
Loot Box Lottery - danso
https://minnesotalawreview.org/2019/04/23/loot-box-lottery-how-the-backlash-against-video-game-loot-boxes-is-affecting-game-developers-retailers-and-consumers-in-the-legal-sphere/
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binarymax
> _" Dan Hewitt, Vice President of Media Relations for the Entertainment
> Software Association, has argued that “loot boxes are not gambling because
> they provide something to use in the game. They offer an alternate
> experience and players are not required to buy them . . . .”"_

This is like the Tobacco companies hiring a media company saying smoking is
good for you.

I've yet to hear a good argument from a truly independent party that says "no,
it's not gambling". Because really, loot boxes are gambling.

~~~
Verdex
I think what's happening is that they found out that instead of making real
compelling content, they would just get their customers addicted to gambling.
So they got used to a higher revenue stream that also allowed them to fire all
of their highly skilled content creators.

It's kind of like if a drug company discovered they could get a lot of money
by selling heroin and then they fired all of their chemists who were busy
trying to create drugs that would actually be helpful to society.

Now that they're being called out on it, they're scrambling to try and find a
way to avoid having to go back to working for a living.

A responsible adult would say something like, "You know, we thought that we
were simply giving the market what it wanted, but really it does look a lot
like gambling when you think about it. We're taking it all out."

And if they wanted to turn those lemons into lemonade, "Oh, by the way, we're
releasing half life 3 and portal 3. It's the same game. Oh and we're releasing
a Cave Johnson miniseries. J. K. Simmons is reprising his role."

Yeah, that sounds like a lot of work. But it also sounds like it's providing
real entertainment value to society instead of selling electronic heroin to
kids.

~~~
d4mi3n
100% agree with you, though I'm skeptical that we'd see an improvement in
quality of content if loot boxes and their like become untenable.

Aside from getting people hooked, loot boxes tend to feed into a larger aspect
of a kind of collection game. I don't see that stopping, and it'll likely
continue to be a cheap way to keep people engaged in whatever platform is
available.

Instead of a loot box, I'd expect to see more stuff like EA's Apex Battlepass
or Blizzard's War Chest in Starcraft 2.

PS: I would happily throw money at any reasonable attempt to expand on Half-
Life or Portal. C'mon Valve!

~~~
Verdex
> though I'm skeptical that we'd see an improvement in quality of content if
> loot boxes and their like become untenable.

Yeah, I agree. Once you get used to the easy and cheap workflow of creating
the loot boxes it's going to be a hard sell to go back to paying premium
talent to create engaging an original content that takes longer to produce and
has a lower chance of appealing to arbitrary markets.

Of course in the non-video game world there are companies that create sodas
and cigarettes and slot machines. And there are companies that create high
quality food, cancer battling drugs, and entertainment that stays relevant for
centuries.

I think with a little regulation we'll get the same sorts of divisions in the
video game industry.

~~~
uxp
A coworker and I went to lunch randomly a number of months back and I
discovered that he and his wife are avid WoW players on the server that I
played on nearly 10 years ago. This sparked me to impulsively purchase 30 days
of game time on my character, which was surprisingly still available on my
Battle.NET account. I happily dinked around for a bit, leveled up my character
from 70 to 90, and discovered the VAST amount of collectables that are present
these days, which was quite shocking.

When I stopped playing WoW, players could collect pets by redeeming
tokens/codes from blizzcon or other real world fan or collector activities,
but today there is an entire mini-game surrounding battle-pets which can be
collected in-game and also purchased via earned gold or simply cash.
Additionally, Raid or PvP gear sets can be supplemented with purchased
"cosmetics" and "heirlooms" which again can be purchased through earned gold
or through the store with cash. It seems like every side-game activity has
some kind of purchase available to "speed up" the time it takes to "earn" the
appropriate currency required to redeem the reward. I've been out of the
gaming loop for far too long to really see how bad it's become, but it was
absolutely shocking to see it.

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avsteele
Seems like a good summary of the state of the law.

This below, however, seems like very poor reasoning on ESRB's part.

 _Similarly, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), a self-regulatory
organization responsible for flagging games for mature content and providing
content descriptors, refuses to classify loot boxes as gambling.[15]An ESRB
spokesperson recently stated, “While there’s an element of chance in these
mechanics, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content (even if
the player unfortunately receives something they don’t want).”

This argument differentiates loot boxes from slot machines and lotteries where
the participant is not always guaranteed a prize. Additionally, some foreign
governments, such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, have declared that
loot boxes are in fact not gambling._

The guarantee of 'any' prize really isn't substantive given the vast
differences in rarity/value placed on on the range of reward

~~~
magashna
But we've had those 25c toy machines at your local grocers forever. And places
like Chuck E Cheese have always been basically Vegas for children. The concept
isn't new, it's just mainstream. I'm still of the opinion that parents should
parent instead of over-regulating this

~~~
cgearhart
Organizing with other adults to regulate a practice that appears potentially
harmful to our kids _is_ “parenting”.

~~~
magashna
They're not my parents, why do I want them meddling in my life?

~~~
hanniabu
That's kind of like saying I didn't vote for this president so why should he
be doing anything that affects me

~~~
magashna
Maybe you haven't noticed, but many people are really mad about the
president's actions and the unasked for effects.

~~~
EpicEng
Man, why should those people be allowed to meddle in your life?

What is your point exactly?

~~~
magashna
Parents should be more responsible instead of using the government as a
cudgel. I don't think I've been unclear.

~~~
EpicEng
As a high level statement that makes no sense. We as a society place age
restrictions on all sorts of activities. You have to be specific and focus on
the problem at hand.

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danso
FWIW, I heard about this paper when it was mentioned in this Planet Money
episode following up on their lootbox episode:

[https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...](https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=769484887)

> _JOHNSON: This is Thomas Hansfield. He 's a law student at the University of
> Minnesota who wrote the perfect article for our story today. And we didn't
> even ask him to. Maybe nobody asked him to._

> _HANSFIELD: Pretty shocked that anyone had actually read this._

> _JOHNSON: Tommy 's blog post for the Minnesota Law Review is all about how
> Loot Box lawsuits may end up a lot like a bunch of lawsuits that happened
> way back - ancient history - in the '90s._

> _HANSFIELD: The title of the article is "Loot Box Lottery: How The Backlash
> Against Video Game Loot Boxes Is Affecting Game Developers, Retailers, And
> Consumers In The Legal Sphere."_

His summarized conclusion is that the class action lawsuits that failed
against baseball card makers suggest that loot box-related lawsuits might be
similarly defeated.

------
wanderfowl
So, a different-but-related question: Putting aside the desired addictive
nature, are there any gamers out there who actually _prefer_ microtransaction-
driven loot box mechanics to more conventional item drops?

Or is this just a UX element that most people dislike or don't care about, but
some people get badly addicted to?

There's so much argument about gambling, etc, but I'm yet to hear a compelling
argument for why these should be allowed to exist, from a game design
perspective, short of "we can make a lot of money from gamblers".

~~~
ghkbrew
> why these should be allowed to exist

Because that's the default state, in our society at least. If you want
something banned/made illegal/etc you need a compelling argument for why it
_shouldn 't_ be allowed to exist.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
They said "from a game design perspective," not from a regulatory/legal
perspective.

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Jaygles
I believe there is an argument to be made for loot boxes not returning any
value when you receive a duplicate item. If the item is something you can
equip and it only matters if you have either one of them or none of them, then
receiving a duplicate could be argued that you received something of zero
worth.

I know some loot box systems work around this by giving the player something
else when it rolls a duplicate like a minimal amount of the currency.

Regardless, rolling and opening loot boxes are usually designed to be
addictive which is my main issue with them.

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013a
The fortnite allusion at the beginning is sort-of unfortunate; its one of the
few massive games out there which doesn't sell loot boxes in the traditional
sense. The Battle Royale mode has _never_ had a loot box system remotly like
this; their billions are made simply by selling cosmetic items. The single-
player Save the World mode, which, relatively speaking no one plays, did have
a system like this for a bit, but at the beginning of 2019 they replaced it
with "X-Ray Llamas" which show you exactly what items you'll get before you
spend the VBucks on it.

There's a hundred other popular games they could have picked on which would be
more accurate: Counterstrike: Global Offensive, Team Fortress 2, Apex Legends,
the list goes on.

~~~
twic
So is the story about Little Billy something that could not actually happen in
practice?

~~~
wincy
Maybe not, but my 11 year old nephew definitely spent $1600 of my sisters
money on Fortnite. Then she got the charges reversed and he got the keep the
stuff! What a good lesson for him.

------
jedimastert
The problem that I see, and that I don't think was addressed and may
differentiate from trading card games and the like, is that many of these
games are created to be addictive, and the money thrown out is on top of that
addiction.

------
twic
How are loot boxes any different to Kinder eggs, where you don't know what toy
you're going to get when you buy one?

(I appreciate that Kinder eggs are banned in the US, but not for that reason!)

It seems to me that the key thing about real gambling is that you win _money_.
You put money in, and you might end up with more money than you started with,
but probably won't. That's what generates the dynamic where once you lose some
money, you keep playing to try and win it back.

With loot boxes, you put money in, and you get virtual goods out. The good
vary, and there may be ways to sell the goods for money. But you're
fundamentally just buying goods.

EDIT OF EDIT: This is the closest the article gets to touching on this:

> At least one case in the early 2000s had potential to resolve the issue of
> whether activity similar to loot boxes is considered gambling, but it was
> dismissed due to lack of standing. In Chaset v. Fleer/Skybox Int’l, LP, 300
> F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 2002), purchasers of baseball cards and Pokémon trading
> cards brought a RICO suit against, inter alia, the manufacturers and
> distributors of the trading cards. [...] The Court dismissed the suit for
> lack of standing based solely on plaintiff’s failure to satisfy this
> element.[26] It held that “at the time plaintiffs purchased the cards, . . .
> they received value . . . for what they paid,” and “[t]heir disappointment
> upon not finding [a rare] card in the package is not an injury to
> property.”[27]

~~~
naz
> How are loot boxes any different to Kinder eggs

That's an interesting question! At first I thought they were pretty similar,
but I had a think about this, and there are several key differences:

* With loot boxes, you can often trade the items that you won

* Loot boxes often show you the rarity (and sometimes the value) of an item that you've won.

* Loot boxes often show a spinning wheel or similar device that adds a level of excitement and a feeling of a "near miss" by showing the wheel "almost" land on an item.

* Some loot boxes allow you to "roll again" if you're not happy with the item you received.

* Loot boxes play sounds and show effects depending on the rarity of the item won.

* Loot boxes are given out for free, but you have to buy a "key" to open them.

* Games with loot boxes emphasize items that can be won from them, and encourage players to display these items for in-game prestige.

* Some loot box items give you an in-game advantage.

* Loot boxes are not edible.

~~~
unicornfinder
I was thinking about this and I think the key thing is that with say, a Kinder
surprise, in all cases it's a low value item and all of the items are of
comparable value. Whereas with a loot box there's usually some very high value
items with very low odds.

Not to mention how stupidly easy games make it to buy these lootboxes, and how
they usually make a pretty big point of obscuring their true cost (i.e. behind
gems or other artificial currencies).

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nemacol
If CCG's like Magic: The Gathering is not gambling then I cannot fathom how
loot boxes are.

With loot boxes you cannot cash out. That changes the dynamic completely, in
my opinion.

When one gambles you put in a small amount of money in the hopes of getting
out something of greater value. If that value is perma-locked in a video game,
non-transferable, non-redeemable, then I don't buy that it is gambling.

At least with MTG you would pay for a pack, maybe get a rare card worth some
money and you could sell it / trade it and get monetary value for your
"gamble"

~~~
Drakim
I disagree, if the content of the loot box contains something which people are
willing to pay money for, then the prize has value.

Just because it's non-transferable and non-redeemable doesn't mean it's value
is nil.

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darkcha0s
Why do they open up with "Save the world", which is the fortnite mode that no
one plays? BR Fortnite has no lootboxes. There are many prime examples just
like they are describing, but they seem to have chosen the worst example.

