blizzard US Senator Seeks to Ban Loot Boxes & Pay-to-Win Microtransactions

[Manbearpig 28]

1 hour ago, PatrickHenry said:

You  mean the levels that add nothing to the overall power of your character?  If they added you top of the line gear and items that nobody else could get without buying it I might bite into your troll post but sorry, not sorry.

"you can use gold."  Thats in game gold.  You cant (by terms of use) buy gold with cash.  Closest they allow with that would in essence be a wow token, and those are set rates and only good for game time.  so yes, in a VERY roundabout way it could, in theory, be considered pay to win.

But its so far outside the normal "pay to win" scheme that it bares little to no resemblance and is laughable that it could be considered as such.

Show me a cash for arena rating or cash for buff system that lets you dominate the competition and I'll consider your point but unfortunately none exist.  

...unless youre talkinga bout competition in speed levelling I guess?

Uhm what? I agree with you that it is not the same P2W as most free mobile games or games like NBA2k and Battlefront, but still, you can buy runs of high end content (raids/arena rating) for gold, which you can buy for cash (wow tokens are only good for game time? i think you need to recheck your infos) -> pay to win. You get gear faster than if you would grind for it, which saves you time, which most P2W systems are about. 

"Items that nobody else could get without buying it" if that would be the definition of P2W, no lootbox system could be considered P2W either because technically if you play the game a lot you can buy those loot crates with ingame currency in 95% of the games.

[revjiggs1 0]

3 hours ago, OldManKrypton said:

You mean, Warcraft where you can buy character levels, gold, runs through dungeons and raids, and gear with said gold on the AH. You mean...that Pay to Win game? Please, Warcraft has been Pay to Win for a long, long time now. 

I want you to point out in your rant which one of those things you listed allows you to get an edge over other players ? 

[Manbearpig 28]

1 minute ago, revjiggs1 said:

I want you to point out in your rant which one of those things you listed allows you to get an edge over other players ? 

I just did.

[Ragingwolf 286]

I see this a double edge sword dilemma....yes the bill may be perceived with 'good' intentions to curb the gambling potential/temptation from young adolescent gamers and adults.  And to slow or halt pay2win type scenarios in several MMO titles.  But I believe this will not stop many companies/corporations in finding more ways to push more products through their cash shops.  And this will not stop the few/several individuals to finding alternative ways to surpass their fellow gaming peers.  Either it be gear, in game currency, ranking, and or achievements.   Nor do I trust my government to regulate and or enforce the bill accordingly if it should even pass.  

 

 

[ThomasC 65]

4 hours ago, OldManKrypton said:

You mean, Warcraft where you can buy character levels, gold, runs through dungeons and raids, and gear with said gold on the AH. You mean...that Pay to Win game? Please, Warcraft has been Pay to Win for a long, long time now. 

No its not...you can make a garbage character out of the AH but hardly "pay to win".

WoW has turned into an end game focused game. If you think spending 20$ to gear your character in 340 ilvl gear makes a winning character, you are sorely mistaken. 

 

Everything in the WoW online store has no impact on the game (mounts, pets) and can be earned in the game. Thats not pay-to-win. 

[Androski 5]

4 hours ago, Prophet001 said:

I agree.

The government shouldn't  regulate this stuff. People just shouldn't buy it and parents shouldn't give their kids credit cards to buy it with.

We need less government regulation not more. The government isn't your mommy and daddy. You can make decisions for yourselves.

As much as we would like to think this is possible, the last few years say this probably wouldn't happen. This is less about people "growing up" and more about loot boxes exploiting children and people with gambling addictions. Loot boxes are gambling, it's literally a digital slot machine, the fact that it's taken this long for the world to realize this is still appalling to me. You and I may be able to control ourselves and not fall into these traps, but that doesn't mean the majority of people will do the same thing.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Androski

[Synesthesy 114]

It's funny because I have never checked the rule of Icy-veins to know if talking about real world political topics is allowed or not.

Still, I'm Italian, so I hope that my goverment will write laws to fight our 4 mafias and to stop corruption, before talking about online videogame.

 

From a coder and wannabeindiegamedeveloper point of view, instead, I say that we should pay attention to this kind of things. Because if you want to create a videogame staring with a little budget, micro transations are a good business model, because if you create a content you may need to make it free to play to get some audience, and then for turing it in something you do for living, you need to sell something to people who enjoy the game.
It's different being EA or being Synesthesy, I hope that the law will understand this.

[Baharok 234]

2 hours ago, Manbearpig said:

I just did.

No you didnt. You only told, what players trading with each other or lets say offering for playtime. It is pay to win if the company / holder of the game is offering a specific upgrade for real money, what definitely isnt the case. All you have in WoW is reachable by the most people. Ok maybe not mythic raids and top edge mythic+ levels, but the most content is doable for most people without going to someone else buying gear with ingame currencies.

 

And the next question is :

If someone "buys" gear (and in your understanding "pay"), what does he / she win ?

You can do only +10 instances if you want specific gear from instances. Sure it can be frustrating without drop, but you can do  that and still you need to invest time, since you need to be part of the group. 

If you pay someone to push your rating or whatever, then i ask myself :

Why do you keep considering playing the game, if not for playing it ? ?

 

I can understand if people want a mythic raid mount if it has 100% dropchance and pay top players to get that mount, but a mount isnt any "win", its just one more of hundreds.

Or high lvl equipment : I saw people which only do LFR, some random instances and maximum +11 instances - they dont need such high gear. Someone which buys gold with Token / real currency just for items, got different issues, which imo  nothing have to do with the game, its addiction and maybe some kind of attentionproblems.

 

And to quit the WoW only discussion :

 

The token was never intended to be a pay to win tool, its a respond of Blizzard to the illegal goldsellers and to put in a goldsink for those which have tons of gold. This way they cut the cash from such "black sheeps". What players are doing, is still in players hand. Blizzard doesnt boost your skill, nor they give you items or direct statboosts. Also they arent just for gametime....i mean, i even bought Blizzcontickets with it for the amount of Bnetcurrency i get from them.

 

edit.:

You even told it yourself, it is a can, not a must. Real P2W games are with the concept of the need to buy boosts with real money to have a chance versus other players. And ofc this boosts are only avaible with real currency or alternatively a daily playtime of 15+ hours.

"you can buy runs of high end content (raids/arena rating) for gold, which you can buy for cash "

 

Edited May 13, 2019 by Baharok

[chronoblip 3]

1 hour ago, Androski said:

This is less about people "growing up" and more about loot boxes exploiting children and people with gambling addictions. Loot boxes are gambling, it's literally a digital slot machine, the fact that it's taken this long for the world to realize this is still appalling to me. You and I may be able to control ourselves and not fall into these traps, but that doesn't mean the majority of people will do the same thing.

Some of them want to use you.

Some of them want to be used by you.

Some of them want to abuse you.

Some of them want to be abused.

Few things upset a postmodern individualist like telling them they can't do something they want to do, even if said thing is objectively self-destructive. Sometimes the price for choosing wrong is too high, and people come together to try and agree that certain things shouldn't be allowed. Balance is necessary, nobody lives in a vacuum.

The United States is an empire, a single and centralized governing body with jurisdiction over many different peoples who have many different desires. There should be a state where people can have game mechanics like this legal, and there should be a state where it can be illegal, and such distinctions should be fine, and people should then live where the body of law enforced through government most closely aligns with their own convictions.

The USA instead tries to create a single body of law that rules consistently over all different people groups, and as such someone somewhere will always end up living in a territory that is hostile to their values.

It's the same dynamic that Blizzard struggles to write in the faction war within WoW, because the universe of Warcraft is no less Darwinian than our own, lacking a transcendent and universal source of value for individuals, there is no reason to respect or cherish the "other" next door, whether that next door is literal, or across an ever-shrinking globe due to technology. Or magic.

This law could work for some people, but not for others, and there should be a way for those different people to live in a place where the values they hold are accurately reflected in the government that has jurisdiction over them. Otherwise, both live in tyranny of one form or another, either from application of force where it is not needed, to a refusal to apply force where it is needed.

The law is a nice token gesture to who the senator thinks his power is drawn from, who he is supposed to represent, but he doesn't represent every people group in the country, so trying to have everyone play by the same rules just doesn't work.

[ByeIcyVeins 45]

For all those that clung to my initial message that WoW is Pay to Win, it's simple math. 

If you're a level 1 with no cash to buy the upgrade to 110. You lose for about 109 levels. Time and RL cash benefit.

If you're unable to buy gold via the AH, but I can, you lose until you get better gear. Time, RL cash, and in-game gold benefit.

If you're unable to find groups for Mythic Raid runs or Raids, or can't pay gold for them, you're going to lose to someone who can. Time, RL cash, and in-game gold benefit. 

If you're unable to get 415(+) gear because you're unable to do the things above (or people are stupid about iO scores), you still lose to someone who can because they paid to have more opportunities. 

Thus, cash = more opportunity = higher "winning" potential".

It's simple math and no matter how much you want to say that it's not Pay to Win, it simply is. Time will always be the deciding factor, but I think we can all agree that if the average person has excess money, they're sure as hell going to skip the line at Disney Land.

[BladeBraver 5]

7 hours ago, Prophet001 said:

I agree.

The government shouldn't  regulate this stuff. People just shouldn't buy it and parents shouldn't give their kids credit cards to buy it with.

We need less government regulation not more. The government isn't your mommy and daddy. You can make decisions for yourselves.

So, when there's an industry-wide problem, your solution is "Do nothing".

Yeah, that's worked real well with EA so far.  Mhm.

[BladeBraver 5]

1 hour ago, chronoblip said:

Some of them want to use you.

Some of them want to be used by you.

Some of them want to abuse you.

Some of them want to be abused.

Few things upset a postmodern individualist like telling them they can't do something they want to do, even if said thing is objectively self-destructive. Sometimes the price for choosing wrong is too high, and people come together to try and agree that certain things shouldn't be allowed. Balance is necessary, nobody lives in a vacuum.

The United States is an empire, a single and centralized governing body with jurisdiction over many different peoples who have many different desires. There should be a state where people can have game mechanics like this legal, and there should be a state where it can be illegal, and such distinctions should be fine, and people should then live where the body of law enforced through government most closely aligns with their own convictions.

That would require releasing, and maintaining, multiple variations of a single game, not to mention each port, which would also have to be split.  You're literally doubling the work required purely due to ideology.

No thanks.

[Baharok 234]

51 minutes ago, OldManKrypton said:

For all those that clung to my initial message that WoW is Pay to Win, it's simple math. 

1.) If you're a level 1 with no cash to buy the upgrade to 110. You lose for about 109 levels. Time and RL cash benefit.

2.) If you're unable to buy gold via the AH, but I can, you lose until you get better gear. Time, RL cash, and in-game gold benefit.

3.) If you're unable to find groups for Mythic Raid runs or Raids, or can't pay gold for them, you're going to lose to someone who can. Time, RL cash, and in-game gold benefit. 

4.) If you're unable to get 415(+) gear because you're unable to do the things above (or people are stupid about iO scores), you still lose to someone who can because they paid to have more opportunities. 

Thus, cash = more opportunity = higher "winning" potential".

It's simple math and no matter how much you want to say that it's not Pay to Win, it simply is. Time will always be the deciding factor, but I think we can all agree that if the average person has excess money, they're sure as hell going to skip the line at Disney Land.

1.) If you are level 1 and new to the game, you anyway play the game without such thinking. If you are not new, its your own decision to take the luxury bored way of boosting to 110, else you pick heritage armor and exp potion and take the acceptable time to level up without any real money cost. Its a game, you decide if you want to play it or do a work out of it. (aka. taking it to serious). 

2.) Goldamount isnt dependable on gear you have, since there are more than enough ways to make gold, also very easily and quick. 

3.) There are groups for everyone, because this community consists of every kind of player. If you think you are not able to get into a group then the mistake is on your side. Buying a boostrun, is nothing else than luxury. You did nothing special to get that stuff, but paying for it. It doesnt means someone wins in this case. What does he win ? Faster completion of worldquests ? ^^ So in the end, if you want get boosted for every price and dont have that much real money value, then you need to get knowledge about economy in this game and max your AH profit. You dont need to be online for 10 hours a day to understand that. 

4.) Noone really needs 415+ gear unless you really want to push high mythic+ scores. And if thats your target, m+ high keys and so on, then you anyway need to play the game. No booster on this world can help you there, since you need the experience in that game on that level of content.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 - all together you mentioned RL cash benefit and time. So i need to ask - Do you play this game or do you work it ? For me it looks like you take it as work and dont have fun in it unless you have the highest possible stuff, in case of items and mounts, But a game also means to play it to have fun and the awesome feeling of success comes by investing time in that hobby. And that is it, a hobby, nothing else. If you like that hobby, you are going to invest time or money, just like every other hobby. You like it, its a bit timesink for you, fine, but then you dont need the maximum you can get out of it and that being said, you are the winner in other hobby's. Also Items are getting anyway bad after nearly every patch, since there is allways a higher itemlevel with each patch. 

I think we can all agree that a hobby is something, where you invest time and have fun. As soon as you dont have anymore fun with it, you leave it and search a new one. You dont need to be the best in it, only if you want to handle it with maximum potential.

 

Lets compare it with your RL cash / time benefit :

 

If the hobby is cooking (what it is actually for me) then you need to think about how much it is a hobby for you. Are you able to buy very delicate and good ingredients or do you say - i like cooking, but i have a normal standard and take the money instead to go to a good restaurant. I can assure you that good cooking takes alot more time if you want to do it perfect, but you have fun and patience with it. The "booster" in this case would be the restaurant (high value) or the fast food delivery (low value). 

[PatrickHenry 293]

economies "usually" being a mix is not a reason for being regulated.  Its a status.  "Something needs to be because it currently is."

"preying."  LOL

I get a kick out of that.  

The "prey" is getting exactly what they want.  The "high", the loot, the whatever.  They're not being tricked.  Its not false advertising.  Its not fraud.

Just because its *filtered* odds doesnt make it 'prey.'  If thats the case you better be real careful about reading into the odds of STATE RUN gambling like lotto tickets and machines. 

They have the worst odds.  and its literally CREATED from regulation.  

5 hours ago, Arcling said:

It is unethical, preying on people's weaknesses, no matter how is it worded. It is still gambling. And we're not talking here about such extremes as any profit being unethical, this is obviously ridiculous. Simple as that - *filtered* those triple A industry practices. ? Every business needs some regulations, economies are usually a mix of free market and regulations.

 

[PatrickHenry 293]

1 hour ago, BladeBraver said:

So, when there's an industry-wide problem, your solution is "Do nothing".

Yeah, that's worked real well with EA so far.  Mhm.

....aaaaand Everyone hates EA and many refuse to play their games.

How are they profiting from their hard-fought failure in your example??  The few people who still use it?

...then arent those same people coming out ahead since theyre still buying into it?  Nobody is forcing them.

Almost like theyre doing it... of their own volition!  *le gasp*

[Arcling 877]

53 minutes ago, PatrickHenry said:

The "prey" is getting exactly what they want.  The "high", the loot, the whatever.  They're not being tricked.  Its not false advertising.  Its not fraud.

Just because its *filtered* odds doesnt make it 'prey.'  If thats the case you better be real careful about reading into the odds of STATE RUN gambling like lotto tickets and machines. 

It is preying, especially on addicted people and children, which is mainly what that bill is about (and there are games directed specifically at children with plenty of microtransactions, mainly mobile ones). Children are easily manipulated. Sure, parents should take care of that, but there are plenty of irresponsible parents too (those people shouldn't have children to begin with, but well...) or those who don't pay enough attention to them for other reasons. And yeah, state run gambling is s.hit, personally never done that, but I digress (I don't know what country you are from, but various european countries have regulations on gambling, and certain forms aren't allowed).

In the end, it is an anti-consumer practice. It shouldn't exist. Publishers will do without it just fine. Defending it is... pretty stupid to say the least. It's better to pay and get what is described, be it full game or skin, whatever. Not paying for a "chance" to get something.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Arcling

[ByeIcyVeins 45]

1 hour ago, Baharok said:

1.) If you are level 1 and new to the game, you anyway play the game without such thinking. If you are not new, its your own decision to take the luxury bored way of boosting to 110, else you pick heritage armor and exp potion and take the acceptable time to level up without any real money cost. Its a game, you decide if you want to play it or do a work out of it. (aka. taking it to serious). 

2.) Goldamount isnt dependable on gear you have, since there are more than enough ways to make gold, also very easily and quick. 

3.) There are groups for everyone, because this community consists of every kind of player. If you think you are not able to get into a group then the mistake is on your side. Buying a boostrun, is nothing else than luxury. You did nothing special to get that stuff, but paying for it. It doesnt means someone wins in this case. What does he win ? Faster completion of worldquests ? ^^ So in the end, if you want get boosted for every price and dont have that much real money value, then you need to get knowledge about economy in this game and max your AH profit. You dont need to be online for 10 hours a day to understand that. 

4.) Noone really needs 415+ gear unless you really want to push high mythic+ scores. And if thats your target, m+ high keys and so on, then you anyway need to play the game. No booster on this world can help you there, since you need the experience in that game on that level of content.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 - all together you mentioned RL cash benefit and time. So i need to ask - Do you play this game or do you work it ? For me it looks like you take it as work and dont have fun in it unless you have the highest possible stuff, in case of items and mounts, But a game also means to play it to have fun and the awesome feeling of success comes by investing time in that hobby. And that is it, a hobby, nothing else. If you like that hobby, you are going to invest time or money, just like every other hobby. You like it, its a bit timesink for you, fine, but then you dont need the maximum you can get out of it and that being said, you are the winner in other hobby's. Also Items are getting anyway bad after nearly every patch, since there is allways a higher itemlevel with each patch. 

I think we can all agree that a hobby is something, where you invest time and have fun. As soon as you dont have anymore fun with it, you leave it and search a new one. You dont need to be the best in it, only if you want to handle it with maximum potential.

 

Lets compare it with your RL cash / time benefit :

 

If the hobby is cooking (what it is actually for me) then you need to think about how much it is a hobby for you. Are you able to buy very delicate and good ingredients or do you say - i like cooking, but i have a normal standard and take the money instead to go to a good restaurant. I can assure you that good cooking takes alot more time if you want to do it perfect, but you have fun and patience with it. The "booster" in this case would be the restaurant (high value) or the fast food delivery (low value). 

You just proved my point by saying that it is pay-to-win. You're trying to debate time, effort, care, "hobby", and whether someone has "fun" at it. None of this matters when it comes to paying to get a reward. If you pay, you get to the reward faster. Hence, pay-to-win. Your argument isn't valid in this context.

[Baharok 234]

44 minutes ago, OldManKrypton said:

You just proved my point by saying that it is pay-to-win. You're trying to debate time, effort, care, "hobby", and whether someone has "fun" at it. None of this matters when it comes to paying to get a reward. If you pay, you get to the reward faster. Hence, pay-to-win. Your argument isn't valid in this context.

I see whats going on. No matter what someone else writes, you are allways right and you are the god of all things. At this point anymore discussion is really wasted time. 

[ByeIcyVeins 45]

1 hour ago, Baharok said:

I see whats going on. No matter what someone else writes, you are allways right and you are the god of all things. At this point anymore discussion is really wasted time. 

Other people can be right a lot of the time. In this instance, you simply aren't. Don't worry, my wife says I'm wrong all the time, too.

[tkioz 229]

It wont pass, not one chance in a million, it will be killed in committee by the games industry. That being said it is good news, very good news. While they'll kill it, it will really put the shits up the big names. It's one thing for a small market like Belgium to ban them, but when it hits the floor of the US Senate? Now that's something to be worried about. They'll self-regulate in order to avoid actual regulation. Still it wont be as good as a total ban.

Edit:
In response to the lol-tarians who scream about 'goberment interference' this how you get regulation, by bad actors flooding the market and forcing out good actors. This is how you end up with an FDA, because the good actors selling good meat can't compete with the lying cheats who sell rotten horse as premium beef.

The game industry has no-one to blame but themselves when the government steps in, their shameful exploitive behaviour designed trigger the gambling rush in people's brains has brought this on. It's all well and good to say that the government isn't your mum and dad, and to a degree I agree, but if an industry wont regulate itself and deliberately goes out of its maximise profits at the expense of the valuable then that is when the government, which exists solely to express the will of society, will take action.

Edited May 14, 2019 by tkioz

[inteus 10]

i think this is a great idea!  loot boxes is a pathetic way to get a game survive. make better games and loot boxes dont matter.

[Guest]

11 hours ago, PatrickHenry said:

economies "usually" being a mix is not a reason for being regulated.  Its a status.  "Something needs to be because it currently is."

"preying."  LOL

I get a kick out of that.  

The "prey" is getting exactly what they want.  The "high", the loot, the whatever.  They're not being tricked.  Its not false advertising.  Its not fraud.

Just because its *filtered* odds doesnt make it 'prey.'  If thats the case you better be real careful about reading into the odds of STATE RUN gambling like lotto tickets and machines. 

They have the worst odds.  and its literally CREATED from regulation.  

 

Man, you really would do ANYTHING for money, wouldn't you?

How about selling drugs to kids in school? Why not put slotmachines in the Kindergarten? I am sure there would be some serious money to be made.

How can you not get it that CHILDREN need some protection?

We are not talking about adults here.

May I ask you something: What would you do if an 8 year old was caught stealing? Would you throw him in jail? Would you treat him exactly like an 18 year old?

If no, you do admit that children differ in some ways from adults. -> Not everything that applies to adults (like the possibility to gamble as much as they like if they feel like it) can apply to children.

If yes: Get some professional help.

 

Seriously, and I think of myself as quite a cynic that thinks that our children get waaay to much pampered. (O tempora, o mores.)

But compared to your seemingly complete lack of compassion and understanding...

[PatrickHenry 293]

17 hours ago, Arcling said:

It is preying, especially on addicted people and children,

How do children get the money to play this "gambling"?  Like they are getting money to do it from... parents?  the ones supposed to monitor this and... parent them?  Do you plan on banning "blind boxes"?  Theyve existed, legally, for years.  Are they being banned too, because theyre 100% marketed for kids.  My son loves them.

But I dont let him buy and buy and buy, because Im a parent, and he doesnt have his own money.  That was simple enough.  

As far as 'gambling addiction' goes, this is laughable.

In South Dakota at least, the state literally has legal monopoly over ALL lottery.  So your ban to 'protect the preyed upon' is doing nothing for the gambling addicted except drive them back into the SAME gambling institutions theyve been able to gamble at ALL DAY LONG, for years.  

 

6 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Man, you really would do ANYTHING for money, wouldn't you?

How about selling drugs to kids in school? Why not put slotmachines in the Kindergarten? I am sure there would be some serious money to be made.

How can you not get it that CHILDREN need some protection?

Holy Eff.  Its been a dry year but please dont take the entire state worth of straw to build your argument.

Ive literally said nothing about doing any of the other garbage in this post, and in fact mine have been geared towards personal responsibility and that kind of goes against giving your kid your credit card to go gamble as much as he wants.

The summary of your argument thusfar:
Something even potentially Dangerous:  **exists**
Me: Well parents should watch out for that 
You: OMFG YOU WANT TO JUST LET KIDS MURDER EACH OTHER ALL DAY LONG AND GIVE THEM THE GUNS TO DO IT WITH!?!?  

Children have protection.  From actual crimes.  Offering things people want and expecting parents to do their jobs isnt one of them.  

[Arcling 877]

28 minutes ago, PatrickHenry said:

How do children get the money to play this "gambling"?  Like they are getting money to do it from... parents?  the ones supposed to monitor this and... parent them?  Do you plan on banning "blind boxes"?  Theyve existed, legally, for years.  Are they being banned too, because theyre 100% marketed for kids.  My son loves them.
(...)
As far as 'gambling addiction' goes, this is laughable.

The summary of your argument thusfar:
Something even potentially Dangerous:  **exists**
Me: Well parents should watch out for that 
You: OMFG YOU WANT TO JUST LET KIDS MURDER EACH OTHER ALL DAY LONG AND GIVE THEM THE GUNS TO DO IT WITH!?!?  

Stop making up answers for others. This just makes you look dumb.

Anyway, your support for scummy, anti-consumer practices is appaling. These are the results of too few restrictions, funnily enough the "free market/business" that you are defending. Games especially, for many years, have been left unchecked, compared to many other industries. Ethical and unethical business is a thing, it's not "anything goes, just don't buy it", and many countries do have institutions aimed at protecting customer's interest and how businesses conduct themselves.

Also, I'm not American (and perhaps I'm too old) so I'm not familiar with those blind boxes and how they are marketed. As I had checked, it is a physical good and it's a bit harder to repeatedly spend money on it than some mobile game witch credit card attached to that account. Not the same thing. As was said before, some parents are too dumb and give their children too much access to money, so if parents fail there, it's good if there are some other means of prevention (and ideally, some institutions to help those children).

Edited May 14, 2019 by Arcling

[Manbearpig 28]

On 5/13/2019 at 9:47 PM, Baharok said:

No you didnt. You only told, what players trading with each other or lets say offering for playtime. It is pay to win if the company / holder of the game is offering a specific upgrade for real money, what definitely isnt the case. All you have in WoW is reachable by the most people. Ok maybe not mythic raids and top edge mythic+ levels, but the most content is doable for most people without going to someone else buying gear with ingame currencies.

 

And the next question is :

If someone "buys" gear (and in your understanding "pay"), what does he / she win ?

You can do only +10 instances if you want specific gear from instances. Sure it can be frustrating without drop, but you can do  that and still you need to invest time, since you need to be part of the group. 

If you pay someone to push your rating or whatever, then i ask myself :

Why do you keep considering playing the game, if not for playing it ? ?

 

I can understand if people want a mythic raid mount if it has 100% dropchance and pay top players to get that mount, but a mount isnt any "win", its just one more of hundreds.

Or high lvl equipment : I saw people which only do LFR, some random instances and maximum +11 instances - they dont need such high gear. Someone which buys gold with Token / real currency just for items, got different issues, which imo  nothing have to do with the game, its addiction and maybe some kind of attentionproblems.

 

And to quit the WoW only discussion :

 

The token was never intended to be a pay to win tool, its a respond of Blizzard to the illegal goldsellers and to put in a goldsink for those which have tons of gold. This way they cut the cash from such "black sheeps". What players are doing, is still in players hand. Blizzard doesnt boost your skill, nor they give you items or direct statboosts. Also they arent just for gametime....i mean, i even bought Blizzcontickets with it for the amount of Bnetcurrency i get from them.

 

edit.:

You even told it yourself, it is a can, not a must. Real P2W games are with the concept of the need to buy boosts with real money to have a chance versus other players. And ofc this boosts are only avaible with real currency or alternatively a daily playtime of 15+ hours.

"you can buy runs of high end content (raids/arena rating) for gold, which you can buy for cash "

 

 

Okay, i agree with you about the service being from players, but we just define P2W differently. When BLizzard made it possible to buy tokens for cash, they enabled P2W. I agree that they did it to stop goldsellers, but actually they didn't stop the problem, they just found a way to be the sole benefactor of the problem, don't you think? You say there is a difference between CAN and MUST, and i agree, but I personally have NEVER seen a game where you MUST buy something (be it lootboxes or ingame currency or whatever) to keep up with other players. But anyway, even if such games exist, let me get back to the definition.

"In some games, players who are willing to pay for special items or downloadable content may be able to gain an advantage over those playing for free who might otherwise need to spend time progressing in order to unlock said items. In general a game is considered pay-to-win when a player can gain any gameplay advantage over his non-paying peers. Such games are called "pay-to-win" by critics."

That's from Wikipedia, and that is how I, personally, also define P2W. Now you can define it differently, but then this is not a discussion on whether WoW is P2W, but on how to define it.

Keeping the Wikipedia definition in mind renders most of your questions obsolete does it not? If any of them are still unclear to you, feel free to respond.

"Someone which buys gold with Token / real currency just for items, got different issues, which imo  nothing have to do with the game, its addiction and maybe some kind of attentionproblems."

Is this not what the article and the law is all about? ?

Now don't get me wrong i do NOT want this to change at all. As a booster I am part of the problem, I like exchanging my gold for Bnet currency so i can buy other stuff with it, but that does not change the definition of P2W.

On 5/14/2019 at 2:19 AM, Baharok said:

I see whats going on. No matter what someone else writes, you are allways right and you are the god of all things. At this point anymore discussion is really wasted time. 

Why would you get personal? All he says is very objective and factual and should not offend you in any way. It is the same discussion you are having with me which is about the defintion of P2W. If you do not think WoW is P2W, you certainly are entitled to your opinion, but it does not give you the right to attack someone personally, nor does it change the FACT on how P2W is defined.

You COULD argue that there are different levels of P2W, which i would agree with btw, but that would also be a discussion about OPINION and not FACTS.