Well there's 2 very important laws that almost every country/locale has in one form or the other, beyond tax implications, and thats age restrictions on gambling or outright bans on gambling. And when governments start classifying loot boxes as gambling, then the developers suddenly find themselves in violation of laws.BrasatoAlBarolo wrote: ↑Thu, 2. Jul 20, 08:50That's a very interesting discussion and I agree loot box mechanism is, in a way, gambling.felter wrote: ↑Thu, 2. Jul 20, 04:10So that's the quote of the day, can you guess what they are talking about. If you didn't manage that they are talking about loot boxes in video games, and it's not just some random Joe either that made the statement, it's a quote from the UK's house of lords, so it is a statement with clout and probably means the end of loot boxes here in the UK. I suspect this will have a knock on effect with other countries following suit. But it's not just loot boxes, as they also mention the likes of Fifa player packs, so it is also not looking good for the likes of those either. Something I would also like to see the back of is game currency, you know where you have to buy the game currency to buy cosmetic items but where the item may cost 1 buck but the cheapest game currency cost 5 bucks, meaning to buy something at 1 buck costs you 5 bucks. There is no mention of that but I suspect it is only a mater of time. The likes of EA, Ubisoft, Activision|Blizzard and take two to name a few, knew this was coming and it couldn't happen soon enough."If a product looks like gambling and feels like gambling, it should be regulated as gambling,"
Personally, I kinda like loot boxes (random loot, to be precise, like the wheel of fortune mechanism in Forza Horizon), even if I never buy them: I only "buy" them with in game money, the one you get playing and not buying it. If I want a cosmetic of some kind (e.g. Elite ship skins), I buy the one I want (I don't think there was the option to buy a "random skin", though).
On the other hand, in some (all, maybe?) countries (like Italy), you have to declare what you win in gambling (over a certain amount, of course) and pay taxes on it. For this reason I think it's a fiscal matter.
And the bottom line is that trading real currency for virtual currency and using that to attempt to win a random prize of some sort is no different than walking into a casino, trading cash for casino chips and sitting down at a game table to play.
If they wanted to keep loot boxes in the game and remove any real money trade, replacing that with in game methods of earning that currency, awesome. If they remove the random mechanics and allow direct purchase of items, awesome (so long as it doesn't get into pay-to-win, imo). I would endorse either scenario with preference being on the former.