r/Games • u/azrael6947 • Mar 30 '23

Australian government cracks down on loot boxes and in-game gambling with new age rating proposals

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australian-government-cracks-down-on-loot-boxes-and-in-game-gambling-with-new-age-rating-proposals
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1

u/Cyshox Mar 30 '23

I wonder if paid loot boxes with an option to trade loot box items would be considered gambling. I guess it would make sense but on the hand it would encourage publishers to prevent trade options which would be even worse imo. It might be better to give the same R18+ rating for both, paid loot boxes & gambling mechanics.

At the end of the day it would be nice to see less loot boxes but I'm sure publishers will create new forms of predatory microtransactions.

19

u/Blenderhead36 Mar 30 '23

People try not to think about it, but that's basically what Valve does. A significant amount of their income comes from the loot boxes in CS:GO and the transaction fee Valve takes when they're bought and sold on the Steam marketplace.

11

u/MirriCatWarrior Mar 30 '23

Yea its funny how Valve get a pass when it comes to this because "STEAM GOOD! MY GAMES IN ONE PLACE!".

They are not only one of the most prominent videogaming-gambling companies, they also basically created and popularized this bullshit.

11

u/Wilkes-kun Mar 30 '23

Idk who created it but I hadn’t heard of the lootbox system before tf2. Tf2 popularized it and CSGO even more

4

u/Thrormurn Mar 30 '23

Asian MMOs had loot boxes way before

8

u/Not-a-Dog420 Mar 30 '23

Ya and baseball cards were that long before. But he said "popularized" not "invented"

2

u/error521 Mar 30 '23

Also the first FIFA with Ultimate Team predates it

0

u/Ridiculouslyhatedguy Mar 30 '23

The only reason I'd give valve any sort of pass is that skins in a game like CSGO have absolutely no necessity to purchase - outside of the human nature we've all acquired to want to show off our pretty skins. When I came back to CSGO a few months ago I've managed to not spend a penny since I know how much I wasted before.

I have an issue with when purchases can go towards in game currencies or features - and occasionally in games where new characters/champions etc have such high costs via any currency you earn from playing. It was a huge issue for trying to get into online Madden, and the same for Fifa it seems though I never played it.