Quote Originally Posted by DELTAprime View Post
For anyone not up with the latest in gaming, loot boxes are a big issue in games right now. Star Wars Battlefront II (the one from EA released last November not the one from a decade ago) has predatory loot boxes and subsequently various governments and groups have woken up to their use in games.

Some people argue that they are a form of gambling and need to be regulated (note that nobody with half a brain is banned but rather "regulated").

Others argue that because you get an in game item not money they are not gambling and totally ok.

America will probably have a hard time regulating them because of the supreme court ruling in Schwarzenegger V EMA in which video games were declared protected speech which means the government can't regulate them.

However in parts of Europe and here in Australia things look more positive with government bodies recognising loot boxes as gambling and beginning the slow process of updating laws.

There was a South Park episode about it all many years ago, as Stan got addicted and kept doing all these little transactions which added up to thousands of dollars.

Sadly though, its these addicted people that make the games possible for the rest of us. The game designers need the money to make them and keep going with the updates, and if people aren't playing the games die, much like a few previous TF app games have done.

I think I've heard it said that 95% of the profits from these app games only comes from 5% of the players. Again, sad for them but if they were not doing so then people that never spend money on their apps like me wouldn't get to keep playing.

It's one of the very few cases where instead of the minority spoiling things for the majority, the minority actually make it possible for the majority to have their fun.