5 comments

  • nba456_1 hour ago
    I never understood why video game lootboxes get regulated while real-life lootboxes like pokemon cards don't.
    • benoau51 minutes ago
      Because in real life the store clerk won't let a child spend $1000 on their parents card making purchases again and again and again and again and again, but a video game will let a child do it in less than an hour and consider that a success and try to understand how to stimulate another child to do so.
    • mikkupikku42 minutes ago
      Those are gambling too, and were criticize as such not just now but also when they were new (but people ignored that criticism because pokemon was hype and adults complaining about trendy things are always uncool and ignored.)
    • teeray33 minutes ago
      There’s something to be said about the visibility of gambling as a signal to people that someone may have a problem. Gambling on your phone just looks like being on your phone. It even improves access to the addiction. Needing to go to a casino looks a lot different, provides some friction, and could spur intervention. The same could be said about loot boxes vs buying Pokemon cards in a store.
    • idiotsecant39 minutes ago
      When you buy a pokemon card at least you <i>get</i> a card
    • steele43 minutes ago
      This is the same argument Valve is presenting.
      • rincebrain7 minutes ago
        (Opinions my own, naturally.)<p>I think they&#x27;re right, really.<p>Obviously you need to require enough friction that the experiences are comparable (e.g. no letting someone impulse buy 100 times in half a second without having to re-type their &quot;I am an adult&quot; payment info or something analogous, possibly just a hard ceiling for everyone), but I don&#x27;t think you can ban everything that touches the same sharp edge, and you can&#x27;t mandate that parents teach their kids how to handle it.<p>So I think the best you can do is put hard limits on people&#x27;s ability to hurt themselves without at least an &quot;are you really sure&quot; check, and maybe something like not allowing cash in the exchange without adult verification so the kids might, at worst, gamble their FunBux they earned playing a game and get burned on having lost a lot of FunBux, rather than their or their parents&#x27; cash. (This doesn&#x27;t stop parents from giving their kids their credit card, but that&#x27;s not really a problem you can solve...)
      • gmadsen13 minutes ago
        Physicality. You don’t even own digital games, let alone cosmetics for your digital game license.
  • yacin48 minutes ago
    should probably just ban gambling for children but seems like a good first step.
  • mikkupikku45 minutes ago
    Do they let 16 year olds gamble in casinos in Europe? Odd to ban it for kids but only some kids.
    • pdpi6 minutes ago
      If you&#x27;re forbidding people from doing things they could do yesterday, it&#x27;s best to be a little conservative with your scope.<p>16-yo kids might do some amount of part time work, and should at least have enough of a concept of money to understand why pressing the &quot;more loot boxes&quot; button is a Bad Idea. They&#x27;re also old enough that they might potentially have their own bank account and their own card, which then caps the damages to their allowance.
    • idiotsecant40 minutes ago
      Pretty much all of Europe is 18-21.
  • erxam13 minutes ago
    Okay? How will this actually change anything?<p>I don&#x27;t think I have ever paid attention to a single age rating in my entire life. Does anyone do outside of fundamentalist parents who wouldn&#x27;t let kids play most video games anyways?<p>Very spiritually European move.<p>What regulators should do is focus on easily applicable percentage-based fines. Make sure it&#x27;s not just another line item.
  • hsuduebc224 minutes ago
    Ok, so we all agreed that it is gambling. But for some reason we let kids gamble but only after they reach sixteen? This feels weird.