Ok, the politics are starting to get a bit off track. In fact, let's steer the conversation more towards how Germany's decision could effect the game, and try to keep the conversation more focused on the game itself.
I am seriously curious what Cryptics/PWEs thoughts are on this as well. Sure, we could steer away from all the other EU countrys and US states besides Hawaii which have Lockboxes as topic right now. Blame EA; but when the laws start rolling companys like Cryptic will be collateral regardless of STO generous LB system. Sure, it might all breeze over and nothing needs to be changed which is probably the big wish and hope for many; but I fear that wish and hope is so blindly intense that they are in complete inaction towards a Plan B.) The game without the box. And that inaction is an even bigger threat to the games IMO.
I fail to see how the op's post is a flaming attempt this is an issue not just linked to this game but the entire industry right now as it's difficult to find a single mmorpg title without a lockbox system in which boxes are opened with real money for prizes.
> @othrandur said: > They're proposing changing what existing laws apply to. It may not be a change to the letter of the law, but it's an administrative change to the spirit of the law and to its effect. Not all changes to a legal system involve re-writing the text of the laws.
There are no proposals. It's an investigation based on new points of view. Nobody proposed or advocated this change at least to my knowledge. There is no group pushing it, the existing law requires reevaluation.
Regarding the whole government paranoia, if PWE pulls out the government even loses the regular taxes they pay. I personally think video games as revenue through gambling is not on the federal gov's radar in Germany. Maybe non-Germans don't know it, but Germany is arch conservative in it's government spirit, I almost gurantee nobody tries to please a lobby in video gaming. I'd be surprised anyone even thinks about that.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
A road safety agency is tasked with, among other things, making sure that roads and bridges and suchlike are structurally sound. Now a study found that the kind of concrete used in building some bridges is way more susceptible to hairline cracks than previously thought. Now structural engineers will go and have an out of schedule check whether they can still be safely used. And they may find that some cannot, while others are still safe despite being constructed in the very same way, because while in theory they have the same problem, in practice there is way less traffic, especially way less heavy trucks, using them. No new laws, no new way of applicating existing laws.
As for the agencies having an agenda themselves, this is less likely in Europe. I think this boils down to the US being for all intents and purposes a two party system. So when one party has the majority they can appoint their guys into key positions. In Europe this is usually not the case. In Germany, we have right now depending on how you want to count them 6 or 7 parties in parliament, some more if you include regional parliaments, Germany has sent members from 13 different parties to the European parliament. It is uncommon for one party to have an absolute majority, so coalitions have to be built, and we have all kinds of them, usually color coded. Black-Red, Green-Black, Red-Red-Green, Red-Green-Yellow-Purple-Orange. But this means that usually appointees do not own their loyalty to a party but are chosen due to qualities different parties can agree on. Don't get me wrong, we do have loads of case of "jobs for the boys", too, but as a rule of thumb, the German civil servant with his famous rule of three "We've always done it like this, we've never done it like that, what if everybody did this" will not adhere to political opinions of any party or interest group lobbying politicians of parties as much as you may know it.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
I don't see how the game could not survive without any lootboxes. Look at it from this side: STO already has an established Store to buy stuff directly from it. Everything that is exclusive to lootboxes tied to masterkeys and extremely rare R&D packs due to some events is defacto gambling, no matter how you look at it. You roll the dice in hopes you get what you want, you get psychologically pummeled into making a purchase due to odds that are stacked against you, that and that alone is the definition of gambling where i come from. If you can't "buy" your access and still roll the dice, it's simply called grinding and not gambling. The finer point that is to be made here and the reason i believe some regulations are necessary is the fact that certain mechanics, in this case lootboxes are designed to hook people into the same mentality as games of one armed bandids/roulette/poker/blackjack etc.
Now STO def. has one of the better options out there; you can earn everything with EC/DIL which you can generate without limits within the game and without spending a single cent. However, it still tries pummeling you into just buying stuff you want which is the whole point, a "grey area" really which works for F2P games specifcally. Especially for those games with systems deemed fair (which i do belive can be applied to sto - endurance is all you need). Now the reason this is problematic is this: these systems have gotten thier hooks into Full Priced 60$ games on top of season passes, microtransactions, dlcs and so on. The problem is simply bigger than one single game on the F2P market.
To stay on the topic of discussing STO in particular: The few "whales" that do buy keys with zen and open hundreds of boxes are not the ones this is supposed to protect, nor do i believe are those few people solely responsible for sustaining sto's ability to stay online and being supported with new content on a semi regular basis. If lootboxes would disappear, the zen store would not and if cryptic can't find a way to make a store like this profitable WITHOUT random lootbox or gambling mechanics (again, this is bigger than just sto's boxes which are in my opinion somewhere in the "grey") then i do not believe cryptic should be making business at all. If it can't sustain itself the same way as many many other free to play games i believe it would be time to change thier business model a bit more radical than the people in charge would like. Look no further than Warframe for instance, uptdates all the time, new content and the only thing that game effectively sells are cosmetics. Everything else is optainable by grinding/trading. And i bet that it makes more than enough money to pay a premium plus sustaining the game with new additions every few months.
in short: if a business has to rely on gambling it should go all in for that department, or radically change thier way of making business if it cannot sustain itself on the same basis as many others have proven profitable and most importantly, reliable. Claiming poverty and saying "it's too expensive to sustain otherwise" has always been nothing more but a blatant lie, proven time and time again to be an argument made to "appease" the yesmen and give those people a handle for discussion. A simple argument that was never followed up by actual numbers, if anything - the opposite has been the case every single time.
How often are new things added to the C-Store and how well do they sell?
Only cryptic can answer that, although if they do rely on lootboxes, then i think there is something wrong with the way they make business, from a purely profit oriented perspective if you cannot sustain on all the pillars of your business, you're doing bad business.
You don't need to "roll the dice" to get almost any contents from a lockbox. With the exception of Lobi, you can buy any bonus prizes from a lockbox on the exchange. No gambling required.
That's why i said that systems implemented like in sto hit a somewhat "grey" area. Yeah, the "let's hook ya up to a gambling addiction" aspect is still there, but again you can earn anything ingame. And you also CAN earn lobi ingame by buying Keys with EC and opening boxes and telling yourself "3 lobi per key" then calculate what you need. Also STO is an F2P title so it is somewhat justified - although not very popular, there are better options (Z-store).
The whole point of getting the goverment involved is to get those F2P tactics out of the P2P scene - or "freemium" scene to be more precise. 60$ shouldn't be an entry fee to a casino where making money has a greater focus than making a fun game, which is the sad state of current "AAA" titles. Again, non of it is specifically harping on STO or the F2P model in it's entirety, do what you want as long as it makes you money, these things are in thier current form "alright" because you don't pay for the game, you don't have a monthly fee and you even get thier dlc/expansions for free. that is a damn good deal and when you have fun with it why not drop a few bucks, fully support that.
And hell, even if they go so far and actually BAN them, making sure only things on a store that gives you direct access to what you want would be allowed, that might actually get more people to pay using thier zen store. When all the good stuff is there, all the interesting and fun stuff is there and always accessible even years later who is to say they can't raise thier prices on ships or other popular commodeties while getting more people to invest in either thier gametime or purchases via the store. As long as you make things accessible when it comes to your "premium" elements of a game, you have a much greater chance for people actually budging and giving ya a few bucks for something they might like instead of being dependant on the "lucky few" who then control the market for said items just because "rng".
Sorry, went a bit on too long there and probably, mostly beside the topic.
What do people actuallt expect when the lockboxes are removed?
Do they think the game will have surive on subscription?
Sto could get an agree button::
Do you agree to our lockbox system? if no -> game does not install
or if no -> you get no access annywhere in the game to lockbox or R&D box drop items, ships or otherwise. Or be able to posses any lobi item/ship. You could not even be able to buy any of these lb linked items from exchange.
Only those who agree are able to play the game or have acces to lb & R&D drop items.
What model do you except when lockboxes are removed from the game? They will not put the lb ships in the zen store, if that would sustain the game they would allready do it.
E(alry)A(acces) battlefront boxes are not like the lockboxes in STO.
"Reports of our depression are vastly exaggerated." "Anyaway, we don't often see a sense of humor in Section 31."
Should it be seen as gambling, their number one response would be to allow lockbox keys to drop in-game and adjust the prize odds and show how since the box and key drops in-game, there is no gambling because it can be obtained without the optional choice of purchasing it - that would easily satisfy any potential gambling law.
What model do you except when lockboxes are removed from the game? They will not put the lb ships in the zen store, if that would sustain the game they would allready do it.
Cryptic/CBS want to make money, more than can be made to just "sustain" a game. They are not our friends nor do they want to be, they want to make money ANY way possible. Without having access to thier finance data, i can make a pretty positive guess that yes, the zen store alone makes enough to sustain the game + a good profit margin on top of it. The definition of "good" differes from someone who works for the company to someone in a leading position of that company to an investor. Also keep in mind, if lockboxes gotta go - they can utilize the store to it's fullest potential, just check games like warframe that i mentioned earlier, and i'm pretty sure STO has a much bigger playerbase.
Sto could get an agree button::
Do you agree to our lockbox system? if no -> game does not install
or if no -> you get no access annywhere in the game to lockbox or R&D box drop items, ships or otherwise. Or be able to posses any lobi item/ship. You could not even be able to buy any of these lb linked items from exchange.
In case you're serious here: this won't resolve the issue at hand, a simple "I agree" will not satisfy European laws for a couple of reasons.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Yeah, and we all know if no real money is used it was not gambling
That's some pog collection (going to put those in a binder, right?)
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What model do you except when lockboxes are removed from the game? They will not put the lb ships in the zen store, if that would sustain the game they would allready do it.
Cryptic/CBS want to make money, more than can be made to just "sustain" a game. They are not our friends nor do they want to be, they want to make money ANY way possible. Without having access to thier finance data, i can make a pretty positive guess that yes, the zen store alone makes enough to sustain the game + a good profit margin on top of it. The definition of "good" differes from someone who works for the company to someone in a leading position of that company to an investor. Also keep in mind, if lockboxes gotta go - they can utilize the store to it's fullest potential, just check games like warframe that i mentioned earlier, and i'm pretty sure STO has a much bigger playerbase.
Sto wnet to Cryptic, fans alone didnt bring in enough. And seeing just last 2 months where Battle of Immortals and the other imortals went under, and the announcement that gigantic had it lat paatch and will close down this year also.
Players swap free games easier then spedning enough to keep the game alive.
I hate lockbboxes in any form in any game, but in sto some are able to keep the game alive, then people who bought everything from zenshop and have nothing to buy again.
edit: full working zenshop is like 1 ship for 300 euro, yeah great idea. Offcourse any game company needs to make profit, just like annyone selling items in auction. Dto isnt chairty, but alot of Star Trek fans enjoy the game, and none star trek fans also.
Sto could get an agree button::
Do you agree to our lockbox system? if no -> game does not install
or if no -> you get no access annywhere in the game to lockbox or R&D box drop items, ships or otherwise. Or be able to posses any lobi item/ship. You could not even be able to buy any of these lb linked items from exchange.
In case you're serious here: this won't resolve the issue at hand, a simple "I agree" will not satisfy European laws for a couple of reasons.
No just an agree button like i stated will not work, however 1 agree button agreeing to the law of anny country is possible. I see people shooting down the current model down cause they havent got their priced ship, instead of argueing what would work instead.
Old games with history dont sustain on item shops or subscribers. Gamers arent loyal, or in love in agme to sustain it. EU has its own splitting problems atm, and theres alot of shouting to become populair in polls. Laws arent made overnight, but Arc allready can develop a counter to keep its game f2p or in worst case kill it.
Some of my frriends are f2p and are able to play cause some people invest in lb.
"Reports of our depression are vastly exaggerated." "Anyaway, we don't often see a sense of humor in Section 31."
however 1 agree button agreeing to the law of anny country is possible.
Which would, at least here, have the same problem we are facing already. Cryptic would have to make sure that the person "agreeing" to gambling is fit to do so, i. e. 18+ years old.
I see people shooting down the current model down cause they havent got their priced ship, instead of argueing what would work instead.
Nobody is shooting down anything because they haven't got their priced ship, because nobody has the power to do so. Some ideas have been mentioned what could be done to satisfy the problems, their viability is the big question.
Old games with history dont sustain on item shops or subscribers. Gamers arent loyal, or in love in agme to sustain it. EU has its own splitting problems atm, and theres alot of shouting to become populair in polls. Laws arent made overnight, but Arc allready can develop a counter to keep its game f2p or in worst case kill it.
This has nothing to do with Brexit or EU splitting altogether, or anybody becoming popular in polls. It may not have been mentioned so far in this thread, but the (possible) problem lies within a government-independent agency applying already existing laws in the light of possible new evidence. Laws aren't only made overnight, they're not made here at all.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
I figure that if Cryptic could only operate the game without lockboxes at all in Germany, they might be better off abandoning it, before they find a business model that still works.
But that might not be the consequences of the German authorities decision.
There is a variety of things that could happen:
- Mandating Age Checks in some form
- Mandating explicit gambling warnings on every website advertising the product and in the launcher
- Different type of Advertisement (not to children and teenagers)
- The authorities might not actually be able to influence Cryptic at all, since they might not have the necessary legal reach.
- Maybe underage player's parents could sue for all their money back, and Cryptic being forced by law and international treaties to actually do that. (Which would of course also close the affected account for good.)
- Maybe the just need to take down all German boards and news, since the English or French boards wouldn't count as potentially advertising towards (German) children.
- Any bans or restrictions might be targeted more specifically - for example, they might decide that smartphone games need to follow different age guidelines than they do now. (Android, Apple and Microsoft App Stores are part of an international alliance in regards to handling age ratings. You answer a checklist, and you automatically get an age rating. The checklist might add an entry "has lockboxes or similar random reward scheme that require spending money for a chance to get a reward" checkbox and if you click it, instead of your game being rated Age 3+, it becomes Age 18+. This might already cover the biggest concerns for the Landesmedienanstalt, and other games wouldn't be affected (initially).
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
You don't need to "roll the dice" to get almost any contents from a lockbox. With the exception of Lobi, you can buy any bonus prizes from a lockbox on the exchange. No gambling required.
Another fallacy, nothing in lock boxes is put on the exchange by PWE. It is put on by other "players" who need to open up boxes and the result of that is... it's all RANDOM. Even if you ONLY buy from exchange with EC. Someone had to gamble with the boxes to get the content to put up for sale.
Lockboxes really aren't any different than packs of playing cards
Total and absolute BS. Physical items vs digital items. I can sell for real money or trade for other valuables with a trading card of value... over time can even trade it in for a car or something else of like value.
If I get tired of it I can resell it... so I get that super rare T6 ship.... After a few months of use, can I resell it? Trade it to someone else?
If they allowed folks to resell/trade used ships... lockboxes would be worthless and no longer a money sink for folks to gamble with.
LB is gambling. Anything that is based on RNG, odds is gambling. LB is pure evil because there is no guarantee of winning the top prize if you are super unlucky. Each box has the same odds regardless if it is your 1st box, or your 1 millionth box. Pure evil to me since this is a game, and the prizes has no intrinsic real world value... you can not sell the ship for real world money (without a ban coming your way). If each box you opened raised your odds and after a fixed number of boxes you are SURE to get the ship then it would be more fair in a game. If this was a game were RWM is used and can cash out, then it's no different than playing a game of chance at Vegas then that's fine and all. But it't not, it's a game for pure entertainment value with no way to "cash out" for real money, and all prizes has no value, cost is nothing since it is all digital with infinite supply.
This is just as wrong. After a few months of use, your card is not going to be mint, it will have depreciated considerably, and you'll be lucky to get very much for it. If you get that rare card, you either sell it without use, or put in a safe spot hoping that it appreciates in value, all without using it. Same thing for a ship.
Literally everything that you said about lockboxes also applies to any collectible cards. You can even trade them for real world cash, though it is not permitted in the terms of service. It's harder to do, and runs the risk of getting your account closed if you are caught, which makes the analogy slightly imperfect, but it is still extremely close.
If the authorities in Germany (or Hawaii, or wherever else) decide to go with this suggestion and apply the existing laws to lootboxes in games, then you can expect lawsuits to include trading cards in the same law because they use the same business model and are essentially the same thing.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
Once again, you're incorrectly assuming everyone opens a box to gamble for a top tier prize. That isn't true. There are players opening them to collect Lobi. They aren't "gambling for the top tier prize".
While I agree that "buying gambled prices somebody else won" isn't the same as gambling, I doubt that players opening boxes for the lobi are that many in volume - but I admittedly don't know. And in any case, boxes aren't advertised for the lobi, but for the random winnings. A better approach may be players who "ride out the luck by volume", opening enough boxes so they can be pretty guaranteed a nice profit even with bad luck and supplying the good stuff to other players.
If the authorities in Germany (or Hawaii, or wherever else) decide to go with this suggestion and apply the existing laws to lootboxes in games, then you can expect lawsuits to include trading cards in the same law because they use the same business model and are essentially the same thing.
Except the results may differ. If it is found that way more people gat "addicted" by online gambling than by offline gambling as in Trading Cards, then they may be treated differently, no matter the same mechanism. Again, I don't know. I know many people who spent a lot of cash on MtG. But "same mechanics equals same legal situation" isn't necessarily the case.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Full odds being disclosed a question of when not if. Bigger Q is if this will push games with these features into being AO only rating.
^^ Good stuff in there.
And I'm glad frowning upon loot boxes is not just something one single Hamburg university is doing, because the broader the anti loot box sentiment becomes, the less likely companies like PWE can just pull out of a single country, say, Germany, and call it the day. This way, they're pretty much forced to simply adapt, worldwide. How they can do so, without harming our game, is another matter, of course.
- Any bans or restrictions might be targeted more specifically - for example, they might decide that smartphone games need to follow different age guidelines than they do now. (Android, Apple and Microsoft App Stores are part of an international alliance in regards to handling age ratings. You answer a checklist, and you automatically get an age rating. The checklist might add an entry "has lockboxes or similar random reward scheme that require spending money for a chance to get a reward" checkbox and if you click it, instead of your game being rated Age 3+, it becomes Age 18+. This might already cover the biggest concerns for the Landesmedienanstalt, and other games wouldn't be affected (initially).
Thing is, mobile games usually don't require spending money to use item summon, because almost all of them give some quantity of premium currency through gameplay. Some of them also include daily free rolls or have free rolls as gameplay rewards.
Then again, you can get premium currency without paying in STO, too, through Arc Quests or the dilithium exchange. As well as buy keys on the exchange without real money.
Should it be seen as gambling, their number one response would be to allow lockbox keys to drop in-game and adjust the prize odds and show how since the box and key drops in-game, there is no gambling because it can be obtained without the optional choice of purchasing it - that would easily satisfy any potential gambling law.
I don't believe making keys drop would solve anything.
It would actually take some of the heat off the gambling argument. The keys would be directly available via a non purchase method by doing in game content where as right now someone has to pay a cash store for keys.
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I am seriously curious what Cryptics/PWEs thoughts are on this as well. Sure, we could steer away from all the other EU countrys and US states besides Hawaii which have Lockboxes as topic right now. Blame EA; but when the laws start rolling companys like Cryptic will be collateral regardless of STO generous LB system. Sure, it might all breeze over and nothing needs to be changed which is probably the big wish and hope for many; but I fear that wish and hope is so blindly intense that they are in complete inaction towards a Plan B.) The game without the box. And that inaction is an even bigger threat to the games IMO.
> They're proposing changing what existing laws apply to. It may not be a change to the letter of the law, but it's an administrative change to the spirit of the law and to its effect. Not all changes to a legal system involve re-writing the text of the laws.
There are no proposals. It's an investigation based on new points of view. Nobody proposed or advocated this change at least to my knowledge. There is no group pushing it, the existing law requires reevaluation.
Regarding the whole government paranoia, if PWE pulls out the government even loses the regular taxes they pay. I personally think video games as revenue through gambling is not on the federal gov's radar in Germany. Maybe non-Germans don't know it, but Germany is arch conservative in it's government spirit, I almost gurantee nobody tries to please a lobby in video gaming. I'd be surprised anyone even thinks about that.
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A road safety agency is tasked with, among other things, making sure that roads and bridges and suchlike are structurally sound. Now a study found that the kind of concrete used in building some bridges is way more susceptible to hairline cracks than previously thought. Now structural engineers will go and have an out of schedule check whether they can still be safely used. And they may find that some cannot, while others are still safe despite being constructed in the very same way, because while in theory they have the same problem, in practice there is way less traffic, especially way less heavy trucks, using them. No new laws, no new way of applicating existing laws.
As for the agencies having an agenda themselves, this is less likely in Europe. I think this boils down to the US being for all intents and purposes a two party system. So when one party has the majority they can appoint their guys into key positions. In Europe this is usually not the case. In Germany, we have right now depending on how you want to count them 6 or 7 parties in parliament, some more if you include regional parliaments, Germany has sent members from 13 different parties to the European parliament. It is uncommon for one party to have an absolute majority, so coalitions have to be built, and we have all kinds of them, usually color coded. Black-Red, Green-Black, Red-Red-Green, Red-Green-Yellow-Purple-Orange. But this means that usually appointees do not own their loyalty to a party but are chosen due to qualities different parties can agree on. Don't get me wrong, we do have loads of case of "jobs for the boys", too, but as a rule of thumb, the German civil servant with his famous rule of three "We've always done it like this, we've never done it like that, what if everybody did this" will not adhere to political opinions of any party or interest group lobbying politicians of parties as much as you may know it.
Now STO def. has one of the better options out there; you can earn everything with EC/DIL which you can generate without limits within the game and without spending a single cent. However, it still tries pummeling you into just buying stuff you want which is the whole point, a "grey area" really which works for F2P games specifcally. Especially for those games with systems deemed fair (which i do belive can be applied to sto - endurance is all you need). Now the reason this is problematic is this: these systems have gotten thier hooks into Full Priced 60$ games on top of season passes, microtransactions, dlcs and so on. The problem is simply bigger than one single game on the F2P market.
To stay on the topic of discussing STO in particular: The few "whales" that do buy keys with zen and open hundreds of boxes are not the ones this is supposed to protect, nor do i believe are those few people solely responsible for sustaining sto's ability to stay online and being supported with new content on a semi regular basis. If lootboxes would disappear, the zen store would not and if cryptic can't find a way to make a store like this profitable WITHOUT random lootbox or gambling mechanics (again, this is bigger than just sto's boxes which are in my opinion somewhere in the "grey") then i do not believe cryptic should be making business at all. If it can't sustain itself the same way as many many other free to play games i believe it would be time to change thier business model a bit more radical than the people in charge would like. Look no further than Warframe for instance, uptdates all the time, new content and the only thing that game effectively sells are cosmetics. Everything else is optainable by grinding/trading. And i bet that it makes more than enough money to pay a premium plus sustaining the game with new additions every few months.
in short: if a business has to rely on gambling it should go all in for that department, or radically change thier way of making business if it cannot sustain itself on the same basis as many others have proven profitable and most importantly, reliable. Claiming poverty and saying "it's too expensive to sustain otherwise" has always been nothing more but a blatant lie, proven time and time again to be an argument made to "appease" the yesmen and give those people a handle for discussion. A simple argument that was never followed up by actual numbers, if anything - the opposite has been the case every single time.
Only cryptic can answer that, although if they do rely on lootboxes, then i think there is something wrong with the way they make business, from a purely profit oriented perspective if you cannot sustain on all the pillars of your business, you're doing bad business.
That's why i said that systems implemented like in sto hit a somewhat "grey" area. Yeah, the "let's hook ya up to a gambling addiction" aspect is still there, but again you can earn anything ingame. And you also CAN earn lobi ingame by buying Keys with EC and opening boxes and telling yourself "3 lobi per key" then calculate what you need. Also STO is an F2P title so it is somewhat justified - although not very popular, there are better options (Z-store).
The whole point of getting the goverment involved is to get those F2P tactics out of the P2P scene - or "freemium" scene to be more precise. 60$ shouldn't be an entry fee to a casino where making money has a greater focus than making a fun game, which is the sad state of current "AAA" titles. Again, non of it is specifically harping on STO or the F2P model in it's entirety, do what you want as long as it makes you money, these things are in thier current form "alright" because you don't pay for the game, you don't have a monthly fee and you even get thier dlc/expansions for free. that is a damn good deal and when you have fun with it why not drop a few bucks, fully support that.
And hell, even if they go so far and actually BAN them, making sure only things on a store that gives you direct access to what you want would be allowed, that might actually get more people to pay using thier zen store. When all the good stuff is there, all the interesting and fun stuff is there and always accessible even years later who is to say they can't raise thier prices on ships or other popular commodeties while getting more people to invest in either thier gametime or purchases via the store. As long as you make things accessible when it comes to your "premium" elements of a game, you have a much greater chance for people actually budging and giving ya a few bucks for something they might like instead of being dependant on the "lucky few" who then control the market for said items just because "rng".
Sorry, went a bit on too long there and probably, mostly beside the topic.
Do they think the game will have surive on subscription?
Sto could get an agree button::
Do you agree to our lockbox system? if no -> game does not install
or if no -> you get no access annywhere in the game to lockbox or R&D box drop items, ships or otherwise. Or be able to posses any lobi item/ship. You could not even be able to buy any of these lb linked items from exchange.
Only those who agree are able to play the game or have acces to lb & R&D drop items.
What model do you except when lockboxes are removed from the game? They will not put the lb ships in the zen store, if that would sustain the game they would allready do it.
E(alry)A(acces) battlefront boxes are not like the lockboxes in STO.
"Anyaway, we don't often see a sense of humor in Section 31."
Cryptic/CBS want to make money, more than can be made to just "sustain" a game. They are not our friends nor do they want to be, they want to make money ANY way possible. Without having access to thier finance data, i can make a pretty positive guess that yes, the zen store alone makes enough to sustain the game + a good profit margin on top of it. The definition of "good" differes from someone who works for the company to someone in a leading position of that company to an investor. Also keep in mind, if lockboxes gotta go - they can utilize the store to it's fullest potential, just check games like warframe that i mentioned earlier, and i'm pretty sure STO has a much bigger playerbase.
In case you're serious here: this won't resolve the issue at hand, a simple "I agree" will not satisfy European laws for a couple of reasons.
That's some pog collection (going to put those in a binder, right?)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Sto wnet to Cryptic, fans alone didnt bring in enough. And seeing just last 2 months where Battle of Immortals and the other imortals went under, and the announcement that gigantic had it lat paatch and will close down this year also.
Players swap free games easier then spedning enough to keep the game alive.
I hate lockbboxes in any form in any game, but in sto some are able to keep the game alive, then people who bought everything from zenshop and have nothing to buy again.
edit: full working zenshop is like 1 ship for 300 euro, yeah great idea. Offcourse any game company needs to make profit, just like annyone selling items in auction. Dto isnt chairty, but alot of Star Trek fans enjoy the game, and none star trek fans also.
No just an agree button like i stated will not work, however 1 agree button agreeing to the law of anny country is possible. I see people shooting down the current model down cause they havent got their priced ship, instead of argueing what would work instead.
Old games with history dont sustain on item shops or subscribers. Gamers arent loyal, or in love in agme to sustain it. EU has its own splitting problems atm, and theres alot of shouting to become populair in polls. Laws arent made overnight, but Arc allready can develop a counter to keep its game f2p or in worst case kill it.
Some of my frriends are f2p and are able to play cause some people invest in lb.
"Anyaway, we don't often see a sense of humor in Section 31."
Which would, at least here, have the same problem we are facing already. Cryptic would have to make sure that the person "agreeing" to gambling is fit to do so, i. e. 18+ years old.
Nobody is shooting down anything because they haven't got their priced ship, because nobody has the power to do so. Some ideas have been mentioned what could be done to satisfy the problems, their viability is the big question.
This has nothing to do with Brexit or EU splitting altogether, or anybody becoming popular in polls. It may not have been mentioned so far in this thread, but the (possible) problem lies within a government-independent agency applying already existing laws in the light of possible new evidence. Laws aren't only made overnight, they're not made here at all.
But that might not be the consequences of the German authorities decision.
There is a variety of things that could happen:
- Mandating Age Checks in some form
- Mandating explicit gambling warnings on every website advertising the product and in the launcher
- Different type of Advertisement (not to children and teenagers)
- The authorities might not actually be able to influence Cryptic at all, since they might not have the necessary legal reach.
- Maybe underage player's parents could sue for all their money back, and Cryptic being forced by law and international treaties to actually do that. (Which would of course also close the affected account for good.)
- Maybe the just need to take down all German boards and news, since the English or French boards wouldn't count as potentially advertising towards (German) children.
- Any bans or restrictions might be targeted more specifically - for example, they might decide that smartphone games need to follow different age guidelines than they do now. (Android, Apple and Microsoft App Stores are part of an international alliance in regards to handling age ratings. You answer a checklist, and you automatically get an age rating. The checklist might add an entry "has lockboxes or similar random reward scheme that require spending money for a chance to get a reward" checkbox and if you click it, instead of your game being rated Age 3+, it becomes Age 18+. This might already cover the biggest concerns for the Landesmedienanstalt, and other games wouldn't be affected (initially).
Another fallacy, nothing in lock boxes is put on the exchange by PWE. It is put on by other "players" who need to open up boxes and the result of that is... it's all RANDOM. Even if you ONLY buy from exchange with EC. Someone had to gamble with the boxes to get the content to put up for sale.
This is just as wrong. After a few months of use, your card is not going to be mint, it will have depreciated considerably, and you'll be lucky to get very much for it. If you get that rare card, you either sell it without use, or put in a safe spot hoping that it appreciates in value, all without using it. Same thing for a ship.
Literally everything that you said about lockboxes also applies to any collectible cards. You can even trade them for real world cash, though it is not permitted in the terms of service. It's harder to do, and runs the risk of getting your account closed if you are caught, which makes the analogy slightly imperfect, but it is still extremely close.
If the authorities in Germany (or Hawaii, or wherever else) decide to go with this suggestion and apply the existing laws to lootboxes in games, then you can expect lawsuits to include trading cards in the same law because they use the same business model and are essentially the same thing.
https://kotaku.com/u-s-senator-asks-esrb-to-re-examine-loot-boxes-1823049616
Full odds being disclosed a question of when not if. Bigger Q is if this will push games with these features into being AO only rating.
While I agree that "buying gambled prices somebody else won" isn't the same as gambling, I doubt that players opening boxes for the lobi are that many in volume - but I admittedly don't know. And in any case, boxes aren't advertised for the lobi, but for the random winnings. A better approach may be players who "ride out the luck by volume", opening enough boxes so they can be pretty guaranteed a nice profit even with bad luck and supplying the good stuff to other players.
Except the results may differ. If it is found that way more people gat "addicted" by online gambling than by offline gambling as in Trading Cards, then they may be treated differently, no matter the same mechanism. Again, I don't know. I know many people who spent a lot of cash on MtG. But "same mechanics equals same legal situation" isn't necessarily the case.
^^ Good stuff in there.
And I'm glad frowning upon loot boxes is not just something one single Hamburg university is doing, because the broader the anti loot box sentiment becomes, the less likely companies like PWE can just pull out of a single country, say, Germany, and call it the day. This way, they're pretty much forced to simply adapt, worldwide. How they can do so, without harming our game, is another matter, of course.
Then again, you can get premium currency without paying in STO, too, through Arc Quests or the dilithium exchange. As well as buy keys on the exchange without real money.
It would actually take some of the heat off the gambling argument. The keys would be directly available via a non purchase method by doing in game content where as right now someone has to pay a cash store for keys.
https://www.pcgamer.com/us-senator-calls-on-esrb-to-take-action-on-loot-boxes-suggests-ftc-could-get-involved/