State Legislator Wants to Ban Kids from Buying Video Game Loot Boxes

Megalith

Megalith

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Hawaiian state representative Chris Lee is a gamer who’s been upset about loot boxes for a long time and is working on legislation for the state of Hawaii that would restrict the sale of games with loot boxes to minors. For Lee, video games selling loot boxes is a clear case of marketing gambling to children.

“These mechanics are absolutely designed to exploit human psychology in the same way casino gambling does,” Lee said. “Kids don’t have the maturity to know where to draw the line. It raises huge issues of what is ethically appropriate.” For now, he is happy to keep Star Wars Battlefront II out of the hands of children and he’s looking at partners in the continental United States to help.
 
Why you ask? because there is nothing more important in this world then ending the horror of free video game loot boxes... it's destroying this country and eating our souls... this is some fantastic use of tax payer dollars... thanks Hawaii!
 
Maybe we should ban the sale of cereal boxes with different prizes at the bottom too.

Actually, I think that took care of itself by cereal companies being to cheap to put them in anymore. :p






***I am neither for nor against prizes in cereal boxes...

******I think loot boxes are retarded...

*********However, I don't think banning them is going to help anything...
 
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Krazy925 said:
If you don’t like loot boxes don’t buy or play games with them and don’t buy them for the kiddos.

Problem solved.
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That's not how capitalism works. Unfortunately loot boxes becoming a primary source of profit for video game publishers is causing an obvious decline in quality of video games. All because a few bad players decided to spend extra money to get an advantage.

Replace the failing students with those who buy loot boxes.
poMW9RU.jpg
 
Seems like most of those posting so far would be perfectly ok with letting kids into casinos, or allowing them to buy lottery tickets... You know, things "liberals" (aka anyone I don't agree with) like to say isn't acceptable...
 
Chunder said:
Seems like most of those posting so far would be perfectly ok with letting kids into casinos, or allowing them to buy lottery tickets... You know, things "liberals" (aka anyone I don't agree with) like to say isn't acceptable...
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You just had to take it there didn't you. Is it not ok to either condone, or not condone an individual act, item, cause, these days?

As far as kids in casinos? Sure, but I still want to smoke cigars inside, and provided the kids aren't allowed to sign away the deed to the house or anything like that... Let them run wild. :p Now to train my daughters on the Blackjack tables.
 
Loot boxes are 1) a gamble 2) appealing to children and 3) not always free. Sounds like baseball cards or a Kinder Surprise, except loot boxes are completely worthless and not tasty. I guess if kids can't be parented anymore without a credit card, we better start banning things.
 
Budzman said:
Liberals love to tell you what you can and can't do.
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It seems as though most wingnuts are perfectly happy to tell the majority of citizens, that are not part of their special club, what to do. So, I'd say you've got nothing to complain about on that point;)

On another note, I see this as being just another "look at me" political move, much like the MSRB rating on games to limit access to minors. This dipsh**s plan is no less stupid as it still doesn't stop adults, i.e., family members, from purchasing these games and under 18 kids playing them.

I'm lucky in that my kids realize most loot box transactions are nothing but shit and won't buy them. I also have the payments locked so we discuss purchases and I have a better grasp of what they're up to when online. :)
 
Authoritarians again. It's idiocy. the parents need to make this choice, and be responsible for it. If their kid spends $1000 to open loot boxes because they weren't paying attention, then they need to pay it and learn to pay more attention. It's not the government's place for things like this.
 
VIC-20 said:
Loot boxes are 1) a gamble 2) appealing to children and 3) not always free. Sounds like baseball cards or a Kinder Surprise, except loot boxes are completely worthless and not tasty. I guess if kids can't be parented anymore without a credit card, we better start banning things.
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Agreed. Also, just because some small amount of money is exchanged, I don't think this encourages children to become gambling addicts any more than any other game of chance with our without money exchanged. They can still load up some casino game and play the same games for pretend money. That's not THAT far from actually gambling a bit. If it's actually the behavior we're concerned about. If it's just that these government officials aren't seeing their cut from loot boxes, that's another thing entirely.
 
Capitalism requires regulation. And if it's to regulate the sale of an addictive worthless product aimed at children, while increasing the quality of the games I pay for, I'm all for it. It's sort of like regulating the sale of cocaine, except cocaine isn't worthless.
 
J3RK said:
Agreed. Also, just because some small amount of money is exchanged, I don't think this encourages children to become gambling addicts any more than any other game of chance with our without money exchanged. They can still load up some casino game and play the same games for pretend money. That's not THAT far from actually gambling a bit. If it's actually the behavior we're concerned about. If it's just that these government officials aren't seeing their cut from loot boxes, that's another thing entirely.
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The truth of the matter is addictive things aren't addictive to everyone, but society doesn't what to do about addicts and in the mean time addicts make people rich. I don't know what the solution is, but I guess its hard to argue against stopping kids from being influenced from all forms of addiction (as much as we possibly can anyway). Maybe regulation is worth a look. I think if they go after loot boxes though, all other forms of kids gambling should be looked at too.
 
I'm not opposed to this and have personally spent money chasing after mythical items on Steam and Mobile. I've also seen my daughter become addicted to the crane machine after winning a plushy, then wanting to drop every allowance dollar on the prospect of winning more.

There is some truth here...
 
i would say this make loot boxes require a gambling permit to be included in game... so loot boxes are eliminated 100%
 
If each quarter adds the same amount of lives/time then what are you gambling?



I don't know about banning, but if there's a gambling mechanic you can spend actual money on in a game, it gets stuck with the 18+ label. Parents can decide for their own children no?
 
NickJames said:
That's not how capitalism works. Unfortunately loot boxes becoming a primary source of profit for video game publishers is causing an obvious decline in quality of video games. All because a few bad players decided to spend extra money to get an advantage.

Replace the failing students with those who buy loot boxes.
poMW9RU.jpg
Click to expand...
Hasnt affected a single game that I play because I refuse to play them.

If people stop buying loot boxes they won’t continue making games with them... that’s how capitalism works. If enough people
buy BF2 then it’ll be a commercial success and the consumers will have decided. I still won’t buy those games, nor play them.

I want to play BF2 but I refuse based on principal.

I’d also like to see your figures that is how the majority of AAA games make their money. Specifically loot boxes.

This hasn’t affected my gaming experience because I don’t play shit tier half baked games, not that you do either.

Shit, DOTA got it right, plenty of others have as well. This iteration of loot boxes feel like robbery.
 
Kogan said:
Capitalism requires regulation. And if it's to regulate the sale of an addictive worthless product aimed at children, while increasing the quality of the games I pay for, I'm all for it. It's sort of like regulating the sale of cocaine, except cocaine isn't worthless.
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That is idiocy. Capitalism does NOT require regulation. Regulation is just the power hungry imposing their will over others, not for the good of others, but for their own power. It restricts everything to what THEY allow, and that is NEVER for the good of the people. It makes the aristocracy richer and oppresses the people.
 
So let me get this straight. The general consensus of [H]ard gaming community has always been "FUCK lootboxes, they are a cancer on gaming"

But now that some D is trying to curb it, this is a vast liberal agenda and "lootboxes are good and represent a healthy free society"?

Have you all become immune to the uneasy feeling you get with cognitive dissidence?
 
dgingeri said:
That is idiocy. Capitalism does NOT require regulation. Regulation is just the power hungry imposing their will over others, not for the good of others, but for their own power. It restricts everything to what THEY allow, and that is NEVER for the good of the people. It makes the aristocracy richer and oppresses the people.
Click to expand...
How did the Cuyahoga river catch fire again?
 
DocFaustus said:
So let me get this straight. The general consensus of [H]ard gaming community has always been "FUCK lootboxes, they are a cancer on gaming"

But now that some D is trying to curb it, this is a vast liberal agenda and "lootboxes are good and represent a healthy free society"?

Have you all become immune to the uneasy feeling you get with cognitive dissidence?
Click to expand...

No, it's more of "sure it's bad, but people need to learn to deal with the bad things for themselves, and to impose regulations on these things only weakens people and makes them more vulnerable."
 
dgingeri said:
Crony capitalism supported by the power hungry politicians.
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So you're saying if no politicians were involved and it was just manufacturing companies competing against each other, the water would have been nice and clean because they never would have polluted to cut costs, got it.

Is that why the BP oil spill happened too, because of the power hungry politicians? I could have sworn it was because they skimped on safety REGULATIONS because it was more profitable to cut corners. I think I'm missing the part where NO regulations on that would have benefited everyone.
 
If you're under 18 you aren't a real person in the eyes of the law anyways, so I don't really see the issue here.

Kids shouldn't be gambling.
 
dgingeri said:
No, it's more of "sure it's bad, but people need to learn to deal with the bad things for themselves, and to impose regulations on these things only weakens people and makes them more vulnerable."
Click to expand...

While I am normally the boostrappy type that promotes what you are saying, this instance specifically mentions in-game items that give them an advantage. So by definition, any strong willed individual that doesn't buy the loot boxes is at a disadvantage to those weak-willed kids that purchase said boxes (if they get lucky).

We all laughed when this crap was contained to shitty candy style phone games, but it has jumped to the PC and infecting all upcoming games.
 
DocFaustus said:
So let me get this straight. The general consensus of [H]ard gaming community has always been "FUCK lootboxes, they are a cancer on gaming"

But now that some D is trying to curb it, this is a vast liberal agenda and "lootboxes are good and represent a healthy free society"?

Have you all become immune to the uneasy feeling you get with cognitive dissidence?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I get the slippery slope concern, but it is kind of comical:

Gamers don't want this shit.
Parents don't want this shit.
Kids don't know any better.
Basically no one who isn't a shareholder at a AAA company wants this.

Moves make to actually prevent this legally = OMG THE OPPRESSION
 
Krazy925 said:
Hasnt affected a single game that I play because I refuse to play them.

If people stop buying loot boxes they won’t continue making games with them... that’s how capitalism works. If enough people
buy BF2 then it’ll be a commercial success and the consumers will have decided. I still won’t buy those games, nor play them.

I want to play BF2 but I refuse based on principal.

I’d also like to see your figures that is how the majority of AAA games make their money. Specifically loot boxes.

This hasn’t affected my gaming experience because I don’t play shit tier half baked games, not that you do either.

Shit, DOTA got it right, plenty of others have as well. This iteration of loot boxes feel like robbery.
Click to expand...



EA makes nearly 50% of their revenue off loot boxes, and that figure is climbing. It doesn't matter if half of us decide not to buy loot boxes, the other half make up for the loss revenue by spending 3-4x the price of the game in microtransactions. It's basically a losing battle for gamers all around.

A developer at Bioware once stated that a single person spent over $15,000 on loot boxes.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-23-manveer-heir-bioware-mass-effect-ea-monetisation
 
Krazy925 said:
If you don’t like loot boxes don’t buy or play games with them and don’t buy them for the kiddos.

Problem solved.
Click to expand...

...or play games with them...

The trend seems to for all games to start adopting variations of this model. So soon we can simplify it to if "you don't like loot boxes, don't play video games"

I know you took an overly simplistic catch phrase and ran with it but you really put no skin into the game at this point. What is YOUR opinion on loot boxes?
 
tetris42 said:
Yeah, I get the slippery slope concern, but it is kind of comical:

Gamers don't want this shit.
Parents don't want this shit.
Kids don't know any better.
Basically no one who isn't a shareholder at a AAA company wants this.

Moves make to actually prevent this legally = OMG THE OPPRESSION
Click to expand...

Kinda? You're right nobody really wants this. Companies use them because they can get away with it, and make themselves some extra cash.

I hate them, but I'm not sure I want the government to step in to make them stop. On the surface that might align with my personal opinion, but there are so many ways that this could be later misapplied to other things. Where exactly do you think it will stop, because it's not going to stop at "loot boxes = kids gambling". What's to stop them from pushing into other gaming territory? Now all of a sudden something like the little slot machines in a Mario game that give you coins or power ups for an in-game advantage are under fire because some overactive politician says they're giving small children ideas.

Likely scenario right now... No... With former senators, first ladies, second ladies, etc. that have tried to basically KILL VIDEO GAMES COMPLETELY, can you not see the danger of letting them put bans in place.

I couldn't give much less in the way of fucks about loot boxes. I'd love to see them die a nice painful NATURAL death by consumers wising up. But allowing the government to ban it... seems a little on the iffy side.

Chance of consumers wising up though... 0%

Kinda puts everyone in a bad spot, except the game companies raking in the money right now.
 
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dgingeri said:
No, it's more of "sure it's bad, but people need to learn to deal with the bad things for themselves, and to impose regulations on these things only weakens people and makes them more vulnerable."
Click to expand...

Nobody will ever learn that lesson. Because the people getting punished by creating an unbalanced game are the folks that are NOT buying the boxes.

It is brilliant in how evil the plan is really.
 
dgingeri said:
That is idiocy. Capitalism does NOT require regulation. Regulation is just the power hungry imposing their will over others, not for the good of others, but for their own power. It restricts everything to what THEY allow, and that is NEVER for the good of the people. It makes the aristocracy richer and oppresses the people.
Click to expand...

There are a number of very well-documented problems with capitalism that do, in fact, require regulation. Even Adam @#$@%^ Smith recognized this. :p

Among them:
  • Tragedy of the commons/negative externalities
  • The principal-agent problem
  • Price-gouging
  • Monopolies (and no, not all monopolies are the result of regulation. Good try, though.)
  • Goods with exhibit highly inelastic demand (medical care, etc.)
I'm curious...do you consider a functioning judiciary regulation? Because it is, and you kinda need that for contract enforcement.

The alternative to regulation is, quite literally, anarchy. I think I'll pass.
 
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J3RK said:
I'd love to see them die a nice painful NATURAL death by consumers wising up.
Click to expand...

Never ever gonna happen. You are wise to them, and I am wise to them, neither of us will pay for loot boxes.

You're asking people that have no sense of the value of money nor the sense of fair play to not do everything possible to have an edge in a game. Micro-transactions dominate sales at this point, so companies are always going to what is most profitable.
 
J3RK said:
Kinda? You're right nobody really wants this. Companies use them because they can get away with it, and make themselves some extra cash.

I hate them, but I'm not sure I want the government to step in to make them stop. On the surface that might align with my personal opinion, but there are so many ways that this could be later misapplied to other things. Where exactly do you think it will stop, because it's not going to stop at "loot boxes = kids gambling". What's to stop them from pushing into other gaming territory? Now all of a sudden something like the little slot machines in a Mario game that give you coins or power ups for an in-game advantage are under fire because some overactive politician says they're giving small children ideas.

Likely scenario right now... No... With former senators, first ladies, second ladies, etc. that have tried to basically KILL VIDEO GAMES COMPLETELY, can you not see the danger of letting them put bans in place.

I couldn't give much less in the way of fucks about loot boxes. I'd love to see them die a nice painful NATURAL death by consumers wising up. But allowing the government to ban it... seems a little on the iffy side.

Chance of consumers wising up though... 0%

Kinda puts everyone in a bad spot, except the game companies raking in the money right now.
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I agree it's a pretty sloppy fix, but I've seen so much overreach from game companies, seeing some push back by someone with teeth is a nice change. Honestly, the one issue I wish the government WOULD get involved with is the practice of shutting down servers to games and bricking them. It's basically fraud in my eyes, you pay them money, they give no guarantee of how long the game will last, then shut it down, and you can never play it again, by design, despite being completely preventable.

In the 90s, if you had a game that connected online and the company stopped supporting it... no biggie, you can still play the game anytime you want as long as somebody hosts a server.
Now, if you play almost ANY multiplayer games and even a few single player games that require an online connection and the company stops supporting it... that's it, you never play the game again.

No other industry would tolerate this, yet here we are. Lootboxes are just another step towards seeing what consumers will put up with. It won't stop here either.
 
dgingeri said:
That is idiocy. Capitalism does NOT require regulation. Regulation is just the power hungry imposing their will over others, not for the good of others, but for their own power. It restricts everything to what THEY allow, and that is NEVER for the good of the people. It makes the aristocracy richer and oppresses the people.
Click to expand...
I don't want to go too far off-topic, but taylor energy has had a leaking oil well in the gulf of mexico since 2004, and just to throw a few more out:
Vajont Dam, Aberfan disaster, Dona Paz, Lapindo mud, Lake Peigneur
 
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