Paid content in videogames (DLC, loot boxes, passes, currencies, "surprise mechanics" and - new! - pay more or wait!)

Government says video game loot boxes will not be regulated

The UK government has decided video game loot boxes will not be regulated under betting laws, despite it finding a link between them and gambling harms.

In a long-awaited call for evidence, it instead told the video game industry to take action to protect young people.

It says it will step in if firms do not act, and also wants loot box purchases to be restricted to adults, unless approved by a parent or guardian.

Tory government decides not to regulate industry. I'm shocked.

An industry regulating itself always goes well! There is absolutely no way they'd ever cut corners or place profit above safety :toot:

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In a long-awaited call for evidence, it instead told the video game industry to take action to protect young people.

I'm sure this will work

We have leaders in the industry telling developers that their player spending loops in games are too short and that they are "strawbin' idiots" for this.

I think the industry has demonstrated how rigorous an overhaul will be undertaken by how they now display a tiny little "in-game spending options" logo on (some) game boxes. Problem resolved 8-)

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Balladeer wrote:Tory government decides not to regulate industry. I'm shocked.

It's something I'd bet many of them don't understand or have experience with. They'll see it as potentially interfering with business and profits.

They'll get involved when it garners enough outrage in certain parts of the media (angry parent faces in an article with the kid looking like a sheepish twat behind them) and when it becomes politically expedient to do so.

At the moment, it's just businesses making more money from selling things to consumers, which they are going to be right behind. They don't really care how that money is being made, obviously.

It seems that Assassin's Creed Mirage may have received an early "Adults Only" ESRB rating in the US, due to the inclusion of "real gambling" i.e. gambling by paying real money rather then the in-game currencies that developers often use to get around such issues.

Is Mirage headlining a new wave of videogame casinos? I guess we'll soon discover more on this!

jawa_ wrote:It seems that Assassin's Creed Mirage may have received an early "Adults Only" ESRB rating in the US, due to the inclusion of "real gambling" i.e. gambling by paying real money rather then the in-game currencies that developers often use to get around such issues.

Is Mirage headlining a new wave of videogame casinos? I guess we'll soon discover more on this!

The vast majority of US retailers refuse to carry games with an AO rating, so if Ubisoft go ahead with that the game will be restricted to pretty much only being available from Ubisoft directly.
I'm not sure PSN or Xbox Live allow the sale of AO rated games either, not sure if they'd allow Ubisoft to sell PSN/Xbox codes directly that could then be redeemed and downloaded.

Historically developers with any aims to sell in the mainstream US games market have avoided an AO rating at all possible costs.

In the past this is because an AO rating has always been associated with sexual content so not sure what will happen when it's due to gambling related content.

Lagamorph wrote:...Historically developers with any aims to sell in the mainstream US games market have avoided an AO rating at all possible costs...

Yeah, it certainly is unusual. I understand that the rating was seen on the Xbox Store and people thought it was a mistake; but then others noticed that the rating was mentioned in Ubisoft's Forward presentation, too.

It may well be a mistake but there is a possibility that Ubisoft are dipping their toes into the waters of gambling. I was going to say I'd be surprised if they were... but perhaps they've done the calculations on the financial potential and think it's worth it.

...it was a "mistake"! Ubisoft has advised that there are no loot boxes or real-money gambling games in Mirage. Phew!

I'm not going to be remotely surprised if Data Miners find leftover elements of a real money gambling system that was hastily stripped out.

"Following the announcement of Assassin's Creed Mirage during Ubisoft Forward, some store pages mistakenly displayed the game for preorders with an Adults Only ESRB rating," a Ubisoft spokesperson told Eurogamer

Wasn't the rating also displayed in Ubisoft's own trailer?

jawa_ wrote:...it was a "mistake"! Ubisoft has advised that there are no loot boxes or real-money gambling games in Mirage. Phew!

But you can pay £70 for it instead

twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1569411005465116673

Maybe they should sell the disc as a £69 DLC for the plastic box

twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1569489630244012033

NFT ads parading as commentary flavour in a game already chock full of licensed product placement. :lol:

I was pretty aware of the CSGO gambling controversy back when it all blew up in 2017, but haven't kept up with what's been going on since, and it sounds like things have only gotten worse. Valve are all but actively complicit in this, and some of the testimonies in the above video are heartbreaking. strawberry float loot boxes, and the whole "it's only cosmetics" crowd. This gooseberry fool is awful.

Found this display in my local library this morning.

Pleased to see them not pulling any punches while trying to educate on this.

WiiU gamepad front and centre :datass:

Push Square wrote:Beginning with Season 21, you’ll have to pay 1,200 Silver for the standard Season Pass and 2,200 Silver for the Season Pass including 10 ranks. The previous price was 1,000 Silver and 2,000 Silver respectively.

Bungie are increasing the cost of season passes for Destiny 2; up 20% for both the standard version and "ranked" version.

Perhaps this is a bit surprising after recent Destiny 2 updates didn't get a great reception. However, the real reason I'm mentioning it here is the cost of purchasing Silver, the in-game currency required to purchase the passes. You saw that the standard pass will cost 1,200 Silver, right? Well, Bungie sell Silver in a pack at 1,100 for £8.49.

1,100. When the standard pass requires 1,200. So... you have to spend quite a bit more of your real-world cash to get the amount of Silver that is needed to obtain the standard pass.

Strawbin' hell, Bungie!

What's the problem, you only have to buy the season pass 11 times at a cost of £93.39 for it to all work out without any waste!

Setting prices like that shouldn't be legal

Knoyleo wrote:Found this display in my local library this morning.

Pleased to see them not pulling any punches while trying to educate on this.

This is brilliant :wub:

Is this our longest running thread, BTW?

Paid content in videogames (DLC, loot boxes, passes, currencies, "surprise mechanics" and - new! - pay more or wait!)

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