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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://level1techs.com/video/private-video-3
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://level1techs.com/video/private-video-3
Having tiny 5G towers everywhere just makes me think of Ricochet modems, isn’t that how those worked?
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@ryan “there is no difference between a video game loot box and a collectable unknown item […] like pokemon cards”
You do realise those collecting card things are regulated right? they have to disclose the chances/rarities for those cards, sooo you are rooting for regulation then? 
Though I can see the argument of addiction I tend to agree that regulation isn’t the right angle to take here. Especially if it’s “for the children”, well then how about taking the parent to responsibility and not letting their childs have their credit cards.
Of course addiction for adults is also a thing but… yeah, so is alcoholism.
Also regarding the “plague upon gaming”, imo that heavily depends on the implementation. I’m fine with lootboxes how Blizzard did them in Overwatch, but rumor has it there have been games where it was part of the progression so… yeah.
Cody Wilson - Would the government send a 16 year old to pretend to be 18 in order to entrap someone… oh fuck yes they would. The government will do A N Y T H I N G to get their arrest,
Obviously you have proof of that. Weren’t you the one demanding proof for accusations just recently 
Yeah because the government hasn’t been underhanded in its techniques to get arrests in the past. And this just happens to come up when he is trying to sell 3D printed weapons and the government is outright trying to stop it? How convenient. Couple more egregious examples of government misbehavior (1 “predator”, 1 illegal wiretapping with all kinds of other misconduct by the FBI mixed in for good measure ) in the past few years… and there are plenty out there in the sex trade alone on both state and federal level.
Seeing as it was brought up:
Why lootboxes are gambling and TCGs are largely not, in my point of view:
The general idea is: because lootboxes don’t have a predictable pattern per 1 openable item, per 1 container item that leads to final, not further openable items or groups of items.
For instance, it was revealed when China asked for data on Overwatch lootboxes: https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/5/15558448/overwatch-loot-box-chances-china
Blizzard posted the breakdown on the Chinese Overwatch site. Each loot box will contain at least one rare item, guaranteed. As for epic items, those are found in one if every 5.5 loot boxes, on average.
Which isn’t good enough. If it were good enough, all casinos everywhere could just introduce a documented win condition of undetermined payout after X amount of uses of a system and that system would then no longer be considered gambling, because of the documented win condition. This brings its own set of problems.
For me, there are 2 related principles to adhere to.
First: every single purchase should produce the same results.
TCG booster packs will largely have a predictable pattern per 1 purchase. For instance, there’s 10 cards and the pattern is: 6 common, 3 uncommon and 1 rare.
This should happen for every booster pack purchased. If the outcome is not the same for every purchase, you’re gambling your money.
You need certainty per individual unit you’re opening.
This flows into the 2nd principle, the bit that people seem to be missing: the cost on the producer for the individual items.
What’s required is that it’s consistent. As in:
X to make a common
Y to make an uncommon
Z to make a rare
Together, these costs are a certain value, perhaps add a certain margin to that and they then sell it to you for that amount, each and every time.
Be it TCG or lootbox, or any other container, it’s largely possible to determine the monetary value you spent on a single container.
The point with this is: the amount you’re paying per individual container should consistently be on par with what you’re receiving out of it, in terms of what value the producer thinks the individual items have, because of what they cost the producer to make, distribute, etc…
If this return is inconsistent, that’s a problem. If an epic is harder to produce than a rare, and I get 3 commons with a rare and then suddenly 3 commons with an epic, that literally means that value they are presenting me with for these boxes is not the same each time. Value to the producer. So it’s inconsistent, so you’re gambling your money.
With a predictable pattern, this isn’t the case.
Side note: both with physical and online-only items, there’s an initial creation cost and then a cost to copy the item for sale purposes. With online-only stuff, this cost is, of course, way cheaper. It’s literally copying a set of bits. Costs next to nothing compared to getting paper/cardboard/plastic/… for each and every instance.
So, what about trading value? What if it is your express intent to sell all the cards in the pack(or on an in-game marketplace) in the hopes of making a profit on your purchase? You don’t know the exact contents of your purchase, so you’re gambling your money, right? You are, but not in your relation to the producer. In this instance, you’re gambling in relation to this market that is under the control of supply and demand.
So… just regular old supply and demand.
You get X amount of cards per pack, with a set pattern for a set price, that’s basically the company saying: these X cards, per this pattern, are worth to us this much money and that’s what we’re selling it to you for.
That’s set. As explained above, with online-only this isn’t the case.
Now, value to the person of individual cards is not something the producer of the product can control. Meta of a game always shifts, so does supply and demand. If a group of people who have purchased a booster pack or any form of container, decide to, among themselves, attribute monetary value to individual bits of what they bought… that’s not gambling.
If consumer A says to consumer B: 50 dollars for this 1 specific card, and consumer B agrees… That’s just a regular deal. Because consumer B knew which exact card, so consumer B was not gambling their money on an uncertain outcome.
Now if consumer A were to say: “I got a mystery box here and I won’t say anything about the value of the contents… pay me 50 bucks for it”. That’s gambling your money. Because the outcome is uncertain.
Anyways, by saying: I don’t know the exact cards so I can’t predict the monetary value on this marketplace for trading them, isn’t a valid argument. Even when the marketplace is constructed by the producer, the way Valve does.
Supply and demand and arbitrary value just happen. If I have a used paper towel and someone’s willing to pay 100 dollars for it… so be it then. As long as nobody is being deceived and nobody is uncertain about what they’re getting, it’s fine.
What about packs that don’t always follow a pattern: report em. And yeah, maybe you’ll get ignored because there’s not enough outcry or it costs too much in administrative costs to go after that 1 thing.
That’s why we’re lucky we have this movement now.
Honestly, I don’t care much for the notion that because we haven’t reached the finish line yet, we shouldn’t even start. Of course, we’re not there yet, of course the current system isn’t perfect and things are going under the radar. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
What about foil/holo/… cards? Report em. Same considerations from before apply.
But what if I want to gamble my money away?
Go ahead. With a licensed provider of gambling services.
Closing words: this is basically the wild west ending. Instead of basically going “well, what about this microscopic variation on a certain situation, you didn’t think of that, did you”, I suggest we be constructive and try and help in general terms, instead of laughing from the sidelines.
I think this is the first time I actually sat through such a long post, because you have some valid point
I don’t deal in those TCG, but I think those are actually valued into the pack cost, i.e. instead of the regular 1 rate, 3 uncommon, 6 common care you might have 1 uncommon shiny, 2 uncommon, and 7 common cards, so the (monetary) value equals out. The same for limited edition cards, which have an inherently higher value then regular cards.
Also (and I don’t know how this is in other countries, I’m speaking for Germany here) those rates and chances for certain cards are disclosed at least to regulatory agencies.