Conversations, studies, and outright rancor over video game lockbox practices have caught the notice of several world governments as readers of MOP already know, reaching all the way to the US Senate Committee, which ordered the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. As part of those efforts, and in an attempt to perhaps provide context and information about the practice, the FTC will be holding a workshop on Wednesday, August 7th, to discuss the variety of effects of lootbox monetization.
The workshop is broken up into three different panels. The first panel will feature a number of games industry representatives from the International Game Developers Association, the Entertainment Software Association, and the National Consumers League among others, all of whom will discuss the role of lootboxes in the games industry. The second panel will explore the potential social, psychological, and economic motivations behind lootbox spending, and the third panel seeks to discuss current initiatives in place for lockbox transparency and explore other methods to apply consumer protection.
This is the first workshop the FTC is holding since announcing plans to do so in February, though one certainly can (and very likely will) argue the amount of good it will do. For those who happen to be in the Washington, D.C., area, the workshop will be free and open to the public at Constitution Center starting at 10:00 a.m. EDT. For those interested in watching this whole thing unfold, there will also be a live broadcast at the FTC website.
Get caught up on all things lootbox related with the stories below:
US Federal Trade Commission outlines the agenda for a lootbox-related workshop on August 7
EA absurdly argues video game lootboxes are ‘surprise mechanics’
Lawful Neutral: Why Josh Hawley’s lockbox regulation Senate bill is dead-on-arrival
US Senator takes aim at lockboxes and pay-to-win with ‘Protecting Children From Abusive Games Act’
MMO Business Roundup: Overpaid gaming CEOs, FTC’s lootbox workshops, and why online launches are trainwrecks
The FTC commits to investigating video game lootboxes following US Senate subcommittee hearing
New Hampshire senator Maggie Hassan has picked up the lootbox and gaming addiction cause
Hawaii state rep Chris Lee urges gamers to contact their local governments about lockboxes
So they were asked to investigate, and the first stage of the plan is to ask the game industry itself what they think?
What part of their plans actually involves investigation or studies?
I know this is only the start of things, but i’d rather the start of things NOT start with them touching base with the industry that didn’t regulate itself in the first place.
Its going to be interesting to see what surprises they will come up with this time to try and deflect scrutiny away from lootboxes and change the discussion.
I look forward to hearing what fresh new analogies and terms game corporations will use to show how fine and dandy loot boxes are and then how concerned and troubled the politicians are over some of the loot box practices but because they’re legally not gambling I guess everything is just fine to continue as is.
Lock boxes are like an adjustable rate mortgage!
When you get labwork done sometimes the doctors find out what’s wrong with you and sometimes they don’t! That’s just like lockboxes! You don’t want to ban labwork do you?
Or when your 23andme results come back and you find out you’re the direct descendant of no less than 5 infamous despots or tyrants and your uncle is a serial killer.
Lockboxes are like WD-40 or silly putty! You may be trying to get something else but you’ll always get something!
Or when you stand in front of the target and the blindfolded magician throws knives at you! That’s a surprise mechanic if I’ve ever seen one.
The end state of this will be taxing lockbox revenue and using it to pay for education funding or something like people do for the lottery.
My money is on baseball card packs and stating that the items inside are collectables because players want to collect the set. That’s how the legal case against basecall cards/mtg got thrown out of court.
I also agree that if any legislation/rules do happen it’ll end up being enforced somehow and in order to pay for it they’ll levy a tax on games to pay for budget for those enforcing the rules. Same shitty practices, we’re just going to have to pay more for them.
I can pretty much guess how that first panel will go… Likely much chanting of how lootboxes are not gambling, yadda yadda… 🤬
I can do you one better!
Courtesy of EA and their mealy-mouth suits in a recent stint. And I’m willing to bet these corporate-aligned screwheads will do just about the same. Both the ESA and IGDA are little more than mouthpieces for the industry as a whole, the whole difference being one is ‘AAA’ and the other ‘Indie’. while the NCL is a general-purpose group without any sort of specialization or immediate presence in gaming.
Also expect to likely here it referred to as ‘Surprise Mechanics’. Loot boxes and microtransactions are dirty words now, so they prefer that and ‘Recurrent User Spending’ as their buzz words. Really perks up the ole’ penny-whiskers if you know what I mean.
Tep, the surprise mechanics bit was one of the most ridiculous comments to come out of their mouths.
The brave new dystopia of 2021: You open your lockbox and have to compete in a need/greed roll against AI opponents to see if you get to keep what you paid for.
“Thank you for being here today. Now, as I understand it, you make com-pu-tor games? What are those exactly?”
Pretty much this… I mean, we saw how the Facebook hearings went… and I’m sure most Senators know even less about video games than Facebook.