Hawaii Government Introduces 4 Bills Regulating The Sale Of Games With Micro-transactions.

hawaii lootboxes.jpg

The Hawaiian government has introduced 2 house bills and 2 senate bills which aim to regulate the sale of video games containing microtransactions under the pretenses of them being manipulative and exploitative, resulting in harm to those with addictive predispositions, such as children. The first 2 bills, House Bill 2686 and Senate Bill 3024, attempt to limit the sale of games with these mechanics to those under 21, stating that
It shall be unlawful for any retailer to sell to any person under twenty-one years of age a video game that contains a system of further purchasing:

(1) A randomized reward or rewards; or

(2) A virtual item which can be redeemed to directly or indirectly receive a randomized reward or rewards.
In the body of the bill, it compares the current micro-transaction structure to gambling, saying that they're "psychology to compel players to keep spending money in the same way that casino games are so designed." It goes on to then call them "predatory", and claim that they pose the same risks to consumers as gambling. It also mentions the somewhat controversial proposition of the American Psychological Association in classifying internet gaming disorder as a psychological condition to illustrate what they see as the dangers of this mechanism.

The last 2 bills, House Bill 2727 and Senate Bill 3025, then go on to propose that all those who utilize these mechanics in their games should be required to disclose the probability of acquiring each item a player could receive, as well as to include a prominently featured warning on/in the game which reads "Warning: contains in-game purchases and gambling-like mechanisms which may be harmful or addictive."

This is an effort spearheaded by Hawaii state Rep. Chris Lee of Oahu after the massive backlash against the mechanic of lootboxes, primarily brought about by the large controversy of EA's Star Wars: Battlefront II's lootboxe and micro-transactions. Chris criticized the current attitude of the games industry, saying "I grew up playing games my whole life. I’ve watched firsthand the evolution of the industry from one that seeks to create new things to one that’s begun to exploit people, especially children, to maximize profit." It's important to note that these bills still need to pass through both the House and Senate before they reach the governor for consideration, meaning the regulations detailed in these bills are, as of yet, not in effect.

:arrow:House Bill 2686
:arrow:House Bill 2727
:arrow:Senate Bill 3024
:arrow:Senate Bill 3025
:arrow: Source
 

RyanAnayaMc

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I really think that the government should keep their hands off the economy as much as they can. A company making money really should not be punished. After all, companies are not working for charity. They work for money. Making money is not a bad thing - the flow of money is good for the economy. Loot boxes? Fine. Don't punish them for using lootboxes. What I think really needs to be done is to educate people on the whole loot box system. Warn them about it, because to me, I think the consumer is in the wrong. If I pay money for virtual currency that gives me a random chance for something, and that's my problem, not the company's fault. If a kid wastes their parent's credit card for microtransactions, then that's the parent's fault. If a kid uses their own money, then I see no problem. If they lose their money, then it is a lesson.
 

Anunnymous

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There's no age restriction on pre-paid debit cards or master/visa gift cards. You don't need a bank account to buy them and micro-transaction oriented games have no problem taking them. So everyone's point of saying "mom and dad need to quit giving them their credit cards" is void. While it does happen, it's not the only way to purchase items through online play.
 

RyanAnayaMc

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There's no age restriction on pre-paid debit cards or master/visa gift cards. You don't need a bank account to buy them and micro-transaction oriented games have no problem taking them. So everyone's point of saying "mom and dad need to quit giving them their credit cards" is void. While it does happen, it's not the only way to purchase items through online play.

Yes, but at that point, it is not the parent's money and instead it is the kid's money. If it's their money, then they can do what they want with it. There is a big problem with gambling other people's money, like a parent's money from a credit card. However, if a young person gets money of their own as a gift or something, why shouldn't they be able to do what they want with it? After a few fails in their lootboxes, they would probably give up since they see their own money going away and they realize that gambling it like that would not be the wisest idea.
 

SG854

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There's a difference between something being addictive and something preying off of being addictive for the sake of enticing more money out of them. I'm all for the government stepping in when they need to (as they have the highest authority in regulating things like this, economically speaking), but I highly, HIGHLY doubt that it would ever come to the point of banning video games or consoles altogether

Teenage boys play an average of 13 hrs per week. This is looking at averages not extremes and this excludes time spent watching porn and sports. By age 21 boys average 14,000 hours of playing video games. It takes only 1/3 of this time to earn a bachelor's degree. Do you see this as a problem?

So my question to you is do you think government should regulate video games because of their possible addiction to people with addictive personalities, especially with kids having highly addictive personalities. And set a 21 age limit. Isn't the intent of regulation to protect people?

Companies weren't profiting by having no seatbelt regulation, but the still created regulation and enforce them to protect people. No one profits except maybe seatbelt makers, but its there to protect people.

Do you think video game regulation is needed to protect kids, or is only stopping video game companies from profiting off of micro transactions your only concern, and the safety of kids and their possible addiction doesn't concern you? Which would mean you don't care about the safety of kids and only doing it to stop game companies from making money. Or do you think that some kids having the possibility of being addicted isn't enough to apply regulation?
 

chartube12

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if the games are rated AO ("Adults Only") due to gambling-like mechanics, then a lot of stores won't sell the game in the first place, so it would probably be a lot harder to find. which would also probably force publishers to drop the whole scheme or (more likely) find a different way to squeeze extra money out of people.

what no! it wouldnt make those games hard to find. People would just buy them digitally.
 

AbyssalMonkey

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Teenage boys play an average of 13 hrs per week. This is looking at averages not extremes and this excludes time spent watching porn and sports. By age 21 boys average 14,000 hours of playing video games. It takes only 1/3 of this time to earn a bachelor's degree. Do you see this as a problem?

No, in fact, I see it as a success, and an inevitability. The average person spends 8 hours a day sleeping. The average person spends probably 12 hours a day on daily upkeep, this includes showering, cleaning, working, all the things necessary to be "adulting properly" and be percieved as a civilized being. This means people have about 40 hours of free time a week assuming they don't work on the weekend. 13 of these hours going to hobbies is perfectly fine.

This argument is started out with distractionary fearmongering comparing two incomparable things is ridiculous. People have free time, so they should be able to spend that free time as they please. There is nothing wrong with video games being that outlet.

This is radically different than gambling where money is involved all the time. Most realistic of this cry about regulation is aimed at making it so minors can't engage in faux gambling in a way that benefits large companies. Many people are pissed that the companies keep taking more and more liberties, screwing over the hobby they enjoyed. Now they are fighting back with fire against fire. Who cares if the end game is to get these practices mostly relegated to adult only, that is enough to kill the practice entirely. We are finally playing the same game they are: finding loopholes to force them to bend to our will because we are tired of their shit. This is effectively lobbying via popular vote, the way democracy was meant to be ran.
 

bi388

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On one hand I like the idea of not letting apps aimed at kids have these gambling purchases. On the other though, I'm only 20 and the idea that I wouldn't be able to buy overwatch if I wanted to is honestly hard to wrap my head around. I work, I have a large source of income, I'm an adult in every way besides not being able to drink (which is also bs). Why shouldn't I be able to make adult decisions? And if these systems are predatory and taking advantage of addictions then shouldn't they be banned period? Adults suffer from addiction as well, why ban it for 19 year olds but say it's ok to try to addict 22 year olds?
 

infinete

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I guess we should ban WoW too. I did spend like 15 hours fishing up a mount which had a 0.2% drop rate. And time is money. Every cast being a gamble of whether I'd get it or not.
 

Stephano

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Oh boy, this is a tough one. There are so many things to consider.
From a consumer standpoint, the less regulation the government imposes the better. The problem here is that the game industry I know for a fact will NOT regulate itself. I don't want the government to regulate the industry but I really want to see the concept of randomized loot to go by the way side. To be honest, the idea of making these games AO is actually kind of appealing to me, and here's why.

I know a lot of you say that games you once played freely would now be restricted to you under this legislation. Well, if this idea was to gain traction across multiple states, do you really think a company would be fine with keeping the AO rating even when their product wouldn't be available in several states? ......Maybe. I could honestly see a few different things happen as a result.
(1) Companies would simply ignore the label because the amount of profit gained from states where the game can be sold to those under 21 is greater than the profit they would get if loot boxes were dropped altogether.
(2) The opposite of (1), as in they would loose a considerable amount of game sales.
(3) This point is more towards EA, and to may have the biggest impact. If this law was to pass, Star Wars Battlefront II would get re-branded as an AO title. I sincerely believe that Disney would not want one of their properties, let alone one of their most profitable ones, to be exclusive towards adults for whatever reason. Whether it be that they want kids and teens to enjoy their services or they want to avoid bad press regarding their property. We've already seen that Disney had to publicly speak out against EA so having the title as AO could make it worse for them.

In the end, I want at little regulation as possible....... I just really hate this parasite of gaming.
 
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FAST6191

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Going to have to read the full wording but the quoted section seems rather strong, though that is mainly from a UK perspective where gambling is treated rather differently.
 

KingVamp

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Even if they don't stop the practice, at least games under Mature or AO would be spared a bit when it comes to moneymaking schemes. Probably just move back to selling items directly.


if regulation by governments is the method required to force "triple-a" publishers to drop their shitty money-making schemes, then so be it. if the industry can get its shit together and self-regulate, that would also be nice. and it's not going to end up in a total ban on games and consoles.
This is radically different than gambling where money is involved all the time. Most realistic of this cry about regulation is aimed at making it so minors can't engage in faux gambling in a way that benefits large companies. Many people are pissed that the companies keep taking more and more liberties, screwing over the hobby they enjoyed. Now they are fighting back with fire against fire. Who cares if the end game is to get these practices mostly relegated to adult only, that is enough to kill the practice entirely. We are finally playing the same game they are: finding loopholes to force them to bend to our will because we are tired of their shit. This is effectively lobbying via popular vote, the way democracy was meant to be ran.
Pretty much how I feel about this whole thing. I don't even thing Lootboxes should be taken down as a whole. If Overwatch and ftp games such as FE Heroes are affected, if this passes, don't blame the people that are tired of the runaway greed and having their games ruined, blame the greedy companies that just don't know when to stop.
 

jt_1258

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how about having something in place like in some mobile games in japan where you can only put x amount of cash in depending on your age. It seems like a reasonable idea

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

I really think that the government should keep their hands off the economy as much as they can. A company making money really should not be punished. After all, companies are not working for charity. They work for money. Making money is not a bad thing - the flow of money is good for the economy. Loot boxes? Fine. Don't punish them for using lootboxes. What I think really needs to be done is to educate people on the whole loot box system. Warn them about it, because to me, I think the consumer is in the wrong. If I pay money for virtual currency that gives me a random chance for something, and that's my problem, not the company's fault. If a kid wastes their parent's credit card for microtransactions, then that's the parent's fault. If a kid uses their own money, then I see no problem. If they lose their money, then it is a lesson.
one big issue is that a lot of the time devs put a large bit of the game behind lootboxes that would normally be unlockables that you would have to use actual skill to get quite a few years ago. there is also the matter of these companys adding microtransactions to make more money off the game and making it a 60 dollar game still, so many games are made like f2p games yet are still full price games, you would think they would drop the price down or off in general with how the game is handled
 

Hozu

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So just like how game retailers legally can't sell games rated for higher ages to anyone under that age, and definitely don't ever do that. Amirite guise?

What a useless waste of time and money. Just some old guys with no clue what they're even discussing throwing out useless solutions that solve nothing, for a problem that really doesn't need solving. Warnings don't fucking do anything, no one reads them, especially not the problem group. Likewise showing the percentages does absolutely nothing. In fact, in most cases it just makes the gambling worse. Joe might've only bought 20 crates and got nothing, but he has a 5% chance of getting a legendary item, that means if he buys 20 more he's probably guaranteed to get it!! Gambler's fallacy, it's a bitch. I'm amazed most devs don't already abuse it by showing chances and making the numbers enticing.

Uh, ESRB age-ratings are not, in fact, legally binding by any sort of means. Just like it's not illegal for kids to go see an R-rated movie. Enforcement is left to the individual establishments, and clearly they chose money over anything else.

Also, the person who introduced the bill is a younger politician who is a gamer himself.
 

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