Incline The Death of Freemium? Microtransactions Under Global Scrutiny

[Cool name]

this is some sick shit tbh

 

[Azalin]

WTF,how old is that kid? 7?

 

[ArchAngel]

More like 5. I don't know what is wrong with his parents..

 

[fantadomat]

WTF,how old is that kid? 7?

Not old enough.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Beastro]

More like 5. I don't know what is wrong with his parents..

I thought it was a satire video making fun of youtube game channels like that, the joke being a little kid playing the role.

But yeah, he has his own channel....

That's fucked up.

 

[Dexter]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/loot-boxes-microtransactions-bill

A US Senator has tabled a bill to ban loot boxes and “compulsive” microtransactions

US Senator Josh Hawley has today announced that he is seeking to ban the sale of pay-to-win microtransactions and loot boxes in the US senate. The bill he is proposes specifically targets “games played by minors… whose developers knowingly allow minor players to engage in microtransactions”, or games playable by children under the age of 18 – a rather broad label that basically encompasses all games.

The bill is called ‘The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act’, and Hawley is planning to introduce it to the US senate soon. As pointed out by Kotaku, Hawley’s proposal names mobile game Candy Crush as a particular problem – with it being specifically aimed at under-18s with its colourful style, and yet still sells a $150 ‘Luscious Bundle’.

The bill will also target PC and console games, or anything with “compulsive microtransactions” that under-18s can play. Games such as Fortnite, Apex Legends, Star Wars Battlefront 2, or any title where you can spend real money to get in-game benefits will be under threat from the proposed legislature.

“Social media and video games prey on user addiction, siphoning our kids’ attention from the real world and extracting profits from fostering compulsive habits,” Hawley said. “No matter this business model’s advantages to the tech industry, one thing is clear: there is no excuse for exploiting children through such practices… Game developers who knowingly exploit children should face legal consequences.”

The Entertainment Software Association responded to the proposed bill (via The Verge) saying that other countries had determined that loot boxes were not gambling. CEO Stanley Pierre- Louis adds, “we look forward to sharing with the senator the tools and information the industry already provides that keeps the control of in-game spending in parents’ hands. Parents already have the ability to limit or prohibit in-game purchases with easy to use parental controls.”

If successful, the new bill would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, who last year held an investigation into loot boxes. Gaming companies would be liable for state-wide lawsuits, under the state attorney generals, on behalf of the residents of those states. While many studios are backing away from the practice of loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions – after the Battlefront 2 debacle EA confirmed that its next Star Wars game Jedi Fallen Order would not have them – it’s still common, particularly in free-to-play games.

https://gamingbolt.com/germany-look...on-to-loot-box-and-monetization-controversies

Germany Looks at Mobile Guidelines In Reaction to Loot Box and Monetization Controversies
New legislation could affect in-game purchases.
Posted By Landon Wright | On 08th, May. 2019 Under News



In-game monetization has been an ongoing controversy over the last few years. While the firestorm really started with Star Wars Battlefront II, which suffered major backlash for its online competent, it’s been an on and off again debate for years as more monetization methods have entered gaming. We know the UK has investigated it, and the US is about to have a big FTC workshop about it. Now Germany seems to be looking at it, too, with new legislation.

Put forward by the State of Bavaria, new legislation could have a big impact on gaming in Germany. It looks to update the Interstate Treaty for the Protection of Minors (JMStV), something largely aimed at companies targeting children with exploitative practices. The current draft would prohibit direct purchasing appeals towards minors.

While the legislation may have children and mobile in mind, it would have an impact on gaming as a whole. As laid out by Sebastian Schwiddessen, associate at law firm Baker McKenzie, under the current wording, “An explicit appeal and a specific direction towards children and adolescents is not required.” Meaning even a game marketed at adults would still be under these rules and could be judged on a case-by-case basis. And the German Commission is known to take these rules very seriously.

“The greatest risk therefore lies with Germany’s consumer protection associations such as the VZBV which have the benefit of extensive financial means and which have already repeatedly targeted the video gaming industry for youth protection and e-commerce matters.

The new guideline provides a strong argument in court on how the JMStV advertisement restrictions must be interpreted and therefore a strong basis for potential cease and desist claims/injunctions.”

Nothing has been passed as of now, and what the final draft will look is anyone’s guess if it does eventually come into law. Germany is also a major player in the EU governing body, so whatever happens here is sure to have some degree of impact on the continent as a whole. It looks to be, as of now, the harshest stance towards video game monetization yet. We’ll keep you updated.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

The fucked-up part being it's even an issue in the first place. Raise your fucking kids.

 

[adrix89]

The fucked-up part being it's even an issue in the first place. Raise your fucking kids.

The parents are the bigger problem then the kids for this kind of monetization.

 

[Tehdagah]

"Think of the children" ie: kids shouldn't be distracted from their studies™ and media brainwashing.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senat...nipulative-video-game-features-aimed-children

Senator Hawley to Introduce Legislation Banning Manipulative Video Game Features Aimed at Children
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Senator Josh Hawley, a fierce critic of social media practices that prey on the addiction of users, announced today that he will introduce landmark legislation banning the exploitation of children through “pay-to-win” and “loot box” monetization practices by the video game industry.

Senator Hawley said, “Social media and video games prey on user addiction, siphoning our kids’ attention from the real world and extracting profits from fostering compulsive habits. No matter this business model’s advantages to the tech industry, one thing is clear: there is no excuse for exploiting children through such practices.

“When a game is designed for kids, game developers shouldn’t be allowed to monetize addiction. And when kids play games designed for adults, they should be walled off from compulsive microtransactions. Game developers who knowingly exploit children should face legal consequences.”

Background

• In recent years, the video game industry has become increasingly reliant on monetization models that promote compulsive “microtransaction” purchases by consumers.

The most abusive such practices are:

• Pay to win: Pay-to-win games take two forms. In some cases, designers engineer games with artificial difficulty curves to induce players to spend money on upgrades simply to progress. These games are often offered for free, enticing players to download and even offering them a false sense of progression upon initial download before artificially increasing difficulty to induce compulsive purchases. In other cases, designers create multiplayer games offering players who purchase paid upgrades competitive advantages over other players.
• Loot boxes: Loot boxes, incorporated both in free and paid games, offer players randomized rewards for spending money, combining the addictive properties of pay-to-win with the compulsive behavior inherent in other forms of gambling.

One notorious example of this practice:

• Candy Crush, a free puzzle game featuring a Candy Land style cartoon aesthetic that offers players additional lives on a set timer, allows players to purchase a $149.99 “Luscious Bundle” including 1000 units of its “gold bar” in-game currency, a variety pack of temporary “boosters” to reduce game difficulty, and 24 hours of unlimited lives. The game touts this offering with a medal labeled “Best Value.” Candy Crush Developer King earns parent company Activision Blizzard $2 billion annually, boasting 268 million monthly active users.

 

[Melcar]

Not sure about this.

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

Not sure about this.

Good, he's my Senator and he's a rat-faced bag of shit.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/take-two-is...use-it-doesnt-make-much-money-on-them-anyway/

Take-Two isn't worried about loot box laws because it doesn't make much money on them anyway
CEO Strauss Zelnick said during yesterday's earnings call that loot boxes are "not material to us."

Take-Two Interactive president Karl Slatoff said in late 2017 that the company doesn't consider loot boxes to be a form of gambling, a position that put it in line with pretty much all of the rest of the game industry. Despite that, chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick said during the company's Q4 2019 earnings call yesterday that it is not overly concerned about the possibility of legislation banning loot boxes in videogames because they don't contribute meaningfully to Take-Two's bottom line.

"Just to put it in context, that mechanic is responsible for less than three percent of our net bookings in the past fiscal year, so it's not material to us," in response to a question about US senator Josh Hawley's proposed ban on loot boxes in games played by children.

"We have used the mechanic in the past, so it is something we've seen, and we think it's just fine. There has been some noise around it, particularly internationally. As we said, we think it's a perfectly reasonable mechanic, however it forms a very small part of our business."

Hawley's proposed legislation was just announced last week, but international efforts to crack down on them, as Zelnick referenced, have come much more quickly: Belgium and the Netherlands implemented bans on randomized loot boxes last year, and South Korea recently said that it will launch an investigation into "unfair" purchase policies in videogames, which could encompass loot boxes.

Take-Two reported net bookings of $2.929 billion for its 2019 fiscal year, an increase of 47 percent over 2018, meaning that loot box-driven revenues fell somewhere south of $88 million—an awful lot of money for, say, me, but not a huge slice of Take-Two's pie.

Interestingly, the company said that "recurrent consumer spending" in games accounted for 39 percent of that amount, reflecting the success of the company's strategy, also stated by Zelnick in 2017, to offer microtransactions—but not necessarily loot boxes—in "every title" it releases.

 

[Dexter]

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1d0f5bf1-ea1b-42fe-9f61-7501acda0f21

Sweden officially investigates loot boxes
Baker McKenzie
Sweden May 8 2019

As it was reported yesterday by Swedish TV channel SVT, the Swedish government will now officially investigate loot boxes. The investigation will be carried out by consumer protection authority and not by the gambling regulator. However, the consumer protection authority will now contact the national public health department, the gambling regulator and the media council for its views on the matter.

The report is due on 1st October, 2019 the latest and is supposed to help lawmakers to come to an informed decision in relation to a potential amendment of national laws. The investigation is therefore more of general nature, similar to the ongoing investigations in, for instance, the USA and Australia. While no specific publishers or games are investigated, the report states that the consumer protection authority will now look into loot boxes and other lottery or casino-like elements in video games which are currently available.

Minister of Civil Affairs, Ardalan Shekarabi, who was interviewed in the report, also mentions the existence of secondary markets (e.g. skin gambling websites) and states: “[…] then we are very close to what is normally regulated by the legislation for paid gambling”. Like the most gambling legislations, the Swedish gambling legislation requires (broken down) the existence of a stake, a prize and a game of chance in order to meet the requirements of gambling. The prize requirement is typically the center of discussion in relation to loot boxes. Almost all gambling legislations require that the prize has an objective, real world monetary value (one exception to this rule would be Belgium which applies a subjective standard where it is sufficient that the prize has value for the player only). Since almost no video game allows “cashing out” virtual items generated by loot boxes, it can be argued that loot-box-generated items have no real world monetary value and therefore do not constitute regulated gambling. However, this argument gets a “dent” once the items can be traded either within the game or on secondary markets. The possibility to trade items arguably gives rise to supply and demand and therefore an objective monetary real-world value. Mainly for this reason, the NL gambling regulator decided that the loot box mechanisms included in a number of video games constituted gambling. Secondary markets, on the other hand, bring up the subsequent question on whether the acts of an unlicensed and illegal secondary market which has no connection to the operator of the video game and illegally exploits the game mechanic by violating the terms and conditions must be attributed to the game operator which then becomes an operator of illegal gambling. This question is subject to a legal debate in several jurisdictions and is most likely what Ardalan Shekarabi is referring to when stating: “then we are very close to what is normally regulated by the legislation for paid gambling”

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Too lazy to search that old thread that was about anti-lootbox legislation.

 

[Dexter]

 

[DalekFlay]

If only there were some way to control what your kids can access on a phone... some kind of... option... or even, a parenting skill... I guess that's impossible though. Better have Mommy Government solve the problem.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The kids with bad parents deserve protection too.

 

[DalekFlay]

The kids with bad parents deserve protection too.

You could apply that line of thinking to anything, from hamburgers to homework. I'd rather keep government out of all this shit.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Well we need a way of getting big corporations to cool it with the gambling practices, and I doubt asking nicely for them to ignore the potential $$$ or call for boycotting super popular games is going to work.

 

[MapMan]

this is some sick shit tbh

Good goy good. Gotta learn the dopamine hit response to gambling early on.

But to be serious, this is fucked up on so many levels.

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

Well we need a way of getting big corporations to cool it with the gambling practices, and I doubt asking nicely for them to ignore the potential $$$ or call for boycotting super popular games is going to work.

Normally I'd agree. But believe me when I tell you: that Bill that Hawley is tabling will not be as it appears. That bastard is up to something. He's been up to something for quite a while.

 

[Dexter]

Well we need a way of getting big corporations to cool it with the gambling practices, and I doubt asking nicely for them to ignore the potential $$$ or call for boycotting super popular games is going to work.

Normally I'd agree. But believe me when I tell you: that Bill that Hawley is tabling will not be as it appears. That bastard is up to something. He's been up to something for quite a while.

Yeah, he's rather amazing and up to a lot.

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

Well we need a way of getting big corporations to cool it with the gambling practices, and I doubt asking nicely for them to ignore the potential $$$ or call for boycotting super popular games is going to work.

Normally I'd agree. But believe me when I tell you: that Bill that Hawley is tabling will not be as it appears. That bastard is up to something. He's been up to something for quite a while.

Yeah, he's rather amazing and up to a lot.

If you're gonna drag fucking Breitbart into this, we've got nothing more to say to each other. You know better than that shit, or you should, at any rate.