You reckon this is gambling. Legally speaking, it’s not. If and when it is recognised as gambling, then this might start to become a question worthy of discussion.

See above.

A game like Star Wars is in part aimed at kids. Progressing in the game is essentially hidden behind paid dice rolls. Whether that is officially recognised as gambling or not is irrelevant to having a stance on the morality of it.

Yossarian wrote:

You reckon this is gambling. Legally speaking, it’s not. If and when it is recognised as gambling, then this might start to become a question worthy of discussion.

You’ve been discussing it for 8 pages already. It’s gambling or ‘gambling-like’. It’s sufficiently similar to work in similar ways, causing the same effects, same potential for problems. This is all pretty clear. But you’ve set the threshold for accepting this to be some notional study that hasn’t been done yet on this specific, very recent, implementation. And as proved by your fags for kids answer, you’re just being intentionally obtuse so there we go. We’re done here.

monkey wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

You reckon this is gambling. Legally speaking, it’s not. If and when it is recognised as gambling, then this might start to become a question worthy of discussion.

You’ve been discussing it for 8 pages already. It’s gambling or ‘gambling-like’. It’s sufficiently similar to work in similar ways, causing the same effects, same potential for problems. This is all pretty clear. But you’ve set the threshold for accepting this to be some notional study that hasn’t been done yet. And as proved by your fags for kids answer, you’re just being intentionally obtuse so there we go. We’re done here.

I’m not being obtuse, you’re asking a silly question. I’m asking for proof of harm, your response is to ask me about something with a huge body of evidence about the harm it does.

That sounds like it may well be game breaking, yes, but it will be difficult to judge for sure until playing it. Still, I’ll probably give it a miss based on that description, at least until people have had a chance to get a good feel for how it works in practise.

Because the digital keys sold in loot boxes have no monetary value and people cannot sell or trade unwanted or duplicate keys, they are just even more obviously exploitative. 

Since consumers rarely have any rights with digital content the only palatable option is to sell the keys transparently. Let people know what armour, weapons, hats etc they are buying and how much for. Scrap the blind purchase altogether (this is where the distinction between football cards and digital nothings is salient because the former can be traded for real). 

Without this option the loot box mechanic is shown for what it is: a cynical exercise in getting money for nothing. Fuck any game that has it.

Some pretty strong opinions going round here and it's very interesting to hear of people's experiences and opinions. @DS I think you did the right thing stepping back, as someone who struggles to know my limit of various vices I can appreciate how it's easy to slip, even when it's clear others find it easy to limit themselves. I'm quite against the forum grain here but I'll reiterate that many companies try pretty damn hard to implement a fair gacha system. A couple of pickup notes:

Vela wrote:

Because the digital keys sold in loot boxes have no monetary value and people cannot sell or trade unwanted or duplicate keys, they are just even more obviously exploitative.

As mentioned before, a *good* gacha system should, imo, provide a dusting / crafting feature whereby any unwanted items gained can be spent towards something you *do* actually want. I believe Hearthstone does this. By having a dusting system every item has worth and is useful to the player.

Vela wrote:

Without this option the loot box mechanic is shown for what it is: a cynical exercise in getting money for nothing. Fuck any game that has it.

A gacha system in a F2P game is hardly asking for money for nothing, it's seeking a way to gain some financial reward for the free content it delivers.

Distinctions need to be made: F2P/Retail; Mobile/Console; Fair/Unfair; P2W/F2P, + others.


I've had to deal with the Japanese law around gacha and it's extremely regulated. Precise odds of each item in the pools have to be displayed to players, exact content available has to be displayed, in JP itself there are spending laws, and even the copy you place in in-game news has to be very carefully phrased. There are steps to protect customers and in my example the company I worked for implemented the majority of these for the WW version as well, despite not being obliged to.

I should also add that we keep using figures like £40 or £50 as the 'next thing you know you go and drop that' figure, as if this is what the regular user of gacha does, which simply isn't the case. The *vast* majority of monetising users do so for around the 99p - £5 mark, and do so once or twice, then never again. It's very rare, in my experience, for large swathes of the user base to be dropping large amounts. In fact large swathes of the user base don't spend a penny.

The key part for me atm is the P2W aspect. The title I played heavily had, imo, a very fair gacha system. F2P users typically accrued enough free hard currency per week to do a single pull on the gacha. If you don't receive anything of the highest value in 20 pulls, you get a guaranteed high value item. This gacha system supplemented weekly free units released that everyone can unlock through co-op or single player missions. It felt fair, and being a monetising user myself it was always good to have my arse handed to me by players using nothing but free units, used tactically.


I'm probably not changing anyone's minds tbh but I hope you can see that, despite appearances from some studios and publishers, there are devs out there striving to produce content that is financially viable whilst remaining fair and balanced.

I'm sure there are plenty of fair systems but I guess a lot of us would prefer that those systems didn't become part of games we play as we have no interest in them, particularly if they upset the balance of the game.

Diluted Dante wrote:

I should also add that we keep using figures like £40 or £50 as the 'next thing you know you go and drop that' figure, as if this is what the regular user of gacha does, which simply isn't the case. The *vast* majority of monetising users do so for around the 99p - £5 mark, and do so once or twice, then never again. It's very rare, in my experience, for large swathes of the user base to be dropping large amounts. In fact large swathes of the user base don't spend a penny.

Because we're talking about people for which this might become a problem for, and no one is suggesting this would be anything like a large amount of the playerbase. It's a small proportion of players, but that fact that it's small doesn't mean nothing should be done.

I'd add that if the majority of people don't spend much or anything then that's a more worrying sign in a sense. It means these games are mostly being funded by a small number of people spending loads (those whales again), and the developers/publishers are making them in full knowledge that this is the case. Now, if that small number of people are rich and have lots of disposable income then it's not a problem*, but what if they aren't?


*Except for the rich now getting an advantage even in gaming.

Yossarian wrote:

You reckon this is gambling. Legally speaking, it’s not. If and when it is recognised as gambling, then this might start to become a question worthy of discussion.

You need a government to decide what is right and wrong for you?

I'd always quite fancied being wanked off by Sue. Matthew Corbett would need to be there too, obviously.

@nick thanks that's really interesting stuff. To be clear I brought up £40 to £50, but I was specifically referring to AAA games, and the amount you'd spend on the season pass plus a couple of boxes or card packs.

Also, for the record, I'm fully on board with the gatcha for F2P games. Income has to come from somewhere, and if I have enjoyed a game I will happily drop some money on it via IAPs or suchlike to support the dev. My concern is the way in which this is being implemented in mainstream AAA titles that you already pay for up front and with this some frameworks or protections that should be put in place.

Paul the sparky wrote:

I'd always quite fancied being wanked off by Sue. Matthew Corbett would need to be there too, obviously.

I've been wanked off by Matthew Corbetts niece.

This thread has taken a turn.