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Businesses The Almighty Buck Games

ESRB Introducing 'In-Game Purchases' Label in Response To Loot Box Controversy (polygon.com) 97

The Entertainment Software Rating Board will begin labeling video games that contain in-game purchases, a response to lawmakers who have noticed the outcry over so-called loot crate systems and have signaled a willingness to legislate them. From a report: The labeling will "be applied to games with in-game offers to purchase digital goods or premiums with real world currency," the ESRB said in a news release this morning, "including but not limited to bonus levels, skins, surprise items (such as item packs, loot boxes, mystery awards), music, virtual coins and other forms of in-game currency, subscriptions, season passes and upgrades (e.g., to disable ads)." The label will appear separate from the familiar ESRB rating label (T-for-Teen, M-for-Mature, etc.) and not inside it. Additionally, the ESRB has begun an awareness campaign meant to highlight the controls available to parents whose households have a video game console.
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ESRB Introducing 'In-Game Purchases' Label in Response To Loot Box Controversy

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  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @03:52PM (#56196463)
    in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
  • by Dahlgil ( 631022 )

    Should have just rated these titles as MA.

    • Then I'm going to expect tits. And I'm not going to want to pay for them.
      • Re:MA (Score:5, Funny)

        by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @04:42PM (#56196785) Journal

        Then I'm going to expect tits. And I'm not going to want to pay for them.

        Tits are in the blue lootboxes, but they only drop about 1 in 100. I know a guy - a friend, if you will - who spent $90 before he got a blue lootbox with tits in them, and then they were just little ones with hair on the nipples.

        • Then I'm going to expect tits. And I'm not going to want to pay for them.

          Tits are in the blue lootboxes, but they only drop about 1 in 100. I know a guy - a friend, if you will - who spent $90 before he got a blue lootbox with tits in them, and then they were just little ones with hair on the nipples.

          Oh...my tits for a mod point.

          • Then I'm going to expect tits. And I'm not going to want to pay for them.

            Tits are in the blue lootboxes, but they only drop about 1 in 100. I know a guy - a friend, if you will - who spent $90 before he got a blue lootbox with tits in them, and then they were just little ones with hair on the nipples.

            Oh...my tits for a mod point.

            *disclaimer* They're the kind with hair on the nipples.

    • by nmb3000 ( 741169 )

      Agreed. The addition of a tiny message saying "Blah blah in-game purchases blah blah" is not only toothless, it will just be ignored by literally everyone - kids, parents, and publishers alike.

      In-game gambling for real-world money should not only affect the rating of the title, it should impact who can purchase the item. If people under 18 are not allowed to gamble in casinos, they should also not be allowed to buy a game with real-money random loot boxes.

      This is just another example of consumer protectio

  • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @03:56PM (#56196485)

    I much rather pay $20-$80 for a game and get all of its features. Then have a game where I can buy myself to victory.
    I do like often the Free to play first chapter, or limited world just so I can determine if the game is worth my money or not. But after I pay for it, I kinda want access to everything, or at least access to a level where I can get it in game play. And if it is multi-player I want my chances to be just as good as the next guys.

    • If people were willing to pay $20-$80 for a game, then EA and Ubisoft would simply treat that as license to charge $20-$80 AND add lootboxes and season passes.

      There is no end to their greed.

      • If people were willing to pay $20-$80 for a game, then EA and Ubisoft would simply treat that as license to charge $20-$80 AND add lootboxes and season passes.

        That's what they're already doing. That's why I usually wait for the GOTY edition to come out that already has all of the "seasons" (or expansion packs as they used to be known). I don't mind a free game that has pay-to-win options, but I hate games that charge you AND have pay-to-win options.

        • by tepples ( 727027 )

          That's why I usually wait for the GOTY edition to come out that already has all of the "seasons" (or expansion packs as they used to be known).

          But how are you sure that such an edition will come out at all before the game's publisher shuts down the official multiplayer matchmaking server and asserts copyright against unofficial ones?

          • That is easy, then I don't buy the game at all. And if the game is crippled beyond belief without microtransactions, people will talk about it online before I buy. People that buy on day one not only pay more, but get fucked over by stuff like this.

            At this point I never see a reason to buy a game on day one again. And I sure-as-shit will never pre-order a game again. I will do an occasional kickstarter for an indie dev that I like, and has proven to be able to deliver, though.

          • But how are you sure that such an edition will come out at all before the game's publisher shuts down the official multiplayer matchmaking server and asserts copyright against unofficial ones?

            I don't usually play multiplayer because I don't have time, so that's not a concern for me.

      • It's funny, because this is precisely the reason I don't play modern games anymore, which means less income for them.

        I like the consistent user experience of "retro" games, and knowing that as long as I have the disc/cartridge/whatever, I can play the same game. Or lend it out. It resell it. But clearly I'm a minority, as is the GP.

        • Yep, there have been so many games released over the last few years that I haven't had the time to finish, that I don't feel the need to buy a game on release-day ever again.

          Though I am going to buy Into The Breach this weekend, the new game from the devs of FTL. An indie game that did not go the kickstarter route to try to milk money out of people, since they knew they would be making truckloads of cash for this game anyhow? Double respect there.

    • I do find that free to play games provide a greater openness to trying games out and engaging in them without fear of either making a heavy purchase up front or being nickle and dimed to death, and generally speaking do not engage in in-game purchases outside of what my wife and I deem "paying for what we got out of it".

      In other words, we tend to play a lot of F2P games and while many are so=so or even poor games to us, if we really engage in the game, we hit a point where we way "these devs did a great job

      • And as long as the F2P games are not selling WIN buttons, we're ok with it.

        Sometimes it's not a "win" button but a "play at all" button. In the mobile version of Dungeon Keeper, for instance, excavating past a certain distance from the starting point ends up taking 1 day per cell without consumable items purchased with real money, and a typical room is 25 cells. So much for Dungeon Keeper being "real-time" strategy.

    • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      The thing is: $80 may not be enough to cover the full costs and margins of some AAA titles. And only a small part of the benefits are here to make the top executives rich, most of it simply pay normal people who work there. Well there is the communication budget too, but the thing is, these games are ridiculously expensive to produce, and people are not ready to pay more than $80 up front. Loot boxes and paid DLC is how they get the money they need. Paying for cosmetics seems to be relatively well accepted,

      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        With respect you're talking complete rubbish, first off, you haven't been following AAA news because if you did you'd know that they spend as much as 2x as much on marketing as they do on actual game development. They're not introducing loot boxes because they need to, they're introducing them because of the massive profits they get from this gambling mechanism which is cheap to implement. And secondly Indie game companies have been releasing some great 3d games and also some AAA companies have still been r

    • by nmb3000 ( 741169 )

      Am I the only person left willing to pay for games

      No, but fewer and fewer publishers are willing to accept your one-time payment when they could instead leech off "freemium" transactions for years, not to mention their hopes of catching a whale [gamasutra.com].

      I do like often the Free to play first chapter, or limited world just so I can determine if the game is worth my money or not.

      The free-to-play idea is what started the trip down this road to microtransaction hell. And determining the value of a game before buying it was something we solved decades ago with the game demo -- but that's pretty much been killed off by early access games, another horrible money grab.

  • Since this has basically been every AAA title for years now.
  • by nwaack ( 3482871 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @03:57PM (#56196493)
    The verbiage of the label should say, "WARNING: The company that made this game is run by a bunch of greedy d-bags so you're only getting a partial, broken version of the game."
    • by sinij ( 911942 )
      Also stick dying-from-cancer pictures next to it, like they do with cigarette packs. Why? Because micro-transactions are cancer.
  • Will it be required, like many of the mobile walled gardens, to be easily disabled with a parental password?
  • Parents and grandparents will see the label and say "Oh, well I won't be giving the kids my credit card to make the payments, so no problem."

    Except that the publishers will make the games nigh-unplayable without jumping in to the microtransactions.

  • and we can talk. Otherwise you are still playing softball with psychopaths.

  • by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @04:14PM (#56196613)
    While the warning is a step in the right direction, the problem was not with loot boxes in general but loot boxes that contain items of random value such that you have to keep buying to get the item you want. This is essentially gambling, thus deserving of the dreaded AO (Adults Only) rating.
    • by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

      Yes, this is key to the issue. I mean, I'd prefer to buy a game in one complete lump and don't *like* the idea of buying add-ons, but when you're rolling the dice for a chance at something and it could take tens, hundreds, or thousands of tries to get what you want--and worse, you may not even know what the odds are--that's really problematic.

    • It seems more like a distraction than like part of a solution. Indeed the problem with loot boxes is the addictive nature of variable rewards (*), not the fact that it's an in-game purchase. Having a single label for all types of in-game purchases does very little to inform potential buyers. It would be useful if the label listed which types of purchases each game contains, but their announcement suggests that it won't.

      (*) They claim "we were unable to find any evidence that children were specifically impac

  • The simple fact is, if you pay money for a random result, that is gambling. Gambling is highly regulated and usually illegal. Poker is allowed because it is considered a game of skill, which is why loot boxes paid for with in-game currency (which can be earned by play that could be considered skill-related) are legal, but paying cash for a random result is gambling (and all that implies). Replacing "random" with non-random content would make them 100% legal. But they don't want people to pay $0.10 to ge
    • but you can't take rake in a Poker game.

      Are the card rooms Really Legal in Texas? They don't take rake but they are members only (any one can be an member) and you have to rent your seat.

      • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        Poker in your own home with friends, playing with real money is 100% legal. Betting on a foot race (that you are participating in, and betting onlly on yourself) is legal. A business selling gambling services is different than whether the gambling itself is legal.

        Sales of gambling and gambling services are regulated, and differently than betting on a game of skill you are participating in.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Go outside, kick a ball around, use stones nuts or dried Lima beans for counters, that kind of thing. Much easier and cheaper, less mentally taxing, and it gives you a chance to talk with real people in person, instead of grinding baddies and typing abbreviations and other dumb stuff. That's becoming a very important rare skill.

  • just like the apple app store. in game purchases are ok for dlc but i want to know if its dlc quality or just stupid shit. i try to avoid games that the only purchase is for virtual currency - so basically all mobile games ever.
  • Offer in-game item purchase via the DigiByte crypto-currency and bypass this new requirement.

  • Lotto tickets are "In-Liquor-Store purchases".

    "There," he sniffed self-satisfiedly, and looked around. "That's good enough to make it not gambling."

  • Changes to art work?
    Every part of a plot has to be SJW pre approved before publication?
    Type of characters? Number of characters?
    More languages and faiths in every game?
  • this wont save gamers from greedy publishers. more and more games become just a medium to sell ads and other things, just like many websites and even print magazines, consumers are fucked.

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