> I might consider supporting legislation that targets them, if it's ever brought up.

Well then, it's your lucky day: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/senator-hawley-announ...

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) today announced plans to introduce "The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act," which would target "the exploitation of children through 'pay-to-win' and 'loot box' monetization practices by the video game industry," according to a summary released by Hawley's office.

If you want your bill passed, aren't you meant to make the acronym spell something snappy, and include something no one could be seen to vote against? I'd call it the Protecting American Children from Monetization, Abuse and Narcotics act.

That Hawley, quite a record he got for a novice politician. He is quite zealous, while not seemingly doing that solely for promoting his image.

I will watch his progression with a lot of interest

Oh yea I saw this, the loot boxes arent even an argument to me, they should have been glassed years ago

If you look at buying games, expansions, etc., there seems to be a trend. Ranking them in order of content/$, it goes as follows:

Games > Expansions > DLC > MTX >> MTX that contain temporary boosts only >> Loot boxes.

In my mind, banning MTX's seems to be on the same level as banning DLCs in general. They are a worse value, but they are the same kind of thing. Personally I wouldn't support banning MTX's.

I would definitely support loot boxes being treated as gambling (ban for those under 18, regulation for adults). MTX's containing only temporary boosts is something I've yet to decide upon.

Also, I think that tcg booster packs (like with Magic) should be classified as loot boxes/gambling and treated the same under any loot box law.

The reason why I mention mtx specifically vs things like normal DLCs is because I do feel that they are a dark pattern, one of the reasons they are so successful is because its intentionally easy to forget how much you are spending, and you often dont realize until it's far too late, if you realize at all. And I agree totally on the booster pack point, I've also always felt that way.

> intentionally easy to forget how much you are spending

Which is why a lot of mtx are using some kind of "prenium" currency that's bought with real money, usually in increments different from the prices in the item shop (so that you always have some left-over); then there's the limited revolving selection, to use FOMO (currently used by Fortnite, for example)

If I want to buy a fortnite skin, who are you or the government to tell me I can’t?

If I want to buy radium water, who are you or the government to tell me I can't?

When your jaw falls off in your front yard and my dog eats it and gets cancer it becomes my problem. When the state builds you a special lead coffin and taxpayers foot the bill it becomes a problem for society.

Good question. If I harm no other, and if I am not deceived as to known side effects, why ought I not to be able to do so?

The point of regulation is not to prevent you, the consumer, from making an informed decision to damage yourself. The point is to prevent the producer from exploiting uninformed human vulnerabilities. In the case of quack medicine, we have an easily exploited glitch in our brains that makes us associate exotic substances with medicine. In the case of gambling and microtransactions, we are easily exploited by the "gambler's fallacy." Just one more roll...

Intelligent humans notice things like wasting $16 and 60 minutes on an utterly worthless gaming experience or getting a 3 minute buzz from a cigarette or a crack rock and put together value equations. It's not the government's job to tell people what they can and can't do with regards to harming themselves, it's the government's job to make sure the labels are accurate.

Which is why nobody's addicted to crack and there's no problem! /s

The notion that people are perfectly free and rational entities is a dangerous fallacy. People don't have perfect information, they don't make perfect decisions, and if there's something the government can do that improves the lives of many while inconveniencing few, then it's absolutely the government's job.

There exist substances which will get you addicted instantly. Do these have any place in a free market? Where does the rational "value equation" come in to that?

The problem with crack isn't the cocaine it's the format. Crack is the chemical equivalent of a freemium game, no buy-in and once a user's involved they only pay a few bucks for each subsequent hit. A few dollars quickly adds up to much more than that same person would have spent on an entire 8ball if they were capable of delaying gratification, but they aren't. Console-type games that you pay more for and only pay for once are the digital 8ball to freemium's digital crack rock, addictive but not nearly as destructive.

Perfect Information is what the government needs to guarantee and regulate, not morality. Apps need to be transparent and honest and substances need accurate labeling and purity from contaminants. Heroin is a one-way ticket to pain and degeneracy and everyone in the Western world knows this; it's a terrible value that generally only appeals to someone who's already hooked on opiates.

>The point of regulation is not to prevent you, the consumer, from making an informed decision to damage yourself. The point is to prevent the producer from exploiting uninformed human vulnerabilities. In the case of quack medicine, we have an easily exploited glitch in our brains that makes us associate exotic substances with medicine.

So why don't we regulate/ban quack medicine then?

We do. Dunno what country you're from, but in the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Food_and_Drug_A...

Sorry, that's BS. Here in the US, we have chiropractors, homeopathy, TCM, and other "alternative medicine", all making tons of money, and the FDA doesn't do anything at all about it.

Or people could not buy microtransactions or support games and studios that use them. Seems like something the free market could regulate without legislation.

> Or people could not buy microtransactions or support games and studios that use them.

That's about as helpful as telling people to solve their gambling issue by not gambling. The problem is that many of these microtransaction-based games use the same mechanics as gambling to make them addictive _and_ they're targeting minors with it.

If you are talking about real money loot crates/boxes/packages (as opposed to in game earned virtual currency) you are quite literally talking about gambling. In the case of some games, marketed directly to minors. I am about as free market solution as it gets, but I definitely draw the line at exploiting children (and defrauding their parents simultaneously)

The people who have most issues with gambling addiction play competitive online games. Microtransactions or not, it is competitive online that has people spend all time in game world and their partners wish a new partner.

> Seems like something the free market could regulate without legislation.

Given that this is not occurring, it does not "seem like" this.

People want to play the game, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? It's their money, if playing a gacha game is fun for them, I really don't see the problem.

With gambling people may be driven to gamble to get out of debt. With gacha games, you can't.

People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

Microtransaction games are based around exploiting an inherent flaw in human reasoning; predatory behaviors that exploit our weaknesses as humans should be regulated against.

edit: to back this up: The wordpress blog linked below references 19 clinical studies and explains in detail much better than I care to write up.

https://platinumparagon.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/the-psychol...

>People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

When people start killing each other, or letting their lives fall apart around them, just so they can spend more money on another cute girl in Fate GO, then I'll let you make that analogy.

> When people start killing each other, or letting their lives fall apart around them, just so they can spend more money on another cute girl in Fate GO, then I'll let you make that analogy.

Gambling, video game, and internet addictions are real and do ruin lives.

While I don't want to dive into hyperbole territory and don't blame video games for this instance of violence, just this week someone punched and killed their 1 year old child because they lost at a video game[1].

Brains are weird and are easily highjacked by dopamine hits, whether they're obtained from drugs or external stimuli.

[1] https://people.com/crime/dad-allegedly-kills-baby-son-punch-...

Anecdotal but I've personally known people that have sunk thousands into microtransactions for a single game. Claiming that they arent harmful or predatory in any way whatsoever just seems to be an intentionally obtuse claim to me.

I also know people who have sunk thousands on gacha games.

But that does not make it harmful or predatory. People are allowed to spend money on whatever they want, just because you don't agree with their choices doesn't mean you should make it illegal.

>People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

In China these days, parents pretty much do treat smartphone games "as bad as drugs" for kids.

Rooting phones to prevent game installation and removing/breaking/locking payment APIs is one of most popular services in phone repair shops.

The line between gambling and microtransactions is often very hazy. They tend to exploit the same vulnerability in our brains that leads to gambling addiction. And the target is often children.

> With gambling people may be driven to gamble to get out of debt.

This is not really the problem with gambling.

Is there any proof children are the ones being affected? The biggest source of money in these games has always been whales. And honestly if a kid used there parents credit card to hit $500+, that sounds like a parenting problem (you probably should have put a stop to it earlier). I don't see a problem with a parent giving there kid $60 to spend on Fortnite skins.

>This is not really the problem with gambling.

Yea it is? People lose money gambling, people bet more money to try and make back what they lost. But you'll always eventually lose money gambling in the long run. It's the most common fallacy that gets brought up in gambling.

With gambling you can get banned from casino or betting shops.

How's that "free market regulation" working out right now?

Legislation already exists either restricting gambling or ensuring that it works in specific, semi-transparent ways. I'm not aware of similar restrictions on microtransactions (though I'm unfamiliar with microtransactions in general).

I’m not a lawyer but I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to apply US gambling laws to pay-to-win games and loot boxes. It wouldn’t surprise me if these games have their own Black Friday [1] soon. Disclaimer: I’m not advocating for this and actually would like to see more relaxed online gaming regulations!

1: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2016/04/black-friday-five-yea...

They could but they won't. The fact that the market rewards behavior from consumers and vendors that's counter to the consumers' best interest is why legislation is needed.

But isn't the whole point is that companies are exploiting a bug in our biology to profit? In that case, the fix has to happen more upstream...

If you want to argue that this could be fixed in libertarian-topia without government intervention, you might argue that I dunno, there could be a class action suit showing that the gaming companies knew that such and such mechanics were resulting in many people becoming addicted/going bankrupt and did it anyway, and maybe that's right.

And if you wanna argue that who is so-and-so to argue that X really didn't want to spend all her money on virtual farm upgrades then that's an argument too I suppose.

But if the problem is people are buying something they don't want to because of a dopamine hook, then arguing that the solution is to stop buying it isn't satisfactory.

A lot of times microtransactions simply are time saving. Even in every Gacha game I know of you can technically pay for free, if you're willing to dedicate the time.

But in Clash of Clans, for example, you can be very 'good' (idk what word to use with these kinds of games) without having spent money. You will of course, have spent your time instead.

>A lot of times microtransactions simply are time saving. Even in every Gacha game I know of you can technically pay for free, if you're willing to dedicate the time.

Theoretically maybe, realistically many of those types of games would require about as much time devoted as a full time job to be winnable, if not playable, without microtransactions.

That's just naive. The slot machine devs deliberately make the game annoying by letting you wait unnecessarily if you don't pay all the time.

How on Earth is it naive to point out these games can be played for free? Countless people do it for Puzzle and Dragons and Fate GO, and these two games are some of the highest grossing mobile games of all times. Just go into their respective subreddits and search F2P.

You can play F2P. If you want to save 3 hours of grinding buy spending $5, why do you want to stop them? It's their money, if people enjoy these games, why stop them? You don't need to control every aspect of peoples lives.

These games are engineered to override your ability to make rational decisions. If you are unwilling to see that and are unaware of why they are called "skinner boxes" or skinnerware, and don't see a problem with games that make you suffer (wait) unless you pay repeatedly, and even excuse the developers for exploiting children's and whale's psychologicall unpatchable vuls then these schemes have already won over you.

Just check how the cigarette industry moved public attention from addictive substances they deliberately put into cigarettes to "personal responsibility of smokers".

It's been brought up! https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2019/05/08/new-micro...

It's a natural example of unbundled/a la carte content distribution. Gambling can be addictive and predatory but pay as you go content isn't bad in and if itself.

Please don't support more government micro-management of our lives. I agree it's a dark pattern, but if we don't get hurt, we'll never learn.

The alternative is hoping enough people "learn" AND reduce their personal short-term convenience to make it financially rewarding for enough development companies to provide worthwhile alternatives AND for that to be obvious enough that enough companies try.

That's a lot of footgunning spent hoping a lot of other people footgun. I've been there, and I was the only that suffered, not the companies doing wrong.

People have been getting hurt for years and they haven't learned yet. Trust me, I'd prefer the market to self regulate, but clearly it hasn't and won't in this regard, as evidenced by the article.

Is this supposed to be a parody of hn libertarian thought? I can't imagine the lesson a child learns from maxing out the credit card of loot crates to be worth more than the money.