We shared with the NYAG that these types of boxes in our games are widely used, not just in video games but in the tangible world as well, where generations have grown up opening baseball card packs and blind boxes and bags, and then trading and selling the items they receive.
Honest question I’m curious to hear peoples opinions on: Gambling is obviously dangerous, and I think we can all agree that exposing kids to it easly is bad. At the same time, for any form of virtual gambling, how do you ensure that kids can’t access it without putting a significant limit on adults’ freedoms? Like, Lemmy is very pro-privacy, but would this be a case where the (few) merits of ID based verification would be justified, or should we be just be banning all gambling outside of designated casinos, or…
Edit: Honestly, thinking it over and reading responses, my personal thoughts are to require clear disclosures on products that include gambling (physical or not), possibly put stricter regulations on how it is accessed, such as a safety warning before accessing it to add another step of friction each time, and put limitations on the mechanics of it to prevent rigging the odds in ways that are manipulative or abusive. Be curious to hear people’s opinions on this too.
Or… parents can parent their goddamn children. All this deanonymize the internet shit is absolutely not about protecting children anyway and would have grave consequences.
I don’t really partake, so I’m always hesitant to have a really firm line in the sand, but we’ve seen a ton of harm come from the constant access to gambling that we’ve got now via sports betting that we didn’t have before deregulation in the wake of Draft Kings, so I’m inclined to lean toward it only being in designated locations. The problem here is similar in that you can access it everywhere and definitely exacerbated by not even doing the bare minimum amount of countermeasures against underage gambling, because they want to pretend that it isn’t gambling.
Make it so that gambling leads to a higher age rating for the game, and then let parents manage that the same way they would violence or language in a game. I think (hope) this would lead to a huge drop in lootboxes, rather than changes to ratings, but either way works for me.
“Gambling” is one of the tags the ESRB labels games with already. A higher letter rating won’t really help when parents aren’t parenting and don’t pay any attention to what their kids are doing. Hella little kids are already in most M rated games, squeaking out racial slurs over the mic.
The entire rating system is to assist parents and it basically does nothing.
There’s only so much to do about bad parenting. But all gambling games like this aren’t 18+ like they should be so parents aren’t getting an accurate representation of risks they take bending the rules, if they even are.
I guess what I meant, but didn’t go as far as saying, is that lootboxes should be categorised as gambling, as they currently show up in games like Fifa, rated for children, which parents likely wouldn’t think twice about until they see their next credit card statement.
Ultimately parents need to do more to safeguard their kids, but the sneaky and insidious way lootboxes are used makes it significantly harder, and I would argue goes beyond what the average parent would reasonably be able to look out for.
We need punishments for parents neglecting their kids like this, letting them gamble and play things rated above their age rating is not good parenting.
But part of the problem is that they’re not above the age rating, often things like Fifa are rated as suitable for children. And ultimately, the ratings are guidance, they’re not rules or law. There should definitely be a push for parents to actually look into it properly though, I do think that’s a big part of the issue, and leads to legislation such as age verification, which just makes things more difficult for everyone.
I mean, currently Counter Strike already has (had?) an ESRB M rating, as did TF2. Dota isn’t rated, but would clearly also be M, given abilites like Rupture. Do you think we just need to reduce the normalization of it?
But how many children are playing those games and buying lootboxes without their parents’ knowledge?
I am absolutely in favour of less lootboxes in games though. They are an unfortunate natural progression of microtransactions, and the fact that they make so much money means they’re unlikely to go anywhere without any systemic measures being put in place.
In this case the NY lawmakers have already banned gambling for adults as well. I honestly think a lot of the pushback they’re likely to get from the community has to do with the fact that they included this phrasing about child gambling at all. The games in question aren’t really made for children, and Valve didn’t really market any of their games to kids (while Pokemon cards absolutely are marketed toward children and amount to gambling, but NY’s AG doesn’t appear to go after New Yorkers who sell or buy Pokemon cards).
If their logic was: “Gambling = Illegal, and running a web shop where the proceeds of gambling can be exchanged for real world cash” is the bar to clear then it doesn’t really matter who was able to gamble, that’s just a way to avoid backlash from parents who don’t want their kids gambling but don’t understand the world their kids live in.
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Honest question I’m curious to hear peoples opinions on: Gambling is obviously dangerous, and I think we can all agree that exposing kids to it easly is bad. At the same time, for any form of virtual gambling, how do you ensure that kids can’t access it without putting a significant limit on adults’ freedoms? Like, Lemmy is very pro-privacy, but would this be a case where the (few) merits of ID based verification would be justified, or should we be just be banning all gambling outside of designated casinos, or…
Edit: Honestly, thinking it over and reading responses, my personal thoughts are to require clear disclosures on products that include gambling (physical or not), possibly put stricter regulations on how it is accessed, such as a safety warning before accessing it to add another step of friction each time, and put limitations on the mechanics of it to prevent rigging the odds in ways that are manipulative or abusive. Be curious to hear people’s opinions on this too.
Or… parents can parent their goddamn children. All this deanonymize the internet shit is absolutely not about protecting children anyway and would have grave consequences.
I don’t really partake, so I’m always hesitant to have a really firm line in the sand, but we’ve seen a ton of harm come from the constant access to gambling that we’ve got now via sports betting that we didn’t have before deregulation in the wake of Draft Kings, so I’m inclined to lean toward it only being in designated locations. The problem here is similar in that you can access it everywhere and definitely exacerbated by not even doing the bare minimum amount of countermeasures against underage gambling, because they want to pretend that it isn’t gambling.
Make it so that gambling leads to a higher age rating for the game, and then let parents manage that the same way they would violence or language in a game. I think (hope) this would lead to a huge drop in lootboxes, rather than changes to ratings, but either way works for me.
“Gambling” is one of the tags the ESRB labels games with already. A higher letter rating won’t really help when parents aren’t parenting and don’t pay any attention to what their kids are doing. Hella little kids are already in most M rated games, squeaking out racial slurs over the mic.
The entire rating system is to assist parents and it basically does nothing.
There’s only so much to do about bad parenting. But all gambling games like this aren’t 18+ like they should be so parents aren’t getting an accurate representation of risks they take bending the rules, if they even are.
I guess what I meant, but didn’t go as far as saying, is that lootboxes should be categorised as gambling, as they currently show up in games like Fifa, rated for children, which parents likely wouldn’t think twice about until they see their next credit card statement.
Ultimately parents need to do more to safeguard their kids, but the sneaky and insidious way lootboxes are used makes it significantly harder, and I would argue goes beyond what the average parent would reasonably be able to look out for.
We need punishments for parents neglecting their kids like this, letting them gamble and play things rated above their age rating is not good parenting.
But part of the problem is that they’re not above the age rating, often things like Fifa are rated as suitable for children. And ultimately, the ratings are guidance, they’re not rules or law. There should definitely be a push for parents to actually look into it properly though, I do think that’s a big part of the issue, and leads to legislation such as age verification, which just makes things more difficult for everyone.
I mean, currently Counter Strike already has (had?) an ESRB M rating, as did TF2. Dota isn’t rated, but would clearly also be M, given abilites like Rupture. Do you think we just need to reduce the normalization of it?
But how many children are playing those games and buying lootboxes without their parents’ knowledge?
I am absolutely in favour of less lootboxes in games though. They are an unfortunate natural progression of microtransactions, and the fact that they make so much money means they’re unlikely to go anywhere without any systemic measures being put in place.
In this case the NY lawmakers have already banned gambling for adults as well. I honestly think a lot of the pushback they’re likely to get from the community has to do with the fact that they included this phrasing about child gambling at all. The games in question aren’t really made for children, and Valve didn’t really market any of their games to kids (while Pokemon cards absolutely are marketed toward children and amount to gambling, but NY’s AG doesn’t appear to go after New Yorkers who sell or buy Pokemon cards).
If their logic was: “Gambling = Illegal, and running a web shop where the proceeds of gambling can be exchanged for real world cash” is the bar to clear then it doesn’t really matter who was able to gamble, that’s just a way to avoid backlash from parents who don’t want their kids gambling but don’t understand the world their kids live in.
Oh, that’s easy. Find some kids who gambled and make an example out of them on national TV. Problem solved!