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Brazil's president has signed a ban on selling loot boxes to minors as part of a larger online child safety law (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/49748743

The loot box ban will go into effect in March.

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[–] 8 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Gambling involves the opportunity to win something that actually exists. The fundamental issue with loot boxes is your gambling for code that can't be sold, traded, or preserved past the lifetime of the game.

It's a disgusting practice that preys upon people's psychological reward centers and has been normalized by our obsessive consumption. It should absolutely be illegal.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    Yeeeah, I've encountered this argument a few times, particularly when this issue was more salient and, I'm not gonna lie, it's absolutely baffling.

    As in, it seems to imply that gambling is better because there's a chance of winning something of genuine monetary value.

    Which, let me be clear, is the exact opposite of how this works. The possibility of recouping losses or winning money is the actual problem with gambling. The potential monetary reward is a major component of gambling and one of the meaningful reasons why loot boxes are... nowhere near as bad?

    Digital loot boxes are typically not allowed to be translated into actual money by design, both as a security measure and because that's how actual gambling works. Betting for real money is way worse than buying some digital thing that only has value inside a game. Because, you know, in that scenario you know you're spending that money and it's not coming back, it's just a matter of spending it on what. You're not getting enticed with the fiction that you're investing money or not actually spending it because you could potentially get it back. That's why kids aren't typically allowed to bet in a casino but they still get to buy Magic the Gathering packs (and let's be clear, the fact that Magic has a thriving gray market around it makes it worse than digital loot boxes as well).

    I try to keep this conversation respectful but, honestly, hearing this argument is one of the surefire ways to know the person talking about this has no idea what they're talking about.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Gambling is at least ok in my book because it's only legal for adults and in specific, regulated locations. It's still fucking idiotic behavior to engage in, but whatever, adults can waste their money, I don't really care. It's easy to avoid unless you live in Vegas.

    I'm sure I'll alienate most of the user base here, but anything that involves turning money into 'pulls' should be illegal for minors, and honestly probably just entirely. Magic, Pokemon cards, blind boxes, the stupid Lego minifigs I love to collect. Ban all of it, it's bad for our psyche, it's wasteful, it's anti-consumer bullshit that should never be allowed. If you can't make money selling your product directly, then you don't deserve to run a business.

    You're right though, the gambling analogy perfect. I doubt paid loot boxes are significantly worse than letting children gamble. But still, there's a reason we don't let children gamble, and loot boxes certainly aren't any better.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (6 children)

    It's not easy to avoid unless you live in Vegas. I live right above a gambling establishment. Nobody bats an eye and it's fully government-sanctioned.

    Not every country is the US, friend. Including, you know... Brazil.

    But hey, at least you have the intellectual honesty to include all the IRL blind boxes people actually like in your assessment. You still have this pretty much backwards, but at least it's consistently backwards.

    That's not sarcasm, I do think that's better than the baseline of "make the game mechanic I don't like illegal, but keep all this 100% analogous stuff I do like" vibes-based approach to demanding regulation.

    I still disagree super hard that "bad for our psyche" is the bar for banning stuff. Age ratings, sure. But I would very much prefer to keep tobacco, pot, alcohol, porn and yes, Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone available for anybody mature enough to make that choice by themselves.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    It's definitely appropriate that every other item on your list is illegal for minors in almost every country on earth. If I thought we could reasonably keep 'blind boxes' an adult indulgence I wouldn't be opposed. But they are so deeply tied to children's toys, I don't think you could ever have them available for adults in a form that isn't just begging for children to figure out ways to buy them anyway. It'd be incredibly hard to justify banning them only for children, especially on the admittedly abstract basis of psychological harm.

    Setting aside that, I believe they should be fully illegal simply on a consumer protection basis. A business should not be allowed to sell a mystery product. There's no justification for it IMO. There is no reason we should allow businesses to sell us useless bullshit and hope we get something we actually want. You can still have MTG, you can still have mobile games. But let people buy the shit they want, or don't. If the business model can't work, somebody else will figure it out.

    But of course, there's no fucking chance of that happening here in the US, so I keep hoping somebody else will tackle it (though Brazil's attempt here wildly misses the bar unfortunately).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    Yeah, but I actually like multiple games built around blind boxes, and I sure don't like you telling me what I can like.

    You're just passing your own tastes as morality and I don't care for that anymore when it's gamers pushing their preferences than when it was pearl-clutching moms and politicians trying to score cheap points.

    I mean, there is plenty of justification for it in that blind boxes allow for a random distribution of items while still controlling rarity and allowing for balance, which is why every single videogame in existence that does any sort of randomized or widespread lootable equipment does loot tables. It's not just a very useful technique, it's a fundamental one you engage with constantly. If you want to make a case for monetization of randomized loot being beyond some line we can have that argument, but the method is useful and it won't be "figured out", it predates videogames altogether.

    Frankly, it's not even the worst option out there. The sad irony of the entire moral panic is that the part that got figured out is an alternative monetization-to-engagement pathway. Several, in fact. Overbearing regulation of loot boxes is no longer a dealbreaker because everybody knows how to do seasonal cosmetics and battlepasses now, so all the features of paid loot boxes can be done without the randomized elements people latch on to.

    The part you can't quite get is the outright advantage that loot boxes will sometimes give people decent stuff without having to grind, which all the current alternatives don't do. I'd take randomized tables over mandatory grind any day, but I certainly don't want to ban either.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Random distribution in a game is fine, the problem is entirely being able to use cash to get them. The solution is very simple, as you've pointed out, hundreds of games have already figured out less predatory ways to add content and keep a game alive.

    The cash for randomization is fundamentally what makes it so insidious. Everything you've mentioned is wildly preferable to paid mystery bullshit. Seasonal outfits, battle passes, whatever. If you know what you're getting before you choose to buy it, that's your choice.

    The part you can't quite get is the outright advantage that loot boxes will sometimes give people decent stuff without having to grind, which all the current alternatives don't do. I'd take randomized tables over mandatory grind any day, but I certainly don't want to ban either.

    This is the most Stockholm Syndrome shit I've seen on here. You do realize that the grind only exists to push people into buying the bullshit right? Games should be fun to play, with rewards coming regularly from normal play. If you're 'grinding' through a mess of bullshit to avoid paying, or if you're paying to skip the grind, then why are you bothering to play a game you don't actually like playing? A little grind is understandable and fun, I'm looking forward to a little boss farming in BL4 later tonight. But that's the fun part of the game, playing it and hoping to get something good.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    I did not say "less predatory". I don't agree that current trends on monetization are any more or less predatory than loot boxes. Hell, you don't seem to think they're any more or less predatory, either, given your assessment of grind.

    I think you may have misread the point I was making. You should give that quote block another look.

    But to reiterate, no, it's not "wildly preferable" to grind through a battlepass than to have loot boxes. I prefer loot boxes, honestly. I know I'm not gonna grind to the end of a pass each season, even in the games I do pay regularly, so I would much rather have a randomized pull and get something fun every now and then.

    And of course that's all for incidental engagement reward nonsense, which is pointless anyway, paid loot boxes are fundamental to certain games. I liked CCGs when they were made with paper and I still do now. If you ask me I'd much rather have the randomized mishmash of decks you get from loot box-driven Hearthstone than the rigid meta you get in Marvel Snap because they are bending over backwards to still monetize just as hard while not having randomization because people keep whining about it.

    And hey, you don't have to play Hearthstone if you don't want to, and if people are concerned about the effect on kids that's what age ratings are for, doesn't affect me. But I don't think it should be banned and I sure as hell don't think the alternative is "wildly preferable" at all. You don't have to agree, but that cuts both ways, and I don't appreciate people trying to make their preference a matter of law.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I understood your point, I just don't agree. There's a fundamental difference in how it psychologically affects people, and your insistence that lootboxes aren't that bad kinda just lends credence to my point.

    Let's not pretend either of us has any influence at all over what becomes law. Our stupid debate will certainly never affect a damn thing regardless. If I was writing laws, it'd be a very different place and general and I'm sure you wouldn't like most of my ideas. I can complain all I want, nobody is listening anyway.

    Regardless, I've enjoyed the spirited debate and you're certainly entitled to your opinion!

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago*

    Hah. I like the witch trial logic there. "If you like this thing it proves the thing is evil brainwashing because nobody would like it otherwise". May as well dunk them in water and see if they drown.

    The thing is, this sort of online panic has absolutely had an influence. The industry has moved away from lootboxes, even in cases where they make sense (see the Marvel Snap example) because they've become terrible PR, and the panic has led to multiple countries exploring new regulations or applying existing gambling regulations, whether that makes sense or not.

    So you don't have a lot of influence, but you definitely have some, and the unintended consequences of that influence lead to things like Brazil being on track to roll out invasive age checking procedures in gaming spaces without getting much pushback from the wider international gaming public because they're all too excited about the anti-loot box lip service they've added on the side.

    So maybe don't let yourself too off the hook. There was a slippery slope here and you are one of many gleefully going "weeee!" on the way down. Your aggressive stance here sure had more of an impact than all the "told you sos" I'm about to send if and when Steam starts requiring people provide some type of personal ID to log in.

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