The "Loot Box" conspiracy
30 2018-02-16 by ArkMann
Anybody who is mildly interested in video games knows about the controversy surrounding loot boxes. For those who don't, a brief summary:
Video game developers have begun putting content in loot boxes or crates. In order to receive the content, you must buy a "key" for a small amount of money. You use the key to open the box and then receive a random item from a predetermined list- some of which are much rarer and much more valuable than others. The controversy here is that this is effectively a form of gambling targeted at minors- one which brings in millions of dollars of revenue for developers even as sales of the game itself slow down.
I think that what is happening here is fairly obvious. First of all, much of the controversy has been artificially generated or meme'd into existence. The parallels drawn to gambling are intentional, because these loot boxes serve a similar function to casinos- they are a method of laundering money.
Like all major money launderers, the government allows them to operate provided that they play by the rules that the government sets. The public controversy we are seeing is pressure, or leverage- a reminder to these companies that the government has public backing to end this practice if they don't play nicely. It's a method of keeping them in line.
Thoughts?
16 comments
1 IndigoMD 2018-02-16
Fuck loot boxs they soft condition the monetizing of every aspect of a games
1 Symbiotx 2018-02-16
Don't have much to add, but that's an interesting point, thanks for bringing this up.
1 cerebral_scrubber 2018-02-16
The relevant loot boxes are all random, within a range, so it's fine. The gambling came in after the fact when people were betting the loots against whatever. One pro team got banned for tanking a match to win a weapon skins bet. All of these bets are done outside of officially supported, developer, channels.
I don't know how you sell these items for 'real money' after, but you could buy a shitload of video games on Steam with the $2,020 you just made selling the most expensive weapon skin for Counter Strike.
As for laundering money, as far as I can tell you don't pay taxes on the micro-transactions individually. I would be interested to know if and how much the developers pay in extra tax on these transactions.
1 megalodon90 2018-02-16
It's a bit more than that
1 cerebral_scrubber 2018-02-16
Dang, but that was outside the officially supported marketplace.
1 Fap-Jack 2018-02-16
The official steam marketplace does not support such large transactions.
They got a max amount (cant remember exactly, 3-400 $ or €). Anything above that gets sold outside of steam.
As for how you get cash for skins. Sell via opskins or any website like that. You get about 75-85% (steam)market value but you can withdraw your funds to paypal / cc.
1 babaroga73 2018-02-16
It is a form of gambling, no doubt.
1 Shibbian 2018-02-16
my little brother gets one every couple weeks, which he then proceeds to completely disregard in awaiting the the next. Definitely some gacha/summon/pull dopamines being released, if you play any mobile f2p games, you probably know what i mean!
1 tangled_night_sleep 2018-02-16
I hadn't considered the public outrage as a possible form of leverage. Interesting food for thought.
Did you see that leaked presentation that got posted here a few weeks ago relating to privacy/gaming? It wasn't specific to loot boxes but it sounded to me (disclaimer: not a gamer) like a micropayments app like CandyCrush or Farmville, one of those addicting games where they ask you to bug your friends to get more points or whatever. Anyways, the supposedly leaked presentation talked about how they use info from the phones sensors in order to build a user profile, and then they figure out the best times to send you notifications or reminders about playing the game. It had some crazy shot in their like they used the sound of your car engine when driving to determine if you have a nice car/might have more money to blow on the game. They listen for the sounds of you navigating your house to get an idea of your floor plan, and figure out which area of the house you might be more inclined to spend money on the game (I'm imagining people on the toilet playing lol). The example they gave was if they hear a baby crying, and you put your phone down, they know you're going to be busy doing something important so maybe they won't bother you then. But once the baby stops crying and you go to another room, that's when they'll ping your phone and remind you that these farm animals need your money to survive (or whatever the fuck that game could be about). They also talked about determining when female players are on their periods due to their voices sounding deeper at certain times in the month- totally insanely specific and privacy revolting stuff. (Although as a chick I crack up at the thought of nerdy developers thinking they shouldn't bother girls on their period, because that's when girls are the most scary! Ridiculous but entertaining nonetheless). Last I checked no one could verify whether the paper was legit or not. I'm very privacy conscious and reading through it just made me grateful that I don't play any games on my phone (or pc or xbox whatever). Seems like such a waste of time, I truly cannot wrap my head around it's appeal, but I see what it's doing to my friends. They'll never concede that it's anything other than harmless. I see it as a legitimate addiction. I can't even imagine what it's done to their bank accounts.
1 freesp33chisstilldea 2018-02-16
You have a link for the presentation? Sounds very interesting.
1 freesp33chisstilldea 2018-02-16
I was a huge gamer when I was younger and stopped around the time dlc was huge. I can't imagine how bad it has gotten.
1 gaslightlinux 2018-02-16
... yeah, most of the internet works like a Skinner Box using micro-hits of Dopamine ... you either get the advertisers or the users to pay for it, one business model is hidden and the other apparent.
1 theawesomethatis 2018-02-16
It's always been gambling.
Bout time the law caught up with it too.
1 Qliphah 2018-02-16
Technically it's not. Gambling has a reward of cash, and is such required to have a payout with certain odds. Games on the other hand pay nothing but good feelings and self satisfaction. There is no gurantee or even implied promise that what you recieve is worth anything at all.
The reason the govt will never crack down on DLC is that it's not an investment. There is no return. You might as well be giving these people a donation, nothing is expected in return. Therefore it's very hard to tax or even put a real value to.
1 Lord_Augastus 2018-02-16
You logic its faulty mate. You cant launder money through loot boxes, when loot boxes are all bought through online money transfer services. Casinos can do it because they function with physical cash, that needs laundering, allowing for cooking of them books. When everything is digital how can you launder transaction records?
If anything the conspiracy is already accepted by the gaming community. Game companies and publishers, are messing with drop rates, employ addictive reward center activating tactics to get addiction like behaviour and committed spending on the content. Furthermore lack of transparency in the actual statistics behind these drop rates, and constant active gameplay manipulation to entice people to enjoy the experience and then keep them there between fun and grind in order to entice time substituting real cash for perks of microtransactions (that have gotten to be not so micro).
I guess the conspiracy theory is that they employ quite psychologically manipulative tactics. How deep does social manipulation go with video games?
1 VisionaryPrism 2018-02-16
The loot box system feeds and survives on dopamine