Interesting, and with some wide implications. (if not narrowly defined). I am never a fan of slippery slope arguments, but this feels like this might fall under that description. Granted the BFII stuff was handled very badly, but does it require legislation?
Does Magic The Gathering still have random booster packs?
You could actually sell rare cards for real money.
Battlefront boxes were almost directly tied to progression with almost completely random contents (ie. could just get useless poses). I’ve never played TGM or etc. but seen some card openings and with the boxes you at least know what you get plus have guaranteed rares?
Exactly. In physical products this is super common, heavily with kids toys.
Valve loves money too much to allow restrict random box. 
Probably tons of F2P(And not) developers will be yelling at Belgium if they really ban boxes.
Not sure if guaranteed rares in a box, but yes I think its true.
If you buy 2+ display boxes filled with booster packs you will very likely get all the rares, if not you would have plenty of cards to trade away to get them. I had a friend who would buy several display boxes. He would put together a set of all commons and give them to me 
Everything I just said was true 10+ years ago, no idea how it works now.
Magic still works that way. For every booster pack you get a specific number of commons and uncommons, and 1 rare or very rare. The value of the rare card varies greatly though, as it depends on the game’s meta (as in how important that card is to building a powerful deck), from borderline worthless to over $100 USD.
I’m not against loot boxes, but their implementation is the problem.
In games like Battlefront 2 you can not choose a server you want to play on. (Hell you can not even choose which map to play…) So you could potentially end up with ppl that invested a lot of money and will have a distinct advantage. Without even the slightest chance to prevent that by, for example, choosing another server or hosting your own.
In a physical trading card game like Magic, i can choose if i want to play against a player that has invested thousands of dollars into his deck. So the ‘bought advantage’ is not really a problem in such a game.
I’m pretty convinced that the recent lack of dedicated servers in MP games (e.g. COD WW2, Battlefront 2) is not only driven by saving money on servers, but at the same time by maximizing profit with loot boxes. The ‘matchmaking system’ will ensure that the players find a reason to pay for additional loot boxes…
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I personally don’t think banning is the right solution, but at least some of them should be reclassified as gambling, which means 18+ rating. Not only their implementation is addictive, but they are designed be addictive and milk money out of you. Children shouldn’t be allowed near it.
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I have yet to see a single argument for loot-boxes that benefits a consumer. Banning may be a severe reaction, but if that’s what it takes to remove this exploitation from the industry, I’m fully behind it. (And I will defend to the death that it is indeed exploitation). Classifying as gambling is a small step forwards, at least it will partially help protect children (but honestly, how many children play games they shouldn’t already? I’m yet to see how this classification would remedy the situation). But the problem is also the exploiting of those with vulnerabilities and addiction problems, it definitely needs laws surrounding it in some form.
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hmm Valve has lootcrates in tf2 and weapon crates in csgo…
I think its about time Valve got back to making actual fucking games and making the steam platform less shit(it really should be better)…for all the money they make skimming off publishers and developers selling on the platform. I don’t see why they need to be in the whole scamming children (and well adults aswel) into buying keys to unlock stupid boxes … it really is promoting a form of addiction that has nothing positive about it, and I’ve never liked it in either of those games, sure maybe once in a while someone gets lucky on a something that isn’t garbage or has a resale value that isn’t below what they wasted on the keys…who knows what the ‘rates’ are… its scamming players really.
It shouldn’t be in games that can have a young and susceptible audience that can easily be enticed by it. I’ve never once bought a key for that shit… frankly its poor taste the way they’ve exploited millions of gamers into accepting it in games they otherwise enjoy playing. They could still keep marketing sellable skins but the gambling on boxes needs to take hike out of games than younger audiences can play. I’m sure Valve would statisticized that giving gamers lootboxes has kept millions still playing these same old games though.
not that I give a crap, I’ll play an older game because its good or the competitiveness is there so I’m fine with belgiums stance on this one, and hope Valve shit a brick on the possible implications of having to do some work on making actual games again…or the work on removing loot boxes probably delayed as much as possible because of …valve time… lazy fucks
I am against government regulations for things which can be resolved by individual decisions of each person: not to buy, not to play, not to buy micros etc. No need for governments to intervene… Perhaps only place 18+ label on the game, but that is maximum regulation i would support in this case.
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Slippery slope arguments are often correct, it’s the timing that is usually off because there are a lot of things that can postpone the inevitable or temporarily reverse the process.
What bugs me though on a more practical level about this particular case, is how we just keep absolving parents of responsibility. I mean in this case it’s actually the parents who foot the bill. And while making loot boxes illegal might protect a few wallets, it teaches kids nothing really. It’s kind of the opposite of tough love. Where we say if you can’t be bothered to be a parent, we will bail you out. Which just makes it easier for parents to not have to be parents.
Loot boxes being predatory in nature only has the slightest thing to do with children. These games target and exploit adults too.
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Actually, it was Disney who put the stop on the loot boxes to protect their IP. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Honestly, I think forcing people to pay to progress their character is lame. And even worse, the game has been marketed to children…Star Wars, of course. Not that adults are not exploited, but you target kids and everyone is up in arms, as they should be.
I am the first one to say that many parents do not take responsibility for their kid’s game habits or their phone bills.
However, in this case, we have a game where you pay $60 and then have to pay to progress the character if you actually want to be able to compete.
You also have a game where parents may store credit card information such as on Steam or Xbox (or whatever console this game is on…PS4?). It is quite easy for a kid to buy stuff. Yes, the parents should be responsible, but some of these things require a credit card to even work!
This is my thought too. It needs to come with conditions.
Certainly, but children are much more likely to play games and for longer, so this is a bigger risk category.
Adults can buy booze as well, but we can’t stop those at risk having a drink. We can only advise.
No, we cannot. However, alcohol sales are extremely regulated, at least in this country. So is gambling. If Lootboxes are reclassified as gambling then the government will regulate them. Not saying that is good or bad, just that it would change things for the game companies as well as the players.
Big problem with gambling, if lootboxes end up fitting into that classification, in game is that one cannot enforce the age restrictions that apply to kids and gambling. One cannot truly drink booze online, but they can gamble.
I am not going to make this a moral thing, but having known and loved people who struggle with addiction, I certainly do not like seeing such things marketed to our kids. Addiction destroys lives. Ultimately the responsibility likes with the person or the parent, but please…do not tell me that some of these companies do not know exactly what they are doing.
In the US adults can’t drink, until they turn 21
I think this highlights the grey area for me… at least in my culture kids can gamble gamble to an extent from playing bingo, entering competitions from the backs of cereal boxes, entering raffles in school / church fetes, and I think that’s ok - it helps children understand gambling and chance before becoming adults.
I agree with Murgilod that lootboxes are predatory and exploitative, and think it’s timely we are seeing countries look to legislation as the industry seems to be running with this unchecked.
I hope measures are sensible and focus on protecting consumers rather than outright banning this gambling-lite. I know China has some legislation around publishing drop rates that Overwatch was made to comply with earlier this year.
I think that is okay too.
But, they do not have a credit card attached to the bingo card that they can push every few minutes. 
When we were flying to Austin recently and back again, I looked for some games to put on my android tablets for my girls. Unfortunately, in order to do this, I had to have a credit card attached. This made it easy to purchase in-app content. With my ipad, a fingerprint is required to purchase, but with the androids, nothing.
My girls are older teens, but I can imagine my son when he was 10 or so, going nuts. lol I recall some heavy purchases on facebook at one time.
I played bingo and entered raffles, etc., but only when I actually went to the events and always with my parents. Sometimes I had a few bucks in my pocket. It was a social event where we played and laughed.
I am afraid I cannot compare that to play a game alone, getting really immersed, and then having the choice to level up by paying money, at that very moment, when adrenaline and dopamine is rushing through one’s system.
I do not ever remember that rush when playing bingo. lol