I link these two videos because over the past week or so I've seen a lot of discussion going around regarding Battlefront II. It's a $60 video game with pay to win features like having to pay additional money to unlock characters like Vader, typically through random mechanisms like loot boxes that randomly generate loot, sometimes common to extremely rare. As someone that played the 2015 version of Battlefront myself, I paid probably about $110 to play the fully unlocked game if you include the $50 Season Pass. Decided I'm never going to pay that much for a video game ever again and passed on BF2 this time around before the reviews for the game even came out. I'm not surprised by the negative reaction BF2 is generating and am glad it's bringing to light gambling mechanisms that ultimately hurts consumers. As it stands right now, there is very little to no regulation regarding gambling mechanisms like loot boxes in video games depending what country you reside in. My understanding is there is no regulation regarding gambling mechanisms in the United States and given Trump's rhetoric of wanting to slash two regulations for every single one implemented, I'm doubtful regulations will be enacted meant to protect consumers. I'm of the opinion that video games are meant to be fun, social and optionally competitive if you like that. When it comes to the competitive aspect of video games, that should mean that the rules are also the same for everyone. Having in game mechanisms where throwing extra money at the publishers (not even the game devs) will give a player an edge on the battlefield over others is irritating to me. In my experience it makes for an even harder to balance game and ultimately leads to the death of that game's online community. That's ignoring the ethical side of implementing unregulated gambling mechanisms in video games towards those with addictive personalities. Reading stories of people spending over $15,000 on microtransactions for a game like Mass Effect 3 is sad. Thoughts?
Behavior science is making things more addictive because there's more data being sent back to pour through. Facebook and mobile games have been bad culprits. http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1762-5-reasons-i-lost-249000-iphone-game.html 5 Reasons I Lost $9,000 On An iPhone Game
I dunno, people with addictive personalities are going to latch on to a lot of pleasurable things...I guess games are one of those things as well. There are so many games where you need to pay to play extra content...hell almost every smartphone app game is like that now. What do you suggest they do? If people are worried about “gambling mechanisms” in a video game effecting their life, I suspect they have a lot of issues they need to get a hold of. Or they could simply not play. Wouldn’t that immediately solve the problem?
We've already seen how ignorant legislators are in regards to net neutrality, do you really want political money and regulation entering video games? Not to mention the lobbyists are going to be EA, Ubisoft, Activision. Battlefield, Battlefront, etc. are casual games. Competitive would be along the lines of games like League of Legends, CSGO, Dota, Overwatch, all of which may have microtransactions or lootboxes but limit them to cosmetics only. This is along the lines of the war on drugs, fast food/soda tax/bans, and alcohol/smoking bans. For every moron that spends $15,000 on microtransactions there are hundreds of thousands that either spend $0 or a reasonable amount relative to their personal discretionary spending budget. Age limits for lootboxes and microtransactions, sure. But I think everyone is forgetting about Jack Thompson and how he singlehandedly attempted to ban games like GTA on his idiotic puritan ideals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist) People need to tread carefully and know exactly what they are asking for when they want the government to intervene in something they are not going to be educated at all in.
Besides the addictive potential, it's mostly just a money grab. It used to be that when you paid $60 for a game, you got the whole game. No need to purchase a $50 Season Pass to get the rest of the content developers are being told to hold hostage. And if you get the $50 Season pass, that doesn't mean you get all the cosmetics that come with the game or necessarily even all the heroes either. I think it was estimated in order to unlock all the heroes and villains in Battlefront 2, you either had to effectively pay an additional $2,000 for the characters or grind over 3,000 hours. Further, just like in mobile games for those that do insane grinds of 3,000 hours in a few months time, they cap it. You can only earn so much in game currency before they cut you off. That is unless you want to fork over the money to get full access to a video game. Would you describe these actions as ethical or beneficial to the consumer? Because, let's face it. You parents with kids that are no doubt wanting all the Star Wars 2 memorabilia they can get their little hands including Battlefront 2, may not be aware of the malignant practices of publishing studios like EA. Your kids are being enabled by gambling mechanisms. You may not be aware of it. You may think they're just playing Heroes vs Villains, until your son asks for your Credit Card so he can unlock Vader. And then a few moments later asks for your credit card again, so he can unlock Maul. Then again for Palpatine. That $60 game turns into hundreds if not thousands.
It's interesting to me, as someone who has followed the release of this game pretty closely, to see how widespread this debate has become in a relatively short amount of time. Having said that, I really don't know what the solution here is. I would suggest that states should probably look at these micro transactions in video games in the same light as they look at daily fantasy sports as gambling, but as someone who disagrees with gambling being illegal, I almost hope that they don't look at it from that perspective. Ultimately, I do think that the god awful publicity that EA is getting for this might cause AAA developers to think twice before continuing to go down this route; unfortunately, it might just result in them looking for another method through which to squeeze more money out of their customer base.
So just don’t play them? Or maybe making the game companies put a “this is how much you have to pay if you want all the features unlocked” disclosed on the box? That may be a good remedy.
I don't see the harm in making publishers put in big bold letters on their game boxes that purchasing their game does NOT guarantee the full game experience. I don't see the harm in making publishers have to display the total cost of the game if you want the full game experience beyond the initial $60 transaction. I don't see the harm in showing the ratios of common items to legendary or mythical and making that easily accessible to consumers if loot boxes are enabled in game. That way if you are willing to spend money for a legendary item, at least you know if the odds of getting it are 1:100, 1:250, or 1:1000. At this point, gaming companies are not obligated share those details with you or let you know if they alter them. There are no regulations in place for things like this. And because it's in a video game it circumvents existing laws regarding gambling. Are we not supposed to patch up loopholes that clearly hurt consumers?
That's fine by me. Although most games are sold digitally now, so having that written on the order page would be the equivalent. Sure, although arguably this is already in place because they do tell you want the digital deluxe, collectors, season pass, etc. cost separately. Also in my experience most of the time there is a comparison chart detailing what different versions of the game give you access to. Yup, I agree. China does this and it's something I hope game devs here emulate. My problem is that you get all these reasonable suggestions, but once you install that government regulatory body, what's to stop them from being overzealous with regulation like Germany, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that heavily censor or outright ban games? If at the end of the day the worst thing to come from game companies is that a bunch of people that are already susceptible to getting addicted to other things like alcohol, tobacco, real world gambling, etc. get hooked on lootboxes and microtransactions... then I'm not sure I'd be willing to risk that reality from happening. I mean for the whole "kids" angle, your kid shouldn't have access to your credit card in the first place....
I understand the fear of abuse of power by regulatory bodies, but that shouldn't mean you turn a blind eye with the negatives of an existing system as it is right now. This is aching again to letting companies do whatever they please to squeeze every last dollar out of a consumer that may not be any wiser. As it stands we have an entity that regulates whether a game's content is suitable for everyone, or for certain age groups in the ESRB. We've seen evidence of politicians enforcing unnecessary regulations in the gaming industry regarding Mature content and it's distribution. This was shot down by the Supreme Court, showing that the law of the land can sometimes prevent unnecessary regulation practices.
I wouldn't mind straight up ban for under 13 games using microtransactions. It's an industry formed ratings agency, so they're still self governing. Might not pass the supreme court since games don't follow censorship rules like it does with the airwaves. And it still wouldn't ban ads targeting pre-teens. It's seems like a good carrot for parents to get little Jimmy to do his chores, but teaching that form of responsibility is like using crack as a reward for putting up your toys.
