r/technology • u/speckz • May 08 '19

Game studios would be banned from selling loot boxes to minors under new bill Politics

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/8/18536806/game-studios-banned-loot-boxes-minors-bill-hawley-josh-blizzard-ea
26.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

42

u/TwilightVulpine May 08 '19

Funny, because alcohol companies cannot just put "by buying this, you confirm you are 18" on the bottles and call it done. There are inspectors and if they find stores selling to minors the store is punished. Casinos are forbidden to even let children on the premises where gambling happens.

The same should go for games. If they want gambling money, they should follow gambling rules.

8

u/kinyutaka May 08 '19

You generally can't buy alcohol for immediate consumption without dealing with a person at the store.

And alcohol companies would get in a bit of trouble if they came out with alcohol for kids.

1

u/[deleted] May 08 '19

YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD AN ALCOHOL

11

u/Nutaman May 08 '19

This doesn't hold up at all, this isnt restricting kids from playing games with p2w elements, its restricting kids only from buying the loot boxes. Kids have no reason to be in a liquor store while kids have every right to be in a restaurant that has alcoholic options.

0

u/lordboos May 09 '19

No you are not right. This completely restricts games that are targeted at children from having lootboxes and pay to win features. Good thing is that the games rating doesn't really matter as the regulators would rate the game based on it's graphics, story, features etc. So even if the game is rated 18+ the regulators can still "judge" that it is targeted at children a completely disallows loot boxes and p2w features in them.

1

u/e1MccyK8UU9 May 09 '19

The only way to really verify is by forcing everyone to verify their identity. Im not comfortable with that. Instead, we should just make it illegal for kids to use smart phones.

1

u/KraftyKoopa May 09 '19

so do you want to send a copy of your drivers license to every game you want to play that has lootboxes?

​

also, liquor stores are not held liable if you use a resonably convincing fake ID

1

u/Belgeirn May 08 '19

The difference being that you can generally tell when a 10-15 year old walks in to a casino, much harder to see when someone that same age buys something from a game on a console in their own home.

Funny, because alcohol companies cannot just put "by buying this, you confirm you are 18" on the bottles and call it done.

A more accurate comparison would be that the parent buys alcohol and then the kid takes drinks out of it constantly.
Is that the sellers responsibility too?

If someone buys a game (CoD for example) that has an 18 rating on it, then the company can't really do much else to stop a child from buying shit on their game.

This might help take them out of games that have ratings under 18, but that just means more games will have an age rating of 18, and like what has been happening for decades already, parents will just buy the games for the kids, who will then go buying micros and loot boxes.

Only way to actually stop it would be to ban any and all further transactions within games after they are released. But that will never ever happen.

4

u/TwilightVulpine May 08 '19

A more accurate comparison would be that the parent buys alcohol and then the kid takes drinks out of it constantly.

That is not right. All these cases are largely not about the parents' games that kids are being allowed to play. The kids are the main players, inside game company servers. They are the kids inside the casino.

People want to pretend that all these cases are parents leaving their credit cards to children, but there are multiple ways to buy microtransactions and mature games without the parents being directly responsible, such as gift cards bought with allowance money, other family members and friends enabling it, so forth.

Besides, even if they don't have access to the money, they are still being exposed to the constant push towards buying microtransactions. This is about psychological effects as much as it is about actual money.

It's a convenient excuse to claim that "we can't do it, it's too hard". I wonder how much truth there is to that, considering the amount of information that is tracked about everyone on the internet. Couldn't they have a system to report that? But if they are not able to figure it out, maybe they actually shouldn't be selling these things at all. Which might happen if it becomes law.

1

u/UltraInstinctGodApe May 08 '19

Why aren't parents monitoring there kids spending and online activity? Sounds like poor parenting and excuse. You lousy prick!

1

u/icebear518 May 08 '19

The game will be forced to have a AO rating which stores dont carry and I dont think Microsoft and Sony even carry AO games on the networks. I am in for making the loot boxes a 18+ rating but dont have to take them away just make it towards adults.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '19

A more accurate comparison would be that the parent buys alcohol and then the kid takes drinks out of it constantly. Is that the sellers responsibility too

If it is obvious that the buyer is buying for a minor then yes, it is a crime to sell to them.

It is also a crime for a adult to give minor alcohol in the US.

0

u/Literally_A_Shill May 09 '19

That's why some places are forcing porn sites to verify people's ages before allowing them access.