Lootboxes and Gambling in Vidya

[Kugelfisch]

So, it appears that there's a good chance that lootboxes are going to get banned in the EU in the future.

Diablo: Imoral is already banned in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Now a consumer concerns group from Norway is leading an investigation in cooperation with consumer groups of 20 other nations, 18 of them European, to regulate that shit.

In there is a boomer-friendly document, that is a report outlining the shitbag methods for anyone to understand.
Gatchashit could very well soon eat a dick in the entire EU and possibly NA as well.

[Le Redditeur]

I wonder what scummy practices will these companies resort to if these regulators take out their lootgacha toys. Something silly involving NFTs, I'm willing to bet.

[rabidtictac]

About fucking time. The gayming industry has been predatory as fuck for years now. They get worse and worse every year while still screaming about how "games are too cheap" and "muh inflation means we need to bilk you paypigs harder!"

Nigga please. They'll point to some shit like "the price of games hasn't risen." Oh hasn't it? Motherfucker, you tear apart every game you sell so that you can package day-one DLC for a (((complete))) edition that's $100 or more. How's that not a price increase? And then the games have loot boxes and pay-for-power DLC that specifically exploits retards, children and whales. So you can add all the profits from those to the price of the game. "BuT It'S OpTioNAl!" Yeah, which is why the devs deliberately ruin the balance of the game (shadow of mordor) so they can force consoomer cattle to buy the retarded power-up DLCs.

The real question, too, is if any of it is even viable long-term. It's profitable in the short term, but how many gaymen companies have a shit-tier reputation because of their predatory practices? When ubishit was limiting itself JUST to dlc, the worst I heard about their games was they were repetitive and samey. Although, even back then, those frogs were asset flipping their own games and calling them sequels. So maybe that's a bad example. Point is, a lot of big companies nowadays only produce garbage, and the knowledge that the games have gatchashit and broken game design (because of gatchashit) makes their products less appealing than ever.

I doubt NA will ban gatcha exploitation because our government is corrupt as fuck when it comes to big money and big corporations.

[Complicity]

I wonder what scummy practices will these companies resort to if these regulators take out their lootgacha toys. Something silly involving NFTs, I'm willing to bet.

They will just pay whoever they can to push the (((SuRpRiSe MeChAnIcS ArE nOt GaMbLiNg))) narrative.
Very similar to the (((oUr LoCaLiZaTiOnS aRe NoT cEnSoRsHiP))) narrative.

[Kugelfisch]

Doesn't seem to matter much. That their shit is basically obfuscated gambling is obvious to everyone.
As soon as you bring up gambling, the foxes perk up. The state hates nothing more than gambling they aren't getting a cut from, so don't bet they will be fooled by the shenanigans shills use to explain away it supposedly not being gambling.

That's why NA is likely to follow suit if this goes through. The state not getting an absolutely fat cut from gambling? The USA hate just about nothing as much as that.

If there's an unregulated grift, the state wants a cut. If they figure that it's too complicated, they will stop it.
I hope Gatchashit gets ultra fucked.

Current mood:

FIRE UP THE CHAINSAW!!!

[mad bum]

Loot boxes are so 2016, the industry has moved on to "battle passes" now.

[Kugelfisch]

Those are also accounted for. Even Diablo: Incel has been mentioned specifically, despite its opaque system of about a dozen currencies.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

They really should've just quietly cancelled that game, really. It's not like there was any dearth of new Diablo with with the 4th one already on the horizon.

And remember when games had proper gambling? Like the casino from God Hand?

Or just about any Falcom title?

[Newhalf]

Canceling Diablo Impaired outright would not have made sense, but releasing it outside of China was impractical and unnecessary.
Greed was massively strong.

[Kugelfisch]

Blizzard of old is stone cold dead. Why would they have cancelled that massive paypig milking machine? To save their reputation? Let me remind you of their actions.

- Made Hearthstone, a P2W card game with random chances and a perpetually broken meta game.

- Made WoW P2W after several expansions of stupefying the game.

- Lootboxed the shit out of Overcucked.

- Sucked China's dick because Tencent owns 5% of Activision Blizzard.

- Fucked up Warcraft spectacularly.

- Fired hundreds of employees, had one of the shittest working environments and paid Satan Cuntek a 200$ million bonus the same year.

- Ignored comical levels of sexual harassment, while pretending to be ultra woke.

- Lost all talented employees and founders over the last three years.

Let's not even get into the Activision specific part of the company, that mostly bought studios to destroy.
Blizzard had absolutely no good reputation left. So why care about another PR disaster that brings in millions?