Submitted 11 hours ago by Valiane@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://www.euractiv.com/news/hard-to-hit-pause-excessive-gaming-lands-on-the-eus-radar/
Watch the end result be you can’t find random chests in Minecraft dungeons or Terraria caves cause it falls under the category of “lootbox” in games…
(May seem hyperbolic, but we are talking about 70 year old boomers trying to make regulations for video games. I’m not sure I have the most positive view of the potential outcome)
uh, on one side of my family my 70 year old boomers were helping Ken and Dennis write UNIX. I listen when they talk.
the average age of elected leaders across the world is in the 45-50 range for most of the western world, US is the oldest at 60-70 range
Lootboxes are sooo 2010s though. It‘s all about season passes and general FOMO. I doubt they will correctly identify and properly regulate „addictive features“ in a way that puts an end to that but I guess we‘ll see.
The companies doing them have a few hundred million reasons to skirt around the laws, so they will no doubt find a few ways. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make laws
my nephews are all about the limited edition skins
I’m of the strong opinion that we control the media that we are exposed to and that the resolution for problematic or undesirable media is to simply turn it off.
However: advertising, LLM’s, social media, and the Internet have forced me to capitulate that certain forms of media constitute a legitimate memetic hazard, and are capable of fueling addiction, misinformation, and general misery in large enough scales. I hate this conclusion because while I still heavily err on the side of media liberty and self-control, I cannot square that value with the reality of poisonous, hostile media.
We should not be subjected to predatory practices to enjoy the products, services, and entertainment that we depend on, and that are part of our shared experience and culture. Loot boxes, advertising, and financial scams are near universal in popular gaming products, and even software in general. To me, this eventually constitutes a monopolistic behavior that becomes reasonably unavoidable and must be regulated.
To be fair, much of the memetic hazard posed by various technologies is not actually the fault of the technologies, but a fault of the person having no self-control, no accountability for their own actions, or having some form of undiagnosed medical issue they are unaware of.
Its like saying video games cause school shootings: the problem isnt the video games, its the person. The video games are an excuse to shift blame and accountability away from the person.
what you say has merit, however its akin to saying that the memetic hazard posed by heroin isnt the fault of heroin. like, sure. heroin is just a substance. certain software is similar, but its made to be a certain way (dark patterns in gaming etc) and should be regulated for harm reduction just like addictive substances
They won’t do it, and here’s why: AAA will lobby for the continuation because it will hurt their bottom line of that gets banned. They love to implement dark patterns galore, and modern games will certainly do that.
Don’t be surprised if this fails, as it will likely be more consumerism, considering the fact that the USD and bond bubble just burst recently.
Loot boxes and microtransactions made me hate playing videogames.
Luckily for you, there’s more games without any loot boxes or micro transactions than you can play in your lifetime.
Even the benign psychological manipulation away from just starting a game and enjoying it that is achievements is annoying
Some European countries have banned them already. Belgium and the Netherlands as an example.
There are still loot boxes in Belgium, they just work differently. You get to see what is inside before you start the transaction, allowing a person to only open the ones with contents they want.
That’s good news, but will the EU make it law for the entirety of it? I’d say no, but this is for sure promising. Us Americans need to get clocked for our dark pattern usage.
Zwiebel@feddit.org 11 hours ago
Hey nice, finally regulating gambling for children