General Gaming Senator Hawley announces the PCfAG Act banning loot boxes, pay-to-win mechanics, update - Kotaku's Jason Schreier interviews Senator Hawley, Democrats signal bi-partisan support

[Jason]

"Game developers shouldn’t be allowed to monetize addiction," Mo. Republican says.

 

And yes, that's really what it's called: https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/2019-05-08_Protecting-Children-Abusive-Games-Act_One-Pager.pdf

[Xbob42]

 

[Jason]

1 minute ago, Xbob42 said:

 

 

But my title's way better!

[brucoe]

They should have seen this coming a mile away. Now, while I can't say anything will actually come of this, something eventually will because the industry had so many chances to clean up this garbage but kept responding with libertarian promises of "the market will fix itself" and the market didn't. Where the industry used to have a lot of gamers standing behind it, microtransactions basically started to reveal that the game industry is more focused on finding new ways to monetize than it is in innovating new, fun ways to play their games. There was only so much before they'd start to lose the core players as a good defense mechanism.

 

And while there's no guarantee that this measure will start to clean up the problem (it probably won't even pass), if it doesn't, each new approach is only going to get more draconian so that it does more harm than good (the whole "the government is the last entity we need to clean up anything").

[Mercury33]

Could you imagine the collective looks on the faces of all the Sports game publishers if this passes lol

[atom631]

this goes through, next gen game prices jump to $79.99

[Rodimus]

Why don't they vote to break up EA and break up Activision/Blizzard.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Jason Schreier interview with Senator Hawley (Kotaku)

Anti-loot box bill gathers bipartisan support in Senate (Polygon)

 

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

So he doesn't play games, his kids don't play games and talks to parents who are too dumb to keep track of what their kids are playing so that means get rid of loot boxes!

[XxEvil AshxX]

On 5/9/2019 at 11:56 AM, atom631 said:

this goes through, next gen game prices jump to $79.99

 

For three weeks, then it's 40% off.

 

This was inevitable. EA and the like have already proven they can't be left to their own devices. They could've done it in moderation and flown under the radar, but they had to get greedy.

[JPDunks4]

I was confused when Apex launched with Apex Packs, instead of just sticking with Fortnites formula of direct sales for items you want.  With how much damn money Fortnite brings in, I figured that'd become the standard most companies would move towards.  

 

I'm assuming you can have loot boxes if you cant buy the loot boxes with real life currency, right?

[Xbob42]

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

So he doesn't play games, his kids don't play games and talks to parents who are too dumb to keep track of what their kids are playing so that means get rid of loot boxes!

Gambling is a heavily regulated industry for a reason. This is very much gambling except they somehow made it even shittier for the consumer, since you can't ever actually win anything of value. Which you'd think would be a deterrent (and in fact is how many places define gambling, whether you can cash out, which at this point is a distinction without a meaningful difference in regards to the conversation, in my opinion), but it turns out when you pray upon people who are psychologically predisposed (not just kids) to be vulnerable to these kinds of mechanisms, whaddaya know, the ability to win something of value isn't the draw or what keeps them addicted.

 

And I hope everyone can skip the bullshit argument about weak wills or whatever. This stuff either works on you or it doesn't. But the ones it works on it works HARD, and willpower has got jack shit to do with it. Psychological manipulation like this is the result of decades, if not centuries of finding just the right buttons and levers to pull in the heads of certain people to get them to spend it all for your rigged bullshit. If it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. If it was a matter of willpower... well, most of you shits can't even stop yourself from pre-ordering games so don't get on too high of a horse.

 

I'm very glad I have absolutely no desire to get any of this crap. It holds zero appeal to me. ...claw machines, on the other hand, are a fatal weakness. Luckily I only ever have a couple bucks cash on me and almost none of them take cards.

[atom631]

5 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Gambling is a heavily regulated industry for a reason. This is very much gambling except they somehow made it even shittier for the consumer, since you can't ever actually win anything of value. Which you'd think would be a deterrent (and in fact is how many places define gambling, whether you can cash out, which at this point is a distinction without a meaningful difference in regards to the conversation, in my opinion), but it turns out when you pray upon people who are psychologically predisposed (not just kids) to be vulnerable to these kinds of mechanisms, whaddaya know, the ability to win something of value isn't the draw or what keeps them addicted.

 

And I hope everyone can skip the bullshit argument about weak wills or whatever. This stuff either works on you or it doesn't. But the ones it works on it works HARD, and willpower has got jack shit to do with it. Psychological manipulation like this is the result of decades, if not centuries of finding just the right buttons and levers to pull in the heads of certain people to get them to spend it all for your rigged bullshit. If it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. If it was a matter of willpower... well, most of you shits can't even stop yourself from pre-ordering games so don't get on too high of a horse.

 

I'm very glad I have absolutely no desire to get any of this crap. It holds zero appeal to me. ...claw machines, on the other hand, are a fatal weakness. Luckily I only ever have a couple bucks cash on me and almost none of them take cards.

I understand this and agree with it to a point...but making sweeping decisions for the entirety of the community based on a minority of individuals with a gambling addiction is not the answer either. Esp when these companies will just come up with another way to monetize their products. Like I mentioned earlier, they can very easily start to increase the base price of games to compensate. This negatively affects the entire community. I know this is a slippery slope, but its well within the realm of possibility. 

 

Im also against things like this simply because I dont want the gov to tell me what I can and cant do with my own free time and money. 

 

There needs to be a middle ground. Maybe put a daily/weekly/monthly cap on how much is allowed to be spent. I dunno, but a blanket ban is a bad move. 

[Xbob42]

The gaming industry has had years and tons of warning rumblings and have done abso-fucking-lutely nothing but defend this bullshit. I will 100% accept a price increase over this bullshit.

[atom631]

1 minute ago, Xbob42 said:

The gaming industry has had years and tons of warning rumblings and have done abso-fucking-lutely nothing but defend this bullshit. I will 100% accept a price increase over this bullshit.

Thats a firm stance and I respect that...even though I disagree. 

[Xbob42]

I'd much rather we have the industry self-regulate... if the industry were how it was in the 90s. Back then they figured out that they needed to make the ESRB to avoid government intervention. Now the ESRB is actively defending unlimited access to what is essentially a slot machine (literally designed to look and feel like one) to kids and adults with no oversight whatsoever. At some point someone's gonna say hey guys, what the fuck are you doing?

[atom631]

18 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I'd much rather we have the industry self-regulate... if the industry were how it was in the 90s. Back then they figured out that they needed to make the ESRB to avoid government intervention. Now the ESRB is actively defending unlimited access to what is essentially a slot machine (literally designed to look and feel like one) to kids and adults with no oversight whatsoever. At some point someone's gonna say hey guys, what the fuck are you doing?

First- kids are a nonissue in this. Ive got an 8 and 10yr old. Their ipads and xboxes are locked down hard. They cant download/purchase/install anything without my consent. If they save up some money and want to buy  the fortnite season pass or some roblox coins, I allow it. If they have $20 I will not allow them to spend all of it on digital items. Bad parenting should not be our burden to regulate. I learned this early with my daughter. 5-6 years ago I downloaded some seemingly innocent child barber shop app on her ipad. A few weeks later,  I got a bill for $200 from apple. Luckily they were very understanding, forgiving and refunded me the money and helped me set the family sharing/parental locks on her ipad. Lesson learned. If this is a continual thing with parents getting large bills, they arent paying attention to their kids and/or have enough disposable income where they dont care or it doesnt matter. Either way, there are tools in place to help them combat this. they just need to take advantage of it. 

 

A good solution should be to put the onus on the publishers/developers to regulate the spending. They want to offer loot boxes, make it so they need to monitor activity for accounts that have consistent, exorbitant amounts of spending. Contact the CC companies and let them know your product flagged suspicious activity. Temporary bans from purchasing. Putting caps on daily/weekly/monthly purchases (as i mentioned). All these regulations would be perfectly acceptable in my book. 

[XxEvil AshxX]

Other devs and publishers have already proven this gen that games can be profitable without all that bullshit. Just because the bigshits at EA/Activision/etc can't sustain their bloated salaries isn't anyone's fault but their own. Fuck 'em.