With Loot boxes being illegal under Belgium law... What will happen to Gacha's?

[Eternal Lennie]

There is numerous articles if you just type in "Loot Boxes" on Google News.

Here is just one link: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43906306

My question is simple, would this affect SL in any shape/way, as it could be considered gambling to a point... But not really sure.

[Ethan Paslong]

there is a topic about this already

 

[Bobbie Faulds]

Gachas are a specific form gameplay. They meet the no gambling rules SL has had in place for a number of years. You don't exactly get random stuff from them. The gacha is programmed with a specific series of prizes that the odds are set for those prizes. For instance, the odds equal 100%. The rare may be set up to get one of those at 5%. The uncommon set at 10%. The the commons then usually have the rest of the chances split between them. Depends on what the owner of the event wants to do.

Your prize will only be for the gifts in the prize key. You will only win one of those gifts. Say a common would be plain shoes of skirt. Uncommon could be a set of colors. The rare could be specific colors, like a gold or silver, or have a mini set of the rare colors. You won't get any junk and the gachas let you trade for the ones you need or buy them from another player. As such, it doesn't fall under the random stuff that has nothing to do with the gacha you're playing nor does it have junk.

Hope that helps. You have to play it to really understand it,

[Orwar]

To be fair, Gachas and Loot Boxes are the exact same idea. The percentages you're presenting is far from the common practice, @Bobbie Faulds, I know people who've put more than L$5,000 into a Gacha machine in a single sitting to get what they want, and I have an SL daughter who I keep telling to keep off the Gacha machines but who repeatedly do the same (just now when I mentioned it she said she's gone over L$5,000 for a gacha at least twice and that she eventually did get one of the items she wanted, but not the other 'yet'.) When the chances are that low, it doesn't matter if each spin is just L$50 a pop if, by the end of the day, you've sunk $20 USD into it. 

It's a matter of consumer protection. You don't know what you get, you know what you might or can get, but the Gachas don't say 'This item has a one in twenty chance to pop', it just says 'rare' or sometimes even 'super rare' and it may well be down to 0.1% or less in many cases.

You see a picture with a bunch of nifty stuff, and a specific item which looks better than everything else, but also has a lower chance of being sold than everything else - and if you get it, you can turn it into a profit. And if you don't get it the first time around, then maybe the next, or the next, or the next... 

This is why Loot Boxes are being banned, and why Gachas may well be. 

To be entirely blunt I don't care, in the aspect of 'what people do with their money' I'm quite liberal - if someone can't manage their economy then that would just be one of the many tools at natural selection's disposal. It's just unfortunate that we seldom let people actually starve in the west. 

[Fionalein]

This is the 4th or so thread on the topic... 

[Penny Patton]

3 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

This is the 4th or so thread on the topic... 

They're decorative. I think they really bring out the colour in the curtains.

[Coffee Pancake]

And most western articles on the subject seem more about the "LOOTBOXES ILLEGAL SOMEWHERE" clickbait headline than covering the actual details .. because who wants to read that.

[Fionalein]

There are some nice ones in the techie blogs. Explaining in detail why EA's Star Wars game (the one which started the ban process) ironically was the one that wasn't affected...

Edited April 27, 2018 by Fionalein

[Marth Coberts]

1 hour ago, Penny Patton said:

They're decorative. I think they really bring out the colour in the curtains.

But they don't match the carpet at all...

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

1 hour ago, Marth Coberts said:

But they don't match the carpet at all...

   What carpet?

[Magnek Fang]

That law was made more for the big gaming companies. They aren't gonna look at our sorry butts.

[Bree Giffen]

LL will probably identify Belgians and prevent them from buying gachas in some way. Isn't there already a security wall for gambling sims?

[Fionalein]

2 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

LL will probably identify Belgians and prevent them from buying gachas in some way. Isn't there already a security wall for gambling sims?

that would be quite unfair towards teh Belgians... it's forbidden in the Netherlands as well 

[Tari Landar]

9 hours ago, Marth Coberts said:

But they don't match the carpet at all...

They rarely ever do

[LittleMe Jewell]

4 hours ago, Fionalein said:

6 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

LL will probably identify Belgians and prevent them from buying gachas in some way. Isn't there already a security wall for gambling sims?

  that would be quite unfair towards teh Belgians... it's forbidden in the Netherlands as well 

Not if Belgium and the Netherlands consider it gambling.  If your specified address or connection currently comes from various countries and some states in the US, then you can't get to the gambling sims - because it is illegal in said countries or states.

If gambling is not legal in your country/state, then LL "attempts" to keep you from it.  There are way around that - I'm sure some people do it now to get to the gambling stuff, but LL has done their due diligence on it.  Same philosophy for gatchas if a country considers them gambling.

However, I'd be willing to bet that there is no way currently for LL to know whether you are putting money into a gatcha machine versus any other purchase. Thus the only way they could even attempt to control it would be if they declared that all gatchas had to either be in designated gambling areas or some other designated area that they could control the access to.

[Fionalein]

ah no, you got me all wrong ...I was saying it would be unfair to ban one country's inhabitants when it is already forbidden in two coutries. Only banning the Belgians would be... inconsistent at least.

But let lawyers decide on what to do, either LL's lawyers come to the conclusion something must be done, or some lawyers sue LL and then courts will decide what or even if anything at all has to be done...

Edited April 28, 2018 by Fionalein

[Callum Meriman]

6 hours ago, Fionalein said:

But let lawyers decide on what to do, either LL's lawyers come to the conclusion somthing must be done, or some lawyers sue LL and then courts will decide what or even if anything at all has to be done...

Yep, Ebbe seemed to mention that compliance is quite an important topic for the Lab, but he seemed to be only aware of USA compliance from that town hall.

Like all other regulatory issues, people should just sit back and wait for an out-of-the-blue announcement. Tech wise, it could be exposing the residents country to LSL and making a policy that Gatchas must not operate for people in countries with loot-box bans.

It may well be that the Lab's Lawyers decide.. meh.

[Coffee Pancake]

6 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

it could be exposing the residents country to LSL

This would be a major breach of privacy in its own right and would never ever be allowed.

[Callum Meriman]

3 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

This would be a major breach of privacy in its own right and would never ever be allowed.

Language is already exposed. Someone with the Language of DE will be from Germany. FR will be from France. NL will be Dutch, and so on.

 

Edit: The only other way I can think of, will be to make Gatcha regions, with people from Belguim and the Netherlands plus any that join them locked out, similar to how those few USA states can't enter the gaming regions.

Edited April 28, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Paul Hexem]

11 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

The only other way I can think of, will be to make Gatcha regions, with people from Belguim and the Netherlands plus any that join them locked out, similar to how those few USA states can't enter the gaming regions.

I agree with this.

As I said in the other thread though, if we start seeing loot box laws becoming a widespread thing, LL may be forced to make a larger policy change. 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

To me the biggest issue with gachas is that the machines do not state what the odds are, that in itself is basically dishonest.

[Phil Deakins]

Since this thread has been revived, I do have an opinion, although I've never had any interest whatsoever in partaking in the gatcha idiocy. Gatcha machines are no different to slot machines, except that the gambler does get something each time from the gatcha machines. They should be included in the gambling laws, because that's exactly what they are - gambling machines, with which the owners take advantage of the gullible - and laugh all the way to the bank, of course.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Coffee Pancake]

.. and magic cards are also gambling and should be covered too.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Just now, CoffeeDujour said:

.. and magic cards are also gambling and should be covered too.

I still don't get how collectible card games get away with not publishing odds, unless it's actually posted somewhere?

[Fionalein]

10 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

I still don't get how collectible card games get away with not publishing odds, unless it's actually posted somewhere?

That one is set. Usually it is one rare a small set number of uncommons and a bigger set number of commons per package.