Are Gachas Considered Loot Boxes (And Gambling)?

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> I wonder how they plan to enforce the prison sentences on companies that are not based in Belgium.

There's another law in Belgium that if a company commits a crime that normally has a prison sentence connected to it, the punishment is automatically changed into a monetary fine. Unless there are specific circumstances like if the crime can be placed on the head of an employee who was working outside of the company's procedures and without the company's knowledge and approval.

And yes, Electronic Arts has a company in Belgium. Blizzard doesn't though, afaik.
 

WolfEyes

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What does the Encyclopeadia Britannica say about gambling?

Gambling, the betting or staking of something of value, with consciousness of risk and hope of gain, on the outcome of a game, a contest, or an uncertain event whose result may be determined by chance or accident or have an unexpected result by reason of the bettor’s miscalculation.
Gambling

Gambling isn't done with just money.

Interesting tidbit from the Britannica (my favorite encyclopeadias):

Anthropologists have also pointed to the fact that gambling is more prevalent in societies where there is a widespread belief in gods and spirits whose benevolence may be sought.
Hmph. Will you look at that.

 

WolfEyes

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> I wonder how they plan to enforce the prison sentences on companies that are not based in Belgium.

There's another law in Belgium that if a company commits a crime that normally has a prison sentence connected to it, the punishment is automatically changed into a monetary fine. Unless there are specific circumstances like if the crime can be placed on the head of an employee who was working outside of the company's procedures and without the company's knowledge and approval.

And yes, Electronic Arts has a company in Belgium. Blizzard doesn't though, afaik.
It was a rhetorical statement. A company can't be put in jail. Only individuals can be.

Frankly, if they're just going to convert the prison sentence to a fine why even bother with prison sentencing. Wasted time, effort and tax payers' money. In the US anyway. I don't know of any country that doesn't tax its citizens one way or another.
 

Soen Eber

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If the Belgium commission did go after gachas, I think Linden Lab would win after a lengthy court fight bankrupting them. Linden Lab would not enter such a fight and would cave.

Can Belgium enforce it? Belgium is part of the EU. LL has servers and customers in the EU. An EU judge could "convice" Linden Lab to see Belgium's point of view, and quite easily.

Even without overt enforcement power, there is a reason few American movies portray the Chinese as "the bad guy" and there are few games anywhere with overt Nazi regalia. No Chinese or German court forces this to happen, but it happens.

So really, it's up to Belgium, so the question is properly "Does Belgium perceive SL gachas as loot boxes?"
 

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So really, it's up to Belgium, so the question is properly "Does Belgium perceive SL gachas as loot boxes?"
At the moment, but other jurisdictions are looking into the matter as well. A few more AAA games abusing loot boxes will be enough to draw even more scrutiny. The dust has barely settled on the Battlefront II controversy, and that had a ripple effect on a lot of games. EA is already up to its old tricks with FIFA 19, so clearly they have a short memory.
 
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Gachas are a pox upon the marketplace. They either need to get their own category or GTFO! You search for anything, gachas. Add "NOT gacha" the little fucks have gamed it to elude, burn them, burn them all to hell!

p.s. they are costing legitimate sales when I just say screw it and give up.
Filter for Modify. Wipes most of em right out. :)
 

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Or filter for copy and/or no transfer items?
 
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Gachas are a pox upon the marketplace. They either need to get their own category or GTFO! You search for anything, gachas. Add "NOT gacha" the little fucks have gamed it to elude, burn them, burn them all to hell!

p.s. they are costing legitimate sales when I just say screw it and give up.
Why are you using MP to begin with? Unless you know what shop you're looking for anyway, searching on MP is a fool's errand. Read blogs, check flickr tags, get recommendations.
 

WolfEyes

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Why are you using MP to begin with? Unless you know what shop you're looking for anyway, searching on MP is a fool's errand. Read blogs, check flickr tags, get recommendations.

I used the MP so I didn't have to go through all that. Never understood why people make things more difficult than they actually are.

Work smarter, not harder.

Search one and done.
 
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I used the MP so I didn't have to go through all that. Never understood why people make things more difficult than they actually are.

Work smarter, not harder.

Search one and done.
Except, unless you know the specific name of the item you're looking for, the MP search function is basically useless.
 

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Let’s get even realer. Forget about the legal term “gambling”

Let’s ask “Do Gachas prey on addictive tendencies, and if so, should that be allowed?”
Okay I'll bite. Being an alcoholic I do have addictive tendencies, however, these are my issues and at the end of the day it is up to me to keep myself in check. No one is making me play gacha other than me. I personally think they should be allowed not everyone has an addictive personality.
 
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Jolene Benoir

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Okay I'll bite. Being an alcoholic I do have addictive tendencies, however, these are my issues and at the end of the day it is up to me to keep myself in check. No one is making me play gacha other than me. I personally think they should be allowed not everyone has an addictive personality.
This position does have some merit as it relates to adult and/or games that are primarily played by adults. I too, have an addictive personality, and I avoid any game that has either loot boxes or is pay to win not because I am worried about going overboaord but because I refuse to pay $60-$80/game, whatever the going rate is, and then have them throw in loot boxes in which people spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to win. No fucking way. I'm old school though that may be more a function of having grown up and played games in which you put your money down and received a complete game. I pay you for the game, I expect a full and complete game not one that has been deliberately botched so that you must buy the extra loot boxes and such. I am not again cosmetic items at all as long as they do not affect game play in any way. I think we're seeing some developers breach that line and test consumer patience.

The other problem is that publishers like EA aren't just targeting adults. Nope, they are doing it in games that kids play. They are also normalizing the practice and teaching an entire generation that this is to be expected. I'm not a fan of the mobile game scheme at all and I do not want to see it come to other forms of gaming. There's a reason those free-to-play games always come up in the listings as having earned the highest revenues well over paid games.

To answer the original question about gachas, no I don't really consider gachas in the same category at all, at least as it relates to SL, as the majority of users in SL are adults and are not needed at all to enjoy SL.
 
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WolfEyes

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Except, unless you know the specific name of the item you're looking for, the MP search function is basically useless.
I never had that problem. I may not have known a particular name but I usually found what I wanted. Not always the exact thing but something comparable. Sometimes I had to try several different search terms. If what I was looking for existed it would usually show up. I might have had to go through a few pages to see it but it wasn't often I didn't find something at least comparable to what I wanted.

I used the MP as a catalog and made my purchases at stores in world. If there was no store, no sale and back to MP I'd go. But that was rarely the case. About the only things I couldn't find were those that didn't exist in SL or weren't on the MP. The ones that just weren't on MP probably wouldn't have been on any blog either. That's what I used all those landmarks for. :)
 

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Okay I'll bite. Being an alcoholic I do have addictive tendencies, however, these are my issues and at the end of the day it is up to me to keep myself in check. No one is making me play gacha other than me. I personally think they should be allowed not everyone has an addictive personality.
Well, a few things to consider.

One is that by now, the general population has an idea of how alcoholism works. We all basically know what behaviors can lead to an alcohol problem, how to recognize our own or others' alcohol problem, and how to get help and treatment for alcohol problems. That gives adults a reasonable chance of success to used good decision-making to avoid or manage alcohol problems.

By contrast, video game makers know a lot more about the psychology of how to make a game addictive than the general public, at least right now. Until the psychology of video game addiction is as well known generally as the psychology of alcoholism, most adults are still going to be taken by surprise when it comes to the addictive aspects of video games. It is even still debated whether video game addiction is even a real thing (there has been a consensus that addiction to alcohol is a real thing for a long time).

I think in a free society, the government generally should not be in the business of saving people from themselves. But, I think it's okay for a government to saving people from themselves when they aren't equipped to protect themselves, despite people's attempts to use adequate effort and good judgment. If you don't know what a compulsion loop is, it's pretty much impossible for you to avoid a compulsion loop, or to recognize when you are in one.

And, even though alcohol is not outright banned, it still get heavily regulated (at least in the U.S.).

It's also one thing to let adults suffer from the consequences of their actions; it's a different thing to let children suffer from the consequences of their actions.

I think Belgium was right to recognize loot boxes as a problem in need of regulation, probably wrong to regulate it as gambling because it's a different type of problem than traditional gambling.

Though now that I think about it, slot machines probably operate on a similar principle to loot boxes. While not ostensibly "free to play", slot machines do have compulsion loops and endless tiny transactions.