PC game Loot crates for real money, good or bad?
- Thread starter Madeddie
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**** these corporate **** not gambling my ****** arse! 
if you are trying to get x rare item from loot boxes (to upgrade character or weapon) but you only get common a b c which are useless and worthless to you and you already have 9 buckin thousand of that item/card blah blah.... how can they say its not gambling? Its ridiculous. Its gambling rng upgrading using real money (from credits or whatever)
The final kicker....no this is not the same as those footie cards we used to collect when young because you owned them and could trade them with a mate...they had a value....
Digital **** we dont OWN DIDDLY!
if you are trying to get x rare item from loot boxes (to upgrade character or weapon) but you only get common a b c which are useless and worthless to you and you already have 9 buckin thousand of that item/card blah blah.... how can they say its not gambling? Its ridiculous. Its gambling rng upgrading using real money (from credits or whatever)
The final kicker....no this is not the same as those footie cards we used to collect when young because you owned them and could trade them with a mate...they had a value....
Digital **** we dont OWN DIDDLY!
Is there anything that is deemed as gambling that will always give something back? no matter how small? I see gambling as something which you can put money into but aren't always guaranteed anything in return. Loot boxes to me aren't gambling, they are a product that you purchase that will always guarantee what you paid for. The luck depends on what you receive from them.
Soldato
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See I'm 50/50 on it, While they don't meet the literal term of gambling because 'you always get something' you're never doing it for the minimal cost item.
I.e, I buy a scratchcard, generally speaking they have a 1 in 5 chance of getting a win, therefore 4/5 times you will get nothing, absolutely zip. However that 1/5 chance I have of getting *something* is the reason people do it.
Yet its completely legal and not 'gambling' to buy a loot crate, which may have the same odds, but 4/5 times you get 'something' with no value whatsoever, or any use to you, or of meaningful gain. Lets face it anyone buying a loot crate isnt going into it hoping to get something better than nothing out of it, theyre going for the big prize, hence how a lot of people can easily compare it to gambling. To me the 'guaranteed prize' is effectively worth zip as per a scratchcard.
I don’t like them, it’s gambling and kids are getting exploited by it, those Ultimate team packs for FIFA are one of the worst offenders, kids go crazy for it in the vain hope they get Messi or Ronaldo.
Crates, loot boxes and ALL microtransations should be banned, and that goes for those crappy mobile phone games too.
Crates, loot boxes and ALL microtransations should be banned, and that goes for those crappy mobile phone games too.
I fully think the law needs to change that requires them to provide the odds on getting something.
When GreenManGaming do them buy 10 random keys for cheap deal, I never hear people go up in arms about them, demanding it's gambling. Sure they provide a full product, but it's still the same as loot boxes, as you aren't always going to get something you like.
I get the feeling that people only care about these loot boxes because of the advantages they can sometimes give another player, and people don't like it. It isn't what I'd call gambling though imo.
seems similar to when i was younger with merlin/panini stickers. Hassling mother for another pack, needed that shiny lfc badge. Getting it and being gutted because i got 4 john barnes and 2 jan molby. Already had 99 barnes and 150 molby'
Right now, LFC would love 4 John Barnes and 2 Jan Molbys
Associate
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I'm going to sell scratch cards to kids and offer a free can of Coke to every player.
Everyone gets something, some win cash.
See how long that lasts.
Everyone gets something, some win cash.
See how long that lasts.
Hmmmm, I wonder if people started to actively target kids for raffles where they could win a playstation/xbox, £5 entry fee and if you don't win you get a mint, they'd be as happy. I mean you'd always win something.
I don't have an issue with loot boxes as such, but I do feel the way they're done is there to exploit people and that I do have an issue with.
Labour MP asks British Government to regulate Loot Boxes
Daniel Zeichner, Labour MP for Cambridge, has submitted two written questions on my behalf:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she plans to take to help protect vulnerable adults and children from illegal gambling, in-game gambling and loot boxes within computer games. (link)
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment the Government has made of the effectiveness of the Isle of Man's enhanced protections against illegal and in-game gambling and loot boxes; and what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on adopting such protections in the UK. (link)
These are a result of a very positive meeting I had with Daniel a few weeks ago. Some quick context:
To my knowledge this is the first time that the issue has been raised in parliament, so while this might not quite be up there with "fight them on the beaches" it is still a significant step. I'll make another post here once the replies arrive...unless of course the government acts first!
- The goal here is to see the UK's existing gambling regulations applied to loot boxes.
- The Isle of Man is a British territory which explicitly defines in-game items as money's worth in its gambling law. It's currently the only place in the world that does so.
- In the language of parliament, both of these questions are saying "you should do this".
- Replies seem to take about a month to arrive. When one does arrive it is highly likely to be something non-committal rather than "we'll get right on it". That's OK, the point is to start the conversation.
PS: If you're interested in helping raise the loot box issue further, and are a British citizen, someone else has a petition underway which is currently less than 50 signatures away from receiving a response from the government. I think we can get a few more names on there.
Sadly that's just gambling sites though...all the furore over the loot boxes has fizzled out after the UK Government demonstrated their ignorance on the issue and denied there was much of a problem.
Has the uk gov responded to Daniel Zeichner questions yet? Or the petition?
It's difficult to discern where one ends and the other begins although this implies everything has now been addressed.
It's not though is it, at least with things like the panini stuff you could take them to school and swap them which was half the fun and a good way of teaching kids haggling skills (yet to be successful trying to get a discount with 40 John Barnes stickers though...) and social interaction.seems similar to when i was younger with merlin/panini stickers. Hassling mother for another pack, needed that shiny lfc badge. Getting it and being gutted because i got 4 john barnes and 2 jan molby. Already had 99 barnes and 150 molby'
"similar" eg i have 99 barnes', so did everyone else, who was gonna swap for that. I gaurantee after a season, my friends and myself had a pile of hundreds that we couldn't swap, because everyone else had 100's too. At the end of the day we all had so many because we were chasing those rare ones. So yes, it isn't exactly the same, but it definitely reminds me of those days. Swapping and haggling was the fun, but at the end of the season we would be left with 100's of junk stickers, a fair few pounds worth.