The ongoing fight against lootboxes, pay-to-win, and other such BS

[Pocket]

We had a thread for this before, and it's in the news again, so let's bring it back. First off, Diablo Immortal has just broken the record for lowest Metacritic score (read: biggest review-bombing from angry gamers), and while I'm sure some of it is just gamers being pissy about it being a mobile game on principle (this is the game that prompted the "Do you guys not have phones?" PR disaster... wow, four bloody years ago), it's also come under fire for its predatory monetization scheme. A scheme that Polygon admits is actually pretty tame by mobile game standards, but long-time Diablo fans will recognize as antithetical to the way people traditionally play Diablo games:

Blizzard has been at pains to point out that Immortal’s monetization can safely be ignored until the endgame, which is true, and it claims that the majority of players enjoy the game without spending a dime, which is plausible. But it’s disingenuous to suggest that the primary pleasure of Diablo games resides in playing through the story, rather than maxing out your character. It would be just as disingenuous to deny that these games have always been engineered to engender a hunger for hitting the power cap in their players. For people with a tendency toward gambling addiction, or toward the addictive qualities of Diablo’s item game — or, even worse, both — the legendary crest system is exploitative and potentially very damaging.

I've never played Diablo so someone who has will have to weigh in on this. Anyroad, the other big news comes in the form of Spain working on a law to regulate lootboxes in video games. A commenter over on Reddit helpfully translated and summed up the current draft of the law:

Loot boxes are forbidden for minors. As the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Alberto Garzón, announced in an interview with Xataka at the end of 2020, the new law will prohibit access to loot boxes for minors under 18 years of age. "Many of these reward boxes are in video games that may even have a legal PEGI accreditation below 18 years of age", explained the minister.

For those over 18, obligations will also be added. In addition to the ban on minors, the law will force applications with loot boxes to add a number of settings. Users will have the possibility to limit spending completely with a self-exclusion system or partially limit it by being able to set up play sessions with a maximum time and amount.

How will age be verified? By means of one's ID card. In order to carry out these changes, a new control method will be required. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs explains that this prohibition will be carried out by means of ID card or biometric verification. In other words, video games containing 'loot boxes' will be required to ask for the ID card at the time of payment, to check whether the account belongs to a minor or not.

Goodbye anonymity? The new law is currently a draft that is beginning its public hearing process, but it raises many concerns about privacy and how it will be applied. Requiring an ID to be able to make a purchase is a big change, as it is not currently necessary to provide this document when playing titles that contain loot boxes.

Platforms such as Google Play have for a couple of years now been requesting information to verify that players are of the minimum age. Google explains that "if we detect that you may not be old enough to manage your own account, you will have 14 days to set up supervision on your account". For this process, Google asks for your ID or a credit card.

With the entry into force of this new law, it is expected that platforms such as Google will reinforce age supervision, to ensure that applications and video games through its platform comply with the law. It remains to be seen whether other apps or platforms will take similar actions.

What about gift cards? Another issue that arises is that of gift cards of 20 or 50 euros for use on platforms such as PlayStation. By requiring the ID card, this opens the door to shops being obliged to ask for it when buying them, as if it were a consumer good only available to adults.

Regulation of advertising. The new law will also prohibit physical advertising related to loot boxes, as well as online advertising in web environments not related to video games. As for television and radio, advertising of these rewards will be banned except in the 1-5 AM time slot.

Information on reward probabilities. Platforms will also have an additional obligation with regard to these rewards, namely that truthful information must be given about the real chances of obtaining the prize. If an envelope or chest has only a slim chance of yielding an interesting reward, this should be reflected.

The part about gift cards I found particularly amusing, because it suggests that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo might feel pressured to ban games that contain lootboxes from their entire platforms, or at least their online stores, if the alternative is a major reduction in gift card sales and/or the stigma of being perceived as an adults-only activity.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, six political parties—which I presume is like, most of them—are united in wanting to outright ban lootboxes. No concrete plans yet, but I'll be keeping an eye on it since it sounds like the most extreme measure anyone has proposed so far. Though I've already forgotten what exactly it was that Belgium did.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I never thought I'd be on the side of politicians wanting to regulate the videogame industry but here I am. Spain's proposal seems like they really thought about what they're trying to do here and why, but I'm rooting for the outright ban.

 

[wonko the sane?]

I think spain has the right of it. If the game companies want to act like casinos, then they can be TREATED like casinos: with all the obstruction and oversight that comes with it.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I like the message an outright ban sends. We're done asking.

 

[Caldwin]

Oddly enough, when threatened with dealing with violence in video games like in Mortal Kombat or else, the video game industry was quick to make their own ratings board lest the government step in and solve the problem for them. Yet this is the hill they choose to die on.

 

[wonko the sane?]

The ratings board was a logical extension of the problems of the time. Long standing litigation and government intervention stood to interfere with potential profits, and systemic development.

NOW they are outright exploiting, and self regulating is just making things worse by pushing absolutely monsters into one-upmanship contests. Because 250K of real money into a free game just to see the absolute end of the game is the end result of industry self regulation.

Frankly, I'm seriously considering pushing a petition on the government of canada's website demanding they consider emulating it. Gamers are not cash machines and video games should not be highly themed casinos.

 

[Pocket]

There was a US Congressman who proposed a bill restricting how video games were allowed to use lootboxes. He was a Republican, even. I think it must have died in committee because I haven't heard anything about it since before the pandemic.

 

[Ironbite4]

Oddly enough, when threatened with dealing with violence in video games like in Mortal Kombat or else, the video game industry was quick to make their own ratings board lest the government step in and solve the problem for them. Yet this is the hill they choose to die on.

That didn't cut into their bottom line like this proposed legislation will.

Ironbite-that's got them scared.

 

[Pocket]

Also, they were a pretty small industry in those days and didn't have nearly the lobbying power that they do now. Even if they don't have the clout to buy politicians' votes and kill legislation, they're probably convinced that they can.

 

[Pocket]

Oh hey, looks like the UK is threatening to join the fun if (read: "when") the industry doesn't start policing itself. So that's one to keep an eye on as well.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Alright, if britain is starting to do something than canada probably won't be too far behind...

*56K modem noises*

Oh... well, that's probably a bad thing then. Trudeau is, let's be real here: incompetent. He won't set a nationwide standard for handling of lootboxes (like he ******* SHOULD.) he'll kick the can down to the provinces to handle. I don't know about the rest of the country, but there's a schedule election in october in quebec and legislating lootboxes isn't an election facing issue: so it'll wait till the next mandate to be handled and how it gets handled will depend entirely on which bunch of fuckwits get power. So I guess I can predict a bit.

-Liberals will actually read the whole brief, and hug up implementation. Probably form a new organization to oversee it, whom will be underfunded, manned by politicians and incompetent. I suspect game prices will rise because of the "effort" they have to put in, so literally applying an I-D-10T tax to video games.
-The caq won't read the brief (cause it came from canada.), skim it briefly catch on the word "gambling" and kick it to lotoquebec to oversee: which means games will get more expensive by default and microtransaction will end up being taxed.
-The rest will never garner enough votes to get into a position to legislate. hug them.

 

[Tramaer]

I think spain has the right of it. If the game companies want to act like casino website then they can be TREATED like casinos: with all the obstruction and oversight that comes with it.

You're right, because everyone is equal before the law

 

[Pocket]

Oh hey. China. I was wondering when you would show up. You're late, my dude.

So the interesting thing about this, currently, is that the one and only source for it has some pretty vague wording. This part seems clear enough:

Online games will now be banned from giving players rewards if they log in every day, if they spend on the game for the first time or if they spend several times on the game consecutively. All are common incentive mechanisms in online games.

But then we get to this line:

Games are also banned from offering probability-based lucky draw features to minors, and from enabling the speculation and auction of virtual gaming items.

Which, honestly, is pretty vague. "Probability-based lucky draw features" is not a phrase that has, to my knowledge, ever been said in any article about video games written by a native English speaker. It certainly would cover lootboxes that cost money to open, but it could also apply to any sort of random drop feature, paid or otherwise. It wouldn't be the first time the Chinese government has enacted sweeping restrictions on something they know very little about. You might notice the part about daily login rewards didn't specify that money has to be changing hands either.

But of course since like 90% of the industry is at least partially owned by some big Chinese conglomerate these days, this is going to have a huge ripple effect either way. The announcement alone caused serial offender Tencent to lose 16% of its stock value, and it's sure to slip even lower once they've been deprived of one of their biggest sources of revenue.

 

[wonko the sane?]

I mean; functionally: this could change the face of games (especially RPG's.) in general because of how vague and ambiguous the wording, and probably the eventual implementation, is. I mean, china isn't exactly known for "spirit of the law" kinda stuff, and have no problems punishing the population for just the perception of criminality.

But... if it hurts tencent... I'm hard pressed to be against it. And if it cracks down on loot boxes, battle passes and microtransactions in general... Mores the better.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

If this accidentally bans all random loot, I guess enemies will just have to drop specific stuff. I could live with that.

 

[Dekafox]

The "lucky draw" part seems to me that it wouldn't apply to regular loot drops, but it might for special event loot, like holiday event drops. The second part of that second quote is more interesting however - doesn't that effectively ban auction houses in MMO games? At least unless they convert them to BIN only, e.g. like ESO's traders...