US politician says EA created a "Star Wars-themed online casino"

[MercutioUK]

This is beautiful. The publishers planning this kind of exploitative crap are about to get wrecked.

[ik9000]

Hopefully this kind of legislation, and customers voting with their £$s, will put a stop to an exploitative gaming industry trend.

Isn't the problem that customers have been voting with their £$s and that's why EA have been pursuing this model? I mean I ditched gaming a long time ago due to the march of DRM and mandatory origin etc - however it looks like not enough people stopped. If the muppets en-masse didn't stump up the cash then presumably the board wouldn't be so eager to keep going down this track, but people DO pay-up hence EA are happy to exploit away.

[pmmatthews]

Same what happens with GTA 5 now. Unregulated and very unsafe for players!

[Saracen999]

I'm firmly with the "put a stop to this" mindset, and long have been. I will not, on principle, buy any game where in-game purchases are necessary to progress. Thise above sayng "earn your progress" .... I agree 100%. For me, that is where I derive the most gaming pleasure.

There's an old adage about not appreciating things if they come too easily.

An extreme example - when my parents (in the early 1960s) decided to buy their first house, it consisted of sacrifice, in the firm of selling the family car (for the deposit) and doing without one for seversl years, of foregoing holidays (or visiting grandparents for a few days, which I didn't actually mind because they were great old folk, and lived in the southern end of Cornwall, which is a county I've adored ever since), and being extremely careful with every last penny of the weekly pay packet, right down to growing what we could in foodstuffs to avoid buying it.

I mean, they worked, scrimped, saved and sacrificed to buy that house, but by 'eck were they proud of having done it.

Wouldcit have meant anythinfg like as much if they'd won the pools (look it up if you're too young to remember) and had it handed to them on a plate? No. They didn't enjoy the sacrifice but it made them value what they achueved even more.

And so it is with gaming progress. Would Olympic Gold's be so respected if any old no-hoper could just buy 'enhancements' to beat others. Of course not .... though someone needs to ecplain that to Russian anti-doping personnel. Or to certain now-banned cyclists, etc.

All it does is ruin it for everyone else.


That said, while personally I despise loot boxes (that aid game progress) I have mixed feelings about banning them. After all, provided the players are adult (and yes, it's different for kids) why should these things be actually banned because we don't approve, when those buying them do? Why do they have to play by our rules and standards? Maybe, we just ought to not buy those games?

[Saracen999]

On the psychology points .... yes, they're exploitative. And no doubt utilising the same kind of dopamine-reward triggers as drug addiction.

But then, where does marketing end?

It's not by chance that supermarkets put "essentials" like bread and milk at the back where you have to walk the gauntlet to reach them. Or that they use 'odours' like fresh-baked bread to make people feel hungry, and hence likely to buy more.

So I play the game. I shop strictky by list, and only ever visit after eating a substantial meal.

Then again, if someone asked if I'd ever dressed a house I was selling with cut flowers, brewed some fresh coffee and baked a loaf timed to finish shortly before a viewing, or washed and polished a car .... well, I guess I plead the 5th on that.