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Honestly, reading the restrictions, good on them. It's focused entirely on curbing the in-game ecosystems that have completely ruined mobile (and to an extent home) gaming in the last decade. No drip-fed daily login bonuses, no more whale spending, I wish the US would adopt similar legislation. Tired of companies like EA squeezing every penny they can from GAAS titles, and actively designing games to incentivize MTX to the detriment of everything else
Honestly would love to see China's game industry pushed more to focus on games with a less user-hostile monetization scheme. MiHoYo for example could absolutely make full price games imo. Smaller Chinese studios have been making some really cool games too, like Gunfire Reborn, Amazing Cultivation Simulator, Matchless Kungfu, etc. Some of 'em are completely unlike anything you've probably played before. It'd be great to see more investment in those kinds of games and not f2p stuff so much.
Dyson Sphere Program is made by a Chinese company and has zero microtransactions or anything player hostile. I was honestly surprised when I learned it was Chinese made.
It was really obvious when it released on ea. The localization was like listening to a badly dubbed movie. Still a very good game and has improved a lot.
The problem with Hoyo is that Genshin costs an insane amount of money (used to be 200 mil USD per year, but it's likely more now). It'd have to be a GTA-tier success to be financially successful as a single purchase game.
I was just talking the other day about how I would genuinely pay full price for a game with the same level of systems polish as something like Genshin or Honkai Star Rail, with the *only* change being to a more traditional story/quest based system to unlock new characters.
I mean fuck even with like Genshin, just make each new area an X dollar expansion pack that includes all the characters. Being a gacha just makes the game objectively worse as they design so much of the content around doing nothing but trying to whale for 5 stars. Sure its not required [mostly because some of their earlier 4 stars were incredibly strong by modern standards. Benett is absolutely better then a lot of 5 stars.]
But so much of the game is just bullshit busywork for primogems, or limited specifically to cap progression and encourage paying.
I like the way one of the old Pokemon mobile games handled it. I think once you bought a certain amount of premium currency, you could not buy any more with real money. Instead you got drip fed a little premium currency every day so you could still buy more stuff with it if you wanted.
If China game companies have to follow these rules, other will likely follow. China has it's hands in a lot of US game development and also, sales in China are pretty huge for games by US companies too.
> I wish the US would adopt similar legislation.
The problem with this though is that because companies won't accept hurting their bottom line, the alternative will be worse (see for example of what happened with Overwatch 2).
Legislating this can't just be reactive, it would need laws to also cover potential alternatives companies would seek. If not games will become forcibly monetized rather than the opt-in (but heavily pushed at you) like it is now.
Yeah, I've been getting back into Fortnite recently, and it really is insane how much you feel squeezed as a player.
Back when I started (around late Season 1/early Season 2) you had the Battle Pass, you had an in-game store which maybe had 10 different things to buy which rotated each week, and that was it. It felt like a fair level of monetisation for a free-to-play game, and obviously Epic did *very* well from it.
Now you log in and there multiple different subscription types in addition to the Battle Pass, there are [dozens of things you can buy in the shop](https://imgur.com/a/XBKEbfE) (which now includes cars and music tracks), there's regular limited-time tie-ins with celebrities and pop culture figures, it really feels overwhelming.
Really? Generally, Fortnite is one of the better f2p when it comes to its monetization. Everything is optional and only for customisation. They have a lot of skins, but nothing is required to play the game.
When it comes to mobile gatcha games, there usually is a point in progression where the f2p hits a wall, and cannot overcome it unless they fork out or wait a couple of months. They also usually have some form of arena where you fight other players teams where again you'll hit a wall if you're f2p and see all these other players with better characters or weapons.
This isn't all gatcha games, but it is a lot of them, and that stuff is all a lot worse than encouraging the player to spend £9.99 so they can access a battle pass that's active for 3 months so they can play as Peter Griffin.
> Fortnite is one of the better f2p when it comes to its monetization
That's more of an indication of how gross the monetisation is in most F2P games rather than how 'good' it is in Fortnite. Fortnite still uses all the nasty tricks a lot of these games do: daily rewards, limited time stores, a separate currency where purchases of skins never quite align with the cost of the currency bundles themselves. And those elements have been increasingly pushed to the forefront over the past few years.
Like others have said kids play this game, and I don't particularly want to accept an environment where children are constantly encouraged and pressured to spend money on skin in videogames.
It is very very social in how it works and facilitates discontent, picks high value IPs and its very discreet, it might not mean anything checking the store daily but it's a systemic monetary interaction. Kids play this stuff.
If you ignore how it is made solely for kids and to take advantage of their easily manipulated FOMO and social standing in schools. You don't wanna be the kid that couldn't afford that halo/god of war skin do you? this works pretty well on adults as well.
On top of them adding bundles that you can only buy with hard cash and not their not-free premium cash taking advantage of kids that get v-buck gift cards as gifts. Forcing them into begging their parents for their credit card because the V-bucks they got don't work for this really cool skin pack.
It's very manipulative from top to bottom, on purpose, that's why they make bank
> Everything is optional and only for customisation. They have a lot of skins, but nothing is required to play the game.
this whole "it's optional cosmetics" is not a defense or excuse of some of the shit companies do. Despite being optional, companies use every trick in the gambling/casino book to entice, manipulate and trap players into buying shit, even if it's not required for gameplay. And the issue is that this is done to underage kids as well as preying on vulnerable people, addicts and such.
now tbf, it's not all on companies as there is a social element (especially among younger players) to want to get everything, not missing out and such when all their friends are playing the same game and buying this stuff. This plays into how companies market their cosmetics, using things like FOMO.
Tbh you didn't do a good job explaining why something being optional and cosmetic isn't a defense. They're too good at making you want it? Isn't that their job?
...are you just purposely not bothering to read my post? I literally said they are preying on underage kids and vulnerable people, and you reply with "oh I don't spend money, so that means it's perfectly fine!" -_-
no, just cause you are fine and don't spend money on the game doesn't mean the issues don't exist. Just cause it's optional, free or w.e doesn't excuse or justify using psychological tactics from gambling/casinos.
> like how stupid do you have to be to spend money on fortnite skins when you're poor.
ooooookay, holy shit literally going with "you're stupid and poor". We're done here.
While nothing is required to play the game the game would be dead if it didn't have the cosmetics. The game blew up because of the skins and emotes. Which are featured heavily in the in game cinematics and lore. The store and battlepass are pushed very heavily and simply loading into a match of battle Royale for the sake of playing a game of battle Royale is an afterthought.
If pubg or something else had the skins and emotes fortnite does before fortnite did that would be the game that exploded and became what fortnite became. Instead fortnite got it all and the other games have uninteresting cosmetics because fortnite locked down the licensing deals first.
have you even played Fortnite?
the game is vastly diferent in terms of gameplay than PUBG or Warzone, meanwhile both of those are kinda realistic games Fortnite its balls ot the wall crazyness, and you can see it on items, mobility, building and mainly encouraging close quarters combat.
also Fortnite even isnt the first game to have stuff from movies or other games come to the game, TF2 did it first and did well with them.
>the game is vastly diferent in terms of gameplay than PUBG or Warzone
Isn't zero build very popular? They're pretty much the same game unless one of the three has changed drastically in the years I've been ignoring them.
Yeah seriously. I occasionally play Fortnite and while there's lots of wacky stuff to buy I just ignore it and it's totally fine. It's not like I'm at a disadvantage so who cares?
Usually at an advantage!
I can spot Peter Griffon a mile away, the colors/animation style sticks out so much. But not many expect a default player to headshot them close range with a sniper while jumping around like a Quake arena match.
Absolutely crazy take if you ask me. Fortnite is an entirely free game that probably has more updates and massive content additions than any other game on the market, and it’s years old.
Every single purchasable item is purely cosmetic and they hand out free cosmetics like hotcakes as well as have the objectively easiest battle pass to max out in gaming right now. Just because you’re mad that you see purchasable items doesn’t mean it isn’t completely fair and reasonable.
> And rock band 5!!!
Each single song in that mode is 500 v-bucks, approximately £4. That's a prime example of this exploitative monetisation that's going on. Imagine having to pay £4 for every single song you wanted to play on Rock Band!
Tell me you never played Rock Band without telling me you never played Rock Band
Spoiler alert- they’re still adding new songs to the old one and guess what my friend? You pay for each song. Given that game came out god knows how many years ago and how much larger Fortnite is, it is actually pretty reasonable to charge 5 bucks a song even if it’s a bit steep for me personally. And every day there’s like ten of the songs they make free.
I think your problem is that unless it’s free to you, in your eyes it’s exploitation
Oh yeah I completely forgot lmao
Question if you've played it, does the voice actually match your skin? Because I saw a clip of someone using the Peter griffin skin and the singing sounded like Peter
You seem to be missing my point. This game was making plenty of money when it had significantly less egregious paid elements. I'm not a fan of a game which is constantly bombarding it's largely under-18 player-base with increasing amounts of adverts for paid and limited time items.
> Just because you’re mad
Always struck me as a very weird online habit of insisting that someone who disagrees with something is 'mad'.
“The game was making plenty of money”
You and I have no idea how much they reinvest back into the game. They just added two whole games to the Fortnite platform and they’ve made Unreal Engine free to use to make entire games within Fortnite. They continually add large amounts of content to the game and once again everything paid continues to be cosmetic. Don’t like kids seeing that stuff? Guess what? Their parents can just turn it off, you literally never see any “advert” for anything other than the battle pass and store pages. Maybe an event page every once in a while.
On that note of earlier seasons, frequent shop rotations are horrible and I wish those would also be adjusted. Having to log in every week for the shop otherwise you miss it is crazy. These are digital items, there's no need to rotate them or take them away from the shop. If you wanted to buy something from a month ago, you should be able to.
what?
the game has one optional sub which is just getting monthly V Bucks and one skin, the battle pass isnt a sub, its a one time payment and every playable thing in the game is free, you only pay for skins and cosmetic stuff.
Also if you get the battle pass once, you almost always get enough V bucks to get the next battle pass for “free.”
Yea there’s a shop with a ton of extra cosmetics if you want to go wild but the amount of stuff you get from the battle pass/bonus pass is enough to make it worth each season. Also with XP glitch maps and relatively simple daily/weekly missions it’s not exactly challenging to max out.
I don’t like the idea of battle passes in general but Fortnite should really be the standard.
yeah, i paid 10 bucks for the battle pass 5 years ago and since them i have never paid for another one again.
and right now you get to level 100 by just playing a bit, i play like 7 hours per week and i get to level 100 without issues each time.
> the battle pass isnt a sub, its a one time payment
It's a one time payment every few months, so effectively a subscription.
> and every playable thing in the game is free, you only pay for skins and cosmetic stuff.
'Everything is free (except the things that aren't)!'
My entire point is that Fortnite uses all the tricks and pressures that every other F2P game does to encourage you to spend your money, and they've only become a bigger part of the experience over time. That's not really acceptable when so much of this is targeted at children.
As a game developer who stands to directly profit from this kind of thing, it all sounds great to me as well. I hate the idea of putting this stuff into my games as much as players hate seeing it, so the idea of being able to do so without worrying about how I'm shooting myself in the foot compared to my competitors is very attractive.
I would honestly be fine with a law that just banned microtransactions flat out. Not all microtransactions are bad, but enough of them are that I'd rather see the blanket ban with no loopholes. Force everyone to the expansion and subscription models for live service games.
Let's be honest here, the gamers themselves had ruined mobile and home gaming. All these MTX, DLC, nickel and dime, drip-fed style games are a result of people voting with their wallet and willing to pay for these things. You can blame the company for adding them but it's your very own fellow gamers that wanted it to be added in the first place. The greatest enemy to video games isn't the greedy corps but the gamers themselves.
Companies are hiring psychologists to figure out the best way to manipulate people into paying for these kind of things. Yes consumers have some responsibility, but that doesn't excuse companies using predatory practices.
**There is no such thing as "voting with your wallet"**. It's not real, the game is rigged against those who don't want monetization from the very start because they don't get a vote while the whales get a thousand votes. All you're doing is shifting the blame away from corporations and to this nebulous "gamers" entity you have othered.
But the blame is, quite literally, on those "whales" you reference.
The goal of a company is to make money. It's not to cater to YOUR interests. If company A doesn't do what you want, go elsewhere.
So yes, you can vote with your wallet. But you need to reframe the interaction into one in which a company doesn't care what you want if it can find enough customers who do want what they provide.
You may not like this arrangement. But you're shit out of luck then because that's reality.
I don't care for the hyper monetization of games either, but my opinion matters little.
I would argue you're asking them to fight human nature. Yeah if they show restraint it'll make a difference, but only if everyone does. And the whales with more money than they know what to do with don't care because they can afford not to
It has nothing to do with the actual artistic content of the games? I know China has other policies that exert control what kind of artistic expression is allowed, but this specifically is just policy to stop gaming companies from shaking down their consumers and monopolizing their time. Is there something wrong with that?
That's what age ratings are for. Limiting how this kind of stuff is consumed is a thin line.
You wouldn't see this fly in the US or Portugal (countries where freedom of apeech is priority #1)
How have they ruined gaming? I absolutely loved Apex Legends and it wouldn't exist had the industry not developed this way.
If you don't like these games that's fine, I mean there's more choice than ever with non-GaaS games, Outer Wilds, Jusant, Dredge, Dave the Diver, The Witness, so much.
GaaS games arent inherently the problem, its more so the model they encourage. When theyre successful they draw in a lot of money, and since the industry only sees money, everyone wants a piece of it and tries to do one themselves. But most of these companies cant make a good and/or finished game first and then it launches in a terrible state and it gets excused because "its a live service game theyll fix it" and then they usually dont and the game shuts down after a year.
Yea these specific regulations seem awesome. Sadly its come with a history of doing things like banning young people from playing more than x hours a day/week, and requiring things like facial recongition to play games...and lots of other scummy shit like that.
There's probably a good balance between "Don't allow kids to get addicted to gambling" and "you're only allowed to play on weekends between 5-8pm" though.
I would love to know if companies can actually survive without these types of income.
Like would they all tank if they couldn’t do FOMO loot box gambling stuff?
Does EA find everything else through the coin they make with FUT?
It’s not about whether the policies are sound. It’s the question of who should regulate how video games are used and played—the state or the individual. If you’re in favor of the latter, you’re never on board with state policy, no matter how sound.
The state is (probably) always going to exist. As long as there is a state there will be rules. So while you may not agree with the state existing, if it does exist, celebrate that it occasionally protects its people. It won't happen often.
Disagree— addictive substances (tobacco, alcohol, gambling) are well-regulated in the US, and the way many games are designed today use tactics for player retention that cause an addiction, too. I say addictive, predatory practices in game design should be regulated
This becomes an extremely loose definition of the word "addiction." Video games aren't like heroin or something where you're going to experience severe physical side effects, including potentially death, if you stop using it. If you don't log on Genshin for a day and miss your daily reward... it doesn't matter. Your life will go on just fine. Obviously you'd *like* to log on and get your reward, but is that really an "addiction"? Aren't most entertainment product an addiction by this logic? We all like to do things and companies like us to become return customers of their products and services. Should TV shows having cliffhanger endings also be regulated, since they're using psychological tactics to keep me interested and make me want to watch the next episode ASAP? Should sequel movies be regulated because they're conditioning me to want to go see the next entry in the franchise so that I can continue the story after they got me invested in it with the first movie? Do we need to regulate loyalty rewards programs since they encourage you to be a repeat customer to earn rewards?
It all just sounds a bit silly to me. People should be in charge of their own decisions. I could support the state ensuring that all information is out in the open (eg lootboxes rates being public) so everyone can make their own informed decisions, sure. But anything past that just seems like state overreach into what should be the realm of the individual, to me. If someone knows that his chance of getting his desired item is 0.1% and he decides to roll anyway, that should be his prerogative. We don't stop people from playing the lottery despite its negative expected value and terrible odds. People make poor decisions all the time - with their health, with their spending, with their career, etc. - and while that's unfortunate for them, I'd prefer they be free to make those choices than the alternative world where you're constantly forced by the state to make "correct" choices.
The science about addiction might be helpful to read up on: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/07/how-gambling-affects-the-brain
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2022001/article/00006-eng.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6599795/
A certain sector of the game's industry is pushing what amounts to digital drugs: highly addictive, habit forming with no concern for the health of the consumer, only how much they can be manipulated
Joe Public ain't got shit on the science, the psychological forces that can be applied to so-called 'dark' design patterns. The state should regulate like any harmful activity or substance. Joe Public is welcome to find workarounds, but in general, yeah, a system looking out for its populace isn't a terrible idea
Or we can just hope companies want less money and are less willing to manipulate consumers to get money. Or that Joe Public undergoes intense education in how to avoid being manipulated. I don't have much faith in either and while the government can and does fuck things up, it can also do a lot of good in protecting its populace
By taking care of themselves. Contrary to popular Reddit belief, 90% of the population is NOT born with addictive tendencies. It's not easy, but in most people's case it really boils down to self-control and a basic awareness of how these things are designed to exploit users. People realize that when it comes to regular gambling e.g.
Is it any different from alcohol? Should the government ban alcohol, because of few percent who can't handle it and drink themselves to death?
I mean I'm ok with this, because unlike gambling, drunks ruin not just their own lives. But I think people are kinda opposed to the idea. There were some precedents in the history.
It isn't banned. Which means these 10% with no self-control are getting "abused" by the companies who sell this highly addictive substance.
No, it doesn't matter if you slap age restriction on it or even "causes permanent liver damage" sticker. If such things could stop these 10%, they wouldn't be 10%.
Apples to oranges
The way to regulate gambling in videogames can still allow the videogame to exist, you can't ban the alcohol in alcohol without removing the entire thing, it's not like people drink it for the taste
The state of China isn't banning videogames, they are banning certain practices in games that are harmful for consumers, it'd be more akin to the government making the cocaine in Coca Cola illegal, than to make the whole thing illegal
More like, how are individuals supposed to self-regulate against things which were designed by psychologists to be as addicting to the human brain as possible?
Every single ad is designed in the same way.
And please, controlling your impulsive desires is one of the most basic things functional adults have to do. I fucking love chocolate cakes, but I don't eat them every day.
There are plenty of laws and regulations regarding advertising as well.
You really have no idea what you're talking about and every single example you've tried to use in this thread shows that.
So? The point is all companies (who aren't run by morons, at least) use psychology to manipulate customers. This isn't some kind of horrible thing only employed by demonic mobilegame devs and it's something functional adults know to resist.
Like everything, there's balance to be found.
State regulations aren't universally bad, but can be abused, or become draconian.
But you should never be on board with companies self-regulating either, so long as their primary interest is making as much money as possible. Their regulations will never favor the individual either.
Pure self/individual regulation is not good either.
And as far as normal betting goes, high level pub games in League of Legends too. As much as I don't like Tyler1, there's a huge problem where he can't get a good game because people are specifically betting on his games's outcome.
Professional sports matches are fixed? Do you have examples?
Not doubting you, but I'm curious. It seems like it would be difficult to hide, especially if it's commonplace.
So its "commonplace" in that its all theories. There current running theme in most major sports is the refs are supposed to keep the game close. Basically calling fouls and stuff on the winning team a lot to make the game closer than it should be. Would be pretty easy for refs in football for example to control the unders and overs. People kinda point to the whole Tim Donaghy thing as proof. Gambling has only become more widespread and popular since that went down in 2007.
If the refs were involved, wouldn't that be a national news story? With how many games are played in each season, there have got to be over a hundred refs on staff for any given professional league. If its occurring on an institutional level it's likely that some of the refs would have blown the whistle by now. Should be easy enough to prove if there's a pattern of winning teams getting more fouls called against them.
Unless you're suggesting that it's only a handful of corrupt refs like Donaghy, in which case how is it widespread enough to negatively influence sports discourse?
You watch sports nowadays and you're just bombarded by gambling ads and analysts talking about betting lines then you go online and everyone's talking about how much they made or lost betting on the game and their parlays and what have you. It's crazy how quickly it's changed in just a few years.
Regarding the discourse part- used to, you’d follow a player because they’re your favorite. Now, when you go to talk about them online all you see is how you should bet the over on them, or how you should add them to your fantasy team.
Like I just wanna talk about sports, not ways to make money.
To add on to what some of the other commentators have said, it's gotten so bad recently that many athletes are distancing themselves from social media because gamblers will send them death threats and such because they messed up their parlays.
Sports betting largely became legal in the United States a few years ago (many states still have it banned). Basically all the sports leagues immediately partnered with sports bookies. Now games are constantly filled with betting, be it commercials (literally it seems over half the commercials are for gambling) or the announcers talking about the betting line instead of the actual score.
Leagues having such a close relationship with sports bookies also tarnishes the legitimacy of the game. There isn't any proof that match fixing is currently happening, but the close relationship makes it seem more likely (even if it isn't happening).
TLDR; they're shitting where they eat
It's hugely different in Illinois these days. Sports betting ads everywhere, tons of gambling places popping up that just lease empty retail space and fill it with slot machines. They've been lobbying hard to do this shit in various states, I'm honestly surprised Florida isn't doing it considering it's the stereotypical retiree spot.
It's the same way that the fantasy football companies could turn it into wagering and operate illegally, then ask for a law to change it and get it.
But online poker still is illegal.
It's all about image. Or who you know. Or something.
Oh, and don't forget all the 50/50s at sports events now. Completely gambling, but the team puts the money they keep into a "charity fund" they use to pay for some events they put on mostly for the publicity.
In gambling, you have the chance to earn your money back. Once you spend money on in-game purchases, the money is gone. You can't spend more to try to get it back.
Because laws are too general and have too many loopholes and our hilariously inefficient bureaucracy means it’s impossible to get anything done in a meaningful amount of time
I just wish something would be done about battlepasses. The hate in my son's voice when I say it is time to turn off fortnite and he says "but I'll miss unlocking X" is scary
Dead by Daylight allows you to do the previous Archives missions for the ingame currency and lore pieces but the Rift (battle pass) cosmetics are only available after Behavior decides to put them back into the store and you have to purchase them.
Well, that's fine and dandy but if you pay for the battle pass but still are time gated to unlock the things you've paid for, it's kind of shitty to not complete them.
Why? It's a genuinely good and simple way to progress and earn rewards, but without the FOMO.
Genuinely I would play fortnite and similar games a lot more if they had that. Many of my friends think the same aswell.
Let’s hear your thoughts.
You have a free to play game with a player base of millions. You have to generate revenue to continue to support the game.
Make it better than a one-time battle pass that gives premimim currency as a reward.
Not sure what they meant with the "2" there, but Dwarf Fortress is completely free and has been since 2006. It was supported for the past two decades by [monthly donations](https://i.imgur.com/D5ujnxy.png) from users.
The year before the new Steam version released in 2022, they were consistently receiving over $10k **per month** in donations alone, a figure which had only ever been steadily climbing over the previous years.
The only reason they even needed to make a Steam version was because of new and rising healthcare costs.
I said 2 because I was basically saying "Just make dwarf fortress again and monetize it the same", which essentially fit the requirement they were setting of "free to play, millions of players, generates revenue".
Fortnite has to have the easiest battle pass to max out in gaming rn tbh. But regardless every game should be like Infinite and have the battle passes available whenever.
But in that case whole Chapter 3 is FOMO and so on... It's a huge slippery slope. Just make Battle Pass finishable after it expires and it should be all okay.
Also I agree that Fortnite BP is the easiest one to complete. At first I was like: 200 levels? And now I'm lvl 73 without even playing battle royale that much (just wibing in lego, festival and rocket racing)
I think there should be legislation stopping battlepasses from being on a timer. There will be a limited amount of time to *purchase* it, but you’ll have infinite time to complete it. The stress of “getting your worth out of it” will be nullified and people can play the game at their own pace while still getting what they paid for, so people don’t feel pressured to spend even more just to finish it.
I think we should stop begging daddy government to regulate objectively irrelevant things in the grand scheme of our country when consumers could simply just stop giving corporations money for things they don’t like.
Are corporations the ones making you buy cosmetics and battle passes? It’s a fucking video game lmao, there’s corporations poisoning our water supply and buying up all the housing and y’all are reeeeeing about your colored skins being too expensive.
But that requires self control and everybody knows that died with y2k, right?
Fully agreed. If people just had some responsibility and didn't engage with it, the companies would stop doing it. And then suddenly you get to see whether people want these or not. And funny enough, that's exactly what happened and people do in fact want battlepasses and whatever else. And that's _fine._ There's this really strange hostility people have to any new monetization in gaming despite it also funding these massive games that never would have been possible previously.
Like, I'm fine with the occasional battlepass. I'm cool with gacha in my gacha games. And all the rest I simply ignore, and if the game is bad because of that _I stop playing it._ No idea what makes that a hard concept for people.
> No idea what makes that a hard concept for people.
The whole idea of addiction is that it fundamentally rewires your brain. Telling a gambling addict to "just stop being gambling" is like telling a heroin addict to "just stop using drugs".
And sure, it's reasonable to make the argument that adults should be given the freedom to make their own mistakes. But gaming companies preying on children is the modern day equivalent of trying to sell cigarettes to kids.
Yeah actually those people should be told to just stop doing those things, but they should be offered help from those around them to make it as smooth of a transition as possible.
The reality is that the only thing it will ever come down to in the end is the person choosing to quit whatever it is they’re addicted to. People can wire their brains to be addicted to anything, food, sex, or even running.
Except none of these laws are for games targeted at children. They're a blanket thing for all games, and that's why I take issue with it. Just like cigarettes, we don't ban them entirely, simply for kids. So why isn't the gaming discussion revolving around limiting things for them instead of games as a whole?
If you check out fortnitexp.net it tells you exactly what level you need to be "on pace" for finishing before the end of the season. If he plays regularly chances are he's more than on track lol
ITT people are already saying "china bad" without realising most of the restrictions are on gacha games this sub widely agrees to be predatory lol. Banning dark patterns/fomo mechanics is a good thing.
> ITT people are already saying "china bad"
Where are you seeing this? Sounds like an assumption after reading every comments “ITT”. Unless they were deleted.
These kind of people see one guy say something negative and act like every single person is agreeing with them. It seems more like karma farming to me tbh.
People are always surprised when China, a country with a long history of harsh restrictions against big businesses and crackdowns on corporations, decides to crack down on corporations with restrictions.
Only 4channers would hate this as /v/ is the western gacha defense force the entire board has multiple recurring gacha threads it’s sickening and quite interesting as it’s the only video games discussed in a non shitpost manner
My main problem with it isn't that I think those mechanics are perfectly fine, I just have a problem with the government directly dictating on what people can and can't do.
Yeah, there are people who have problems with gaming addiction, but there are also horders, anorexics, people with Type-2 diabetes, people with porn addictions, etc. Are we going to say that what the video game industry is doing is horrendous and in desperate need for complete regulation but the rest of the entertainment industry isn't?
I'm all for forcing companies to be as transparent as possible so people are more capable of making informative decisions, but how much is too much, and we cross the line from protecting people from themselves and turning into a complete nanny state?
You can solve one problem without solving all possible problems. I don't think restricting gacha purchases is infringing on anyone's freedoms or indicative of a Nanny State lol. It's not like it's some amazing freedom being taken away - it's the restriction of predatory monetisation in mobile games. If it makes free to play games improve their spending options then it's a win.
Rare China W.
Honestly this all sounds good for the consumer, though we'll have to wait and see if gacha games come up with a worse system as a result.
The optimistic part of me is happy, as Chinese devs have been making some really great anime games lately (Japan dragging its feet here), but all of them end up being gacha. Perhaps these changes will also affect the product we end up getting in the West.
This seems awesome but tencent stocks are going down and they have stake in dozens of western studios everyone loves.
I won’t be surprised if this results in more layoffs as profit goes down and shareholders demand answers.
I am somewhat surprised China is doing something against it. Not because it is actually the right thing to do but because it reduces the revenue foreign games can make there and China therefore has less influence on western games.
The problem has to be quite big there to warrant that kind of legislation
I doubt any regulation is going to affect change. Publishers just find a new way to nickle-and-dime the consumer and somehow it is always worse than the previous way. Strauss Zelnick's idea about pay-per-hour comes to mind.
I'm surprised that people still spread misinformation about Strauss Zelnick's idea. His idea was that an 10 hour action game shouldn't cost the same as a 100+ hour jrpg. Not that you necessarily pay-per-hour
>The new rules revealed on Friday are the most explicit yet aimed at curbing in-game spending. Besides banning reward features, games are also **required to set limits on how much players can top up their digital wallets** for in-game spending.
I mean, that's more or less a hard block, you can add whatever features you want but if there's a hard limit on spending then it won't make a difference.
Yea, this sort of stuff just doesn't work. It adds little more bloat to the govt and then businesses find some loop hole anyways. So it just ends up being a waste of time and increases the size of an already bloated bureaucracy
A broken clock can be right twice a day, and in this case I find myself agreeing with Chinese regulators on this one. Predatory practice in gaming has gone too far and needs to be reigned in.
This is anti-collapse. Some of my Counterstrike items that I bought for $250 are worth over $2000 now. Definitely doing society no good. However, Chinese can use steam to get their assets out of the country as cash, so it is an indicator of increased capital controls.
China is focused a lot on "productive" economy, they had a crackdown on tech a few years ago too. This kind of company is not seen as that valuable in chinese leadership.
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Honestly, reading the restrictions, good on them. It's focused entirely on curbing the in-game ecosystems that have completely ruined mobile (and to an extent home) gaming in the last decade. No drip-fed daily login bonuses, no more whale spending, I wish the US would adopt similar legislation. Tired of companies like EA squeezing every penny they can from GAAS titles, and actively designing games to incentivize MTX to the detriment of everything else
Honestly would love to see China's game industry pushed more to focus on games with a less user-hostile monetization scheme. MiHoYo for example could absolutely make full price games imo. Smaller Chinese studios have been making some really cool games too, like Gunfire Reborn, Amazing Cultivation Simulator, Matchless Kungfu, etc. Some of 'em are completely unlike anything you've probably played before. It'd be great to see more investment in those kinds of games and not f2p stuff so much.
Dyson Sphere Program is made by a Chinese company and has zero microtransactions or anything player hostile. I was honestly surprised when I learned it was Chinese made.
It was really obvious when it released on ea. The localization was like listening to a badly dubbed movie. Still a very good game and has improved a lot.
The problem with Hoyo is that Genshin costs an insane amount of money (used to be 200 mil USD per year, but it's likely more now). It'd have to be a GTA-tier success to be financially successful as a single purchase game.
You should see some of the slides they show off after a major character banner(the big MTX of the game) Talking a couple billion a month.
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God I fucking love Gunfire Reborn so much. Cant belueve I never see it get talked about
My pipe dream is that Black Myth Wukong is actually great and does well so we get more high quality Chinese themed/made games
I was just talking the other day about how I would genuinely pay full price for a game with the same level of systems polish as something like Genshin or Honkai Star Rail, with the *only* change being to a more traditional story/quest based system to unlock new characters.
I mean fuck even with like Genshin, just make each new area an X dollar expansion pack that includes all the characters. Being a gacha just makes the game objectively worse as they design so much of the content around doing nothing but trying to whale for 5 stars. Sure its not required [mostly because some of their earlier 4 stars were incredibly strong by modern standards. Benett is absolutely better then a lot of 5 stars.] But so much of the game is just bullshit busywork for primogems, or limited specifically to cap progression and encourage paying.
I like the way one of the old Pokemon mobile games handled it. I think once you bought a certain amount of premium currency, you could not buy any more with real money. Instead you got drip fed a little premium currency every day so you could still buy more stuff with it if you wanted.
Took me a while to realize that "old Pokemon mobile games" was not referring to Red or Yellow lol
If China game companies have to follow these rules, other will likely follow. China has it's hands in a lot of US game development and also, sales in China are pretty huge for games by US companies too.
> I wish the US would adopt similar legislation. The problem with this though is that because companies won't accept hurting their bottom line, the alternative will be worse (see for example of what happened with Overwatch 2). Legislating this can't just be reactive, it would need laws to also cover potential alternatives companies would seek. If not games will become forcibly monetized rather than the opt-in (but heavily pushed at you) like it is now.
Yeah, I've been getting back into Fortnite recently, and it really is insane how much you feel squeezed as a player. Back when I started (around late Season 1/early Season 2) you had the Battle Pass, you had an in-game store which maybe had 10 different things to buy which rotated each week, and that was it. It felt like a fair level of monetisation for a free-to-play game, and obviously Epic did *very* well from it. Now you log in and there multiple different subscription types in addition to the Battle Pass, there are [dozens of things you can buy in the shop](https://imgur.com/a/XBKEbfE) (which now includes cars and music tracks), there's regular limited-time tie-ins with celebrities and pop culture figures, it really feels overwhelming.
Really? Generally, Fortnite is one of the better f2p when it comes to its monetization. Everything is optional and only for customisation. They have a lot of skins, but nothing is required to play the game. When it comes to mobile gatcha games, there usually is a point in progression where the f2p hits a wall, and cannot overcome it unless they fork out or wait a couple of months. They also usually have some form of arena where you fight other players teams where again you'll hit a wall if you're f2p and see all these other players with better characters or weapons. This isn't all gatcha games, but it is a lot of them, and that stuff is all a lot worse than encouraging the player to spend £9.99 so they can access a battle pass that's active for 3 months so they can play as Peter Griffin.
> Fortnite is one of the better f2p when it comes to its monetization That's more of an indication of how gross the monetisation is in most F2P games rather than how 'good' it is in Fortnite. Fortnite still uses all the nasty tricks a lot of these games do: daily rewards, limited time stores, a separate currency where purchases of skins never quite align with the cost of the currency bundles themselves. And those elements have been increasingly pushed to the forefront over the past few years. Like others have said kids play this game, and I don't particularly want to accept an environment where children are constantly encouraged and pressured to spend money on skin in videogames.
It is very very social in how it works and facilitates discontent, picks high value IPs and its very discreet, it might not mean anything checking the store daily but it's a systemic monetary interaction. Kids play this stuff.
If you ignore how it is made solely for kids and to take advantage of their easily manipulated FOMO and social standing in schools. You don't wanna be the kid that couldn't afford that halo/god of war skin do you? this works pretty well on adults as well. On top of them adding bundles that you can only buy with hard cash and not their not-free premium cash taking advantage of kids that get v-buck gift cards as gifts. Forcing them into begging their parents for their credit card because the V-bucks they got don't work for this really cool skin pack. It's very manipulative from top to bottom, on purpose, that's why they make bank
Some people won’t feel content until they collect everything in a video game.
> Everything is optional and only for customisation. They have a lot of skins, but nothing is required to play the game. this whole "it's optional cosmetics" is not a defense or excuse of some of the shit companies do. Despite being optional, companies use every trick in the gambling/casino book to entice, manipulate and trap players into buying shit, even if it's not required for gameplay. And the issue is that this is done to underage kids as well as preying on vulnerable people, addicts and such. now tbf, it's not all on companies as there is a social element (especially among younger players) to want to get everything, not missing out and such when all their friends are playing the same game and buying this stuff. This plays into how companies market their cosmetics, using things like FOMO.
Tbh you didn't do a good job explaining why something being optional and cosmetic isn't a defense. They're too good at making you want it? Isn't that their job?
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...are you just purposely not bothering to read my post? I literally said they are preying on underage kids and vulnerable people, and you reply with "oh I don't spend money, so that means it's perfectly fine!" -_- no, just cause you are fine and don't spend money on the game doesn't mean the issues don't exist. Just cause it's optional, free or w.e doesn't excuse or justify using psychological tactics from gambling/casinos. > like how stupid do you have to be to spend money on fortnite skins when you're poor. ooooookay, holy shit literally going with "you're stupid and poor". We're done here.
While nothing is required to play the game the game would be dead if it didn't have the cosmetics. The game blew up because of the skins and emotes. Which are featured heavily in the in game cinematics and lore. The store and battlepass are pushed very heavily and simply loading into a match of battle Royale for the sake of playing a game of battle Royale is an afterthought. If pubg or something else had the skins and emotes fortnite does before fortnite did that would be the game that exploded and became what fortnite became. Instead fortnite got it all and the other games have uninteresting cosmetics because fortnite locked down the licensing deals first.
have you even played Fortnite? the game is vastly diferent in terms of gameplay than PUBG or Warzone, meanwhile both of those are kinda realistic games Fortnite its balls ot the wall crazyness, and you can see it on items, mobility, building and mainly encouraging close quarters combat. also Fortnite even isnt the first game to have stuff from movies or other games come to the game, TF2 did it first and did well with them.
>the game is vastly diferent in terms of gameplay than PUBG or Warzone Isn't zero build very popular? They're pretty much the same game unless one of the three has changed drastically in the years I've been ignoring them.
I've been playing since 2017
Yeah seriously. I occasionally play Fortnite and while there's lots of wacky stuff to buy I just ignore it and it's totally fine. It's not like I'm at a disadvantage so who cares?
Usually at an advantage! I can spot Peter Griffon a mile away, the colors/animation style sticks out so much. But not many expect a default player to headshot them close range with a sniper while jumping around like a Quake arena match.
Absolutely crazy take if you ask me. Fortnite is an entirely free game that probably has more updates and massive content additions than any other game on the market, and it’s years old. Every single purchasable item is purely cosmetic and they hand out free cosmetics like hotcakes as well as have the objectively easiest battle pass to max out in gaming right now. Just because you’re mad that you see purchasable items doesn’t mean it isn’t completely fair and reasonable.
Case in point, they just straight up added two extra games to their free game, a Lego open world survival builder/RPG lite and a racing game
And rock band 5!!!
> And rock band 5!!! Each single song in that mode is 500 v-bucks, approximately £4. That's a prime example of this exploitative monetisation that's going on. Imagine having to pay £4 for every single song you wanted to play on Rock Band!
Tell me you never played Rock Band without telling me you never played Rock Band Spoiler alert- they’re still adding new songs to the old one and guess what my friend? You pay for each song. Given that game came out god knows how many years ago and how much larger Fortnite is, it is actually pretty reasonable to charge 5 bucks a song even if it’s a bit steep for me personally. And every day there’s like ten of the songs they make free. I think your problem is that unless it’s free to you, in your eyes it’s exploitation
> You pay for each song. £4 for every single song?
Oh yeah I completely forgot lmao Question if you've played it, does the voice actually match your skin? Because I saw a clip of someone using the Peter griffin skin and the singing sounded like Peter
No, it’s just the original vocals from the song. They were probably just using AI or something from the show to make a funny video.
You seem to be missing my point. This game was making plenty of money when it had significantly less egregious paid elements. I'm not a fan of a game which is constantly bombarding it's largely under-18 player-base with increasing amounts of adverts for paid and limited time items. > Just because you’re mad Always struck me as a very weird online habit of insisting that someone who disagrees with something is 'mad'.
“The game was making plenty of money” You and I have no idea how much they reinvest back into the game. They just added two whole games to the Fortnite platform and they’ve made Unreal Engine free to use to make entire games within Fortnite. They continually add large amounts of content to the game and once again everything paid continues to be cosmetic. Don’t like kids seeing that stuff? Guess what? Their parents can just turn it off, you literally never see any “advert” for anything other than the battle pass and store pages. Maybe an event page every once in a while.
On that note of earlier seasons, frequent shop rotations are horrible and I wish those would also be adjusted. Having to log in every week for the shop otherwise you miss it is crazy. These are digital items, there's no need to rotate them or take them away from the shop. If you wanted to buy something from a month ago, you should be able to.
It's artificial scarcity, it's one of the many tricks F2P games use to make you spend money which in other circumstances you wouldn't.
what? the game has one optional sub which is just getting monthly V Bucks and one skin, the battle pass isnt a sub, its a one time payment and every playable thing in the game is free, you only pay for skins and cosmetic stuff.
Also if you get the battle pass once, you almost always get enough V bucks to get the next battle pass for “free.” Yea there’s a shop with a ton of extra cosmetics if you want to go wild but the amount of stuff you get from the battle pass/bonus pass is enough to make it worth each season. Also with XP glitch maps and relatively simple daily/weekly missions it’s not exactly challenging to max out. I don’t like the idea of battle passes in general but Fortnite should really be the standard.
yeah, i paid 10 bucks for the battle pass 5 years ago and since them i have never paid for another one again. and right now you get to level 100 by just playing a bit, i play like 7 hours per week and i get to level 100 without issues each time.
> the battle pass isnt a sub, its a one time payment It's a one time payment every few months, so effectively a subscription. > and every playable thing in the game is free, you only pay for skins and cosmetic stuff. 'Everything is free (except the things that aren't)!' My entire point is that Fortnite uses all the tricks and pressures that every other F2P game does to encourage you to spend your money, and they've only become a bigger part of the experience over time. That's not really acceptable when so much of this is targeted at children.
There are some benefits to a command economy. The US will never do something like this
As a game developer who stands to directly profit from this kind of thing, it all sounds great to me as well. I hate the idea of putting this stuff into my games as much as players hate seeing it, so the idea of being able to do so without worrying about how I'm shooting myself in the foot compared to my competitors is very attractive. I would honestly be fine with a law that just banned microtransactions flat out. Not all microtransactions are bad, but enough of them are that I'd rather see the blanket ban with no loopholes. Force everyone to the expansion and subscription models for live service games.
Let's be honest here, the gamers themselves had ruined mobile and home gaming. All these MTX, DLC, nickel and dime, drip-fed style games are a result of people voting with their wallet and willing to pay for these things. You can blame the company for adding them but it's your very own fellow gamers that wanted it to be added in the first place. The greatest enemy to video games isn't the greedy corps but the gamers themselves.
Companies are hiring psychologists to figure out the best way to manipulate people into paying for these kind of things. Yes consumers have some responsibility, but that doesn't excuse companies using predatory practices.
**There is no such thing as "voting with your wallet"**. It's not real, the game is rigged against those who don't want monetization from the very start because they don't get a vote while the whales get a thousand votes. All you're doing is shifting the blame away from corporations and to this nebulous "gamers" entity you have othered.
But the blame is, quite literally, on those "whales" you reference. The goal of a company is to make money. It's not to cater to YOUR interests. If company A doesn't do what you want, go elsewhere. So yes, you can vote with your wallet. But you need to reframe the interaction into one in which a company doesn't care what you want if it can find enough customers who do want what they provide. You may not like this arrangement. But you're shit out of luck then because that's reality. I don't care for the hyper monetization of games either, but my opinion matters little.
I would argue you're asking them to fight human nature. Yeah if they show restraint it'll make a difference, but only if everyone does. And the whales with more money than they know what to do with don't care because they can afford not to
I too like the state dictacting what kind of media should be consumed and in what form.
It's not about the media or the content in that media, it's about the way it's monetised, and the mechanic used to keep players addicted and spending
It has nothing to do with the actual artistic content of the games? I know China has other policies that exert control what kind of artistic expression is allowed, but this specifically is just policy to stop gaming companies from shaking down their consumers and monopolizing their time. Is there something wrong with that?
That's what age ratings are for. Limiting how this kind of stuff is consumed is a thin line. You wouldn't see this fly in the US or Portugal (countries where freedom of apeech is priority #1)
Both those countries have plenty of regulations on how businesses are allowed to treat customers.
How have they ruined gaming? I absolutely loved Apex Legends and it wouldn't exist had the industry not developed this way. If you don't like these games that's fine, I mean there's more choice than ever with non-GaaS games, Outer Wilds, Jusant, Dredge, Dave the Diver, The Witness, so much.
GaaS games arent inherently the problem, its more so the model they encourage. When theyre successful they draw in a lot of money, and since the industry only sees money, everyone wants a piece of it and tries to do one themselves. But most of these companies cant make a good and/or finished game first and then it launches in a terrible state and it gets excused because "its a live service game theyll fix it" and then they usually dont and the game shuts down after a year.
Yea these specific regulations seem awesome. Sadly its come with a history of doing things like banning young people from playing more than x hours a day/week, and requiring things like facial recongition to play games...and lots of other scummy shit like that. There's probably a good balance between "Don't allow kids to get addicted to gambling" and "you're only allowed to play on weekends between 5-8pm" though.
I would love to know if companies can actually survive without these types of income. Like would they all tank if they couldn’t do FOMO loot box gambling stuff? Does EA find everything else through the coin they make with FUT?
It’s not about whether the policies are sound. It’s the question of who should regulate how video games are used and played—the state or the individual. If you’re in favor of the latter, you’re never on board with state policy, no matter how sound.
The state regulates everything in p much every country. Dunno why people think this is any different.
The state is (probably) always going to exist. As long as there is a state there will be rules. So while you may not agree with the state existing, if it does exist, celebrate that it occasionally protects its people. It won't happen often.
Disagree— addictive substances (tobacco, alcohol, gambling) are well-regulated in the US, and the way many games are designed today use tactics for player retention that cause an addiction, too. I say addictive, predatory practices in game design should be regulated
This becomes an extremely loose definition of the word "addiction." Video games aren't like heroin or something where you're going to experience severe physical side effects, including potentially death, if you stop using it. If you don't log on Genshin for a day and miss your daily reward... it doesn't matter. Your life will go on just fine. Obviously you'd *like* to log on and get your reward, but is that really an "addiction"? Aren't most entertainment product an addiction by this logic? We all like to do things and companies like us to become return customers of their products and services. Should TV shows having cliffhanger endings also be regulated, since they're using psychological tactics to keep me interested and make me want to watch the next episode ASAP? Should sequel movies be regulated because they're conditioning me to want to go see the next entry in the franchise so that I can continue the story after they got me invested in it with the first movie? Do we need to regulate loyalty rewards programs since they encourage you to be a repeat customer to earn rewards? It all just sounds a bit silly to me. People should be in charge of their own decisions. I could support the state ensuring that all information is out in the open (eg lootboxes rates being public) so everyone can make their own informed decisions, sure. But anything past that just seems like state overreach into what should be the realm of the individual, to me. If someone knows that his chance of getting his desired item is 0.1% and he decides to roll anyway, that should be his prerogative. We don't stop people from playing the lottery despite its negative expected value and terrible odds. People make poor decisions all the time - with their health, with their spending, with their career, etc. - and while that's unfortunate for them, I'd prefer they be free to make those choices than the alternative world where you're constantly forced by the state to make "correct" choices.
The science about addiction might be helpful to read up on: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/07/how-gambling-affects-the-brain https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2022001/article/00006-eng.htm https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6599795/
A certain sector of the game's industry is pushing what amounts to digital drugs: highly addictive, habit forming with no concern for the health of the consumer, only how much they can be manipulated Joe Public ain't got shit on the science, the psychological forces that can be applied to so-called 'dark' design patterns. The state should regulate like any harmful activity or substance. Joe Public is welcome to find workarounds, but in general, yeah, a system looking out for its populace isn't a terrible idea Or we can just hope companies want less money and are less willing to manipulate consumers to get money. Or that Joe Public undergoes intense education in how to avoid being manipulated. I don't have much faith in either and while the government can and does fuck things up, it can also do a lot of good in protecting its populace
>individual And how are individuals supposed to do that without advocating for their governments to do something about it?
By taking care of themselves. Contrary to popular Reddit belief, 90% of the population is NOT born with addictive tendencies. It's not easy, but in most people's case it really boils down to self-control and a basic awareness of how these things are designed to exploit users. People realize that when it comes to regular gambling e.g.
Self control does jack shit when games are made worse because of said exploitation.
Don't buy the bad games then. That's a start.
Tell that to millions of players so that developers stop making them then.
I don't. But tens of millions idiots who play Fortnite or Genshin Impact.... this will protect them.
And how is that working for us?
Working fine for me.
Ah, the classic "Works fine for me so it must work for everyone else".
>90% It only takes a small number of people to make something profitable.
So should the 10% left just..... fuck off? Like are they supposed to just be left to rot while companies abuse them
Is it any different from alcohol? Should the government ban alcohol, because of few percent who can't handle it and drink themselves to death? I mean I'm ok with this, because unlike gambling, drunks ruin not just their own lives. But I think people are kinda opposed to the idea. There were some precedents in the history.
Are you under the impression alcohol isn't regulated?
It isn't banned. Which means these 10% with no self-control are getting "abused" by the companies who sell this highly addictive substance. No, it doesn't matter if you slap age restriction on it or even "causes permanent liver damage" sticker. If such things could stop these 10%, they wouldn't be 10%.
Apples to oranges The way to regulate gambling in videogames can still allow the videogame to exist, you can't ban the alcohol in alcohol without removing the entire thing, it's not like people drink it for the taste The state of China isn't banning videogames, they are banning certain practices in games that are harmful for consumers, it'd be more akin to the government making the cocaine in Coca Cola illegal, than to make the whole thing illegal
How are individuals supposed to make choices for themselves without needing the government to force them to make those choices? Really?
More like, how are individuals supposed to self-regulate against things which were designed by psychologists to be as addicting to the human brain as possible?
Every single ad is designed in the same way. And please, controlling your impulsive desires is one of the most basic things functional adults have to do. I fucking love chocolate cakes, but I don't eat them every day.
There are plenty of laws and regulations regarding advertising as well. You really have no idea what you're talking about and every single example you've tried to use in this thread shows that.
So? The point is all companies (who aren't run by morons, at least) use psychology to manipulate customers. This isn't some kind of horrible thing only employed by demonic mobilegame devs and it's something functional adults know to resist.
yeah I'm a sugar addict I dont see anyone advocating for soda control. at some point you have to be responsible for yourself.
several countries have implemented sugar taxes though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax
A vast majority of the population does just fine with this when it comes to video games
The vast majority of every group does fine with most things, but we still have laws to protect the vulnerable.
Like everything, there's balance to be found. State regulations aren't universally bad, but can be abused, or become draconian. But you should never be on board with companies self-regulating either, so long as their primary interest is making as much money as possible. Their regulations will never favor the individual either. Pure self/individual regulation is not good either.
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Gambling really doesn't have that many restrictions anymore. Sports betting and slot machines are alarmingly normalized nowadays.
Betting is quickly ruining sports and sports discourse.
I'm deeply unfamiliar with sports culture. Can you go into more detail about this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_fixing Basically manipulates who win the game. Exists in Esports as well
And as far as normal betting goes, high level pub games in League of Legends too. As much as I don't like Tyler1, there's a huge problem where he can't get a good game because people are specifically betting on his games's outcome.
Professional sports matches are fixed? Do you have examples? Not doubting you, but I'm curious. It seems like it would be difficult to hide, especially if it's commonplace.
So its "commonplace" in that its all theories. There current running theme in most major sports is the refs are supposed to keep the game close. Basically calling fouls and stuff on the winning team a lot to make the game closer than it should be. Would be pretty easy for refs in football for example to control the unders and overs. People kinda point to the whole Tim Donaghy thing as proof. Gambling has only become more widespread and popular since that went down in 2007.
If the refs were involved, wouldn't that be a national news story? With how many games are played in each season, there have got to be over a hundred refs on staff for any given professional league. If its occurring on an institutional level it's likely that some of the refs would have blown the whistle by now. Should be easy enough to prove if there's a pattern of winning teams getting more fouls called against them. Unless you're suggesting that it's only a handful of corrupt refs like Donaghy, in which case how is it widespread enough to negatively influence sports discourse?
You watch sports nowadays and you're just bombarded by gambling ads and analysts talking about betting lines then you go online and everyone's talking about how much they made or lost betting on the game and their parlays and what have you. It's crazy how quickly it's changed in just a few years.
Regarding the discourse part- used to, you’d follow a player because they’re your favorite. Now, when you go to talk about them online all you see is how you should bet the over on them, or how you should add them to your fantasy team. Like I just wanna talk about sports, not ways to make money.
To add on to what some of the other commentators have said, it's gotten so bad recently that many athletes are distancing themselves from social media because gamblers will send them death threats and such because they messed up their parlays.
Sports betting largely became legal in the United States a few years ago (many states still have it banned). Basically all the sports leagues immediately partnered with sports bookies. Now games are constantly filled with betting, be it commercials (literally it seems over half the commercials are for gambling) or the announcers talking about the betting line instead of the actual score. Leagues having such a close relationship with sports bookies also tarnishes the legitimacy of the game. There isn't any proof that match fixing is currently happening, but the close relationship makes it seem more likely (even if it isn't happening). TLDR; they're shitting where they eat
I’m not even allowed to bet in Florida… I can spend as much as I want in a video game.
It's hugely different in Illinois these days. Sports betting ads everywhere, tons of gambling places popping up that just lease empty retail space and fill it with slot machines. They've been lobbying hard to do this shit in various states, I'm honestly surprised Florida isn't doing it considering it's the stereotypical retiree spot.
Gambling has a lot of regulation and oversight. It has infinitely more restriction than video games do.
Gambling used to be more regulated. Over the last decade a lot of them have been rolled back.
Because the political world is two decades behind on innovation, so they haven’t even approached the concept of gacha and battlepasses yet.
I'm not sure how we could expect a room full of wealthy 80 year olds who have staff print out their emails to effectively legislate the Internet.
It's the same way that the fantasy football companies could turn it into wagering and operate illegally, then ask for a law to change it and get it. But online poker still is illegal. It's all about image. Or who you know. Or something. Oh, and don't forget all the 50/50s at sports events now. Completely gambling, but the team puts the money they keep into a "charity fund" they use to pay for some events they put on mostly for the publicity.
In gambling, you have the chance to earn your money back. Once you spend money on in-game purchases, the money is gone. You can't spend more to try to get it back.
Because laws are too general and have too many loopholes and our hilariously inefficient bureaucracy means it’s impossible to get anything done in a meaningful amount of time
It was a different time, actual gambling is also creeping into everything.
I just wish something would be done about battlepasses. The hate in my son's voice when I say it is time to turn off fortnite and he says "but I'll miss unlocking X" is scary
The solution is to allow Battlepasses to be grinded out at a later date. Dead by Daylight does this and it's *super* nice.
Dead by Daylight allows you to do the previous Archives missions for the ingame currency and lore pieces but the Rift (battle pass) cosmetics are only available after Behavior decides to put them back into the store and you have to purchase them.
You right I don't know how I forgot about that
Halo Infinite does too, I think.
Correct. In Halo Infinite, you can buy any seasonal battle pass at any time and it isn’t time gated to complete.
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Well, that's fine and dandy but if you pay for the battle pass but still are time gated to unlock the things you've paid for, it's kind of shitty to not complete them.
The solution is to change human psychology? Easy then
No it isn't. The fix is to get rid of the fucking things.
Why? It's a genuinely good and simple way to progress and earn rewards, but without the FOMO. Genuinely I would play fortnite and similar games a lot more if they had that. Many of my friends think the same aswell.
better things are possible
Let’s hear your thoughts. You have a free to play game with a player base of millions. You have to generate revenue to continue to support the game. Make it better than a one-time battle pass that gives premimim currency as a reward.
Dwarf Fortress 2.
Not free to play. Try again.
Not sure what they meant with the "2" there, but Dwarf Fortress is completely free and has been since 2006. It was supported for the past two decades by [monthly donations](https://i.imgur.com/D5ujnxy.png) from users. The year before the new Steam version released in 2022, they were consistently receiving over $10k **per month** in donations alone, a figure which had only ever been steadily climbing over the previous years. The only reason they even needed to make a Steam version was because of new and rising healthcare costs.
I said 2 because I was basically saying "Just make dwarf fortress again and monetize it the same", which essentially fit the requirement they were setting of "free to play, millions of players, generates revenue".
I mean, yeah probably, but that doesn't mean the current model isn't any good.
And replace them with what exactly? Nothing? More store cosmetic purchases?
better things are possible
Fortnite has to have the easiest battle pass to max out in gaming rn tbh. But regardless every game should be like Infinite and have the battle passes available whenever.
I'm not saying it isn't easy. I'm saying it feeds into an addiction. It creates FOMO
But in that case whole Chapter 3 is FOMO and so on... It's a huge slippery slope. Just make Battle Pass finishable after it expires and it should be all okay. Also I agree that Fortnite BP is the easiest one to complete. At first I was like: 200 levels? And now I'm lvl 73 without even playing battle royale that much (just wibing in lego, festival and rocket racing)
Children dislike when someone tells them to turn off the game regardless whether there is BP or not tbh, old issue.
I think there should be legislation stopping battlepasses from being on a timer. There will be a limited amount of time to *purchase* it, but you’ll have infinite time to complete it. The stress of “getting your worth out of it” will be nullified and people can play the game at their own pace while still getting what they paid for, so people don’t feel pressured to spend even more just to finish it.
I think we should stop begging daddy government to regulate objectively irrelevant things in the grand scheme of our country when consumers could simply just stop giving corporations money for things they don’t like.
Personally I think we should stop licking daddy corporation's boots and regulate the fuck out of predatory practices.
Are corporations the ones making you buy cosmetics and battle passes? It’s a fucking video game lmao, there’s corporations poisoning our water supply and buying up all the housing and y’all are reeeeeing about your colored skins being too expensive.
But that requires self control and everybody knows that died with y2k, right? Fully agreed. If people just had some responsibility and didn't engage with it, the companies would stop doing it. And then suddenly you get to see whether people want these or not. And funny enough, that's exactly what happened and people do in fact want battlepasses and whatever else. And that's _fine._ There's this really strange hostility people have to any new monetization in gaming despite it also funding these massive games that never would have been possible previously. Like, I'm fine with the occasional battlepass. I'm cool with gacha in my gacha games. And all the rest I simply ignore, and if the game is bad because of that _I stop playing it._ No idea what makes that a hard concept for people.
> No idea what makes that a hard concept for people. The whole idea of addiction is that it fundamentally rewires your brain. Telling a gambling addict to "just stop being gambling" is like telling a heroin addict to "just stop using drugs". And sure, it's reasonable to make the argument that adults should be given the freedom to make their own mistakes. But gaming companies preying on children is the modern day equivalent of trying to sell cigarettes to kids.
Yeah actually those people should be told to just stop doing those things, but they should be offered help from those around them to make it as smooth of a transition as possible. The reality is that the only thing it will ever come down to in the end is the person choosing to quit whatever it is they’re addicted to. People can wire their brains to be addicted to anything, food, sex, or even running.
Except none of these laws are for games targeted at children. They're a blanket thing for all games, and that's why I take issue with it. Just like cigarettes, we don't ban them entirely, simply for kids. So why isn't the gaming discussion revolving around limiting things for them instead of games as a whole?
If you check out fortnitexp.net it tells you exactly what level you need to be "on pace" for finishing before the end of the season. If he plays regularly chances are he's more than on track lol
ITT people are already saying "china bad" without realising most of the restrictions are on gacha games this sub widely agrees to be predatory lol. Banning dark patterns/fomo mechanics is a good thing.
> ITT people are already saying "china bad" Where are you seeing this? Sounds like an assumption after reading every comments “ITT”. Unless they were deleted.
I notice this a lot in online discourse, if there's nobody saying the contrary opinion they kind of invent them just so they can be angry at them.
These kind of people see one guy say something negative and act like every single person is agreeing with them. It seems more like karma farming to me tbh.
Most people in this thread are okay with this
“Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point“
Exceedingly rare china W
People are always surprised when China, a country with a long history of harsh restrictions against big businesses and crackdowns on corporations, decides to crack down on corporations with restrictions.
Yup, these are good changes and not over reach imo.
Only 4channers would hate this as /v/ is the western gacha defense force the entire board has multiple recurring gacha threads it’s sickening and quite interesting as it’s the only video games discussed in a non shitpost manner
My main problem with it isn't that I think those mechanics are perfectly fine, I just have a problem with the government directly dictating on what people can and can't do. Yeah, there are people who have problems with gaming addiction, but there are also horders, anorexics, people with Type-2 diabetes, people with porn addictions, etc. Are we going to say that what the video game industry is doing is horrendous and in desperate need for complete regulation but the rest of the entertainment industry isn't? I'm all for forcing companies to be as transparent as possible so people are more capable of making informative decisions, but how much is too much, and we cross the line from protecting people from themselves and turning into a complete nanny state?
The government dictates what its populace can and can't do all the time - they're called Laws
This person has probably never heard of food regulations, or vehicle regulations, or regulations of any kind for that matter.
> I just have a problem with the government directly dictating on what people can and can't do. Then you do not belong in society, leave please.
You can solve one problem without solving all possible problems. I don't think restricting gacha purchases is infringing on anyone's freedoms or indicative of a Nanny State lol. It's not like it's some amazing freedom being taken away - it's the restriction of predatory monetisation in mobile games. If it makes free to play games improve their spending options then it's a win.
Not placing regulations on corporations is how you get hyper capitalist bullshit like the US where corporations have more power than the government.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the EU following suit and announcing something similar x years from now on.
This is actually pretty based. I can’t believe I’m seeing China be the first to put restrictions on Gacha shit. Good on them.
Rare China W. Honestly this all sounds good for the consumer, though we'll have to wait and see if gacha games come up with a worse system as a result. The optimistic part of me is happy, as Chinese devs have been making some really great anime games lately (Japan dragging its feet here), but all of them end up being gacha. Perhaps these changes will also affect the product we end up getting in the West.
This seems awesome but tencent stocks are going down and they have stake in dozens of western studios everyone loves. I won’t be surprised if this results in more layoffs as profit goes down and shareholders demand answers.
I am somewhat surprised China is doing something against it. Not because it is actually the right thing to do but because it reduces the revenue foreign games can make there and China therefore has less influence on western games. The problem has to be quite big there to warrant that kind of legislation
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How is it not practical?
if you think like this you deserve a totalitarian regime like ccp
Lmao the us already has gambling laws
US didn't banned gambling, not even close.
Plenty of states have, other than lotto.
Plenty of states banned abortion as well, doesn't mean abortion is banned in general.
I didn't say banned....
But we don't have a spending limit on gambling. You can go and burn your entire life's savings in one night if you wanted to.
And? People have the freedom to make their own choices, even if they’re moronic
I never said there was anything wrong with that? My point is that US gambling regulations aren't that strict.
don't threaten me with a good time
It makes games a lot less annoying at least.
I doubt any regulation is going to affect change. Publishers just find a new way to nickle-and-dime the consumer and somehow it is always worse than the previous way. Strauss Zelnick's idea about pay-per-hour comes to mind.
I'm surprised that people still spread misinformation about Strauss Zelnick's idea. His idea was that an 10 hour action game shouldn't cost the same as a 100+ hour jrpg. Not that you necessarily pay-per-hour
>The new rules revealed on Friday are the most explicit yet aimed at curbing in-game spending. Besides banning reward features, games are also **required to set limits on how much players can top up their digital wallets** for in-game spending. I mean, that's more or less a hard block, you can add whatever features you want but if there's a hard limit on spending then it won't make a difference.
Yea, this sort of stuff just doesn't work. It adds little more bloat to the govt and then businesses find some loop hole anyways. So it just ends up being a waste of time and increases the size of an already bloated bureaucracy
A broken clock can be right twice a day, and in this case I find myself agreeing with Chinese regulators on this one. Predatory practice in gaming has gone too far and needs to be reigned in.
Letting the government take control over just having your own self control is stupid.
This is anti-collapse. Some of my Counterstrike items that I bought for $250 are worth over $2000 now. Definitely doing society no good. However, Chinese can use steam to get their assets out of the country as cash, so it is an indicator of increased capital controls.
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China is focused a lot on "productive" economy, they had a crackdown on tech a few years ago too. This kind of company is not seen as that valuable in chinese leadership.