Alegria
Alegria ♪ Caca0ch0c0lat
Towns Folk
Hi! I came back on Nintenpedia to warn people who play Animal Crossing Pocket Camp that I won't be playing anymore by the end of August, so I thought I might as well open a debate concerning the reason:
As some of you might know, Belgium decided that lootboxes features are similar to gambling games, so they decided it will be forbidden.
This decision is quite similar to the decision to consider as PEGI 16 games that contains gambling, which made Game Freak erase its casinos from Pokémon Platinum Version onwards. But concerning the law in Belgium, some games didn't decide to just block the purchase of lootboxes, they simply blocked the whole game in the county.
So I'll start giving my opinion about the two.
Concerning the old PEGI16 thing, I find it a little stupid. In Pokémon I have a system: I save before I gamble, if I loose more than 100$ I soft reset, if I earn more than 100$ I save again. That's why I never ever associated in-game gambling to real life gambling even if I started at 7 years old! When I found other gambling features in online games (like Wakfu, so I precise: games where you give in-game money to earn in-game prizes), I didn't associate it with real life gambling because there, even if my character is broke, who cares? They don't need to eat, if they have 0 money they just have to kill some mobs and sell the loot... You can't really do this in real life!
So that's why I think you cannot become addict to real life gambling from playing in game gambling.
Concerning the belgian law:
If you play real gambling games, you give money hoping you will win more money. That's the whole point of the addiction because if you're nearly broke, you believe you can make it up with only one win, so you will give what you still have for this chance!
But if you buy a lootbox, you're giving money for entertainment, only entertainment! Except if you believe in your chances on e-sport (if the game has e-sport) you are not there to get money. In these games you can have entertainment without the lootboxes either so how can you be addict?
So yeah, I don't see any logic there.
And even if both points were valid, I don't think blocking, erasing, banning are the solution. The best we could do is rather to inform, sensibilise, teach how to avoid and what are the consequences... And for "too young children" (if there is such a thing), we already have good parental controls on every device, come on! My generation's parents weren't very touchy with technology so they didn't even know about parental control, they just bought and gave the console/computer... But nowadays parents are into technology!
So what do you think?
As some of you might know, Belgium decided that lootboxes features are similar to gambling games, so they decided it will be forbidden.
This decision is quite similar to the decision to consider as PEGI 16 games that contains gambling, which made Game Freak erase its casinos from Pokémon Platinum Version onwards. But concerning the law in Belgium, some games didn't decide to just block the purchase of lootboxes, they simply blocked the whole game in the county.
So I'll start giving my opinion about the two.
Concerning the old PEGI16 thing, I find it a little stupid. In Pokémon I have a system: I save before I gamble, if I loose more than 100$ I soft reset, if I earn more than 100$ I save again. That's why I never ever associated in-game gambling to real life gambling even if I started at 7 years old! When I found other gambling features in online games (like Wakfu, so I precise: games where you give in-game money to earn in-game prizes), I didn't associate it with real life gambling because there, even if my character is broke, who cares? They don't need to eat, if they have 0 money they just have to kill some mobs and sell the loot... You can't really do this in real life!
So that's why I think you cannot become addict to real life gambling from playing in game gambling.
Concerning the belgian law:
If you play real gambling games, you give money hoping you will win more money. That's the whole point of the addiction because if you're nearly broke, you believe you can make it up with only one win, so you will give what you still have for this chance!
But if you buy a lootbox, you're giving money for entertainment, only entertainment! Except if you believe in your chances on e-sport (if the game has e-sport) you are not there to get money. In these games you can have entertainment without the lootboxes either so how can you be addict?
So yeah, I don't see any logic there.
And even if both points were valid, I don't think blocking, erasing, banning are the solution. The best we could do is rather to inform, sensibilise, teach how to avoid and what are the consequences... And for "too young children" (if there is such a thing), we already have good parental controls on every device, come on! My generation's parents weren't very touchy with technology so they didn't even know about parental control, they just bought and gave the console/computer... But nowadays parents are into technology!
So what do you think?