NCGP aka: FCC. NCGP : "Gambling in game is BAD!" EA: "Here is $10k, don't tell anybody" NCGP : "Gambling is OK" Nothing mentioned regarding transparency.... this need to be killed before it grown and fed by EA and other major game publishers.

We will work on the behalf of games industry professionals of all political leanings.

Useless...

sverek:

NCGP aka: FCC. NCGP : "Gambling in game is BAD!" EA: "Here is $10k, don't tell anybody" NCGP : "Gambling is OK" Nothing mentioned regarding transparency.... this need to be killed before it grown and fed by EA and other major game publishers.

Sadly for EA i don't think that it will end this way this time... What they have wake up doesn't care about company like Apple or Google and sue them for years on all (battle ((lol)) )front... so the little EA company...

I hope EA and others that use loot boxes are raped, hard! I stopped buying AAA games at full price with Battlefield 2 and although I have Battlefield 3, I didn't pay even 1/5 of the original cost. Frack DLC, loot boxes and whatever. I want to buy the full game at launch.

"self-regulation within game companies" Hahahahahahahahahaha Oh wait, there were being serious. lol

XP-200:

"self-regulation within game companies" Hahahahahahahahahaha Oh wait, there were being serious. lol

This will end up more like collaboration on how to do loot boxes.

Self-regulation...Yeah right! More like a new lobby is forming to keep this type of thing from being regulated.

As much as I hate pay-to-win, lootboxes, and DLC for games that should have come with it, I don't think there needs to be a coalition or any legal action taken. If you're dumb enough to buy into these games and feel ripped off by them, that's your problem that you willingly put yourself into; it is not the publisher's problem. There are plenty of great games out there that don't pull this crap. Unlike casino gambling, the money spent in these games isn't anywhere near as addictive. You pay for the content once and you get a novelty. You know exactly what you're getting, and it isn't very rewarding because of this. Because the "reward" leaves no surprises, and, because novelties wear off, the addiction is relatively minimal. Also unlike casino gambling, there is a finite amount of money you can spend in [most of] these games. It's still a ridiculously high amount of money, but you probably aren't going to go bankrupt over it. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but the only people who really get addicted to spending money in these games are those who are going to end up as drug addicts, alcoholics, or bankrupt, because they have no self-discipline and are too easily influenced by their desires, peer pressure, and pop-culture. When it comes to casino gamblers, that taps into a much deeper and subconcious part of the brain that can affect most people, and for that reason I am very much in favor of legally restricting such forms of gambling.

schmidtbag:

As much as I hate pay-to-win, lootboxes, and DLC for games that should have come with it, I don't think there needs to be a coalition or any legal action taken. If you're dumb enough to buy into these games and feel ripped off by them, that's your problem that you willingly put yourself into; it is not the publisher's problem. There are plenty of great games out there that don't pull this crap. Unlike casino gambling, the money spent in these games isn't anywhere near as addictive. You pay for the content once and you get a novelty. You know exactly what you're getting, and it isn't very rewarding because of this. Because the "reward" leaves no surprises, and, because novelties wear off, the addiction is relatively minimal. Also unlike casino gambling, there is a finite amount of money you can spend in [most of] these games. It's still a ridiculously high amount of money, but you probably aren't going to go bankrupt over it. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but the only people who really get addicted to spending money in these games are those who are going to end up as drug addicts, alcoholics, or bankrupt, because they have no self-discipline and are too easily influenced by their desires, peer pressure, and pop-culture. When it comes to casino gamblers, that taps into a much deeper and subconcious part of the brain that can affect most people, and for that reason I am very much in favor of legally restricting such forms of gambling.

Whole heartedly agree with you on this. People need to take responsibility for their actions. If you don’t like something like this don’t buy it. End of story. The people that bitch about it but keep buying it are like people that blame forks for people being fat or guns for murder instead of the people that made the decision. You shouldn’t need a governing body swooping in to save you from yourself. If people stop buying loot crates and games that have them they will go away.

Loophole35:

Whole heartedly agree with you on this. People need to take responsibility for their actions. If you don’t like something like this don’t buy it. End of story. The people that bitch about it but keep buying it are like people that blame forks for people being fat or guns for murder instead of the people that made the decision. You shouldn’t need a governing body swooping in to save you from yourself. If people stop buying loot crates and games that have them they will go away.

Normally I would agree but a large portion of these people are kids. Kids don't have any sense of the value of money and lack self-control. I've personally watched my 14 year old cousin spend $80 in steam gift cards in 10 minutes on CS skins despite me attempting to talk him out of it, all because "I want an awp dragon lore". He's a moron, but he's also 14, everyone is a moron at 14 and I think companies should have some level of responsibility preventing this - parents as well obviously. Casinos recently started training employees to watch out for compulsive gamblers in a push by the casio association itself. I don't know if there should be laws in place, but I would like to see the industry take some action to try to curb it. Whether it be cool downs on purchases, warnings, whatever - I don't know, but I think if the Casino industry recognizes it as a problem with adults then we should definitely recognize it with children in gaming.

But CS is rated PEGI 16 or ESRB 17+ so technically he shouldn't be playing it anyway 😉 or PEGI 18 if you're talking about CS:GO

I get the idea of loot boxes, i don´t buy them, i´m not a friend of rng. If i want something, i´ll buy it directly, if it´s not available from direct buy, you can keep it.

sverek:

NCGP aka: FCC. NCGP : "Gambling in game is BAD!" EA: "Here is $10k, don't tell anybody" NCGP : "Gambling is OK" Nothing mentioned regarding transparency.... this need to be killed before it grown and fed by EA and other major game publishers.

JamesSneed:

This will end up more like collaboration on how to do loot boxes.

ubercake:

Self-regulation...Yeah right! More like a new lobby is forming to keep this type of thing from being regulated.

Ding ding ding. Either it's going to be bribed by companies like the FCC is bribed/corrupted, or it's straight up created from the ground up to prevent regulation to begin with which seems far more likely.

Neo Cyrus:

Either it's going to be bribed by companies like the FCC is bribed/corrupted, or it's straight up created from the ground up to prevent regulation to begin with which seems far more likely.

Do you have solid examples of the FCC being bribed or corrupted? I would argue they're one of the very few US federal organizations who actually seem to care more about honesty and consumers rather than companies. Sure, they're often annoyingly nitpicky, their censorship is a killjoy, and many of their regulations (particularly involving wireless communication) adds woefully unnecessary complications, but aside from that last thing, that's just them doing their job.

Loophole35:

If people stop buying loot crates and games that have them they will go away.

The vast majority of gamers do not buy loot crates. The IAP industry thrives on whales, the select few 1%ers who have the cash to blow on these games. As long as the whales keep spending thousands of dollars for these games, IAPs will continue to exist. The situation is similar to those who overspend on hardware (e.g., 7980XE, Titan Xp). Only the 1%ers have the cash to buy these, but as long as they do, companies like Intel and Nvidia will continue to put their highest-performing products under a massive paywall.

D3M1G0D:

The vast majority of gamers do not buy loot crates. The IAP industry thrives on whales, the select few 1%ers who have the cash to blow on these games. As long as the whales keep spending thousands of dollars for these games, IAPs will continue to exist. The situation is similar to those who overspend on hardware (e.g., 7980XE, Titan Xp). Only the 1%ers have the cash to buy these, but as long as they do, companies like Intel and Nvidia will continue to put their highest-performing products under a massive paywall.

Surely, it'd be more profitable to make a game actually desirable to play than to rely on these "whales", wouldn't it? Take GTA5 for example - that game is pretty old and yet it still ends up in top 10 charts at least once per month, 4 years after its initial release. They must've breached $1 billion by now.

schmidtbag:

Surely, it'd be more profitable to make a game actually desirable to play than to rely on these "whales", wouldn't it? Take GTA5 for example - that game is pretty old and yet it still ends up in top 10 charts at least once per month, 4 years after its initial release. They must've breached $1 billion by now.

Don’t give GTA5 too much credit they have a very shady not-so-micro transaction model in their online.

How about a "coalition" to fight blatant tax evasion by EA, Ubisoft, Activision, WB, ... "Games are too expensive to make so we have to put 'micro' transactions and loot boxes in the games." Then they evade taxes like no tomorrow, spit out the same "too expensive to make" game every year that makes them billions and billions of dollars every single time. The poor bastards live in famine. Or rather, how about a coalition against the travesty that is modern "AAA" game publishing.

schmidtbag:

Surely, it'd be more profitable to make a game actually desirable to play than to rely on these "whales", wouldn't it? Take GTA5 for example - that game is pretty old and yet it still ends up in top 10 charts at least once per month, 4 years after its initial release. They must've breached $1 billion by now.

I think PC games still rely largely on the pay-to-play model, but game developers are increasingly trying to incorporate IAPs into them as well. The complete domination of the mobile gaming market by IAPs lends me to think that this model is very profitable and whales are known to sink a lot of money into them - I used to play a mobile game (now shut down) in which a couple of players admitted to paying up to four figures on it. It's because of the whales that IAPs succeeded in the mobile market, and they will also determine the success of IAPs in the PC/console gaming market. Companies like EA have gotten a lot of flak for loot crates, but the trend didn't start with them, nor do I think they are to blame (like any other company, they are trying to make as much money as possible for their shareholders, which is their stated duty). I place the blame squarely on the whales - they are the ones who allowed IAPs to succeed in the mobile market, and they are who PC game developers are trying to appeal to now. Simply put, if rich idiots didn't spend boatloads of money on loot crates then we wouldn't have this problem.

Loophole35:

Don’t give GTA5 too much credit they have a very shady not-so-micro transaction model in their online.

True, though unlike games like SWBF2, players don't feel a need to buy the DLC for GTA5; the game is good enough as-is, and at least Rockstar has offered free DLC. Not all paid DLC is bad - it's really only a problem when it is basically a form of "controlled cheating" or when it gives you content that should have been available from the beginning. I'm not dismissing your point that Rockstar involves shady transactions, my point is they're not so scummy about it, at least not to the point where they can get away with it for long.

D3M1G0D:

Companies like EA have gotten a lot of flak for loot crates, but the trend didn't start with them, nor do I think they are to blame (like any other company, they are trying to make as much money as possible for their shareholders, which is their stated duty). I place the blame squarely on the whales - they are the ones who allowed IAPs to succeed in the mobile market, and they are who PC game developers are trying to appeal to now. Simply put, if rich idiots didn't spend boatloads of money on loot crates then we wouldn't have this problem.

Yeah, I think I see your point better now.