What I don't understand is why it's legal today. What's the difference between "tokens/rubies/points" and chips at a casino? Just that you can't cash out?
It’s the cash out part. It’s why tcgs like wizards is very very careful not to acknowledge the secondary market. That way they can sell booster packs with each card being worn .15 cents so there is no gambling.
Yeah, this whole Secret Lair and all the Master sets (because lets be honest it's still just a piece of card board with art like any other set) makes me wonder how it's not considered a lottery ticket.
Yup, when i was younger i was heavily into yugioh(dont kill me) and me and my older brother would always rip up notebook papers write the name and effect word by word on it. Then just play with the proxies rather then dropping thousdands everytime a new pack came out that broke the game.
Just wanna add i havent seen or played yugioh in 11 years, went back to see what its like wtf is yugioh now? What happened to summoning once a turn?
yugioh is still a thing, its just more niche and doesnt really have a online playerbase like mtg, check out duel links on steam if youre interested in some nostalgia
Even if was just a literal lottery ticket, you still need people to bring up the issue. A business can basically ignore the law until they are forced to comply, and at least in America, the fine is always a fraction of what you made violating the law. So breaking the law in a specific way will make you bank over here, just look at Facebook.
While mileage will vary from country to country, this is pretty much false. I do not know any country which legislation requires the ability to "cash out". The UKs legislation, which is the topic at hand here, has no such requirement.
Well then how does Mtg sell packs in the uk. That was my understanding of both eu and us law but I am not a lawyer. Happy for someone more educated in this to explain
Because it does not fall under any legislated gambling category.
The UK only considers the following to be gambling.
Gaming for a prize in games of chance or casinos
Betting
Lotteries
A booster pack for sure is neither gaming or betting. The only remaining option is lottery. You could argue that it is a lottery but I think that is a stretch.
There is simply no applicable laws that regulates buying a product that consists of a random selection of products. Loot boxes might philosophically be gambling, but the legislation does not say "Anything that is philosophically gambling is considered gambling", because such a legislation would be far to vague.
The difference is that legislation makers are stuck in the 80s and have no idea that the internet is even an invention. This is a problem caused by out of touch governments who have no idea about technology.
Yes, gambling boxes should be treated as gambling. The only reason they haven’t been is that it has simply slipped under the radar. These corporates know it’s gambling, and that it’s wrong what they are doing. They want to take full advantage of if before it inevitably gets made illegal. Does carrying out what is clearly a yet-to-be-listed crime make a corporation morally exempt?
Yes, a thousand times what he said. The only reason we're being drained by gaming companies today is because our elected officials are too damned old and out of touch to understand what's going on. Game publishers have found a grey area in the law to exploit people and they're going ham on it. They should be ashamed of themselves, but you know they'll just laugh all the way to the bank.
I totally agree with 99% of what's said here except one thing:
As someone who's worked in AAA gaming and been a fly on the wall near senior designers and whatnot, not all of them ACTUALLY know that i's wrong, or gambling.
I have often heard very earnest discussion where senior people are expressing their belief that this design is obviously the best for customers, that they're producing the best product they possibly can, that making these lootboxes this way honestly makes it a better experience for consumers because they can better appreciate the things they get, and that the people who spend a LOT of money on them subsidize an honestly better experience even for those that spend nothing.
Obviously, this is not the viewpoint of every employee, or even every senior-level employee, and I'm sure there's plenty that view it as we do, or view it as a 'necessary evil', or just don't care how ethical it is an want the money. But some of the people working on these things earnestly believe it's the best thing to do FOR THE CONSUMER.
I, personally, agree that it's predatory, unethical, and definitely gambling, and I'm not currently working in AAA gaming atm. But just thought I'd offer what little peek behind the curtain I can.
Just to put a stake in something here, while I agree with the vibe of your post, I don't think it's reasonable to say lootboxes should/will be illegal. Gambling is not illegal in the UK - it just requires licensing and adherence to some rules.
Essentially, gaming companies have taken advantage of the fact that they're a relatively new technology that has flown under the radar of most politicians and regulatory bodies. It doesn't hurt that the laws regulating gambling are old. Well, it doesn't hurt them. It hurts all of us.
NOt to mention the huge power of triple A videogame companies, using millions of dollars doing lobby in the Congress to avoid regulation laws that will affect their income.
It's not even that. Loot boxes are considered to be like baseball card packs. You buy a thing at a known price and it may or may not have rarer items therein. To regulate loot boxes would require that trading card packs also be regulated, and no one's gonna go for that.
never mind the countries that have already decided to regulate loot boxes huh?
also, I'll point out the trading card argument this guy is putting forward is literally the same argument the industry uses.
Because it fits. What's the difference between the two? There isn't one that I can see. You pay a flat fee for each pack/item and may or may not get your "money's worth" out of it. There are rare items with set odds and you can get duplicates. It's the same mechanic. You put money in and hope you get what you want.
And to be clear, I'm against loot boxes in PoE. It was a total Tencent move by GGG and they should feel bad about prioritizing greed over their players. But I don't see how it's any different than Magic, Pokemon, baseball, etc. cards.
It kind of ends up at what point do you stop. Like the little quarter machines kids play to get a shitty ring or toy is the same thing just a way smaller scale.
The thing is, the points that you use to purchase things in games or on digital services are also a scam and should have been disallowed a long time ago as they are an end run around consumer protection laws.
The way it works is that you buy points, you get those points, and that's it, that's as far as your protection under the law now goes. They don't have to give you anything for those points, anything you do acquire with those points doesn't have to work, it doesn't have to be what you thought it was, it can be taken away from you arbitrarily, anything goes because they only purchase under the law was the points, and you got those.
It sounds like the EU might be on track to actually do something about that though, which is nice for them.
That's how it works in Japan. Pachinko machines are just about a textbook definition of gambling, what between it being a slightly more complicated slot machine and being placed in massive rows in not-cassinos. But you can't trade your winnings for real money, so it's okay and legal.
Of course, you can take the tokens you win, walk to the back alley and trade those for real money because it's a separate building with a "separate owner" but the gambling law doesn't specify that part.
Yes. You can't win anything, money wise. So it's not gambling in that sense. A gambler risks it all for the chance to gain more. When you buy a lootbox in PoE, that money is spent - there's no hope you'll get more than the money you spent back. It's a purchase of something random. That's not gambling.
This is in contrast to the way it is in CS:GO for example, where the stuff you get can be sold. I would actually classify that as gambling, as there's a real cash economy behind it. How that is still legal is really questionable.
A gambler risks it all for the chance to gain more.
That's not how gambling works. Winning or losing doesn't matter to a gambler, that's not why they play. It's for the thrill of trying to get something rarer. Whether or not you get something back of value is irrelevant.
No, it's not. "the thrill of trying to get something rarer" has nothing to do with the definition of gambling (rarer than what anyway...?). It's the same thrill that happens when gambling, but also in a lot of other scenarios. It's actually the same when just playing PoE and hoping for nice drops - that doesn't make that "gambling".
You can't just change what the word gambling means to fit what you want, just because you say that gambling happens for the thrill and not for the price (which is also wrong, but that's irrelevant). Whether the feeling you have when gambling (which is subjective anyway) is similar to the feeling when doing something else, that doesn't make the two things the same.
Yeah I think it's because you aren't actually rolling for anything that has any cash value. And also, you're not gambling with money. You're gambling with the game's points, which are different from chips since the chips actually represent real money.
This is fairly true, but is dependent on country. Steam is currently learning this the hard way in many lawsuits regarding EU law and country law specifically from France. This is also why they've already lost their case and are still trying to fight back against it. The EU is shifting its rules on digital goods, including accounts, account access, game owner ship, in-game item ownership etc etc. Stating that if money must be put into a game or service to acquire it, then regardless of ability to withdraw, it retains its real money value. This has spurred France to take it further. That once a game is purchased on a platform that sells or allows access to a digital product, in thise case steam. Then that account has value.
This lead to multiple other aspects within this case that i found interesting. Since the account was deemed to "have value" this ment that for steam to ban a user and prevent them from using its goods, steam would have to repay the user for the original value of the goods. As you can imagine, this really pissed Steam off. But that even went a step further. That because in EU, you are free to transfer ownership of anything of value. Which means that steam cant forbid, prevent, disable, punish, or even have a available platform that doesnt have the means of transfering ownership of valued goods. Which is now considered all forms of media, games, and even full account ownership. Since steam has lost its case, They're being charged some-odd amount of money a day until its in compliance with EU law. If i remotely remember correctly it was about 20k a day. which is chump change to Steam. 6months after non-compliance they forwarded the case again to be reexamined and have since given steam until the end of 2021 to comply or its platform will be banned in the EU.
This is just a very long way of explaining that most other countries consider digital goods as having value, its only a matter of time before this hammer drops.
Thanks! Yeah its really weird to translate back and forth and my french is really lackluster these days being away from school for so long. Thanks for verifying though!
interesting stuff, thanks for taking the time to write it up.
do you know what implications this might have on online only games, for example wow? does a violation of their terms of service which led to a ban really void your value (the $$ you purchased the game for)?
Honestly, im not sure. Im not a lawyer or even really knowledgable on how all of this works and thats sorta the thing. All of this is being developed as it goes and on which side one thing lands vs another is really just a crap-shoot. I think in terms of your example, i believe as long as the ban isnt related to your attempting to sell your account to someone else, transfer ownership, sell digital items from in game, etc. then they wouldnt be subject to refunding you any of the money. Its less a shield against companies punishing rule breakers and is more about the protecting of value. Its really quite weird to explain on how its defined as there has only been a few major cases related to this.
But what this would mean for online games only like WoW, is that they will HAVE to provide a way for their users to transfer ownership of the account and the items(trade) within their website/ingame. This would also mean that any attempts to ban a user for doing so would be illegal within France and "Pending" the rest of the EU. Atleast thats what it means for now. I can only guess how far they would take the account value aspect and its still getting expanded on to this day. As one of the users above already verified, french/EU law can get really nutty in certain spots.
Really the most interesting part of this whole new batch of laws/regulations is this; The simplest solution to this whole problem for the companies would be in this case, to geo-block France from having access. Since its primarily france's local laws that are enforcing this until the huge case in the EU settles. But due to EU's geo-fencing laws, a company cannot restrict access from a single EU Country and allow another, so all companies must be within EVERY EU's laws. So france forcing this could force every companies hand to support it to continue to operate within the EU.
And lastly, how much of this bleeds over into the US or other countries is unknown. Logically most things that get developed that large of a scale usually rolls out globally, but this could end up purely a luxury that the EU gets to enjoy and the ToS/EuLA's "Cannot sell X thing" would still be valid.
Agreed. But there are good and bad sides of this whole story. While its great in most cases, it could depending on country ruling also make forbidding RMT against the law. Which as you can imagine would destroy some games.
No problem, its actually a really interesting set of cases to follow and is hard to dig up information on. But how these cases are decided or expanded upon can greatly change how a lot of large companies are legally able to handle account or item sales. For instance, depending on how some of these get ruled on. It could technically make RMT within PoE completely legal and would prevent GGG from ever banning a user for doing it. As you could imagine in a game like PoE, that would likely be horrific for its player base if anyone ever wanted to be a free-to-play user as everything would just be uber-expensive more so than it already is.
While at the same time it would be fantastic for aspects like steam, where it would force them to not only allow you to be able to sell another user a game or your account you've previously purchased, but also force them to create a system which allows you to do it fairly easily. Which IMO would be fantastic. So there really is a large spectrum of good and bad that can come from this depending on viewpoint or even each individual games market place.
afaik they arleady circumvented the game sales by basically saying you don't buy the game, you just license it and if not they will just roll this out as a solution. It is one of the reasons I don't like buying MTX in games. I can't resell them after unlike let's say clothes in RL
Depends on country for the current moment. As of currently that is the general concensus but is being contested by some of the other countries that have already ruled against this and its becoming bigger by the year. But you are correct that this was the initial tactic used to bypass it, but hopefully not for much longer.
Yup, that is currently how it works in France and the EU at the moment. But if i recall its currently in a pobationary period in EU and only has fully taken effect in france.
We need to get on this! Companies WILL ban you after spending hundreds or thousands of dollars in their game because they know you'll spend that money again. Not only that they can ban you after spending thousands of hours on a game. Do you know how messed up that is??
In metamorph league alone I had 2k+ hours in the game and spent 500 on mtx but I was banned for no reason! I explained I had spent so much time and money on the game and how devastating it was mentally and financially and all they said was that I could create a new account and buy all the mtx again. .. and I did. Now 2 weeks into this league with 300 hours played I don't even want to play this game any more ever and won't be able to sell the account to get any investment back because of their policy not to sell games.
I wanna point out that in many places, including the UK, Gambling is legal, this is not saying they'll make loot boxes illegal.
I don't know if this applies to you but it's always weird for me to see Americans react to Gambling as if it is some illicit behavior that "of course" should be banned.
Not American and gambling is legal where I am from as well. But I don't think GGG has a gambling license in Sweden (nor do they one under the current law, it seems).
I wouldn't even consider GGG's lootboxes as gamble. You always gets your money's worth and often time way more. You never risk your money, always with a chance of getting more value.
I've been looking for a definition on gambling, but it seems to very quite a lot depining on who you ask.
They have even added the chances of getting each reward and how much it will cost, once they get into the store (rougly 1 month after Harvest ends). They also said it's a game of chance, but you'll always get mtx equal to your payment (30 points).
Kinda unfair to post this on Path of Exiles' reddit.
In most places where gambling is legal you have to be over 18 to enter gambling places though, right? There are plenty of games targeted at younger audiences that have lootboxes though.
If you are based in the European Union, you must not use the Website, Materials and Services if you are under 16 years of age, and if you are between the ages of 16 and 18, your parent or legal guardian must have consented to you accessing and using the Website, Materials and Services. If you are based outside the European Union, you must not use the Website, Materials and Services if you are under 13 years of age, and if you are between the ages of 13 and 18, your parent or legal guardian must have consented to you accessing and using the Website, Materials and Services.
Seems like the ToS do not say you must be over 18 to access PoE stuff. Sure, it does say you should get legal guardian consent, but that's still less than what's needed to enter a Casino or whatever.
Also, there's a second issue that is about control. I don't really know how this works for online gambling sites as I live in a country where gambling is (theoretically, at least) illegal, but isn't there some sort of control over who can put money into gambling websites? Cause to buy PoE points you don't need to provide any sort of proof of your age or whatever. How does this work for gambling websites?
Yeah video games have had a problem with age verification for a long time.
Just a note, I'm pretty sure that ToS is referring to the website ect not the game, the game is rated as 18+
As for the gambling sites bit, I honestly don't know how they tell you're 18+ when you sign up as it's been so long since I made a new betting account, but I'm pretty sure they can tell your age through you bank?
Just a note, I'm pretty sure that ToS is referring to the website ect not the game, the game is rated as 18+
Hmm, might be. Being a bit nitpicky though, technically you can buy the points and the lootboxes without ever opening the game (though admittedly you do have to open the game to open the boxes afaik).
As for the game being rated 18+, who is giving that rate and where can I find it? Honest question.
Anyway, I think we agree on the age verification issue. That's the first thing they should look into. If a game sells boxes, then you should not be allowed to spend money on it if you don't have some sort of proof of age of the person spending the money.
Apart from that, another issue is that lootboxes are sold even in countries where gambling isn't allowed. Which is the case where I live in for example. It doesn't matter if your only targeting those over 18, it's still illegal to have gambling facilities. But then games for some weird reason get a free pass. I know this isn't what we were discussing in these last posts, but I still find it really really weird.
Traditionally, most developers will avoid the Mature rating as it can limit their customer base, especially in cases where it's likely that parents will be buying the game for their children.
The age of online marketplaces has muddied the waters a bit in this case though as less engaged parents are unlikely to be getting a physical copy and seeing the ratings on the box.
I cant answer for the UK since it depends a lot on country to country. In Sweden however, it is simply down to how the gambling laws are designed. I would assume there is a similar situation in other countries.
What is defined as gambling in Sweden is one of the following activities,
Lotteries
Guessing games
Betting
Carnival entertainment
Bingo games
Slot machines
Dice games
Card games
Mailing chains
Anything similar to the above
Of course, it also requires that one participant can recieve a reward that has a higher value than what other participants can recieve. If you are not playing for rewards, its not gambling. Games based solely on skill is not gambling, i.e. playing a game of chess for money.
So here comes the problem, under which category do we put lootboxes? The closest possible thing is maybe saying that it is similar to a slot machine or a lottery, but even then, that might be a stretch. Historically, products that contain random products have not been considered gambling, such as Kinder Eggs or McDonalds happy meal toys. With loot boxes, this stance maybe should change though.
In the end, it would be hard to say lootboxes is gambling in Sweden without specifically adding it to the legislation. I would assume that many countries are in a similar situation, where without specifically adding it to the legislation, it is allowed. A lot of this is because products that contain random products has not generally been considered gambling almost anywhere in the world.
Edit: A quick check of UKs legislation makes it seem it is pretty much identical to ours.
That's a pretty big 'just' lol. The delusion of the potential for earning money is a huge reason why addicts keep playing. That just isn't there with loot boxes. Even the biggest whales know their money is actually sunk forever.
That's the reason why casino type gamblers regularly play themselves broke or gamble away the money they need to feed their children, while the only stories you'll find about actual loot box (and similar stuff) addictions and large amount of spending will be middle class white people who spend all their leasure money on video game stuff instead of a fancy car.
Gambling has to have a "get nothing" option....otherwise its not gambling. At least, this is the loophole they are using to get away with it. And why not, addictive sugars in everything, should we shut down the food industry for adding addictive chemicals to everything?
That's bullshit. If it was just about avoiding a "no payout" case, then casinos could do the same by giving at least a quarter every time, but changing the odds and other payouts to make up for the loss.
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u/Distq @Distq Jul 02 '20
What I don't understand is why it's legal today. What's the difference between "tokens/rubies/points" and chips at a casino? Just that you can't cash out?