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'Loot Boxes' Declared Gambling by Belgium GC & Hawaii HoR, Both Seek Bans in Europe and the US

Loot_Box.jpg


In a very sudden development on the hot-button topic of 'loot boxes' and gambling in video games, the Belgium Gaming Commission has completed their investigation on the matter and have concluded that in-game 'loot boxes' are a form of gambling, and will likely be banned in Belgium. This could entail hundreds of thousands of Euros in fines towards Electronic Arts and other offending companies, as well as a ban on sales of games with loot boxes until companies acquire a gambling license or remove the feature from their games. What's more, Belgium is seeking to classify loot boxes as gambling across the entirety of Europe. Currently, the Dutch Gambling Authority has launched a similar investigation.

The Belgium Gaming Commission's statement roughly read, "The mixing of money and addiction is gambling." Belgium's Minister of Justice also chimed in, saying, "Mixing gambling and gaming, especially at a young age, is dangerous for the mental health of the child."

Following quickly after, and in a highly unexpected move, Hawaii House of Representatives rep. Chris Lee (D) held a press conference where he announced that the State of Hawaii would be introducing legislation to curb the "predatory behavior" of companies like Electronic Arts. He explicitly mentions Battlefront 2, calling it a "Star Wars-themed online casino, designed to lure kids into spending money." Highlights from that press conference can be seen here:



Lee said that new legislation in the coming year will target predatory microtransaction practices and that Hawaii would be speaking with other states to introduce similar legislation elsewhere in the United States. Parents also took the podium at the press conference to express their own concerns about loot boxes and microtransactions. Lee later wrote a Reddit post explaining the announcement, which can be read in its entirety by following this link. In the post, he calls on US citizens to contact their state legislatures and demand action against predatory microtransaction practices in the gaming industry.

The speed at which regulatory bodies are reacting to the loot box controversy is astounding. These developments come in the wake of EA's botched microtransaction scheme in Star Wars: Battlefront II that led to a Reddit post by an EA representative becoming the most downvoted comment in the website's history, prompting Disney to intervene and garnering mainstream media coverage on popular news outlets like CNN. This spells trouble not just for EA, but for all major publishers, including Activision-Blizzard, Ubisoft, 2K Games, and any other company engaging in 'loot box' practices and predatory microtransaction schemes.

Oh, how the tides turn.

:arrow: Source 1
:arrow: Source 2
:arrow: Source 3
:arrow: Source 4
 
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keven3477

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I don't know how to feel about this, I'm glad they are doing something for regulating loot boxes and exposing ea predatory behavior; however, games like overwatch or other games which use lootboxes enjoyably could get in trouble and banned in certain countries were it didn't needed it to.
 

TobiasAmaranth

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https://www.twitch .tv/videos/182251739 (Cannot get the link to function correctly due to some sort of something here on GBATemp.)

I saw this video a month ago and it really resonated with me in how exploitative the lootbox system is becoming. I fully agree that it's reached a point of needing regulations as it has more than evolved past shallow addiction fueling behavior into something that affects someone's real world more than just in the amount of time they spend enthralled by a single game.
 
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Joom

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As much as I despise this mechanic in gaming, this is just GTA all over again. Now instead of killing hookers, video games are "teaching" kids to gamble. Rather than there being intervention and education from the parents they just flock to these lobbyists, because it's much more convenient to go out on a witch hunt against the boogeyman instead of admitting they failed at parenting. It's absolutely disgusting that people take no responsibility for this crap. How did little Jimmy acquire the means to pay for these loot boxes? Did Mommy maybe give him her credit card? That's the game's fault, though, right?
 
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linuxares

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and the rest of the world these are a cancer that needs to be stopped.
I totally agree! But if a big market as the EU stops this, it would probably spread around. It needs to start somewhere and Belgium might just be the tipping point that we all asked for :)
 

Hells Malice

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I ain't gonna jump down this rabbit hole, but i'll dip my toe in.

As much as lootboxes can be absolute shit, this really just is another case of a bunch of people with no fucking clue what they're talking about jumping balls deep into an issue. The keywords used make that more than obvious. Especially when the word "parents" gets involved.
Lets be honest. Loot boxes don't do fuck all to "muh children". They're targeted at working adults, either with a gambling addiction, poor attention spans, or the biggest target being whales, who are just people who make a lot of money and can drop it on games for various reasons. Adults who should be able to make decisions. Yes, it prays on people with gambling addictions...and so does a lot of things. They should get help.

It's kinda funny that this blew up because of Battlefront 2, which has a pretty horrible lootbox not anywhere near worth the money. The biggest controversy for that garbage fire was paying for heroes, but that was just content gating behind a paywall. None of it was pay2win. Every person I see playing the game agrees the lootboxes are shit and you're better off just playing the game to get things. The heroes were the only issue, and they didn't give any advantage, you start with heroes to use. They're just exploiting fans. Not good, but yeah. Nothing to do with lootboxes, gambling, or p2w.

This could hurt a lot of legitimate games, like Overwatch, Fortnite and Hearthstone off the top of my head. None of which are made bad by their microtransactions or lootboxes.
Most likely it wont go anywhere, but who knows. Parents are goddamn crazy.
 

ihaveahax

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good. we need regulation on this shitty loot box epidemic. I hope it hits every game with exploitative random-chance boxes. sorry, overwatch's reward and loot box systems suck.
 
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TobiasAmaranth

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I see it more of an overarching issue of the addictive qualities of time-sink gaming. Playing a game should be because the game is fun, not because you're being led into collecting more of something. It was bad enough (and I fell victim to it, too) in games like Diablo 2, but from all of what I've seen in the Lootbox genre, ESPECIALLY with Blizzard's games, they are not a good or healthy thing no matter how they are executed. We need fewer games whose goal it is to suck up every ounce of your time. Stepping on Lootboxes is a good start to that, in my opinion.
 
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It's not the regulations I'm against, at least not as they're being currently discussed, but the intentions and reasoning behind them that makes me uncomfortable. One of the arguments in a video put out by an official body of government really shouldn't be 'Hi I'm religion and we think this is devilry.', you know? It just... doesn't sit right. It makes me concerned that they aren't truly understanding the issue, or going about introducing these regulations for all the right reasons, and that it could easily turn into something harmful down the line just by way of that ignorance and misdirection. Then again, perhaps I'm just being overly paranoid.
That reminds me about the thing that happend in arabian countries with pokemon... "this is EVIL!!" I mean, when religious ppl try to force their opinion on others, without really thinking if thats a good idea, thats just wrong... "its bad because god said so" then an example of a thing that has nothing to do with that just to justify banning it, all because thats new and nobody wanna mess with it...
 
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Y'know, I thought loot boxes were ok when they were just cosmetic, but now after thinking about it, I just don't like the idea of them no matter how they're executed. It's still gambling, and it can still lead to a gambling addiction.
 

ov3rkill

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I'm sure they're now brainstorming on ways on how to circumvent this rules or perhaps make more money besides lootboxes and DLCs. Their creative and marketing departments are probably having a meeting right now. :rofl2:
 
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Snoogins757

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About time Its time to bring gaming back to its roots with competitive gaming everyone should be at a level playing field nobody should have the upper hand unless you've earned it ie halo being the first to get to the rocket launcher. Micro transactions should be outright banned and dlcs should go through some form of quality control I get paying for say a whole new campaign but the last few years the whole dlc market has got way too greedy!!!
 

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guess overwatch is losing more players :gun:

That's what happens when you play with fire.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I'm sure they're now brainstorming on ways on how to circumvent this rules or perhaps make more money besides lootboxes and DLCs. Their creative and marketing departments are probably having a meeting right now. :rofl2:

Fine but more people will stay away from those games if company's resist any form of law.
 

ThoD

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Why is it that when there's a good thing, there's another along with it? First FCC (yes, I think that's a good thing, too complicated to explain here), now they are making loot boxes illegal! It was about time, people let companies like EA do whatever they wanted! While this is good and all, it's at least 2 years late... In my opinion, loot boxes shouldn't exist unless they are earned EXCLUSIVELY as rewards for playing (eg: a box every day you check in or if you play at least once a day for one week or something), while micro-transactions should have a limit, same for DLC. For micro-transactions for example, say, you have a spending limit of 30$ or around half the full price of the game IF there should even be any. As for DLCs, they should cost proportionately to how long it takes to beat them compared to the actual game (eg: if normal game is 20 hours and costs 40$, a DLC that takes about 4 hours should be at 8$, not 50$)! Welp, that's my opinion in all this, make gaming great again!
 
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