Poll of the Day > How would you feel if the ESRB labeled Loot Boxes as gambling with 'M' ratings?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's important to note that the ESRB (and similar game rating organizations) have recently come out and said they do not consider loot boxes as gaming and will not raise any game's rating with loot boxes as a result, even if you can pay real world money for the loot boxes.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/10/esrb-says-loot-boxes-arent-gambling.html

ESRB does not consider loot boxes to be gambling. While theres an element of chance in these mechanics, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content (even if the player unfortunately receives something they dont want). We think of it as a similar principle to collectible card games: Sometimes youll open a pack and get a brand new holographic card youve had your eye on for a while. But other times youll end up with a pack of cards you already have.

There are people who argue that the ESRB's analogy is flawed, because in a real life collectible card game, you get a physical product that has real world value that can be traded and sold to other players and collectors for real word money, where as when you buy a loot box in a game, the items you get have no real world value, and cannot be traded with other players or sold for a return of real world money.

It's should also be noted that the reason slot machines are no longer in Pokemon games is because PEGI, the game rating organization in Europe, considered the slot machines "gambling" even though you could not purchase more slot machine coins with real world money and threatened to give it an "18+" rating, and that loot boxes are being treated much less harshly even though almost all modern loot box systems exist because they want people to purchase them with real world money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2tgvHBI3I4

And for people who can purchase rated M games anyway, the argument for loot boxes raising the age rating of a game isn't limited to protecting minors, but also as a deterrent for publishers who want to stick loot boxes into all of their AAA games.
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it isn't gambling.
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In that case, board games where you roll dice should all be banned for minors.

Do you mean AO? Pretty sure that's what ESRB uses for real gambling. It's not like an M rating is exactly a kiss of death or something that publishers have striven to avoid. I don't know what all games use loot boxes now, but I imagine many of them are already rated M (or will be in the future)

Rockies posted...

Do you mean AO? Pretty sure that's what ESRB uses for real gambling. It's not like an M rating is exactly a kiss of death or something that publishers have striven to avoid. I don't know what all games use loot boxes now, but I imagine many of them are already rated M (or will be in the future)

Destiny is one of the biggest ones out there.

Sure, there are "loot boxes", but most of your loot will come in engrams, and at the end of each raid.

You finish a raid, and it's like Christmas morning each time. Your buddies get what they, and you, wanted, and all you get is a lousy shader and a ship.

That's weird reasoning for something to not be gambling.
Is it legalspeak legit? Can I just open a casino anywhere and advertise to kids as long as the payout is at least 1 cent per play?
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Lightning Bolt posted...

Is it legalspeak legit? Can I just open a casino anywhere and advertise to kids as long as the payout is at least 1 cent per play?

They have things like that, but are long extinct.

They used to call them "arcades", and they had machines that had this "currency" called "tickets". They were on games that were not the video kind. In an insane labyrinth of cabinets with TVs in them, and the most beautiful music in all of the world, that being each game drowning each-other out with their "insert coin" demo screens, the games you can gamble on were the most played, so that children could have a chance at winning a huge prize, but give up and waste it on candy instead.

DarkKirby2500 posted...

And for people who can purchase rated M games anyway, the argument for loot boxes raising the age rating of a game isn't limited to protecting minors, but also as a deterrent for publishers who want to stick loot boxes into all of their AAA games.

Which is a silly advocacy argument demonstrating that it's not being petitioned with any valid concern towards minors, but instead as a blanket deterrence for people who dislike the practice; ie, an abuse of the system
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Abusing is exactly what esrb is for. The entire thing is build upon lies anyway.
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VeeVees posted...

Abusing is exactly what esrb is for. The entire thing is build upon lies anyway.

They rated Batman; Arkham Asylum Teen, yet they also rated Halo: Combat Evolved Mature.

Go figure.

Pokmon TCG is gambling. A 4.50 booster pack can contain 1 worth of cards or a 150 card worth the same or more than a whole box of 36 booster packs. Which can be easily sold for money.

I don't care about in game loot boxes.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

it isn't gambling.

Depends on how you define gambling. Regardless of how you define it, it utilizes the brain in a similar way to what gambling does and it can carry comparable vices.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

it isn't gambling.

That's a compelling argument.
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TheWorstPoster posted...

In that case, board games where you roll dice should all be banned for minors.

If the publisher of the board game somehow charges for die rolls? Yeah, they probably should. Loot boxes themselves aren't inherently bad (though they are a thinly-veiled form of artificial game lengthener, which isn't exactly awesome), it's the concept of charging for a *chance* of getting something desirable that falls pretty squarely into gambling territory.
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benbeverfaqs posted...

Pokmon TCG is gambling. A 4.50 booster pack can contain 1 worth of cards or a 150 card worth the same or more than a whole box of 36 booster packs. Which can be easily sold for money.

Those prices are defined by a secondhand market, not the producing company itself. If the company doesn't assign value to the individual cards, every booster pack is equal.

Same applies to loot boxes.
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I think that is a great argument. I see how these are gambling and I do think that making games with them 18+ would not only limit how much of this crap goes on, it would help protect kids from being exposes to such high risk/reward behaviour.

I don't know if anybody still has a local "arcade" but the one here is pretty much just a casino for kids to win tickets they can exchange for prizes. Most of the games have no skill and are total chance. They are essentially slot machines for children. People seem fine with kids playing them so...

Veedrock- posted...

benbeverfaqs posted...

Pokmon TCG is gambling. A 4.50 booster pack can contain 1 worth of cards or a 150 card worth the same or more than a whole box of 36 booster packs. Which can be easily sold for money.

Those prices are defined by a secondhand market, not the producing company itself. If the company doesn't assign value to the individual cards, every booster pack is equal.

Same applies to loot boxes.

I wouldn't say it does, actually, because the contents of loot boxes aren't tangible. The only value anything in there has is the value the player assigns to them (or when there's a secondary market, the value assigned by that market, but for simplicity's sake we'll say this is a case where there's no trading). If they player gets something they don't value, then they've gotten no return at all on the box's cost. Cards at least are worth the paper they're printed on, however trivial that may be.

That, and where a secondary market is inevitable for physical goods, those cards will have value regardless of whether or not the company assigns it. With loot boxes, though, unless you can trade the contents, there isn't going to be that secondary market there's therefore no value to the items beyond the player's desire.
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They should be required to have a gambling addiction warning hotline on the case and as a splash screen before their precious copyright agreement.

they would have to restructure what gambling is and means for loot boxes to be considered gambling.
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adjl posted...

quote

Your whole post just circles back around and doesn't actually refute what I said at all.
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Can't say I'd care considering the fact that ratings mean nothing to me.
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bump
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