Fùck off the free market, this cancer is making the videogame industry more insane than ever before, it must die.

Eh nice idea, but "restricting it to adults" is nothing. Porn is also restricted to adults, yet kids watch it. This will be skipped even easier with mommy's credit card info. The only way to "protect the kids" and actually limit the practice is to acknowledge it as gambling and apply the same rules and taxation on the earnings.

Acknowledging it as gambling is somewhat the right approach. We as parents have just one job; to provide our children with the tools necessary to be able to cope with and function in society. Shielding them from this very instance eliminates a teaching and learning opportunity about what gambling is and how it functions. Giving little Johnny access to credit card information to be used how and when he desires is a failure on the parent's part. Our children are either truly a part of our lives by actually spending time with them, listening to them, talking with them (not at them), or they are a side effect of what mommy and daddy like doing. This whole issue a parental issue and not anything else. By all means, let us just let the government raise our kids for us. After all, they know better than us parents how to raise our children. This is just a show case of how parents are neglecting their duty as parents period the end. Lazy parenting...there should be law that allows us to keep doing without any need to interface with our children.

fantaskarsef:

Somebody's waiting for his lobbying check. 🙄 When do people realise that maybe it's the parents that's supposed to protect their kids form stuff like that...

It's called gambling. Buying loot boxes without knowing what is in them in advance. It's illegal for minors to gamble, and that is what this legislation is directed at.

nevcairiel:

Because politicians don't live to be sensible, they just want to jump on the latest drama topic and score votes. Democracy is flawed because being a populist is always going to score more votes, and the general population doesn't think things through, just likes seeing "something" done, even if something turns out to be ultimately bad, or overreaching.

You mean like throwing tens of millions of people off their healthcare plans and forcing them into new governemnt approved plans that cost 3-5x more for the same coverage? Oh wait... Obama wasn't a populist. Or did you mean getting into a war based on faulty intelligence and then doubling down by nation building, costing taxpayers trillians of dollars? Oh wait... Bush wasn't one either. I got it! You must mean enacting a "free trade" agreement between Mexico, the US, and Canada where nothing coming into the US was taxed, but products going the other way did get hit with tariffs.... costing the US millions of manufacturing jobs once held by middle class taxpayers. Crap... Clinton wasn't a populist either. Guess that explains why all the elites in both parties backed NAFTA. And your complaint about democracy being flawed is the most ignorant thing ive read in a while. The United States is not a Democracy. We are a Republic. the people choose its representatives who then go to Washington and their job is to (in theory) make the best, informed decisions on our behalf. This was done specifically since the people themselves couldn't be expected to educate themselves on all topics and voting on those in national referendums like you'd see in a true democracy. There was another BIG reason why our government was setup this way. It was to prevent Mob-Rule. Each state has two representatives in the senate and the number of house members is based on population. Same goes for why we don't have a national popular vote. If we did, New York, California, and Texas would essentially control the country and the rest of the country be dammed! Two decades ago, a very prosperous country called Venezuela succumbed to the temptations of 'mob rule' and a man named Hugo Chavez rose to power. Once in power through democratic elections, he quickly nationalized (took control of) many industries and businesses and ushered in free healthcare, huge welfare system, redistribution of wealth, and many other policies currently being pushed by Democrat candidates for president like Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kamilla Harris, Beto, and Mayor Pete. Of course over time this socialist utopia became more and more corrupt, and as Margaret Thatcher once said, "the thing about socialism is eventually you run out of other peoples money". Hugo maintained power at this point by force, as most dictators do. To see where things ended up, just turn on the news. Insane hyper inflation, a starving population, and election results ignored by the dictator in power... its truly sad.

Andrew LB:

The United States is not a Democracy. We are a Republic. the people choose its representatives who then go to Washington and their job is to (in theory) make the best, informed decisions on our behalf. This was done specifically since the people themselves couldn't be expected to educate themselves on all topics and voting on those in national referendums like you'd see in a true democracy.

This is called a "Representative democracy", you should look it up.

Hey guys, let's not make this a political thread.

Aura89:

I find it amazing how many people here have posted in favor of government telling private companies what can and can not be in a game when it comes to...cost. That's all this is. I don't care if it's pay-to-win, or just cosmetic, you're saying you support the government telling companies what they are allowed to make and for what costs and how they do it...what? Why should the government have anything to do with a product and its costs? Sure, if it deals with illegal activities, then i can understand that,

Loot-box is a little bit (a lot in fact) like gambling and this is something that is regulated by pretty much all government.

Picolete:

The government should stay away from everything.

Anarchy is not really a good political system.

EA "The Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that our massive backroom lobbyist payments have dissolved this bill permanently. The last remnants of the old gambling laws have been swept away. Activision" That's impossible! How will the we maintain control without the bureaucracy? EA: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories, and lobbiest payments will keep the locals in line. lol

seems reasonable. The loot box stuff being marketing to children is all too similar to the way cigarettes were marketed to teenagers, highly predatory. I've seen the nature of it, one fellow I knew spent thousands on "lootboxes" and he thought it was something to lord over others, very sad.

Sorry Vbetts but this has to be done. Both those individuals are correct and at the same time wrong with republic being the more incorrect term. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/13/is-the-united-states-of-america-a-republic-or-a-democracy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.24aedf9dac2e there are more articles like this one.

RzrTrek:

Gambling has no place in games or for players below the age of 18 and it was bound to happen as the ESRB won't do anything as long as they get money from the big corporations.

They have adults hooked on it, why not include the kids? LOL, Again our GOV has there hands full, don't want the kids gambling spend more time with them!!! Its not rocket science and if little timmy gets bullied about it teach him to fight, that's what they did back in my youth. The title says it is political already, you think someone on capital hill give 2 chits REALLY?

I dont get something, if buying something not knowing what's inside but you are expecting something in particular is gambling. Why aren't Kinder eggs and other kids stuffs gambling?

Picolete:

I dont get something, if buying something not knowing what's inside but you are expecting something in particular is gambling. Why aren't Kinder eggs and other kids stuffs gambling?

.... they are. But nobody cares since it's not popular to bash chocolate manufacturers. I called it hypocracy for a reason.

Fox2232:

Would be nice. It is one thing I really dislike. And it is out of control. Hey Bethesda... Blades... not even released... $25 for chest with just one legendary piece of gear. $125 Special currency enabling you to buy 5 of chests above and little bonus in In-Game-Currency. And to write this, I started game which took 6 attempts as it would not even log in due to server issues. That's the state of a PC based company and their gold rush on android. If I were to write about companies who based their income primarily from android, I saw cases where you could buy $1000 packages and getting "upgrades" to final stage of buildings will cost you like $3000, or you'll wait for 2 years. And there are games where you spend $15000 and still not have everything there is to have for single character. (And all those mentioned things are unethical pay-to-win things.) If this kind of $h*7 goes away in US, maybe someone gets enough guts to do same in here. @fantaskarsef : My problem is not about kids spending. That's as you wrote responsibility of their parents. What I do not like is pay-to-win as that always results in much worse game that it could have been.

If lootboxes get banned, Valve will have to get off their lazy asses and start making games again. Hello HL3

airbud7:

you are now my common sense guru buddy. I have no clue why people think the government should micromanage every aspect of simple everyday life. last time I checked life in itself was a Gamble....Now give my kid his dam loot box that I paid for! :p

Tell me how to feel? 😛 😕 😱 🙄

the only reason i want this thing to pass is so that games can no longer use this as a crutch instead of making really good games. Adults are savvy to this method of predatory sales tactics, kids are not and only kids think its worth paying 5 bucks for some emotes and a gold skin or something.

^ and it takes the adult to input the credit card information on behalf of the child. The adult has therefore approved the purchase. The child only communicated their desire for the loot box to an adult. The Child is not paying for the transaction and therefore not the one gambling. The adult is. If the adult approves of the purchase as an uninformed purchase, that is on the adult. If the adult hands over the credit card to the child and says have fun... The government should have no say in the matter. Shirking one's responsibility as a parent comes with a cost.

Clouseau:

^ and it takes the adult to input the credit card information on behalf of the child. The adult has therefore approved the purchase. The child only communicated their desire for the loot box to an adult. The Child is not paying for the transaction and therefore not the one gambling. The adult is. If the adult approves of the purchase as an uninformed purchase, that is on the adult. If the adult hands over the credit card to the child and says have fun... The government should have no say in the matter. Shirking one's responsibility as a parent comes with a cost.

no it doesn't, i was a kid once... getting my parents to buy stuff wasn't the hardest thing in the world. "maa, i wanna buy some coins for my game" "whats it for?" "some weapons skins and emotes" "okay!" little does the non-game playing adult know its for a roulette style box that gives random things that the kid didn't inform them of... only that its in game currency.

i am saying its the in game currency guise that is the issue not the lootbox itself. its the same exact thing as going to a casino and buying chips to play games with.