Belgium says loot crates are gambling

I’m sorry, but the original Kinder Eggs are still banned in the US. We can’t get them. We can get Kinder Joy, but that’s because the product was changed, not because the laws were changed.

“has partially or completely imbedded therein any nonnutritive object, except that this subparagraph shall not apply in the case of any nonnutritive object if, in the judgment of the Secretary as provided by regulations, such object is of practical functional value to the confectionery product and would not render the product injurious or hazardous to health;”

So, I think the point still stands. Now, if he had said Kinder Joy, maybe he would have a leg to stand on, but he did say Kinder Egg. Anyway, Toys or anything that is fully encased in food is still banned.

Also, Kinder Joys suck. I want my Kinder Egg!

Yes, I said the product changed to accommodate the choking hazard ban. As for Joy versus Egg, got me there I guess. No one calls them Joy though. Everyone just says Egg because that’s the original product.

Regardless, comparing Kinder whatever to Loot Boxes is dumb.

I dunno, there isn’t like a secondary market for super rare and valuable Kinder toys or something, is there?

My main complaint with lootboxes that I can’t even determine the present value of the thing I’m purchasing.

I knew the reason we couldn’t have kinder eggs was lawyers. I told my wife, but she didn’t think it was possible.

I actually think the comparison to kinder eggs is apt. It’s the context that matters though. There’s only so many kinder eggs a parent is going to buy their kids, and each toy occupies kids for a while, whereas loot boxes are an easily replenished resource providing a benefit in a game ie. there’s always an immediate desire for more.

The people reading their stories about addiction is just soul crushing.

Agreed. Fantastic video, though.

The video would have been better without the rant against AAA. It’s not as if the video game industry created it. His character, I tolerate, but he’s got some fine points.

Valid point; they adopted and at times refined existing mechanisms.

Were lootboxes created by some A or AA game company I don’t know about?

We have armed students as well. (And sometimes people who are not or are no longer students who just wander into schools off the street and are heavily armed.)

While I obviously can’t speak for Nesrie, I took it to mean the general concepts of gambling and taking advantage of addicts; those have both been around since before 2K was a twinkle in somebody’s eye.

It’s only in gaming where the loot (sometimes) makes you more able at doing something/being competitive. I can’t think of anything else. (Okay, maybe beer makes it easier to loosen up a bit and socialize at a party. But I still think that’s not the same thing.)

Maybe I am confusing “lootboxes” with “pay-to-win”.

Anyway, it feels weird and offensive that it’s happening in games.

Oh, it absolutely is offensive. But all that marketing stuff Jim had in his videos? Not new, not specific to video games. Companies have been pulling stuff like that for ages. As for taking advantage of addicts, consider that it had to be made illegal to advertise cigarettes on tv and radio. Think about the huge issues with doctors getting paid to prescribe opioids. Look at the ridiculous, over the top ads we still have for alcohol.

I was never allowed to use “someone else is also behaving badly” as an excuse for my own behavior.

Um … yeah. Am I coming across as excusing them? I don’t think anyone here is. Rather, I’m damning even more industries.

I’m not excusing it either, but the way they show that guy on the stage and the general way he rants about even the concept of an AAA game… you’d think this industry created it, but they didn’t. They didn’t come up with the idea of taking advantage of addicts, and gaming did not create the idea of the AAA label either. Every time we wind up with addictive products like this, we usually have to do the same thing… regulate it with laws. And it seems to always occur after too much devastation to even get people to look at it seriously. It’s heartbreaking and wrong but the ideas are not new.

Apologies then. Yes, it did come across that way as I read it.

They guy spends the first few minutes talking about all sorts of different addictions, as well as his own personal history with addiction. Do you think doing this somehow just implicates AAA video game developers?