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Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

I am morally opposed to exposing children to faux-gambling to make Blizzard or Valve an extra buck -- or get them to spend an extra 20 minutes in game. The argument that loot boxes are "only cosmetic" is also a terrible argument. The game experience involves customizing your character. Cosmetic items are by definition part of the game and, therefore, enhance gameplay. Many lawsuits were lost a few years ago where dozens of skin selling/trading/gambling sites had to be shut down. At least I'm happy governments all over the world took a stand.

But unfortunately, this trend won't stop until consumers also take a stand and vote with their wallets. I was excited for Battlefront and the new Shadow of War games but decided not to buy (or pirate) either. On the other hand, maybe litigation is the only way to change these exploitative grey-area practices.

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The issue is unlike previous anti-consumer practices (like day-1 DLC), no more does one customer = one wallet vote. Sure, 50 of us could not buy the game, but that one whale who spends $3000 has just outvoted us with his wallet.

At least it prepares kids for how the real world works...

...at a time at which they're unprepared for making financial decisions.

Which is to say, how all things in any economy with divergent wealth/income has always been :p

/and I'm not saying that prescriptively/judgmentally, just saying that is literally how the market mechanically works.

It's even more systemic than that - vicariously living through streamers opening lootboxes is a favorite for many gamers. Even just some kid who sets up their own Twitch stream can get an uptick in views if they persistently open lootboxes on stream. The thrill of the gambling carries over well for some reason so much that it's often enough to satisfy the viewers' own little internal gamblers.

>The argument that loot boxes are "only cosmetic" is also a terrible argument.

It's a critical argument, because it is the difference between an even playing field and pay-to-win.

>The game experience involves customizing your character. Cosmetic items are by definition part of the game and, therefore, enhance gameplay.

How much of a core gaming experience is "what one of your characters is wearing"?

If it's a massive thing, you are presumably playing the wrong games.

It's not a core gameplay mechanic, it's... Well, purely cosmetic.

> How much of a core gaming experience is "what one of your characters is wearing"?

In every game, from CS:GO, to Overwatch, to WoW, people seem to care what they're wearing. If it's so unimportant to the game, why do people care? Why do people spend real money on cosmetics that have "no impact" on gameplay? Drop this contrarian nonsense, it's clearly important to the game. "Purely cosmetic" is a misleading non-material weasel word.

Some of these cosmetic options become popular with certain player types because of effective camo uses as well. For instance, a lot of the darker and blacker item skins in the CS series have always trended strongly on the marketplace for that reason. Certainly more games try to mitigate against that (the rarest are often the brightest/most peacocky), but there are still utility choices in the cosmetics based on how they appear to opposing players.

It's social cachet. You get to show off. You could decide to not care what clothes you're wearing, or you could be someone who likes to show off their labors.

This isn't important to the "game" - you can still win/lose just as well - but it's an important social aspect for those who want to show off. (I make no judgement on those who like to flaunt the fancy gear - it just makes me want to beat them even more while wearing ugly game-cosmetics that I didn't pay anything for.)

> If it's a massive thing, you are presumably playing the wrong games.

What's intrinsically wrong with a game that uses clothing as a mechanic?

And, on the other other hand, there's a reason why Tencent is the largest gaming company in the world now, and it seems to involve free games that are mostly / overwhelmingly pay-to-win.

> At least I'm happy governments all over the world took a stand. But unfortunately, this trend won't stop until consumers also take a stand and vote with their wallets.

This is naive. If the only solution you proffer is one of consumer boycott then the problem will never get better. Boycotts rarely, if ever, affect anything. And given the nature of the problem — the addictive nature of some game mechanics and dependency on the reward mechanisms of the brain — I think it is borderline foolhardy to believe simple “free will” to be a solution of any seriousness.

If it's faux-gambling now, at what point does it start to fall under some sort of real gambling regulations? Doesn't the US at least regulate online poker and similar games?

You are about 5 years too late. Skin trading is already actual gambling, there are many sites that allow you to buy skins then gamble with them and cash out money. This isn't a hypothetical, it is a business model and I would be amazed if publishers were not aware of it.

Steam's market is also regularly used for actual money laundering through trades and inflated buy orders.

I was only superficially aware of that type of stuff (I play CS:GO every now and then) but not what skin trading actually was nor the money laundering aspect of it. Seems that if Valve wanted to do something about it, they would, right? e-sports are very popular now and they make you use their Steam phone app if you do want to trade something on the Community Market. I guess since it's not technically illegal and they get a cut of it, they don't mind looking the other way (or maybe don't think of it as a negative).

It's becoming quite obvious that Valve has very little interest in making their community in any way "good". Given how badly Steam Greenlight (and now Steam Direct) have gone -- with cheap (to produce, not to purchase) asset flips just dumped on the front page with no real vetting from Valve or the community -- I wouldn't put money on them even giving enough of a toss to notice that they're encouraging children to develop addictive tendencies via online gambling simulators. And if they have noticed it's "not their problem".

At least two states (Valve's home state of Washington is one) already have their gambling commissions looking into this question this year.

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