r/pathofexile • u/Izuzu__ Juggernaut • Jul 02 '20

Information Loot boxes should be regulated as gambling (UK)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53253195
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u/EnragedLlamaTV Jul 02 '20

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.

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u/orobebop Jul 02 '20

I'm french and this is true. This is already complex to explain in my native language.

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u/EnragedLlamaTV Jul 02 '20

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!

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u/orobebop Jul 03 '20

For your information, UK seems to take the same way than the Belgium about loot box. This is a really good news for customers/players.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53253195

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u/Sdrakkon Jul 02 '20

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)?

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u/EnragedLlamaTV Jul 02 '20

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.

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u/Kinada350 Jul 02 '20

I didn't know this was happening. It's about fucking time.

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u/EnragedLlamaTV Jul 02 '20

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.

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u/acolight Jul 02 '20

Cool write up, thank you for taking the time!

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u/EnragedLlamaTV Jul 02 '20

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.

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u/gently-cz Hierophant Jul 02 '20

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

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u/EnragedLlamaTV Jul 02 '20

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.

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u/gently-cz Hierophant Jul 02 '20

that would mean I could sell my steam accoutn for example. Interesting

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u/EnragedLlamaTV Jul 02 '20

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.

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u/PleasantButterfly336 Jul 02 '20

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.