Videogame News

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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macstat
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Re: Videogame News

Post by macstat »

I see im a little late to the party:P

Can i just add that microtransactions arent just somethigng that huge companies use to maliciously steal our money.
They are often only means of earning money by smaller developers who have their dream project.
Path of Exlie is one of those games. Its 100% free to play, not a single piece of loot or boss is hidden behind some premium membership. Its all free and its developed constantly. Their only means of earning money are cosmetic items and additional stash space. They have both direct purchases or random boxes (priced accordingly). I dont see how they could develop AND sustain their product if they didnt have constant cash flow.
kintaris

Re: Videogame News

Post by kintaris »

I don't want to pay £70-£80 on big budget games. I think I will have to, or simply give up that aspect of my hobby, if an entire avenue of profit is taken from video game publishing because of the stupidity of a handful of publishers - notably, publishers I already actively avoid because they're pretty shit for a whole host of other reasons. But I'll also see a gigantic bunch of excellent mobile games, sometimes from one-man teams trying to make their break, disappear completely from the market.

If microtransactions disappear we will see a resurgence of locking giant chunks of content behind bloated season passes, or frankly some more heinous method of pay-walling we're not yet aware of. If that's the future that consumers as a whole really want - fine. But let the consumers make that decision as a majority. I don't think some random politican's moral compass (or desire to grab a headline) should decide this over the people that have actually touched a modern game. And I cannot stress this enough - there are many, many, many people either not engaging with loot crates at all, or paying for a few and being happy, or paying for tons and being happy. EA, WB and others have undeniably screwed up the model by locking universally desirable and progression-related content behind paywalls. But not everyone is doing that with micros. So, so many of them are either cosmetic or timesavers in single player games in the mobile space. Sweeping legislation will cripple developers that haven't hurt anyone.

Serious question - has anyone produced even a reasonably wide-ranging study on loot boxes and their impact on the vulnerable? Or their impact on anyone for that matter? Or is this all based on anectdotes at best?
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Videogame News

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kintaris wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 7:31 pm Serious question - has anyone produced even a reasonably wide-ranging study on loot boxes and their impact on the vulnerable? Or their impact on anyone for that matter? Or is this all based on anectdotes at best?
Well, not that I know of. But the psychological pitfalls of conventional gambling have been known for ages. I wouldn't go so far as to call them one and the same, but surely there is enough conceptual overlap between the two (demanding cold hard cash in exchange for the possibility of gaining something of value) to validate at least some of that data.
kintaris

Re: Videogame News

Post by kintaris »

KSubzero1000 wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 7:40 pm
kintaris wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 7:31 pm Serious question - has anyone produced even a reasonably wide-ranging study on loot boxes and their impact on the vulnerable? Or their impact on anyone for that matter? Or is this all based on anectdotes at best?
Well, not that I know of. But the psychological pitfalls of conventional gambling have been known for ages. I wouldn't go so far as to call them one and the same, but surely there is enough conceptual overlap between the two (demanding cold hard cash in exchange for the possibility of gaining something of value) to validate at least some of that data.
Absolutely. It enhances the rhetorical debate being had among pundits and influencers, and that is important. Though I'd argue even then that precious few commenters across social media have actually brought meaningful analysis of non-gaming gambling to the debate; just a general sense of the immorality of it all.

What I was sort of angling towards is that actual government-backed legislation should be backed up by specific study - and that hasn't happened. Like I said, I'm not even sure that the government officials getting involved have even a basic idea of the issue at hand, only the outrage around it. I guess that's what concerns me in this case.

I just read back that last sentence to myself and saw that I could apply it to almost every single news story and recently enforced legislation in the entire world at the moment and now I'm just depressed...
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Flabyo
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Re: Videogame News

Post by Flabyo »

I’ve said all I’m saying on this one. The whole thing is just depressing.
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Videogame News

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

I think if Star Wars Battlefield 2 was free-to-play with microtransactions, we would be having a very different discussion.

From an Australian point of view, the moment the NBN (National Broadband Network) became a political issue is the moment it was doomed to failure. What should have been a necessary infrastructure upgrade, that would have had major benefits to the country economically, became what the NBN is now: a broken, rubbish joke.

So I'd be very hesitate about getting the government involved with anything. Most of our politicians cant even get their citizenship in order!
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Re: Videogame News

Post by Stanshall »

Jon Denton asked a very good question on this week's TCGS as to whether we would be happy for the whales to pay our way, as it were, and to fund devs to keep support going for the rest of us, too. It was ultimately left as a rhetorical question, not addressed directly, but I'm basically with Jon on this. I'm perfectly happy with microtransactions and with whales paying the keep the servers up or for new maps to be developed, that kind of thing. The only instance where I'm not happy is with the outright gambling stuff, like FUT. I'm OK with someone buying Ronaldo, say, for thirty quid, but I'm not OK with someone spending thirty quid on RNG and getting lucky with Ronaldo, etc.
Todinho

Re: Videogame News

Post by Todinho »

First off it's important to make a distinction between Lootboxes and microtransactions, even though I despise microtransactions in full priced games they are not gambling you know exactly what you're paying for when you do that, with a lootbox however you dont and I franklly cannot comprehend a logical argument as to why a lootbox system would be better then straight microtransactions, hell take overwatch people spend hundreds of dollars on boxes only to get 1 or 2 skins they really want and in the meanwhile they have to go through this roulette bullshit which is only designed to make you spend more money to increase the chances for you to get what you want, even if you have 0 issues with lootboxes wouldnt it be better if you simply paid directly for that skin you want instead of spinning the dice? What`s being talked about here is regulating lootboxes because they are gambling.

Second people have to stop buying into this bullshit spin from multi million dollar corporations that give their CEOs 17 MILLION dollars as a bonus and then cry "Oh games a too expensive we need to put microtransactions,lootboxes,season passes, etc to make money" Which companies are exploting this the most? EA, Activision, Ubisoft, 2K the companies whose games sell millions of copies each year they are poor companies trying to stay afloat they are making millions of consumers and developers backs. When a small studio like the devs of Path of Exile put microtransactions in their game the game is usually free and the microtransactions dont overlly affect gameplay and somehow they are able to function pretty well, if Battlefront 2 came out for free and had microtransactions that didnt affect gameplay nobody would be complaning.

Third I really dislike this atitude some people have that: "Oh it doesnt affect me so who cares?" Whales arent just made up of rich people with cash to burn, they often are people that cant afford it but are compelled to by their addictiveness(This article on Kotaku puts it better then I ever could: https://kotaku.com/loot-boxes-are-desig ... 1819457592) We are literally talking about a pratice that can ruin people's life and we are discussing if regulation to prevent this is "too much" I really cant understand.
kintaris

Re: Videogame News

Post by kintaris »

Fair enough, Todinho. Again, not against regulation personally. I just hope it's thoughtful, detailed and specific legislation against the kind of loot boxes and micros that cause the damage you are referring to. And I hope someone with some amount of industry and market insight is involved in the process, should it happen.
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Videogame News

Post by ThirdDrawing »

KSubzero1000 wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 3:57 pm
I think you may be misrepresenting the issue. The argument is not that loot boxes should be protected as a valid artistic choice, it's "Once various governments will have gotten a taste of controlling the contents of entertainment products, who will stop them when they start crossing the line into full-blown artistic censorship?
This isn't controlling the contents.

They're not talking about controlling plot elements, character designs, music or any other design or creative aspect.

They are talking about controlling a predatory game play mechanic.

Absolutely 100% apples and oranges.
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macstat
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Re: Videogame News

Post by macstat »

I think that arguing for/against EA ship sailed long time ago Todhino and now we're discussing more general issue. and by we i dont mean only us here and now but gaming community in general. Unfortunately whatever happens wont affect just EA, but it will affect also smaller companies ... and i would assume that they will feel the impact of it much harder than big publishers. Like Subzero earlier said if were gonna reduce this complex issue to couple of slogans and fight against big corpo usually someone gets hurt in the process.

Also i have logical argument for loot boxes. It all depends on probability distribution of prizes. There's something in basic probability theory called expected value which gives you rough idea of value you get from random variable. Assume game where you roll a dice, you win 5 pounds when you roll 5 or 6, but you loose 2 pounds if you roll 1-2-3-4. Expected value would be 2/6 * 5 + 4/6 * (-2) since you have 2/6 probability of winning 5 pounds and 4/6 probability of loosing 2 pounds. That way you can calculate what is your expected gain from a loot box (assuming you know what the probabilities are). Now think about this golden standard that was created in card games like Magic. Magic is basically a loot box system, but you have some ease of exchanging cards etc. but those rarer cards are more expensive (because you pay for sure thing). And that is kinda shows how perfect balanced system is formed, on one side you have this random thing that gives you some value but not necessarily that perfect thing and on the other side you have sure barter/shop but at higher price. Both of those elements have their purpose there and they work best when they complement each other. If you think about it prices of cards are based by its rarity, on its supply and demand. You dont have magical button that creates infinite copies of a skin, you have finite amount of skins ..... well potentially infinite but in amount that is based on some underlying probability.

Ofc loot boxes in games have still a long way to go until they will be both fair and profitable. For example i would love to know what is the distribution of each item in box (how rolls are calculated) so i can make an educated decision whether i should just buy the item for higher price. Also having this second hand market next to random purchases would be great if you wanna just buy this one thing and dont care about anything else. But i would really like to stress that randomness isnt evil in of itself. Its a way of doing it with its +/- , same for fixed pricing.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Videogame News

Post by KSubzero1000 »

ThirdDrawing wrote: November 23rd, 2017, 2:50 pm They are talking about controlling a predatory game play mechanic.
Yes, I understand that. But since predatory gameplay mechanics are, for better or worse, part of the overall product being sold to consumers, they do qualify as "content", even if not artistic or creative content. In the end, loot boxes are still lines of computer code bundled inside the product you're buying, and therefore a third party directly interfering with their inclusion is indeed controlling the contents.

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to such drastic legislation, but I do understand the concerns being expressed here.

Joshihatsumitsu wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 12:48 am There is another option: don't buy those games to begin with. Money talks. If people keep putting money into these companies that go in this direction, there's very little reason for them to change their behaviours.

That's not exactly a feasible or realistic plan, and people are going to buy whatever they want to buy, but technically speaking - it is an option?
Yes, but it's only an option on the individual level. Strong-willed individuals who understand the ins and outs of the system will be a lot less likely to fall prey to these shady practices. But a lot of others will. Look at it this way: the scientific facts regarding the inherent dangers of tobacco, alcohol and conventional gambling have been a matter of public record for ages, and yet these industries continue to make money hand over fist.

You may be disciplined enough to not partake in that nonsense, but that won't change the fact that Joe Six-Pack two blocks further down the street is blowing half his paycheck on lottery tickets every month, complete with Gambler's Fallacy which only ensures he will continue to do so in the future.

In short: It's important to not underestimate the general public's weakness and stupidity, as misanthropic as that sounds. And there is a valid argument to be made that it's part of the government's job to protect the most vulnerable citizens from themselves.
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Videogame News

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

Joshihatsumitsu wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 12:48 am There is another option: don't buy those games to begin with. Money talks. If people keep putting money into these companies that go in this direction, there's very little reason for them to change their behaviours.

That's not exactly a feasible or realistic plan, and people are going to buy whatever they want to buy, but technically speaking - it is an option?
KSubzero1000 wrote: November 23rd, 2017, 3:20 pm Yes, but it's only an option on the individual level. Strong-willed individuals who understand the ins and outs of the system will be a lot less likely to fall prey to these shady practices. But a lot of others will. Look at it this way: the scientific facts regarding the inherent dangers of tobacco, alcohol and conventional gambling have been a matter of public record for ages, and yet these industries continue to make money hand over fist.

You may be disciplined enough to not partake in that nonsense, but that won't change the fact that Joe Six-Pack two blocks further down the street is blowing half his paycheck on lottery tickets every month, complete with Gambler's Fallacy which only ensures he will continue to do so in the future.

In short: It's important to not underestimate the general public's weakness and stupidity, as misanthropic as that sounds. And there is a valid argument to be made that it's part of the government's job to protect the most vulnerable citizens from themselves.
Fair point. There's definitely no silver bullet to solve all the issues. Gambling is so deeply ingrained in Australian culture - most pubs and clubs have plenty of floor-space for pokies and Keno, and sports on TV is mostly advertising space for online gambling. And that's just if you took a quick glance, and didn't go into the history of gambling in my country.

According to the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, loot boxes constitute gambling, though less so in Queensland. So yeah... complex issue.
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Re: Videogame News

Post by Whippledip »

Joshihatsumitsu wrote: November 23rd, 2017, 9:49 pm
Joshihatsumitsu wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 12:48 am There is another option: don't buy those games to begin with. Money talks. If people keep putting money into these companies that go in this direction, there's very little reason for them to change their behaviours.

That's not exactly a feasible or realistic plan, and people are going to buy whatever they want to buy, but technically speaking - it is an option?
KSubzero1000 wrote: November 23rd, 2017, 3:20 pm Yes, but it's only an option on the individual level. Strong-willed individuals who understand the ins and outs of the system will be a lot less likely to fall prey to these shady practices. But a lot of others will. Look at it this way: the scientific facts regarding the inherent dangers of tobacco, alcohol and conventional gambling have been a matter of public record for ages, and yet these industries continue to make money hand over fist.

You may be disciplined enough to not partake in that nonsense, but that won't change the fact that Joe Six-Pack two blocks further down the street is blowing half his paycheck on lottery tickets every month, complete with Gambler's Fallacy which only ensures he will continue to do so in the future.

In short: It's important to not underestimate the general public's weakness and stupidity, as misanthropic as that sounds. And there is a valid argument to be made that it's part of the government's job to protect the most vulnerable citizens from themselves.
Fair point. There's definitely no silver bullet to solve all the issues. Gambling is so deeply ingrained in Australian culture - most pubs and clubs have plenty of floor-space for pokies and Keno, and sports on TV is mostly advertising space for online gambling. And that's just if you took a quick glance, and didn't go into the history of gambling in my country.

According to the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, loot boxes constitute gambling, though less so in Queensland. So yeah... complex issue.
Yeah but Queenslanders are utter morons, the constant heat has just cooked their brains
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Videogame News

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

Whippledip wrote: November 23rd, 2017, 10:10 pm Yeah but Queenslanders are utter morons, the constant heat has just cooked their brains
Well... I didn't want to say that... but then I don't seem to be disagreeing either... :|
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Videogame News

Post by ThirdDrawing »

KSubzero1000 wrote: November 23rd, 2017, 3:20 pm Yes, I understand that. But since predatory gameplay mechanics are, for better or worse, part of the overall product being sold to consumers, they do qualify as "content", even if not artistic or creative content. In the end, loot boxes are still lines of computer code bundled inside the product you're buying, and therefore a third party directly interfering with their inclusion is indeed controlling the contents.

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to such drastic legislation, but I do understand the concerns being expressed here.
Arguing for loot boxes is like arguing children should be allowed in casinos. Nobody is out there arguing that casinos are having their creativity stifled for not being allowed to have children's characters on slot machines.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Videogame News

Post by KSubzero1000 »

ThirdDrawing wrote: November 24th, 2017, 2:34 pm Arguing for loot boxes is like arguing children should be allowed in casinos. Nobody is out there arguing that casinos are having their creativity stifled for not being allowed to have children's characters on slot machines.
Which would be a relevant response if I was, in fact, arguing for loot boxes. But I'm not. I even said in the post you've quoted that I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to drastic legislation. These aren't the words of someone who is "arguing for loot boxes". I've never bought a single one in my life and I tend to discourage others from doing so when asked. I'm merely pointing out the reasoning flaws in your reductive and reactionary statements, which you conveniently failed to address.

Look, you're entirely free to believe that it's a simple issue, that loot boxes are inherently immoral and that the government should respond by way of a swift and all-encompassing ban. Frankly, I get where you're coming from. Antagonistic non sequiturs, however, aren't helping with getting your point across.
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Videogame News

Post by ThirdDrawing »

You're giving the "slippery slope" argument saying government will start regulating game content.

I'm saying regulating loot boxes is similar to regulating casinos because there's no artistic content involved.

It's neither antagonistic nor a non-sequitur.

If you don't want the government involved, give them the same choice as they had with the ESRB.

Create a regulatory body to police themselves, or have the government will do it for them.

It'll get them moving pretty quickly.
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Re: Videogame News

Post by KSubzero1000 »

From where I'm standing, the argument that there needs to be artistic merit for something to classify as "content" is nonsensical. Content is content. Even if that content is gambling. Is it part of the game you're buying? Then it's content.

Furthermore, I live in Germany and I've seen how censorship can emerge out of various politicians' desire to "protect the youth". Although the topic has been discussed on here before and some have argued that it doesn't actually qualify as censorship. I think it does, and that's why I also think that what you're proposing might be setting an unfortunate precedent.

That's all.
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Videogame News

Post by ThirdDrawing »

The same thing about censorship was said with the ESRB when it was formed.

I find it shocking that people are defending regulating loot boxes as "the nanny state government censoring the little guy".

It's the kind of "let the free market sort it out" approach you hear on Fox news.
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