Slick wrote on Nov 24, 2017, 01:16:
BULLSHIT.
that's right, I call bullshit.
There are 2 conversations that need to be happening:
1) Is actual or quasi pay2win mechanics good/moral/legal/for the children?
2) Lootbox progression.
Lootbox progression has been in gaming since the beginning...
Ask your grandpa about how he used to ROLL THE DIE to find out what loot he got playing DnD.
Give me a fucking break. Luck, Chance. These mechanics are fundamental to gaming, and have been engrained for over 40 years.
That's a different conversation from a perceived or real Pay2Win mechanic. Good luck getting laws passed on that shit, having to quantify in legalese the specific derivation between normal progression and paid progression and where to draw the line in every single game is never going to happen. It's a fucking shit show. They'll either completely outlaw it or won't, and I seriously doubt it's going to be outlawed.
I call bullshit on your calling bullshit
Firstly, loot in DnD was never random and you didn't roll for "loot" normally, and you never had to pay money to roll for loot. If you ever had to do that, then the campaign you played was mass market shit and not hand crafted and properly mastered. Like seriously, which serious dungeon master had random loot? How you gonna plan your progression with that element (Answer: you don't, hence why nobody worth a damn did random loot...) it was electronic DnD, BG1 only partially, that did random loot very limited, but you could never find a +5 weapon on a goblin or an iron weapon on a Drow.. even when random these systems were always heavily mastered and guided to prevent power bumps and overpoweredness (not that BG2 for example, could ever fight overpoweredness past level 20 where DnD leveling went into demi-god territory and shit just got absurdly OP on both sides). Anyhow, I digress....
Secondly, this has nothing to do with luck and chance, these systems use exploitive methods to get young adults and children to pay for shit they don't need, but are constantly positively enforced that they do in fact, need it and this includes loot boxes. Gambling is illegal for children and paid for loot boxes ARE gambling, especially scummy form of it when the entire marketing and gameplay focuses on making children and young adults get them. What G2A does for example, selling games in loot-boxes is also 100% illegal in the EU. But that's just an aside.
Thirdly, this got nothing to do with loot aka, drops in games from gameplay. But when you can buy them (and it's random), THEN it becomes a legal problem.
You are however 100% correct that pay to win is not ever going to be illegal ^^ That's however irrelevant, gambling is what is regulated FOR A REASON. And there is a reason children are not allowed to gamble. If you had ANY clue about psychology of children you'd know instantly why that is. And why you should never let a child anywhere near a mobile game or if you do, not with the ability to spend ANY money!
Finally, if you look up the Activision patent on loot-boxes and psychology manipulation through in-game notifications then you will understand why this shit has to stop.