As much as I like putting limitations on lootboxes or banning them out right, I've seen what developers do when they can't use lootboxes. $20 to $30 "micro" transactions and predatory menus and game mechanics that make you feel bad for not owning the latest hotness. They will do anything to make that microtransaction money regardless. They'll just take advantage of a different part of your brain.
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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20 mil is peanuts. Selling shit to children for as long as you can is worth way more. FTC has proven that exploiting kids with gambling mechanics is just good business.
Ughh. The selective enforcement is maddening, both with this and TikTok. So much of the filed complaint especially applies to Roblox, but it's clear that we're only interested in protecting our consumers when it really means chipping away at a foreign rival's burgeoning soft power.
And millions of children cried out for their waifus.
(This is good: I play and enjoy Genshin but they're using every single psychological trick to get you to spend money to gamble and that kind of shameless shit shouldn't be put in front of children who don't have sufficient experience and developmental time to not get totally taken.)
I never played Genshin but I did check out ZZZ for a minute. The gacha element was just too intense and it reminded me of games from 15+ years ago that used similar mechanics.
Yeah, there's a reason we don't let children into casinos. Putting cute cartoons in the casino on their phone just makes it worse, if anything.
this should have to go through the same regulations as casinos. although that would probably just mean no official release or support for Canadians
Anything more specific they do more than any other Gacha game?
Yes. They are bigger. It sends a message to the entire predatory ecosystem. Which would not happen if they went for a smaller Gacha game.
Other than that, no, let's give them fines too.
I don't think so, no. At least nothing I've noticed, but they're also not being any better than any other gacha game, either.
You love to see it.
'Member when Kyle's Mom freaked the fuck out and tried to ban Pokémon Red and Blue because they "depicted gambling" in the game corner, which had no links to the outside world and could not be fed with real money in any capacity, was completely contained within the monochrome screen on your Gameboy, and could be save scummed anyway? Pepperidge Farm 'members.
My, how far the bullshit has come.
Anyway, 16 is sure a funny way to spell 18. Why the hell is the age requirement 16 when you can't buy a lottery ticket until you're 18 and in most places you can't enter a casino until you're 21? It's the same thing.
Lootboxes is gambling. So are gacha pulls, and doubly so for both of the above when they can be fueled with real world money. People who are not adults should not be enabled to gamble.
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20 mil isn't that much, but this is good news. Hopefully this sets a precedent for other manipulative gacha games.
Genshin alone made over 700 mil last year, this is just cost of doing business for them
I'm confused. I've played Genshin, and I don't remember any sort of loot box system in the game. There's a gacha system which seems to be what the article keeps referring to, but that's very different from what I think the average user considers a "loot box".
a gachapon, the system gacha is named after, its litterally a form of a lootbox. you know, those machines found in places where you place tokens to vend out a random goodie?
You're gonna need to explain what you think the difference is, because most people think they're synonymous
I feel like the difference is the loot "box", itself. Granted, I've not played any loot box games since Team Fortress 2, but in that game the box was an actual inventory item you could store and open whenever you wanted, and those items would always be from the same pool.
With Genshin, you're basically just pulling from a singular, infinite loot box that rotates its reward pool. So you can't, as a player, decide to open a Year 1 item when it's not in the current rotation.
It's a small difference, but I feel like that's why we have separate terminology for "gacha" and "loot box" games.
My apologies if I'm getting this wrong, as I don't play Gacha games, but isn't that worse?
As in, if the players know that a certain reward they're trying to get will be rotated out soon, won't that drive up the FOMO even more?
My apologies if I'm getting this wrong, as I don't play Gacha games, but isn't that worse?
It depends. I'm not sure how current loot box games handle it, but with most gacha games, there are determined odds for the prizes, so they have a "pity" system. So after a certain amount of pulls, you're always guaranteed to get the top reward. RNG will make it so that you'll typically pull all the way to nearly the end of that pity timer before you get the top reward, but you'll eventually get it.
I'm not sure if traditional loot "boxes" have such a protection in place. I dunno if it's any better or worse since they're both pretty manipulative tactics, but it's different.
That's still just gambling in another costume 😭
There isn't a meaningful difference; gachas are just a subset of lootboxes, and anybody claiming otherwise is a player lying to themselves or is a game publisher defending themselves from these predatory practices.
Gacha is a type of loot box.
You aren't purchasing a specific item when you spend money. If there's any sort of chance involved with that purchase it's a loot box.
In what world is a "gacha system" not a lootbox