Players were excited when news dropped of Nintendo’s mobile game Dr. Mario World. It recently launched last week on iOS and Android. Fans of Nintendo and the Super Mario intellectual property (IP) were looking forward to trying the game as soon as it released. Fans in Belgium however were not able to share in the revelry because Nintendo decided not to release the game there. That is because Belgium’s government has decided to prohibit games with pay-to-win features and similar purportedly exploitative practices. Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp were also shut down in the country for the same reason. Some might think “Thank goodness we don’t live in Belgium”, but not so fast! Belgium wasn’t the only country not on the list and depending on the way politics go, some other countries may follow Belgium’s lead.

Screenshot via YouTube, used under Fair Use: Reporting

On May 8th, 2019 US Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri announced plans to introduce a bill banning “‘pay-to-win’ and ‘loot box’ monetization schemes” in video games targeting youth (games like Candy Crush, Call of Duty, etc). Sen. Hawley’s aim is supposedly to protect youth from exploitative practices in these games that could also potentially foment gambling problems later on in life. Some children either by ignorance or the enticement of the rewards offered by microtransactions have spent a great deal of money. A question that comes to mind is how everything is going to be categorized and defined so that this bill doesn’t have a blanket effect on all games (since many games regardless of rating are played by various age groups e.g. Overwatch, Halo, and Call of Duty). That is difficult to predict since the language of the bill reads as though it could apply to many games as long as there is some evidence that suggests members of the game’s playerbase are minors (under the age of 18 years old). There are definitions for different terms used in the bill. Defining the term “Minor-oriented Game” is a list of possible qualifiers. This list of qualifiers includes items J and K on pages 5 and 6 of the bill which seem to refer to other unspecific evidences that can be used to determine the age range of a playerbase.

Screenshot via YouTube, used under Fair Use: Reporting

From the US House of Representatives, Hawaii State Representatives Chris Lee and Sean Quinlan proposed something in 2018 to address the issue as well. It was described as a state-wide ban on selling games to people under 21 with loot boxes and also requiring games with loot boxes to disclose the existence of that feature as well as the appearance rates of various items. Referring to the loot box feature in Star Wars Battlefront II in a press conference, Rep. Quinlan proclaimed, “We didn’t allow Joe Camel to encourage your kids to smoke cigarettes, and we shouldn’t allow Star Wars to encourage your kids to gamble.” Joe Camel was a character who was used during the 80’s and early 90’s to give the Camel cigarette brand a more recognizable face like Disney did with Mickey Mouse. While the company insisted that their character and accompanying advertisements were never designed to target youth, evidence found in a study published in 1991 and other evidence presented in the lawsuit Mangini v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company indicated otherwise. The comparison that Rep. Quinlan made rebukes industry representatives who claim that loot boxes and similar systems are not gambling nor are they designed to target youths. In the face of his statement, their defense sounds as equally hollow and disingenuous as that for Joe Camel in the 90’s.

Hawaii’s efforts spurred on other state legislatures to take on loot box systems as well. Washington state was another one that submitted legislation in January 11, 2018 that would compel the state’s gambling commission to examine loot boxes in order to determine how to regulate the system.

Is government regulation necessary or is there another way? This problem shouldn’t be ignored, and we must acknowledge that there is an incredible sum of money being made on games with microsactions, which has yet to be regulated by government. That could imply that there is a significant revenue stream that the government has yet to really tap into. Also, some people may not be thrilled by the idea that the government feels the need to protect people from themselves. With that in mind, it is hard to say how much of the politics surrounding this issue are for the benefit of gamers. That question will be left for readers to ponder and time will tell what the answer is.

Where are Gamers on This Issue?

Naturally this article can’t speak for all gamers, but some information is available about general reactions to what the gaming industry has been doing. There are gamers who, after having spent thousands to tens of thousands of dollars on different games, said that they didn’t regret the purchases. Their reason for this was they considered the enjoyment and happiness that they experienced from those games as an appropriate return on those investments.

That sentiment is shared by plenty of players who have had the opportunity to explore new stories alongside beloved characters of various IP’s. Some also made the point that if they hadn’t spent the money on those games, they may very well have spent it on something else e.g. another game, interest, or hobby. There are also slight exceptions like in the case of the game Rocket League. That game has loot boxes, but the items are cosmetic. Rocket League was a free-to-play (F2P) game on the PS4 as a monthly exclusive, so the only way that Playstation players who have been able to enjoy the game for years can support the game’s company is by purchasing loot boxes or paying for the season pass. In that sense it is like the musician who wonderfully plays on the corner you always pass on your way to work. You aren’t obligated to pay them, but you enjoy the music and so in the interest of supporting their art you occasionally give them money. That isn’t so unreasonable since companies do need money to be able to maintain and continue developing their products long term. Also to be fair, mobile games like Epic Seven and Harbingers – Last Epic allow players to start off stronger by pulling for free from the RNG system or “gacha” anywhere from 15-30 times or so depending on the game. This gives players the chance to obtain at least one high tier character if not more which helps early on.

On the other end of the spectrum are gamers who have made similar investments, but had very poor experiences. They described how their purchases caused repercussions in their lives similar to those that gamblers experience such as mounting debt and less money to acquire basic necessities. An important point to take into consideration is that for some gamers, the potential cost of the items or characters that they wish to obtain via loot box/gacha isn’t always the issue. The problem can be that companies decided to take advantage of players by putting a price tag on a player’s sentimental value of a given IP making it the proverbial carrot on the stick. There was a time that games were sold as single units containing all available content. Later, expansions to games that remained popular were occasionally made to keep loyal and passionate fan-bases busy in their game. As we all know, some companies decided to take advantage of customers’ eagerness for additional content by withholding content that would have been included normally and then deliberately sell it as “downloadable content” (DLC) later to reap a greater profit on a game. What followed was microtransactions for all kinds of cosmetic items. Then, microtransactions for items that affected gameplay. Finally, loot boxes and gacha systems utilizing random number generators (RNG) to determine by chance the item or character a player hoped to obtain. While a rough sketch at best, that basically tracks the trajectory of monetization methods used by the gaming industry at large to squeeze every cent possible out of consumers.

The last and current trend of randomized rewards in exchange for real world currency seems the most outrageous on paper. Many have compared loot boxes and gacha systems to gambling, with some people citing effects that such systems sometimes have on players which are surprisingly similar. If you asked a player to spend a flat $1,500 to purchase a game, costumes for the characters, and some special items it is unlikely that the player would agree. At most, editions of games like that tend to sell for anywhere between $70-200 and are ostensibly labeled “Collector’s” or “Deluxe” editions. $1,500 is an extraordinary sum for a game. Yet, now by using microtransactions coupled with RNG, players purchase chances of obtaining what they want. Should they fail or run out of funds, the player has to decide whether to stop and cut their losses or continue. Like with standard forms of gambling, the more that the player invests, the harder it is psychologically for them to walk away. Sometimes they invest more and try again. Before you know it, that player has already surpassed the $1,500 that they would have never paid for a game before. Sunk cost fallacy has made them afraid to quit with only empty hands to show for it so they are driven to continue.

Gacha systems have been especially successful at implementing this business model in many mobile games. One need only look at games like Fate/Grand Order, Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, and Kingdom Hearts Union Cross to see their earning potential. The internet and especially forums like Reddit are riddled with stories of players that have spent thousands on those and other similar mobile games. One study from last year drew a possible connection between systems like loot boxes and problem gambling after surveying a group of more than 14,000 individuals. After sorting reliable information from anything incomplete or obviously false, the study evaluated and based its conclusions on 7,422 individuals’ responses. While not the population size of a cosmopolitan city, that is still a sizable sample size.

Talking about loot boxes, one YouTube user commented on a video stating:

“Loot Boxes are actually WORSE than gambling, Casinos are probably super jealous! The consumers are giving money to these people for a random chance at digital goods, the consumer doesn’t even have a chance to make any back out of the deal. It’s like playing the “Mega Ball” Lottery with a $0 jackpot.”

Despite that, many players have come to accept it as the way things are. Evidence of this is despite many being against the concept, players continue to spend money on the games. And money talks. If players continue to invest, gaming companies aren’t likely to change their minds about an extremely lucrative method that is netting them tens of billions of dollars in revenue. It is the fact that technically there is no financial reward or return for the money spent on loot boxes. This has caused the system to fall into a legal gray area. For that reason, different countries have had to wrestle with current definitions of gambling to decide if they apply to these monetization systems or if perhaps definitions need to be expanded. They must also consider if legislature needs to be implemented to regulate things gaming companies have had relative free reign over for some time.

Where Does that Leave Us?

As governments and gaming companies bitterly struggle to define the status quo for monetization in gaming, players are left wondering what is right. With how current players of games that feature loot boxes and gacha systems have been conditioned, higher drop rates of characters or items would likely be viewed as huge perks and positive incentives. How magnanimous the gaming companies would be if they did that! But is that really better? Referring to the comparison made earlier about the carrot on the stick, if the gaming companies bring it closer to us and allow us to take a bite more often, does that actually change our relationship with them? Or do they remain the rider and us, their horse? Would it be unreasonable for companies to put a flat price on things so that players could have a guaranteed return for their money spent? Players aren’t giving companies Monopoly money so why not give players what they actually want? Would it be inappropriate for companies to design items and characters so that they only need to be purchased once instead of multiple times to power them up? Perhaps this is stepping too far into the realm of fantasy, but would it be outlandish for companies to charge for the core games, not withholding any content, and only selling proper additional content when it is fully fleshed out and bug-free? After all, companies are making so much more money that it is odd to see functional quality of games decline. Readers can likely think of a few examples.

There is the possibility of future legislation in the United States and other countries that could positively or negatively impact how companies like EA and Nintendo work with their players. Belgium tried to do something to quash predatory monetization practices in games available in their country. However, instead of changing the system they designed, Nintendo decided that if Belgium didn’t want to play the game according to Nintendo’s rules, then they didn’t get to play their game at all. Other countries will. While it is too bad for Belgium’s players that hoped to try Dr. Mario World, it is unlikely that Nintendo could continue to simply pull out of regions if countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, or others decide to draw a line in the sand. A company can only afford so many hits to its revenue before it will be forced to change.

There is much to consider, but the core issue is simple. Many companies will solely prioritize their bottom line and we will be expected to settle with what they are willing to give us. Will we?

Featured Image Credit: denofgeek.com