Erm, packs.

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sarrafeline
sarrafeline Posts: 152 Arc User
in General Discussion
Kinda surprised not to see anything here about this already. Maybe it's been banned, and I don't know.

So, there's a new game out by another company which has incited a massive media, consumer, and possibly even political storm over what PW calls 'packs'. So, if a law were to go into effect that bans the sale of game breaking gear in packs, would Wanmei be forced to remove them? I'm talking about like JOSD, R8r/R8rr tokens, Drakeflames, etc., as this could possibly break laws in the future. Seeing how packs are the only legit way to get some kinds of gear, this might be a potentially earth shattering effect.

But for us, would it make any difference? There's already a million characters running around in R999+12JOSD/Deity, so... It's not exactly game breaking anymore. It's already broken, and has been for many years...

Sad thing is, I see arguments in the news today that I was making back in 2009 and 2010.

Or does the fact that PWI is free to play exempt it from this? I doubt it...

Comments

  • zombiemaster123
    zombiemaster123 Posts: 109 Arc User
    edited December 2017
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    No, it does not affect F2P-Games. Only full-price titles are affected from this.

    Loot-boxes are integral for F2P-games, without it, there would be no revenue. It wouldn't work without it, really. Those games you mention are full-price titles that still wanna get additional revenue witch is criminal in my eyes and they should pay fines in insane amounts.
  • keihan007#7641
    keihan007#7641 Posts: 1,190 Arc User
    edited December 2017
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    zombiemaster123 wrote: »
    No, it does not affect F2P-Games. Only full-price titles are affected from this.

    Loot-boxes are integral for F2P-games, without it, there would be no revenue. It wouldn't work without it, really. Those games you mention are full-price titles that still wanna get additional revenue witch is criminal in my eyes and they should pay fines in insane amounts.

    The reason why Belgium is investigating the matter is because the loot boxes are considered a form of gambling and due their large impact on the progression of the game the game can now be considered a game of chance which would require some permits and thus the loot boxes would make the practice illegal in Belgium. It has nothing to do with morals really.

    Packs are definitely very large part of progression in PWI and I would imagine PWE to get whipped by Belgium officials if this game was large enough for them to care.
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  • zombiemaster123
    zombiemaster123 Posts: 109 Arc User
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    saxroll wrote: »
    zombiemaster123 wrote: »
    No, it does not affect F2P-Games. Only full-price titles are affected from this.

    Loot-boxes are integral for F2P-games, without it, there would be no revenue. It wouldn't work without it, really. Those games you mention are full-price titles that still wanna get additional revenue witch is criminal in my eyes and they should pay fines in insane amounts.

    The reason why Belgium is investigating the matter is because the loot boxes are considered a form of gambling and due their large impact on the progression of the game the game can now be considered a game of chance which would require some permits and thus the loot boxes would make the practice illegal in Belgium. It has nothing to do with morals really.

    Packs are definitely very large part of progression in PWI and I would imagine PWE to get whipped by Belgium officials if this game was large enough for them to care.

    Mhm true, especially since you need like 100000x times more effort to get something from packs ingame. Some items are unachievable ingame anyways. IF they get whipped then I guess they would be at least forced to introduce ways to farm everything that can be obtained by packs..which would be damn nice tbh.
  • nunuator
    nunuator Posts: 455 Arc User
    edited December 2017
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    The issue is this... PWI removes packs= less revenue...

    Constant key sales are proving this and seeing that China is releasing a Gold foil: illumination of some sorts that is asking for items to make 1-1.5bill coin I doubt they'll be removed anytime soon.

    As far as laws etc go this game is wayyyy to small for them to care about even if they decided to pursue a game like this it's simple this...

    PWI is free to play and if they offered a pay by month option or a premium price that would offer x gold a day for 30 days at A price forward for less or something like mobile games do. They wouldn't even get in trouble. The only reason these unnamed games are receiving attention is they release unfinished games and offer the finished game or more content as a DLC when the game itself is not complete upon release so here pay 60$ and pay another 80$ on top of that for the "full game"... But, hey it's not my *Destiny 2* decide what is right and wrong.
  • asterelle
    asterelle Posts: 861 Arc User
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    China has a similar law banning gambling in online games passed a couple years ago. PWCN got around that by making the packs free with the purchase of other items (although people were really just buying the packs).

    I'm not sure if a similar legal workaround would work here. The proposed bill I saw from that Hawaiian representative sought to ban the sale of packs to anyone under 21 years old. I think the PWE ToS requires you to be 18 years old so they can just increase that to 21 to avoid legal liability.     ​​
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  • wettstyle
    wettstyle Posts: 236 Arc User
    edited December 2017
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    Worst case scenario, people would be able to buy what they need Straight up!! like a car, a phone, a hamburger ect... not by the form of chance, Odd's and the thrill of Gambling, which could become a obsession.
  • dblazen1
    dblazen1 Posts: 1,177 Arc User
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    sarrafeline wrote: »
    Kinda surprised not to see anything here about this already. Maybe it's been banned, and I don't know.

    So, there's a new game out by another company which has incited a massive media, consumer, and possibly even political storm over what PW calls 'packs'. So, if a law were to go into effect that bans the sale of game breaking gear in packs, would Wanmei be forced to remove them? I'm talking about like JOSD, R8r/R8rr tokens, Drakeflames, etc., as this could possibly break laws in the future. Seeing how packs are the only legit way to get some kinds of gear, this might be a potentially earth shattering effect.

    But for us, would it make any difference? There's already a million characters running around in R999+12JOSD/Deity, so... It's not exactly game breaking anymore. It's already broken, and has been for many years...

    Sad thing is, I see arguments in the news today that I was making back in 2009 and 2010.

    Or does the fact that PWI is free to play exempt it from this? I doubt it...
    It's not about what's in the loot boxes / packs, it's the fact that it's gambling that's the problem.
    There could be absolute **** in the packs, it would still be gambling.
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  • et3rea
    et3rea Posts: 58 Arc User
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    Pwi shouldve be banned by proposing certain promos at stupid high price (see 2700g for a effing nuema card) not sure how someone can even charge that much in 2 days time span. But thats just ridicolous.
  • et3rea
    et3rea Posts: 58 Arc User
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    Pwi shouldve be banned by proposing certain promos at stupid high price (see 2700g for a effing nuema card) not sure how someone can even charge that much in 2 days time span. But thats just ridicolous.
  • aetje
    aetje Posts: 48 Arc User
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    asterelle wrote: »
    I'm not sure if a similar legal workaround would work here. The proposed bill I saw from that Hawaiian representative sought to ban the sale of packs to anyone under 21 years old. I think the PWE ToS requires you to be 18 years old so they can just increase that to 21 to avoid legal liability. ​​
    That would work around the legal liabilities, but not around the much heavier taxation for online gambling rather then online gaming. Classifying the purchase of online randomized packs as gambling (which is what Hawaii and Belgium are seeking) would affect PWE as their entire business model - and probably the entire business model of F2P games - is based on this. It'd effectively prevent them from generating revenue with a free to play, pay to win pack (a pack is essentially just a paid lootbox) economy.

    Bottom line is that the governments are seeking to curb this kind of practise by directly impacting the profits. Which triggers companies to find other ways to generate revenue. The triple A companies will likely fall back on just selling games piece by piece by chopping up the content into "DLC" and ditching the lootbox alltogether. F2P games do not have that option as there is no buy-in for starting out in the game.
    What PWE will do? Not sure. But you can bet they'll find another way to make the whales be able to directly buy their way to the top. It's how their games work after all. Maybe simply remove the randomization and have players be able to directly purchase the loot they want - no randomization = no gambling = no problem. Seems the simplest solution.
    Or some crazy convoluted crafting system with vague recipies that you can almost complete but need that one cashshop item for.
  • sarrafeline
    sarrafeline Posts: 152 Arc User
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    Well, I'm interested in seeing how this goes.

    Maybe I'm just late to reading the TOU, but I thought the age limit was 13? Or did they up it recently? I remember bumping into people who were like 8 or 9 playing PWI... Though, if you went by WC before the increased tele costs were put in, everyone playing was under the age of 10.
  • heerohex#3018
    heerohex#3018 Posts: 4,811 Community Moderator
    edited December 2017
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    18 or 13 with Parent consent.

    It does also state within area tho as some places have different laws.​​
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