Hacker News Reader

Um, what makes one form of dishonesty acceptable and loot box dishonesty unacceptable?

Personally I lean on the "I am the final arbiter of my purchasing decisions" side, but surely this principle would have to be applied consistently (and what this looks like is I have bought almost nothing online ever)

View on HN

Lootboxes aren't a form of dishonesty. It's a form of gambling. Gambling needs to be regulated, because that specifically does abuse psychology, whereas when you're buying a product, you know exactly what you're getting. There's no deception there, unless there is, in which case we have laws against it, because it's called false advertisement. We have laws against gambling, because we know how math works and the human mind doesn't by default.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com