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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Belgium says loot boxes are gambling, wants them banned in Europe

Zkuq on 21 November 2017
Ka-pi96 said:
Zkuq said:

AO-rated games aren't really relevant in this discussion because a similar age rating doesn't exist in Europe and it doesn't seem like lootboxes are going to be considered gambling in the US. M-rated games are the group you want.

eh, the point still holds. People can say "but kids get older rated games anyway" all they want, there are still countless examples of publishers specifically going for lower age ratings to maximise their audience. Imagine something like FIFA, a hugely popular game and probably the most likely game to be found under an xmas tree for kids, going up to an 18+ rating from its current 3+ rating. That's surely going to impact sales.

Maaaybe it holds. I lack the data to make an informed assessment of the situation. On one hand, your audience is bigger which means more purchases and thus income, but on the other hand, you lose lootbox income. Which method is more profitable might also vary by game.



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Kerotan on 21 November 2017

If gambling is legal in Europe why would they ban it? Surely just slap an 18+ rating on the game.

What does this mean for games who's sole form of income is lootboxes?



arcaneguyver on 21 November 2017

Interesting times! Hopefully this gets refined to just purchasable games, so F2P isn't affected. Though...I dunno, lootboxes kinda suck in general; there are other ways to rattle the donation can.



Mystro-Sama on 21 November 2017

Get fucked EA.



jason1637 on 21 November 2017
Ka-pi96 said:
jason1637 said:

If publishers change their regulations then gamers would just buy all the AO games digital and I doubt retailers like GameStop would want something like that to happen because it would destroy their business so they would have to follow what the publishers are doing.

Gamers could buy those games digitally... they also could just buy different games instead, ones that aren't filled with shitty loot boxes and stuff. Seems like a big risk for game publishers just because they want to be stubborn.

Of course if governments could close the digital sales loophole as well. When I made my Skybet account I needed age verification to use it. Considering they are trying to class loot boxes as gambling... they should really enforce the same rules for them...

Gamers will still buy the games with lootboxes digitally because most gamers don't care about loot boxes. Micro transactions are starting to make more money than games and I doubt publishers are going to let go of that much revenue especially when the average gamer supports games like FiFA, CoD and Overwatch etc.



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Errorist76 on 21 November 2017

I want to rise a point of discussion:

What in your opinion would be a possible alternative in order to raise revenue for developers and publishers, to compensate for ever rising development costs?

I’ve been gaming since 35 years and tbh it feels as game prices have never adapted to inflation. We still basically pay the same as we did 20 years ago.

Would you accept rising game prices instead?!

Companies like CDP Red pay lower wages and rent than most other developers worldwide. A point to consider for sure.

What do you say about that controversial topic? I’d really like to know your opinion.



curl-6 on 21 November 2017
Errorist76 said:
I want to rise a point of discussion:

What in your opinion would be a possible alternative in order to raise revenue for developers and publishers, to compensate for ever rising development costs?

Simple, stop spending so much bloody money. Games don't need to be this expensive, devs just can't seem to control themselves from splurging millions on unnecessary expenses like celebrity voice actors and graphics departments the size of a small town.



Errorist76 on 21 November 2017
curl-6 said:
Errorist76 said:
I want to rise a point of discussion:

What in your opinion would be a possible alternative in order to raise revenue for developers and publishers, to compensate for ever rising development costs?

Simple, stop spending so much bloody money. Games don't need to be this expensive, devs just can't seem to control themselves from splurging millions on unnecessary expenses like celebrity voice actors and graphics departments the size of a small town.

As graphics get more high res and more detailed, the amount of effort, that needs to be invested in order to satisfy the customers, is rising too. A car in GT1 probably took half a day to be modeled. It takes 6 months for GT Sport. You get the point.



curl-6 on 21 November 2017
Errorist76 said:
curl-6 said:

Simple, stop spending so much bloody money. Games don't need to be this expensive, devs just can't seem to control themselves from splurging millions on unnecessary expenses like celebrity voice actors and graphics departments the size of a small town.

As graphics get more high res and more detailed the amount of effort that needs to be invested to satisfy the customers is rising to. A car in GT1 probably took half a day to be modeled. It takes 6 months for GT Sport.

Again, simple answer. Spend less. If that means less extravagent graphics, fine. Better that than all this microtransaction garbage.



Errorist76 on 21 November 2017
curl-6 said:
Errorist76 said:

As graphics get more high res and more detailed the amount of effort that needs to be invested to satisfy the customers is rising to. A car in GT1 probably took half a day to be modeled. It takes 6 months for GT Sport.

Again, simple answer. Spend less. If that means less extravagent graphics, fine. Better that than all this microtransaction garbage.

My initial point though was, if rising game prices would be acceptable instead?!