Loot Boxes in Video Games Analysis: Should it be legal?
Now I want to turn the attention towards two of the biggest AAA giants in gaming, Call of Duty and FIFA. Which may or may not surprise you, are also arguably the biggest offenders when it comes to gambling mechanics in their games.
Crossing the line
Call of Duty, one of the biggest shooters in the world has got more and more aggressive at emphasising their games on gambling. Just like I explained before, they give you free loot boxes, known as “Supply Drops” in Call of Duty. You can earn in game currency through playing the game. However the earn rate is very, very slow, and this is so that you actually go out and buy Supply Drops with real money. Call of Duty publisher Activision created a separate currency from the in game earned currency called “CoD Points”. CoD Points are purchased with real money and cannot be earned., CoD Points are used to buy more Supply Drops.
Essentially the aim is that you open some supply drops for free, get hooked on the gambling formula, and go out and spend real money on CoD Points so that you can open more supply drops. Here is where things cross the line however.
So as I mentioned earlier about “cosmetic only” loot boxes. Well in Call of Duty, they actually have items in supply drops that are not only cosmetics and actually change the gameplay. They put in new weapons. This changes the game significantly enough for many CoD players to solely open supply drops to unlock all of the new weapons, so that they can experience something new.
Even if you do not want to spend any money on Supply Drops, or even open any Supply Drops at all, you are missing out on new gameplay experiences by not taking part. In order to experience the new weapons, you have to open Supply Drops, there is no way around it. In other words, you have to take part in gambling, to try and win new content.
Essentially the aim is that you open some supply drops for free, get hooked on the gambling formula, and go out and spend real money on CoD Points so that you can open more supply drops. Here is where things cross the line however.
So as I mentioned earlier about “cosmetic only” loot boxes. Well in Call of Duty, they actually have items in supply drops that are not only cosmetics and actually change the gameplay. They put in new weapons. This changes the game significantly enough for many CoD players to solely open supply drops to unlock all of the new weapons, so that they can experience something new.
Even if you do not want to spend any money on Supply Drops, or even open any Supply Drops at all, you are missing out on new gameplay experiences by not taking part. In order to experience the new weapons, you have to open Supply Drops, there is no way around it. In other words, you have to take part in gambling, to try and win new content.
Imagine if a new episode of Game of Thrones came out, but in order to watch it, you had to gamble tons of money to try and win it. Imagine if you couldn’t straight up buy the episode of Game of Thrones, you couldn’t just pay for it and watch it, you had to gamble more money than one episode is worth just to watch the new episode.
Or in comparison if you use all of the in game currency without spending money, imagine if you had to watch the same episode of game of thrones 3 times just to get a free spin to get a very slim chance to win the ability to watch the new episode? You can imagine the outrage amongst fans.
The crazy thing about this however is after all the controversy clears, much like what happened with the introduction of supply drops in Call of Duty, the die hard loyal fans will do anything to get the new content. If you had to gamble to win the ability to watch the new Game of Thrones episode, the die hard GOT fans will pay up. They would eventually be willing to gamble their money to win it. Then they would talk about it, and then the rest will feel like they are missing out and will eventually join in too. Before you know it, it’s become the norm.
This sounds ludicrous and it is an extreme analogy, but this is pretty much what is going on in mainstream gaming now. This is what is going on in Call of Duty. You might suggest that in the Game of Thrones example, “you could always pirate the episode”, but what if there was no way to? There is no way as far as I know to cheat the system in these AAA games. You can’t pirate the new content that’s locked behind a gambling pay wall.
Not only that, but the game is constantly advertising discounts on Supply Drops and new weapons that are in the Supply Drops with pop ups on the screen in the menu and a slideshow in the corner of Supply Drop advertisements. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, the game did not launch with Supply Drops, they were introduced later. When they were introduced, upon booting the game, you were taken to the Supply Drop screen and actually forced to open a free supply drop before you could proceed with your game.
I don’t know about you but that seems very shady and morally wrong to me. They are forcing someone to gamble, so that they are more likely to be drawn in and enticed to invest into their gambling system. It’s almost like the gatekeepers to your favourite theme park, now forcing you to take a free sample of highly addictive meth in order to enter the theme park.
On top of all of this, on two Call of Duty titles, the Supply Drop’s actually started off as cosmetic only, and Activision and the developers said that it would remain that way, only to a few months later go back on their word, and introduce new gameplay changing items into the Supply Drops. Clearly to get more people to buy Supply Drops to cheaply boost their revenue.
Well what about this for clear evidence that gambling is addictive, and is in video games too. Activision Blizard made $3.6 Billion last year in 2016 on Supply Drops and loot boxes for Call of Duty and Overwatch.
Or in comparison if you use all of the in game currency without spending money, imagine if you had to watch the same episode of game of thrones 3 times just to get a free spin to get a very slim chance to win the ability to watch the new episode? You can imagine the outrage amongst fans.
The crazy thing about this however is after all the controversy clears, much like what happened with the introduction of supply drops in Call of Duty, the die hard loyal fans will do anything to get the new content. If you had to gamble to win the ability to watch the new Game of Thrones episode, the die hard GOT fans will pay up. They would eventually be willing to gamble their money to win it. Then they would talk about it, and then the rest will feel like they are missing out and will eventually join in too. Before you know it, it’s become the norm.
This sounds ludicrous and it is an extreme analogy, but this is pretty much what is going on in mainstream gaming now. This is what is going on in Call of Duty. You might suggest that in the Game of Thrones example, “you could always pirate the episode”, but what if there was no way to? There is no way as far as I know to cheat the system in these AAA games. You can’t pirate the new content that’s locked behind a gambling pay wall.
Not only that, but the game is constantly advertising discounts on Supply Drops and new weapons that are in the Supply Drops with pop ups on the screen in the menu and a slideshow in the corner of Supply Drop advertisements. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, the game did not launch with Supply Drops, they were introduced later. When they were introduced, upon booting the game, you were taken to the Supply Drop screen and actually forced to open a free supply drop before you could proceed with your game.
I don’t know about you but that seems very shady and morally wrong to me. They are forcing someone to gamble, so that they are more likely to be drawn in and enticed to invest into their gambling system. It’s almost like the gatekeepers to your favourite theme park, now forcing you to take a free sample of highly addictive meth in order to enter the theme park.
On top of all of this, on two Call of Duty titles, the Supply Drop’s actually started off as cosmetic only, and Activision and the developers said that it would remain that way, only to a few months later go back on their word, and introduce new gameplay changing items into the Supply Drops. Clearly to get more people to buy Supply Drops to cheaply boost their revenue.
Well what about this for clear evidence that gambling is addictive, and is in video games too. Activision Blizard made $3.6 Billion last year in 2016 on Supply Drops and loot boxes for Call of Duty and Overwatch.
FIFA and the under age gambling issues
It is no secret that huge amounts of under age kids play Call of Duty. The reason why gambling requires you to be over 18 and 21 in other countries, is because a person under the age of 18, is usually more naive and hasn’t fully developed yet and is therefore very easily exploited and vulnerable to gambling addiction. Now the one save and grace for Call of Duty is that technically, the game is certified as an 18+.
However, lets talk about FIFA then, a game that is 3+ game, a game where young children are legally allowed to buy the game. This is where things get very dodgy.
FIFA as far as I know is the pioneer of having gambling mechanics in their game. They were certainly the first major franchise to do it. In one of the major game modes in FIFA, known as FIFA Ultimate Team or FUT for short, they have created a genius concept. The goal of this is to create a dream team of all of your favourite super stars in world football.
This idea I feel like is very much inspired from the craze of Pokémon cards and football stickers. The thing that makes this so genius and so powerful, is that because this applies to your video game, this has so much more meaning and depth. The significance is much higher than simply owning Pokémon cards. You could technically play with the pokemon cards, but it’s a lot easier to boot up a game of FIFA and play someone online than it is finding someone to play a game of Pokémon with your cards.
Add to the fact that these FIFA Ultimate Team cards are of course based off real players, a real sport, and you have even more enticement. EA even came up with the idea to start releasing limited edition cards every week. These were improved versions with increased stats of players that that had a great game in real football. So if Harry Kane scored twice in his last game in real life, you can dam well bet that he will receive a limited edition card. These are known as “In Form” cards. Selections of players get in forms via a “Team of the Week”.
However, lets talk about FIFA then, a game that is 3+ game, a game where young children are legally allowed to buy the game. This is where things get very dodgy.
FIFA as far as I know is the pioneer of having gambling mechanics in their game. They were certainly the first major franchise to do it. In one of the major game modes in FIFA, known as FIFA Ultimate Team or FUT for short, they have created a genius concept. The goal of this is to create a dream team of all of your favourite super stars in world football.
This idea I feel like is very much inspired from the craze of Pokémon cards and football stickers. The thing that makes this so genius and so powerful, is that because this applies to your video game, this has so much more meaning and depth. The significance is much higher than simply owning Pokémon cards. You could technically play with the pokemon cards, but it’s a lot easier to boot up a game of FIFA and play someone online than it is finding someone to play a game of Pokémon with your cards.
Add to the fact that these FIFA Ultimate Team cards are of course based off real players, a real sport, and you have even more enticement. EA even came up with the idea to start releasing limited edition cards every week. These were improved versions with increased stats of players that that had a great game in real football. So if Harry Kane scored twice in his last game in real life, you can dam well bet that he will receive a limited edition card. These are known as “In Form” cards. Selections of players get in forms via a “Team of the Week”.
Some of the concepts here are similar to Pokémon cards and football stickers, but this takes it to whole new dangerous levels. There’s even more factors that make this worse.
So when I was a kid, you would ask your parents if you could buy a Pokémon card pack, you might get one a week. Your friend or that rich kid in school would come in with tons of Pokémon cards, and were spoiled to having tons of packs. You might be a little jealous but that’s a far as it went. We didn’t have social media, or YouTube with huge YouTube icons back then.
What we have now is massive YouTubers that record themselves opening literally 100s of packs, where they have spent £1000s on them. These are huge role models for a huge amount of kids, an entire generation are watching and aspiring to be these YouTuber’s.
It’s free promotion for EA, and these kids will be easily influenced to want to go out and spend the kind of money these YouTuber’s spend on huge amounts of packs. Once they grow up to have a job, they will have the ability to spend ridiculous money on gambling on opening packs. Take it a step further, they will have the gambling philosophy ingrained into them, meaning it will be so easy for them to take it further and start gambling for real money. From watching YouTubers gamble huge amounts of money, and then doing it themselves on FIFA, they will be more inclined to do the same with real money gambling.
So when I was a kid, you would ask your parents if you could buy a Pokémon card pack, you might get one a week. Your friend or that rich kid in school would come in with tons of Pokémon cards, and were spoiled to having tons of packs. You might be a little jealous but that’s a far as it went. We didn’t have social media, or YouTube with huge YouTube icons back then.
What we have now is massive YouTubers that record themselves opening literally 100s of packs, where they have spent £1000s on them. These are huge role models for a huge amount of kids, an entire generation are watching and aspiring to be these YouTuber’s.
It’s free promotion for EA, and these kids will be easily influenced to want to go out and spend the kind of money these YouTuber’s spend on huge amounts of packs. Once they grow up to have a job, they will have the ability to spend ridiculous money on gambling on opening packs. Take it a step further, they will have the gambling philosophy ingrained into them, meaning it will be so easy for them to take it further and start gambling for real money. From watching YouTubers gamble huge amounts of money, and then doing it themselves on FIFA, they will be more inclined to do the same with real money gambling.
FUT is more than a full time job
FUT does have a transfer market, where you can trade your players for coins aka the in game currency in the game. This does make things a bit fairer in some ways to other games because you can acquire any specific item or player that you want though simply playing the game. However, all of the top tier players are nearly impossible to get without spending real money on FIFA points to open packs. Opening packs is by far the most effective way of legitimately earning coins in FIFA.
Without the odds that most of these games do not show, I can’t accurately give you an average estimate of how long it would take to earn the best items via packs, and even if they did, it would still all be hypothetical because it’s a slot machine. However, with the fact that FUT has a trading market, I can provide you with an average estimate on how long it would take to get the best players in FUT without spending any money.
As of now, with FIFA 18 very close to launch, the prices for players on FUT on FIFA 17 will be the lowest they will ever be as players get ready to migrate to FIFA 18. The prices being at the lowest point means this is the easiest point to get the best players in FIFA 17. So if we look at the highest rated player in FUT right now. Ronaldo has a 99 rated card and goes for 4.2 million coins. Messi also has a 99 rated card and goes for a similar price right now. On average you will earn around 500 coins per match. It will range from 300-600 coins depending on the result and team you play.
You can apply temporary coin boosts and get bonuses for winning tournaments, but they are very few and far between, they won’t significantly make enough difference to make this estimate incorrect. If we go by the usual average of 500 coins per match, it will take you 8400 matches to earn 4.2 million coins. That’s excluding the fact that you need to spend coins on renewing player’s contracts so that your players can play more games.
Each match is 6 minutes a half, meaning a match will be a minimum of 12 minutes long. Usually they last for longer when goals are scored from the celebration cut scenes and replays. On average games are 15 minutes, so if we go by that, 8400 matches equals 126,000 minutes. That’s 2100 hours, that’s 87 days of match time.
A full time 40 hours a week job without any holiday is 1920 hours a year, or 80 days a year. This means you would need to play FIFA more often than you would be at work. Bare this in mind that this is the cheapest the best player will ever be, usually they peak around 7million coins. Not only is this ridiculous, earning 4.2 million coins if you go to school or work is practically impossible without spending any money.
Even if you spend say £100 on packs, you have to be really lucky to actually significantly shorten the time it will take to get to 4.2 million coins. Also the likeliness of landing ronaldo or messi are ridiculously rare. In a nutshell, you have to spend a serious amount of money to even have a chance of getting higher tiered players. You can imagine why so many people spend money gambling to try and win players that take 1000s of hours to gain through gametime.
Without the odds that most of these games do not show, I can’t accurately give you an average estimate of how long it would take to earn the best items via packs, and even if they did, it would still all be hypothetical because it’s a slot machine. However, with the fact that FUT has a trading market, I can provide you with an average estimate on how long it would take to get the best players in FUT without spending any money.
As of now, with FIFA 18 very close to launch, the prices for players on FUT on FIFA 17 will be the lowest they will ever be as players get ready to migrate to FIFA 18. The prices being at the lowest point means this is the easiest point to get the best players in FIFA 17. So if we look at the highest rated player in FUT right now. Ronaldo has a 99 rated card and goes for 4.2 million coins. Messi also has a 99 rated card and goes for a similar price right now. On average you will earn around 500 coins per match. It will range from 300-600 coins depending on the result and team you play.
You can apply temporary coin boosts and get bonuses for winning tournaments, but they are very few and far between, they won’t significantly make enough difference to make this estimate incorrect. If we go by the usual average of 500 coins per match, it will take you 8400 matches to earn 4.2 million coins. That’s excluding the fact that you need to spend coins on renewing player’s contracts so that your players can play more games.
Each match is 6 minutes a half, meaning a match will be a minimum of 12 minutes long. Usually they last for longer when goals are scored from the celebration cut scenes and replays. On average games are 15 minutes, so if we go by that, 8400 matches equals 126,000 minutes. That’s 2100 hours, that’s 87 days of match time.
A full time 40 hours a week job without any holiday is 1920 hours a year, or 80 days a year. This means you would need to play FIFA more often than you would be at work. Bare this in mind that this is the cheapest the best player will ever be, usually they peak around 7million coins. Not only is this ridiculous, earning 4.2 million coins if you go to school or work is practically impossible without spending any money.
Even if you spend say £100 on packs, you have to be really lucky to actually significantly shorten the time it will take to get to 4.2 million coins. Also the likeliness of landing ronaldo or messi are ridiculously rare. In a nutshell, you have to spend a serious amount of money to even have a chance of getting higher tiered players. You can imagine why so many people spend money gambling to try and win players that take 1000s of hours to gain through gametime.
Creating a dream team of your favourite players, playing and trading with other players online, progressing your team and collecting players is a genius and incredibly fun concept. The concept itself is fantastic, it’s the aggressive monetisation of the mode that is becoming a huge problem. The whole system heavily favours EA and barely favours the consumer at all. Not only do they have unfair gambling systems with ridiculously low odds, it’s also ludicrous how much time you must put in to have a desirable team. On top of that, it’s very arguable that you’re at a severe disadvantage by having a weaker team than players with better teams with better players who have spent money. Ultimately this forces the players hand into spending a lot of money on gambling for a better team.
With constant new in form cards, constant promotions from YouTubers and EA to open packs, and with zero laws to protect children and people that are vulnerable to the gambling philosophy, this makes FUT a very immoral business practice.
The huge success of FIFA Ultimate Team I believe started this trend to have gambling in games. Every single publisher and developer now, wants a piece of that pie.
With constant new in form cards, constant promotions from YouTubers and EA to open packs, and with zero laws to protect children and people that are vulnerable to the gambling philosophy, this makes FUT a very immoral business practice.
The huge success of FIFA Ultimate Team I believe started this trend to have gambling in games. Every single publisher and developer now, wants a piece of that pie.
The same gambling laws should apply to video games
Now I am not saying that these gambling mechanics must be completely abolished, some people enjoy it, and it’s unfortunately a viable business strategy. One positive that can be concluded from this is that, these gambling microtransactions do potentially pave the way for future bigger content such as map packs for free. They also significantly help fund for the next game. However, currently, there are no rules and regulations that protect people like in real gambling. There are no clear ways to even know if the odds, and mechanic is even fair. You can easily be taken advantage of because there are no laws against it.
The obvious problem in many of these titles such as Call of Duty and FIFA is that, from a gamer’s point of view, you are at a disadvantage against other players online by not spending money. If players can get to the better players or weapons to use against you by spending money, it’s seen as an unfair advantage. The term commonly used is “pay to win”. Some gamers will be turned off but other gamers which commonly can be younger players, will force them to invest their time and money into the gambling systems in place, and eventually become hooked.
The obvious problem in many of these titles such as Call of Duty and FIFA is that, from a gamer’s point of view, you are at a disadvantage against other players online by not spending money. If players can get to the better players or weapons to use against you by spending money, it’s seen as an unfair advantage. The term commonly used is “pay to win”. Some gamers will be turned off but other gamers which commonly can be younger players, will force them to invest their time and money into the gambling systems in place, and eventually become hooked.
I believe that there should be laws that prevent children from gambling in video games, I believe there should be precautions and similar regulations that you get in real gambling. I also believe that the way it currently is for most games, the system is very unbalanced and too heavily favours the company, and not the consumer. We don’t even know how fair it is because there’s no actual odds on the drop rate of items. Or in gambling term, a win rate percentage odd.
In real gambling, it is a legal requirement to show the success rate percentage or odds on each game. This again is proof that there are no gambling regulations in video games. The Chinese government recently however acknowledged this and have apparently made it a legal requirement for game companies to display drop rates and odds in China. There doesn’t appear to be any public information about what the drop rates are in China as of now however.
I would personally love if all game publishers and developers completely dropped microtransactions and gambling mechanics, but lets be honest here, that’s just not realistic when it’s such a huge money maker for them. So why not tone it down? These systems need to be much fairer and I mean much more. In order to own the best items in CoD or FIFA, you genuinely need to spend £1000s or put 1000s of hours to guarantee that you own everything. Bare in mind that these are franchises that release every year meaning your game becomes obsolete after a year.
I believe the government both here in the UK and from other nations in the world, need to take a serious look at gambling in video games and intervene. Someone needs to do something about it before it gets out of hand. It’s already starting to get out of hand and I can only seeing it getting worse until someone puts a stop to it.
In real gambling, it is a legal requirement to show the success rate percentage or odds on each game. This again is proof that there are no gambling regulations in video games. The Chinese government recently however acknowledged this and have apparently made it a legal requirement for game companies to display drop rates and odds in China. There doesn’t appear to be any public information about what the drop rates are in China as of now however.
I would personally love if all game publishers and developers completely dropped microtransactions and gambling mechanics, but lets be honest here, that’s just not realistic when it’s such a huge money maker for them. So why not tone it down? These systems need to be much fairer and I mean much more. In order to own the best items in CoD or FIFA, you genuinely need to spend £1000s or put 1000s of hours to guarantee that you own everything. Bare in mind that these are franchises that release every year meaning your game becomes obsolete after a year.
I believe the government both here in the UK and from other nations in the world, need to take a serious look at gambling in video games and intervene. Someone needs to do something about it before it gets out of hand. It’s already starting to get out of hand and I can only seeing it getting worse until someone puts a stop to it.