Sky news and loot boxes

klowdy1

This is such a ridiculous topic. If you don't want the chance of getting what you want, don't buy them. Just because some people think it's wrong doesn't make them correct. I don't see a problem with choices, people need to learn restraint. You don't get that pretty digital dress because it's in an RNG box? Oh well, get past it. Restrictions on gambling are restrictions on personal freedom, plain and simple. I like to have something to spend my growing pool of sub crowns, why should you decide how I do that.

Idinuse

Beardimus wrote: »

It is interesting its in the news for sure. Personally however i'm unsure how much will be done about it, as gambling has been prevalent in Children's entertainment for years. In many areas its completely normalized.

Football stickers, Pokémon cards, Kinder Egg toys and now these collectable things where there are 'sets' to complete and seasons etc and are heavily advertised on kids TV. They end up thinking they want them even if they don't want them. These things I hate as its targeting children specifically

It feels like the above here to stay (have been around all my life) so I cant see a position where video luck / chance purchases are legally stopped and physical are not. Its just that Virtual stuff is newer and grabbing more attention.

I wont derail the thread, as my personal opinion is that I don't mind crates and this is a discussion after all. I will never buy them, but I know many people that do, and from the number of mounts around in game can see its a clear commercial success for ZOS and the game. Which is healthy for the games longevity. And its a PEGI rated game, Children should not be playing unsupervised and certainly should not have access to any in game currency or credit card details (that's a parenting fault, not a game companies fault) whereas them blowing pocket money on trading cards is within their control.

You have to keep anything physical like collector cards and card games separate from the VR crate gambling. There is a vast difference between hard cash and virtual pixels worth absolutely nothing to anyone within a couple of years.

Anything physical you can exchange with your friends or other collectors and those items also have a RL money value that in most cases never expire or even just gets higher and higher for collectors the more years pass. If you need a particular card you can just enter a game shop or go online and buy it, or sell your entire collection even when you have outgrown the game or collecting that particular set. Heck you could be collecting PEZ dispensers even, buying and selling what ever you need, just go online and brows on, and they aren't even touched by anything randomized or luck in obtaining them from the start. Even the LEGO figures from bags are possible to exchange between kids making it far more likely that the kid might get the figure she/he wants, and they could even be bought second hand if that's the only way, probably for far less than buying a complete series of those bags just to satisfy an entitled ( ) kid.

Virtual Crates are nothing of the sort. If you could trade what you get with other people in the game, or sell anything you get from them in game for in game currency, well that would be another thing completely imo, since you'd still be able to exchange the awards with your friends or other people i.e. and that would reflect the current value to players for the life of the game/product/service. Or they could dramatically increase the amount of gems you get for the awards and/or lower the gem cost of the awards so that it would take far far less RL money to get what you want.

Then again simply selling them directly for Crowns might be a better and a more lucrative model after all, even adding an exchange feature of crown items perhaps.

tplink3r1

Migrants are attacking kids through Europe but apparently loot boxes are the real threat to children according to Sky News.
It's hard to believe that people are so spoiled that they feel the necessity to ask for the government to step in and ban a voluntary trade between ZOS and a customer. Really, grow up people.

Elsonso

Samadhi wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

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Samadhi wrote: »

Where it does meet the definition of gambling it is our job to ensure that children are protected and we have lots of rules in place, like age verification requirements, to do that.

Where a product does not meet that test to be classed as gambling but could potentially cause harm to children, parents will undoubtedly expect proper protections to be put in place by those that create, sell and regulate those products.

We could see something like added verification requirements when using a credit card to purchase Crowns,
or general stores no longer being able to sell Crown Cards to minors/carry them at all, but something like the Crown Store is in a relatively defensible position, as it is accessible through the game but not a core part of the game mechanics
so it may be feasible to see it receive a pass due to there being a form age verification gating (Credit Card ownership) between the realm of general gameplay and Crown Store purchase

Owning a credit card does not guarantee that the card holder may legally gamble. Also, as others have stated, not everyone rides the credit card train, and so credit cards make a poor international age gate.

My post also referred to the capacity to buy Crown cards in store, where ID could be checked

A Credit Card is generally accepted as age verification due to requirement of age 18 to legally have one

Right. And all I am saying here is that credit cards are not really a definitive "I am old enough" mechanism. I know I wrote the word "gambling", which is the topic of conversation in the thread, but it applies to "being an adult" as well. You just can't guarantee that someone is an adult, or not an adult, based on a credit card.

Personally, I don't think it is possible to absolutely determine the age of an online game player, unless they are forced to present an unmodified government issued ID, in person. That really isn't a reasonable bar in today's online society.

ZOS_Mika

While we understand that this topic is important to many of our community members, much of this thread isn't really discussing ESO. Because of this, we are going to go ahead and close it down. Thank you for your understanding.