Comment on New York sues Valve for enabling "illegal gambling" with loot boxes

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Goodeye8@piefed.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Diablo 3 has no real trading. You have only limited time trading of things you find while playing with other people. Maybe you meant Diablo Immortal but I don’t know enough about that to talk on that subject.

As for War Thunder and EVE. Yes, they have lootboxes and yes there’s a perceived monetary value to the boxes and things in the box, but they’re not the same as Steam because those games do the common thing (which IMO should also be banned) where you stick a premium currency between real money and the thing you want to purchase and obfuscate the actual value of things. I don’t agree with what they’re doing but they are making sure value of items is not directly translatable to real money. It’s one of the tactics companies hide behind (while also manipulating players to spend more). Steam doesn’t even do that. Steam literally puts real money value on the market. You want to buy a Factory new Marble Fade talon knife you know the starting price is exactly 732,98€.

I’m pretty sure in EVE and War Thunder you also get to open some of those lootboxes for free which is another difference from Valve games, where you literally have to pay real money to open the box. I imagine that also plays a role in how companies defend their practices, by saying it’s not gambling because you don’t have to pay to open lootboxes, you just pay to get EXTRA lootboxes to open.

And to make it clear, I’m not defending the gatcha industy. IMO that should be struck down the same way Valve’s gambling machine should be struck down.

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