense firearm legislation.

What they are clearly saying is that this is another holocaust.

most of you guys have it mixed up lootboxes arent bad as long as its paid with ingame currency PAID lootboxes are what you hate

Clearly it does since its not regulated

I would sell my addicting product to kids in a heartbeat if I could

>Its not gambling since you always get something

Here's why this isn't true. You just apply what you said to other real life gambling and it falls apart:
So you are saying, that if slot machines gave you back a coin smaller then what you gave to it to start when you lose, then slot machines aren't gambling anymore.
See how silly it becomes? Nobody anywhere is going to say that as long as you get something back it isn't gambling, because if its something less then what you put in anyways, you STILL lost value. Digital items by definitely have less value then physical items.

Any games with paid lootbox opening needs an AO rating. Gambling is for adults only. But of course those laws will be bent when profits become concerned.

>butchering FE Fates with content removals and memes
>"localization"
>loot box restrictions
>"censorship!"

This. This is the problem right here. Devs are hiding behind the idea of protecting their code and more and more information comes to light that devs might be purposefully making it so that you have to 'insert set number of money to get something of a certain value', rather then it all being true random chance.

They also manipulate matchmaking, to put people who don't buy, vs people that do, to peer pressure them into spending, since most games that use this model aren't just cosmetics, but the items you can pay for give you an unfair advantage.

Um, cigarette companies have used marketing techniques for kids.. as mentioned with Joe Camel for example.

scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-companies-still-target-youth/

Booze you could argue the concept of 'cool' or 'sexy' is attractive to all ages

So... you're wrong and retarded.

please don't deny me my first amendment right to buy and sell humans
i am, like, an artist and slavery is, like, how i express myself

consumer protections actually an infringement on the ultra-rich's freedom to deceive people, says professional liar

Maybe pushing addiction down kids throats wasn't such a good idea eh scholmo?

>all this bootybuzz over the fact that they simply don't want to tell people the odds of getting certain things

When money gets involved, of course (((they))) will object.

>metro
Metro is a free newspaper on the London Underground. Their entire website is funded by clickbait. Stop giving them clicks.

No, I hate ingame lootboxes as well. Especially in single player games like Xenoblade.
You can have random loot, but disguising it in lootbox type mechanics completely breaks immersion and is often times a much worse alternative.

>If you don't like it don't buy it!
This logic doesn't even work anymore since it doesn't matter if people boycott the game or microtransactions, a few whales willing to spend thousands of dollars on in game purchases can make it worth it for them. Whales with lootbox addictions are killing the industry, just look at GTA V how they focused on Online and Shark Cards and never made a SP expansion.

They did in the past you ignorant son of a whore

Thats a fair point

>FUCK DRUMSµFDKLGJQDSLFMSPFS
it's nearly like gambling has always been regulated all over the world.....

Yet

>b.b.bUT IMAGINARY BAD SCENARIO I WIN
wow, you sound mentally challenged as all hell, did your mom open Sup Forums for you, kid?

I hate any and all randomized blind box unlocks, you faggot. That shit is trashy and an extremely lazy way to pad incentives into your game. If you could just unlock the fucking thing you want and be done with it, most people would stop giving a shit about the rest of the unlocks. Blind boxes are only used because they manipulate the weaker willed into continuing to play the game so they can finally unlock shit they want while usually pushing you towards other forms of microtransactions and DLC. The entire system needs to be killed forever.

and you know, manipulating stupid kids.

Go into any csgo server and you'll find two retarded children with 'cs.money.com' 'hellcase.com' who sound like a member of alvin and the chipmunks.

Even adults can be manipulated very easily by this, the whole idea of casinos is a business to play on your cognitive biases.

>they knew and understood the full effects of tobacco
im learning something today

Next mass shooting cheeto mussolini will try to go after videogames to deflect attention from his military industrial complex overlords
I believe gambling in games will be a major point of focus to deflect attention

Whoever said that should be shunned and it shouldn't even be a topic. It's dire necessary costumer protection. Lootboxes are specifically targeted at mentally ill people and children, anyone with an intact head doesn't spend money on these dirty ass monetization schemes, or at least not enough for them to ever be able to fund the game they're used in. I welcome a ban for the practice, public shame to the perpetrators and for the industry to get it's head out of it's ass and just charge for games normally again and adjust game budgets accordingly to what they can actually expect to earn by doing so.

No, I want RNG bullshit in general to stop actually.

Just fuck off back to Venezuela

I would be fine with AO. Sadly the ESRB is obviously pussyfooting around the issue. I just think government meddling would be terrible since it opens the door for them to do stupid shit for political motives, like the good old "muh violence is making the kids bad!"

They knew it was addicting yes, in fact drug dealers try to get kids addicted because it's easier to fool them.

>90% of games have some sort of microtransactions.
>Lock all of them behind AO
>Or alternatively let gov. regulate them for no good reason.
>Lock out literally half of the videogame consumerbase from purchasing videogames with even the slightest beginning cosmetic mirotransactions.

Fuck lootboxes but trying to slap an AO rating onto every single game with them will do nothing to help anyone.

No, because loot boxes aren't a "statement" or anything.

well fuck, a child from the other side of the globe died, better give him my stuff.

It's because the odds probably don't even exist. Publishing the odds also isn't that simple. They have to actually GIVE the code to someone that can read it and determine if the odds the company says, matches up with what it actually is. Most of these companies that refuse are hiding that their code has changing odds depending on how often you spend and what your over all spending rate is. Their whole system would fall apart in a matter of months if it came to light that you got your ultra legendary item, not because of luck, but because your game code was flagged for it to make everyone else spend more.

This is great, really fun to watch.

no you dont. you get nothing. you dont own your games anymore. you just own a license to play them. you pay to get nothing.

>Devs textureswap and recreate models all the time to remove cleavage and gore from character models and say deal with it
>Scream REEEE CENSORSHIP when their cash cow is getting shut down
Modern gaming is a fucking joke

How about why do YOU like in game lootboxes? What gift do they give you for exist?
Rewards for existing: You have only a chance of getting what you want, instead of just getting it.
You want in game lootboxes, so you like working hard at a chance for failure. I don't understand you people. I typically don't treat my time spent playing video games as nothing, its a investment towards entertainment, and I don't find working hard to fail as entertainment. Who would?

Lootboxes are not a form of expression.

>I just think government meddling would be terrible since it opens the door for them to do stupid shit for political motives, like the good old "muh violence is making the kids bad!"
The ESRB was made so this wouldn't happen, but they failed to do their job because they were taking bribes from games studios
If they continue dodging the issue and lining their pockets the government will step in like they tried in the 90's, and there will be no excuse or contingency plan to protect videogames now.
What will publishers propose, another self regulating industry?

>Censorship
But it's not preventing you from expressing an idea. It's preventing you from sucking the money out of vulnerable peoples wallets with unethical and exploitative business tactics that prey on people with addiction problems.

>devs censor games
>they dont care
>devs face a looming crackdown over a grey area practice
>WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS CENSORSHIP

u mad

ESRB isn't a government organization so it's not like they are making laws. Their classification is pretty much not binding and any public store can still sell AO games. Publishers and retailers just avoid AO games to keep their public image. It's still a good deterrent and probably better than a straight up law against lootboxes

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post yfw gayben is jailed for running an illegal gambling ring aimed at kids