If I were a Judge, presiding over a case like this, I'd be asking myself whether the sales of item X are materially impacted by the presence of (the gambling aspect of) toy Y.
In case of a Doff pack, I'd be inclined to go with bluegeek's reasoning, that you buy such a pack primarily for the Doffs (and then welcome what little extra it comes with on a promo).
In case of a lockbox, however, I'd ask myself the question: "Would people still buy the lockbox if it didn't come with a chance to win a major ship?" Like, would peeps just buy it for the 4 Lobi?
I'd probably conclude that, in case of a lockbox, sales *are* materially impacted by the gambling aspect. And that lockboxes thus constitute gambling.
That's not a good standard, actually, because it means that any randomly packaged product (like Magic cards, collectible minis, etc) where individual items have variable desirability can be considered "gambling". A much, much better standard is simply to ask if the minimum guaranteed return from a single purchase could reasonably be considered "worth it". It's really not about how much the desire for a grand prize ship encourages people to buy more keys, it's about making sure that even if you don't "win", you still get your money's worth, at least in the abstract "someone might pay $1.25 for that" sense.
The problem comes when people decide that they ONLY want the ship, but then buy keys to open boxes anyway. If the rest of the box contents are worth it to you, DON'T OPEN THEM. Instead, just sell the keys and buy what you want.
So, there are 2 ways to get these lock box ships without spending a dime of your own money:
1) buy them off the exchange for EC. I mentioned this earlier in this thread.
2) open enough lock boxes until you get them.
But wait! Doesnt #2 cost you money? Nope. In case you forgot, you can trade dilithium for zen. I have well over 100 dollars of zen that I didnt spend a dime on. So you can actually get the zen to buy the keys to open the boxes without spending 1 red cent.
I've played a lot of MMOs, and that is by far the best F2P system out there. You can get every single item from the game store without spending a penny of your own money. Anybody who has a problem with that system simply cannot be pleased.
Lockboxes are nothing at all like lottery tickets, unless you are ONLY interested in the grand prize ship. Boxes all have a minimum assured return, for example. If you feel like that minimum return is worth the price of a key, then it doesn't matter if you don't get a ship, you still win, just not by as much. If you don't think the minimum return is worth it, then just sell the keys on the exchange and raise the ec to buy exactly what you want.
On the contrary, they are very much like lottery tickets, where the value of the grand prize greatly outweighs the average return.
As opposed to cereal boxes, where the grand prize may be even less valuable than the cereal.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
But wait! Doesnt #2 cost you money? Nope. In case you forgot, you can trade dilithium for zen.
And part of my stance for the last 15 pages was and still is....
Once an addiction has been formed using in game means to open boxes, and the addiction demands you open more boxes than you can convert Dil and grind EC for.... then you start to spend real money to open boxes.
So, actually it does cost money - sooner or later, an addiction kicks in and you start to lose real money.
[Edit = I thought this topic was dead...... for the love of all that is holy, stop flogging this horse, it died pages ago - do the decent thing, bury it and move on! :P )
On the contrary, they are very much like lottery tickets, where the value of the grand prize greatly outweighs the average return.
As opposed to cereal boxes, where the grand prize may be even less valuable than the cereal.
On the contrary, they are nothing like lottery tickets at all, given that lottery tickets have no minimum guaranteed returns. Lottery tickets are gambling because there is a real risk of loss. With lockboxes, there is no risk of loss, because you always get a product that was worth what you paid for it, even if you wanted the grand prize more.
Now, you will scoff and argue that the minimum prize from a lock box is clearly and obviously not worth $1.25. I disagree, I find them to be generally worth it, so they are a good buy for me. If you, personally, don't see the value, then don't buy them. It's not gambling, because you can look at the prize table and make a judgement about the minimum prize available versus the price.
Ugh, how can people continue to defend Cryptic/Perfect World's lockboxes unless they were paid to do so?
Why would you be against messages that warn that lockboxes are a form of gambling? How would these messages hinder your ability to continue to make purchases?
Why would you be against some form of parental control to help parents control their children's spending habits? It may be impossible to enforce, but if at least Cryptic/Perfect World would be more open about it, some parents may benefit from it.
If you claim that you only open lockboxes for the lobi, does that mean you support exceedingly expensive per-character ships or items? 200 lobi/4 lobi per box = 50 lockboxes for some of the single weapons or consoles or 800 lobi/4 lobi per box = 200 lockboxes for the most expensive ships.
Why would you be against information on the odds of winning a certain item? Don't you want to make a more informed decision on what exactly you're purchasing? Why would you be against some sort of regulation on lockboxes and similar things in other games? It may force Cryptic/Perfect World and other companies to give up these chance based purchases and you may have to spend less money to get more things.
Just because everything in the game can be obtained without you spending a single cent doesn't mean that Cryptic/Perfect World didn't receive that money from someone else. Exchanging refined dilithium for zen just means that someone else has spent money to purchase that zen. Purchasing master keys or lockbox items from the exchange just means that someone else has purchased master keys for money or that someone else had purchased master keys to open lockboxes.
That's not a good standard, actually, because it means that any randomly packaged product (like Magic cards, collectible minis, etc) where individual items have variable desirability can be considered "gambling". A much, much better standard is simply to ask if the minimum guaranteed return from a single purchase could reasonably be considered "worth it". It's really not about how much the desire for a grand prize ship encourages people to buy more keys, it's about making sure that even if you don't "win", you still get your money's worth, at least in the abstract "someone might pay $1.25 for that" sense.
But that's, indirectly, precisely what I said. If it's not really 'worth it' without the gambling toy (aka, sales are materially impacted in a negative way without the possibility of winning said toy), then I would consider it gambling.
It's about determining how much innate value the box has without any gambling toy (which includes the chance to win often expensive Space Traits). So, the only guaranteed thing inside a lockbox is currently the 4 Lobi, and what, a white doff mini pack?
Ugh, how can people continue to defend Cryptic/Perfect World's lockboxes unless they were paid to do so?
Its pretty simple. Honestly, I dont "like" the lockboxes, but I do like the fact that they fund this game. Seriously, I get to play every single mission in this game for free. And if there is anything I want in the game store, I can get it without spending any of my money by simply trading dilithium for zen. So while lock boxes arent my cup of tea, they support the best F2P model of any MMO on the market.
And part of my stance for the last 15 pages was and still is....
Once an addiction has been formed using in game means to open boxes, and the addiction demands you open more boxes than you can convert Dil and grind EC for....
There is no limit to how may boxes/keys you can get, because you can trade an infinite amount of dilithium for an infinite amount of zen. Even with the 8k daily refining cap, that is only per character, not per account. With multiple characters you can refine every single ounce of dilithium you can earn in a 24 hour period, and trade all of it for zen. So no, there is no requirement to ever spend a cent of your own money if you do not want to. If you do want to, that is fine. But wanting to and needing to are not the same thing.
And part of my stance for the last 15 pages was and still is....
Once an addiction has been formed using in game means to open boxes, and the addiction demands you open more boxes than you can convert Dil and grind EC for.... then you start to spend real money to open boxes.
So, actually it does cost money - sooner or later, an addiction kicks in and you start to lose real money.
[Edit = I thought this topic was dead...... for the love of all that is holy, stop flogging this horse, it died pages ago - do the decent thing, bury it and move on! :P )
Yeah, this is flawed logic at it's finest. You equate the existence of chance related games to an inevitable gambling addiction. However, only a small subsection of the population would ever have that issue, and people like that don't need computer games to have problems.
Also, by that logic Dabo and, well, every other digital "gambling" (such as the slot machines in Pok
But that's, indirectly, precisely what I said. If it's not really 'worth it' without the gambling toy (aka, sales are materially impacted in a negative way without the possibility of winning said toy), then I would consider it gambling.
It's about determining how much innate value the box has without any gambling toy (which includes the chance to win often expensive Space Traits). So, the only guaranteed thing inside a lockbox is currently the 4 Lobi, and what, a white doff mini pack?
Sure, so, 1/2 to 1/3rd of the minimum value of a Doff pack, for a product that costs... about 1/2 a doff pack. Sounds fair to me? It's not a great deal, certainly, but it's not like it's a crazy valuation.
I mean, if your contention is that people are buying the keys and opening boxes because they are chasing the rare prizes, I would agree with that. I just don't think that's really "gambling" any more than, say, buying a bunch of collectable card packs hoping for a cool "foil" card is "gambling". Just because you wanted a different product MORE doesn't mean that you have "lost" money by getting one that's merely worth what you paid for it.
As for the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the need to warn people about the dangers of gambling, addictive behavior, etc., I would say that addictive behavior is a danger with any behavior that gives pleasure. I don't see any real reason why we should be more morally outraged at PWE selling randomized lockboxes than we are with Wizards for selling random Magic boosters, etc. There's no "gambling" going on here, unless you, as a customer, decide that the ONLY thing you are happy with for your money is a high-end prize. If that is the case, then you should NOT open the random boxes, you should instead decide how much money you feel is "worth" what you actually want, buy that many keys, and seek to sell them on the exchange for enough EC to buy what you want. If you feel like the prices on the exchange are too high, then that means the market value of the item is higher than what you are willing to pay, and you will have to decide either to spend more money, wait for the price to come down, or simply do without.
Cryptic is not responsible for anyone's inability to think and purchase rationally. The business model they are using is, in fact, not unfair at all - if you feel the min. value of an opened box is worth $1.25, then you have no real complaint about not getting a ship, because you still got $1.25 worth of stuff. If you DON'T think the min. value of the box is worth $1.25, then don't open them, and find another way to get what you want. If what you want is more than what you are willing to pay for it, that's not unfair, that's just life.
Some good info here guys.. So these lock boxes can be sold back using access exchange. I am not buying anything keys for what I've stocked piled why to man. I am not going to bother TAKE ITEM for these boxes they fill up the inventory to quickly also.
Been seeing a lot of hand gun to full guns mostly the system type of issue when the borg goes down hard. The body armor so much of them. These food ones, I am passing them up. Though did find out you do need to accept some so you can complete your mission.
On the contrary, they are nothing like lottery tickets at all, given that lottery tickets have no minimum guaranteed returns. Lottery tickets are gambling because there is a real risk of loss. With lockboxes, there is no risk of loss, because you always get a product that was worth what you paid for it, even if you wanted the grand prize more.
Now, you will scoff and argue that the minimum prize from a lock box is clearly and obviously not worth $1.25. I disagree, I find them to be generally worth it, so they are a good buy for me. If you, personally, don't see the value, then don't buy them. It's not gambling, because you can look at the prize table and make a judgement about the minimum prize available versus the price.
Your whole thesis is based on your personal view that the contents of a lockbox are worth $1.25 even without the chance of winning the grand prize.
To hold that view, you must necessarily believe that lockbox keys would continue to sell even if the ships were removed entirely. This is a view that hardly anyone in the game would endorse.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
Your whole thesis is based on your personal view that the contents of a lockbox are worth $1.25 even without the chance of winning the grand prize.
To hold that view, you must necessarily believe that lockbox keys would continue to sell even if the ships were removed entirely. This is a view that hardly anyone in the game would endorse.
As they are slipping new Captain's Talents and other such things into Lockboxes now I would not be surprised to find that people are trying to get things other then off-Faction ships.
And I know plenty of people who opened Lockboxes to get the Lobi in order to finish their Anniversary Event project quicker by buying QMendations from the Lobi Store - and if they got anything good from the Lockboxes they just considered that a bonus.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
As they are slipping new Captain's Talents and other such things into Lockboxes now I would not be surprised to find that people are trying to get things other then off-Faction ships.
And I know plenty of people who opened Lockboxes to get the Lobi in order to finish their Anniversary Event project quicker by buying QMendations from the Lobi Store - and if they got anything good from the Lockboxes they just considered that a bonus.
Actually.... just look at the list of things you get out of boxes that are worth more than keys....
Looks towards the sky "Dear Lord let this threa die already."
I think the main reason this thread hasent died yet is it's 22 pages long and since the servers are down (or at least they were when I first started reading this thread ), it's something to do to pass the time.
I think the fundamental problem here is an understanding of what gambling is and is not. Good luck trying to find a concrete definition of this in either law or dictionaries.
I have worked off and on both for and with the Gaming Control Board here in Nevada and I can tell you what most people in charge consider to be and not to be gambling.
If you are wagering something of material worth to you, on a random outcome, with the chance being to receive something of more material worth to you OR a chance of receiving nothing at all,then this would generally be considered gambling.
You will not find that definition codified in almost any law anywhere, certainly not in Nevada law, and not in federal law either. Why this is, I will leave up to legal PhD's with years of legal wrangling and debate under their belt. I was told once by one person that it is generally considered to be an axiom of any understanding of gambling. <Shrug>
It used to be that it was an axiom <I still believe it is> that hot coffee is...well...hot. And you shouldn't do stupid things with it. However we now have warnings on McD's coffee TELLING people the contents are hot. Go figure. But the nature of that warning is NOT in the fact that some people are so stupid that there is a moral responsibility to let them know it's hot, therefore they shouldn't do stupid, risky things with a cup of hot liquid like, for instance, put it between their legs while driving and automatically assume there couldn't possibly be any bad results of this, but that the company needs to legally do what it can to protect itself from people who are actually that stupid, but are somehow intelligent enough to know they should get a lawyer and sue them since the company has plenty of money and they deserve some of it, and that some court might ACTUALLY find in favor of these people. Again...Go figure.
Now lest someone see this as an example of why Cryptic/PWE SHOULD post some kind of warning about "gambling" or "some gambling elements" in the game, even though this is generally not supported as a definition of gambling, let me ask you, what is the legal age required in your area for participation in any/all forms of gambling, if it's not forbidden outright?
If they open the door just a crack to admission that this MIGHT, by SOME people, be considered a form of gambling, that door will IMMEDIATELY be kicked WIDE open by every Tom, ****, and Harry who's going to use it as an excuse to immediately start trying to bring legal action against every game with this kind of content, plus any company that uses any kind of similar marketing tactic, to try and forbid them from doing anything like this at all, or require that only people above the age of adulthood are allowed to participate in this game, buy this product, etc...etc.....
Think it wont happen? Go back and review our whole legal brouhaha over violence and sexuality in video games and see how LONG it took for that to finally be considered resolved by most everyone. It eventually took the Florida bar association disbarring Jack Thompson for most people to realize that the whole thing was a waste of legal resources in trying to force game companies and the ESRB to subscribe to a federal mandate about their content.
It will never happen, only a selective minority wants to open that pandora's box of issues about what is and isn't "Legally" considered "gambling" and cause the courts to have to decide for the myriad promotions both in games and out.
I meant that YOU(the reader) do not personally have to gamble to get it. What other people do with their money is, quite frankly, absolutely none of your business. But the fact is that if you do not want to gamble, you can buy the ship directly off the exchange for a set price. If that isnt good enough for you, nothing ever will be.
You are missing the point - the fact that ship in question was put on exchange means that someone had to gamble, there is no ther way to get that ship. Again, its not the matter if I want/wish to gamble, or if I prefer to spend a fixed amount of ec. So to get any lockbox ship, gambling element is required somewhere along the line.
But wait! Doesnt #2 cost you money? Nope. In case you forgot, you can trade dilithium for zen. I have well over 100 dollars of zen that I didnt spend a dime on. So you can actually get the zen to buy the keys to open the boxes without spending 1 red cent.
Its the same thing as with lockboxes; the fact that YOU do not have to spend $ to get zen does not mean that zen do not cost $. Zen on the dil exchange are ther ONLY because someone paid $ for them and decided to sell them for dil afterwards, so saying that zen do not cost $ is not true. Only thing you do to get them for free is grind dil, in essence exchanging your playtime for someone else's $.
However, since those 2 things (dil-zen exchange and lockboxes) keep the game running in current F2P model, there is more to it - although my personal opinion based on opening over 100 lockboxes is that lockboxes are a complete waste of ec/zen etc., publishing reward tables would do no good - showing people the actual projected return for their spendings would only hurt key sales, thus forcing Cryptic to make said F2P LESS friendly to average player. If you don't know what I mean by that, try to play "F2P" SWTOR.
Actually, when you think of it, the trading part of current STO F2P model (meaning that stuff bought or otherwise acquired through spending of $) is it's biggest advantage. It means that every player, paying or not, has a real chance to get basically eveything the game has to offer. Sure, it involves lots of grind, but its still better than separating players into paying and f2p-limited populations.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Comments
That's not a good standard, actually, because it means that any randomly packaged product (like Magic cards, collectible minis, etc) where individual items have variable desirability can be considered "gambling". A much, much better standard is simply to ask if the minimum guaranteed return from a single purchase could reasonably be considered "worth it". It's really not about how much the desire for a grand prize ship encourages people to buy more keys, it's about making sure that even if you don't "win", you still get your money's worth, at least in the abstract "someone might pay $1.25 for that" sense.
The problem comes when people decide that they ONLY want the ship, but then buy keys to open boxes anyway. If the rest of the box contents are worth it to you, DON'T OPEN THEM. Instead, just sell the keys and buy what you want.
1) buy them off the exchange for EC. I mentioned this earlier in this thread.
2) open enough lock boxes until you get them.
But wait! Doesnt #2 cost you money? Nope. In case you forgot, you can trade dilithium for zen. I have well over 100 dollars of zen that I didnt spend a dime on. So you can actually get the zen to buy the keys to open the boxes without spending 1 red cent.
I've played a lot of MMOs, and that is by far the best F2P system out there. You can get every single item from the game store without spending a penny of your own money. Anybody who has a problem with that system simply cannot be pleased.
On the contrary, they are very much like lottery tickets, where the value of the grand prize greatly outweighs the average return.
As opposed to cereal boxes, where the grand prize may be even less valuable than the cereal.
And part of my stance for the last 15 pages was and still is....
Once an addiction has been formed using in game means to open boxes, and the addiction demands you open more boxes than you can convert Dil and grind EC for.... then you start to spend real money to open boxes.
So, actually it does cost money - sooner or later, an addiction kicks in and you start to lose real money.
[Edit = I thought this topic was dead...... for the love of all that is holy, stop flogging this horse, it died pages ago - do the decent thing, bury it and move on! :P )
On the contrary, they are nothing like lottery tickets at all, given that lottery tickets have no minimum guaranteed returns. Lottery tickets are gambling because there is a real risk of loss. With lockboxes, there is no risk of loss, because you always get a product that was worth what you paid for it, even if you wanted the grand prize more.
Now, you will scoff and argue that the minimum prize from a lock box is clearly and obviously not worth $1.25. I disagree, I find them to be generally worth it, so they are a good buy for me. If you, personally, don't see the value, then don't buy them. It's not gambling, because you can look at the prize table and make a judgement about the minimum prize available versus the price.
Why would you be against messages that warn that lockboxes are a form of gambling? How would these messages hinder your ability to continue to make purchases?
Why would you be against some form of parental control to help parents control their children's spending habits? It may be impossible to enforce, but if at least Cryptic/Perfect World would be more open about it, some parents may benefit from it.
If you claim that you only open lockboxes for the lobi, does that mean you support exceedingly expensive per-character ships or items? 200 lobi/4 lobi per box = 50 lockboxes for some of the single weapons or consoles or 800 lobi/4 lobi per box = 200 lockboxes for the most expensive ships.
Why would you be against information on the odds of winning a certain item? Don't you want to make a more informed decision on what exactly you're purchasing? Why would you be against some sort of regulation on lockboxes and similar things in other games? It may force Cryptic/Perfect World and other companies to give up these chance based purchases and you may have to spend less money to get more things.
Just because everything in the game can be obtained without you spending a single cent doesn't mean that Cryptic/Perfect World didn't receive that money from someone else. Exchanging refined dilithium for zen just means that someone else has spent money to purchase that zen. Purchasing master keys or lockbox items from the exchange just means that someone else has purchased master keys for money or that someone else had purchased master keys to open lockboxes.
But that's, indirectly, precisely what I said.
It's about determining how much innate value the box has without any gambling toy (which includes the chance to win often expensive Space Traits). So, the only guaranteed thing inside a lockbox is currently the 4 Lobi, and what, a white doff mini pack?
Its pretty simple. Honestly, I dont "like" the lockboxes, but I do like the fact that they fund this game. Seriously, I get to play every single mission in this game for free. And if there is anything I want in the game store, I can get it without spending any of my money by simply trading dilithium for zen. So while lock boxes arent my cup of tea, they support the best F2P model of any MMO on the market.
There is no limit to how may boxes/keys you can get, because you can trade an infinite amount of dilithium for an infinite amount of zen. Even with the 8k daily refining cap, that is only per character, not per account. With multiple characters you can refine every single ounce of dilithium you can earn in a 24 hour period, and trade all of it for zen. So no, there is no requirement to ever spend a cent of your own money if you do not want to. If you do want to, that is fine. But wanting to and needing to are not the same thing.
Also, by that logic Dabo and, well, every other digital "gambling" (such as the slot machines in Pok
My character Tsin'xing
Sure, so, 1/2 to 1/3rd of the minimum value of a Doff pack, for a product that costs... about 1/2 a doff pack. Sounds fair to me? It's not a great deal, certainly, but it's not like it's a crazy valuation.
I mean, if your contention is that people are buying the keys and opening boxes because they are chasing the rare prizes, I would agree with that. I just don't think that's really "gambling" any more than, say, buying a bunch of collectable card packs hoping for a cool "foil" card is "gambling". Just because you wanted a different product MORE doesn't mean that you have "lost" money by getting one that's merely worth what you paid for it.
As for the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the need to warn people about the dangers of gambling, addictive behavior, etc., I would say that addictive behavior is a danger with any behavior that gives pleasure. I don't see any real reason why we should be more morally outraged at PWE selling randomized lockboxes than we are with Wizards for selling random Magic boosters, etc. There's no "gambling" going on here, unless you, as a customer, decide that the ONLY thing you are happy with for your money is a high-end prize. If that is the case, then you should NOT open the random boxes, you should instead decide how much money you feel is "worth" what you actually want, buy that many keys, and seek to sell them on the exchange for enough EC to buy what you want. If you feel like the prices on the exchange are too high, then that means the market value of the item is higher than what you are willing to pay, and you will have to decide either to spend more money, wait for the price to come down, or simply do without.
Cryptic is not responsible for anyone's inability to think and purchase rationally. The business model they are using is, in fact, not unfair at all - if you feel the min. value of an opened box is worth $1.25, then you have no real complaint about not getting a ship, because you still got $1.25 worth of stuff. If you DON'T think the min. value of the box is worth $1.25, then don't open them, and find another way to get what you want. If what you want is more than what you are willing to pay for it, that's not unfair, that's just life.
(Was posted in anger under the influence of alcohol.)
Been seeing a lot of hand gun to full guns mostly the system type of issue when the borg goes down hard. The body armor so much of them. These food ones, I am passing them up. Though did find out you do need to accept some so you can complete your mission.
Time will only tell!
Your whole thesis is based on your personal view that the contents of a lockbox are worth $1.25 even without the chance of winning the grand prize.
To hold that view, you must necessarily believe that lockbox keys would continue to sell even if the ships were removed entirely. This is a view that hardly anyone in the game would endorse.
And I know plenty of people who opened Lockboxes to get the Lobi in order to finish their Anniversary Event project quicker by buying QMendations from the Lobi Store - and if they got anything good from the Lockboxes they just considered that a bonus.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
My character Tsin'xing
I think the main reason this thread hasent died yet is it's 22 pages long and since the servers are down (or at least they were when I first started reading this thread
I think the fundamental problem here is an understanding of what gambling is and is not. Good luck trying to find a concrete definition of this in either law or dictionaries.
I have worked off and on both for and with the Gaming Control Board here in Nevada and I can tell you what most people in charge consider to be and not to be gambling.
If you are wagering something of material worth to you, on a random outcome, with the chance being to receive something of more material worth to you OR a chance of receiving nothing at all,then this would generally be considered gambling.
You will not find that definition codified in almost any law anywhere, certainly not in Nevada law, and not in federal law either. Why this is, I will leave up to legal PhD's with years of legal wrangling and debate under their belt. I was told once by one person that it is generally considered to be an axiom of any understanding of gambling. <Shrug>
It used to be that it was an axiom <I still believe it is> that hot coffee is...well...hot. And you shouldn't do stupid things with it. However we now have warnings on McD's coffee TELLING people the contents are hot. Go figure. But the nature of that warning is NOT in the fact that some people are so stupid that there is a moral responsibility to let them know it's hot, therefore they shouldn't do stupid, risky things with a cup of hot liquid like, for instance, put it between their legs while driving and automatically assume there couldn't possibly be any bad results of this, but that the company needs to legally do what it can to protect itself from people who are actually that stupid, but are somehow intelligent enough to know they should get a lawyer and sue them since the company has plenty of money and they deserve some of it, and that some court might ACTUALLY find in favor of these people. Again...Go figure.
Now lest someone see this as an example of why Cryptic/PWE SHOULD post some kind of warning about "gambling" or "some gambling elements" in the game, even though this is generally not supported as a definition of gambling, let me ask you, what is the legal age required in your area for participation in any/all forms of gambling, if it's not forbidden outright?
If they open the door just a crack to admission that this MIGHT, by SOME people, be considered a form of gambling, that door will IMMEDIATELY be kicked WIDE open by every Tom, ****, and Harry who's going to use it as an excuse to immediately start trying to bring legal action against every game with this kind of content, plus any company that uses any kind of similar marketing tactic, to try and forbid them from doing anything like this at all, or require that only people above the age of adulthood are allowed to participate in this game, buy this product, etc...etc.....
Think it wont happen? Go back and review our whole legal brouhaha over violence and sexuality in video games and see how LONG it took for that to finally be considered resolved by most everyone. It eventually took the Florida bar association disbarring Jack Thompson for most people to realize that the whole thing was a waste of legal resources in trying to force game companies and the ESRB to subscribe to a federal mandate about their content.
It will never happen, only a selective minority wants to open that pandora's box of issues about what is and isn't "Legally" considered "gambling" and cause the courts to have to decide for the myriad promotions both in games and out.
You are missing the point - the fact that ship in question was put on exchange means that someone had to gamble, there is no ther way to get that ship. Again, its not the matter if I want/wish to gamble, or if I prefer to spend a fixed amount of ec. So to get any lockbox ship, gambling element is required somewhere along the line.
Its the same thing as with lockboxes; the fact that YOU do not have to spend $ to get zen does not mean that zen do not cost $. Zen on the dil exchange are ther ONLY because someone paid $ for them and decided to sell them for dil afterwards, so saying that zen do not cost $ is not true. Only thing you do to get them for free is grind dil, in essence exchanging your playtime for someone else's $.
However, since those 2 things (dil-zen exchange and lockboxes) keep the game running in current F2P model, there is more to it - although my personal opinion based on opening over 100 lockboxes is that lockboxes are a complete waste of ec/zen etc., publishing reward tables would do no good - showing people the actual projected return for their spendings would only hurt key sales, thus forcing Cryptic to make said F2P LESS friendly to average player. If you don't know what I mean by that, try to play "F2P" SWTOR.
Actually, when you think of it, the trading part of current STO F2P model (meaning that stuff bought or otherwise acquired through spending of $) is it's biggest advantage. It means that every player, paying or not, has a real chance to get basically eveything the game has to offer. Sure, it involves lots of grind, but its still better than separating players into paying and f2p-limited populations.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
I did see something that caught my eye.
Subscribers get a 10% discount in a store on *this* game
I think, if that was implemented into STO ... I would be a happy man.
And to add further, the subscriber, instead of paying "via" Zen to get the discounted purchase, pays real money for the item, with a discount.
Just thinking of ways of Keeping STO afloat for longer.
I hope STO get's better ...