With upcoming pay-to-win & lootbox bill, will credits/resources/affinity boosters be outlawed?

[(PSN)CodyXSavageX]

11 hours ago, SonicSonedit said:

Warframe boosters do ease obtaining in-game rewards such as resources and especially traces. which allow you to farm more prime items via refined relics and sell them for plat for other players, as well as allowing to progress through game easier with affinity booster. They pretty much fall under pay-to-win mictoransaction of US bill now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYdq--Rpdu8t=285

So will they be removed / reworked? I personally don't engage in trading or any social activity except clan events, mostly play Warframe as singleplayer with coop game and not MMO, and therefore I find progress without booster awfully slow.

Sincerely, a concerned Tenno.

Boosters do not classify as your normal lootboxes they are made to do make manual grind easier there is no secret programming that makes it harder for you to get mods if you have a booster on and they aren’t exclusive or necessary to grind 

They fall under a category of incentives using a worst scenario, trying to farm bite which has a .01% drop chance that however is can be flagged and could very well be seen as a tactic to suggest to players to spend plat to get a booster with the loot stacking nerf this only makes my scenario worse and could very well be counted as a pay to win mechanic that could be flagged by this bill 

Boosters are the worse pay to win mechanic that can be seen in warframe but we should be fine as most things in this game aren’t terrible in our accessibility to items other than our current scenario so you probably don’t have to worry

Edited May 27, 2019 by (PS4)CodyXSavageX

[Sabreracer]

22 hours ago, Ced23Ric said:

If DE wants to sell in the US, they need to abide by US laws. And these laws won't stay in the US, they'll propagate and expand. And consumer protection isn't necessarily 'dumb', either. If you read the bill, it's quite clear that experts in the matter have looked at systems in existence and cast a wide enough net to prevent loopholes and put up a bulwark against skinner boxes and other abusive systems that are currently willy-nilly monetized, while gambling is highly regulated.

They could if they wished do like EA etc have done in countries that have already banned Loot Boxes and simply not allow them to be bought in those countries leaving the rest of the world to continue as before.

However knowing how DE prefer to be seen as the ethical MTX side of gaming things would probably change.

[Sabreracer]

22 hours ago, Ced23Ric said:

 

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Sabreracer
Doublepost

[Spectre-8]

On 2019-05-27 at 1:08 PM, SonicSonedit said:

Warframe boosters do ease obtaining in-game rewards such as resources and especially traces. which allow you to farm more prime items via refined relics and sell them for plat for other players, as well as allowing to progress through game easier with affinity booster. They pretty much fall under pay-to-win mictoransaction of US bill now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYdq--Rpdu8t=285

So will they be removed / reworked? I personally don't engage in trading or any social activity except clan events, mostly play Warframe as singleplayer with coop game and not MMO, and therefore I find progress without booster awfully slow.

Sincerely, a concerned Tenno.

No because they are not RNG , you get exactly what you buy .

Not sure if trolling or just .. you know.

[Ascarith]

32 minutes ago, Spectre-8 said:

No because they are not RNG , you get exactly what you buy .

Not sure if trolling or just .. you know.

Curious as to why you would think the OP is trolling. OP's interpretation of (the bill's definition of) "pay-to-win" as covering boosters strikes me as well within reason, so maybe you could elaborate a bit on why you think OP is so off base (as to be borderline trolling in your view).

"[T]hey are not RNG" doesn't help me understand what you're saying because the definition of "pay-to-win" is, by and large, independent of "randomness."

Edited May 28, 2019 by Ascarith

[(NSW)Sk0rp1on]

Worries like this are why the ESRB kind dropped the ball by not implement  self regulation of monetization. 

Boosters probably won’t be illegal, but it’s the government, they might screw it up because not enough of them are gamers. 

If the ESRB self regulated monetization they way they regulate content, they could decide for themselves what regulations are needed to keep both gamers and developers happy.

[FlusteredFerret]

13 minutes ago, Ascarith said:

Curious as to why you would think the OP is trolling. OP's interpretation of (the bill's definition of) "pay-to-win" as covering boosters strikes me as well within reason, so maybe you could elaborate a bit on why you think OP is so off base (as to be borderline trolling in your view).

Well we can have any amount of arguments over what constitutes "Pay to Win", if we're going by opinions.

However, its hard to see how you can have P2W in a game that for the vast majority of content is PvE. Since you are only "competing" against AI, there is no advantage in using resource boosters, other than to accelerate your rate of progress.

"Pay to Win" only exists in competitive PvP environments, such as World of Tanks, where you are trying to obtain an advantage over other players and where those advantages can make the difference between winning and losing any given match / battle (as opposed to merely affecting speed of progress). This pretty much always means gear with enhanced stats. As opposed to boosters and other items, which merely help you farm resources or credits faster.

I've not read the bill (obviously) but if their definition includes things like boosters, then the people who drafted it, haven't got the first clue what they're doing and should be fired.

Hell, it shouldn't even include Pay to Win stuff either, since those are typically straightforward purchases, where you know what you are buying.

The only unethical (and potentially illegal) element to this is loot boxes, where players are basically encouraged to gamble for the CHANCE to acquire stuff.

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by FlusteredFerret

[(PSN)Ashagin]

 Sure you could just buy the plat and spend that on boosters, but you can also make plat in game and buy the boosters without real world currency unlike every other f2p game.  I cant see how it would be judged the same since it's not set up in such a predatory manner as the games the bill is geared towards.  Mod packages may be the only thing they should have to get rid of that I can think of atm.

[Nichivo]

I'm pretty sure random mod packs would be gone. Assuming it passes, and it contains the gamble box clauses and such.

I would not be shocked if it hit boosters as well.

[Ascarith]

56 minutes ago, FlusteredFerret said:

I've not read the bill (obviously) but if their definition includes things like boosters, then the people who drafted it, haven't got the first clue what they're doing and should be fired.

Unfortunately, this is more or less what the bill actually says. You are probably correct that the people who drafted it don't really know much about video games or the spectrum of what "pay-to-win" looks like for people who do play video games. 

Anyhow, my response was largely an attempt to be civil, while still encouraging the other poster to read the bill, its definition of "pay-to-win," and maybe re-formulate how they wanted to respond to the OP. The first post rests on the premise that the bill defines "pay-to-win" in such a way as to include boosters. The OP isn't saying OP thinks boosters are "pay-to-win" and are evil. You have to actually read the bill to understand why the OP is framed the way it is.

Take the statement "Warframe boosters do ease obtaining in-game rewards such as resources and especially traces."

Now look at what the bill says:

Quote

(7) PAY-TO-WIN MICROTRANSACTION.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘‘pay-to-win microtransaction’’ means an add-on transaction to a interactive digital entertainment product that—

(i) with respect to an interactive digital entertainment product that, from the perspective of a reasonable user of the product, is a game offering a scoring system, a set of goals to achieve, a set of rewards, or a sense of interactive progression through the product’s content including but not limited to narrative progression—

(I) eases a user’s progression through content otherwise available within the game without the purchase of such transaction;

(II) assists a user in accomplishing an achievement within the game that can otherwise be accomplished without the purchase of such transaction;

(III) assists a user in receiving an award associated with the game that is otherwise available in association with the game without the purchase of such transaction; or...

Without the context of the bill's definition, it might look like the OP is trying to convince you that boosters are "pay-to-win" (in a general sense). This is not the case. The OP is making the argument that boosters are "pay-to-win" as defined by the bill. You can see how the OP takes facets of Warframe boosters and applies them to different pieces of the definition. 

I get that reading is time consuming, particularly long threads or anything legal in nature. I don't blame anyone for not reading the bill. Statutes aren't terribly exciting and they are often written in stupidly complicated ways. I do, however, think you (generic you, not you specifically) should read the background materials/context before you start throwing out the character attacks.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Ascarith
Formatting fails left and right

[HellVOps]

38 minutes ago, Nichivo said:

I'm pretty sure random mod packs would be gone. Assuming it passes, and it contains the gamble box clauses and such.

I would not be shocked if it hit boosters as well.

Dragon mod packs? They were removed in the latest patch. There are new mod packs, that tell you what gonna get for your plat, no rng bs.

[Unagi604]

On 2019-05-27 at 3:12 AM, Blatantfool said:

 The worry is probably misguided. While the wording of the bill may seem to cover a huge breadth of different things in many games the reality is that it's just a beating stick to punish the worst offenders of a pretty vicious style of monetizing a game.

My tinfoil hat might be on too tight, but I think it may be naive to think that any governing body will use powers appropriately, rather than to the full extent of the way the law is written.

[BrazilianJoe]

I understand that OP is legitimately concerned with the game, not attacking it.

IMO the concern is valid, and an important topic of discussion.

The bill is super-duper soldier-boot-on-throat restrictive. 

It frames "minor-oriented games" not in terms of an industry rating, but rather as a matter of the game's content (does it contain cartoonish, fruity and lickable ggraphics that appeal to children?) and goes as far as stating the mere knowledge of the actual demographic of the game as enough for it to constitute "minor-oriented" - the term used is "constructive knowledge".

The definition of a pay-to-win microtransaction does include a description that IMO is pretty straightforward, and indeed it does frame the boosters as a pay-to-win tactic. 

Quote

(7) PAY-TO-WIN MICROTRANSACTION.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘‘pay-to-win microtransaction’’ means an add-on transaction to a interactive digital entertainment product that—

(i) with respect to an interactive digital entertainment product that, from the perspective of a reasonable user of the product, is a game offering a scoring system, a set of goals to achieve, a set of rewards, or a sense of interactive progression through the product’s content including but not limited to narrative progression—

(I) eases a user’s progression through content otherwise available within the game without the purchase of such transaction;

(II) assists a user in accomplishing an achievement within the game that can otherwise be accomplished without the purchase of such transaction;

(III) assists a user in receiving an award associated with the game that is otherwise available in association with the game without the purchase of such transaction; or...

This part is in the definition of terms, stating what constitutes a "PAY-TO-WIN MICROTRANSACTION" - this term is used in other parts of the bill to reference this definition. 

I understand that this definition objectively puts Prime Access, Prime Vault and the booster packs straight into the chopping block. 

Cosmetics would be safe though, as there is a provision for them on exclusions.

But all of this would be moot is Warframe is marketed only towards adults - it currently bears a Mature - 17+ rating, which may not be enough.

I don't think there is any of Warframe that befalls under the definition of the term "LOOT BOX" of the bill though. 

If the bill is reworked to be less restrictive on non-randomized pay2win than on loot boxes, it could be for the better. 

The "constructive knowledge" thing is the hardest one though, and IMO it opens a can of subjective worms.

I would say Warframe is not marketed towards vulnerable children, but it's more or less known that there is a portion of the community comprised of minors.

Edited May 28, 2019 by BrazilianJoe

[beercritch]

Warframe has one of the best pay structures of any FTP game in existence. The ability to earn plat by playing the game will i think negate most of the troublesome areas of the game with regards to this bill.

The one thing that stands out was the random mod packs that offered a "selection" of random mods. These types of packs are available in almost all FTP games and IMHO are the nub of the problem where people can buy endless packs in the hope of getting that "rare" item. This is little more than gambling and all happens without the need to play the game. WG have seen this and reacted and the old mod packs are all getting changed to something new which doesnt have the random element

Boosters and such items that reduce the grind I think will be completely fine moving forward IMO as all they do is reduce the grind but its all within the game play 

[BrazilianJoe]

7 minutes ago, beercritch said:

Warframe has one of the best pay structures of any FTP game in existence. The ability to earn plat by playing the game will i think negate most of the troublesome areas of the game with regards to this bill.

The one thing that stands out was the random mod packs that offered a "selection" of random mods. These types of packs are available in almost all FTP games and IMHO are the nub of the problem where people can buy endless packs in the hope of getting that "rare" item. This is little more than gambling and all happens without the need to play the game. WG have seen this and reacted and the old mod packs are all getting changed to something new which doesnt have the random element

Boosters and such items that reduce the grind I think will be completely fine moving forward IMO as all they do is reduce the grind but its all within the game play 

True, and I started a thread on the forum months ago on what you say - much of the community misunderstood me and thought I was either attacking the game or overreacting, nether is true - and months later, what I was suggesting happened, like you said.

But that was a single instance of what would befall under the definition of "LOOT BOXES" in the bill, which is by far the most egregious stimulant for addictive behavior. Warframe cured itself from that. 

The problem remains though, on the bill's definition of "PAY2WIN MICROTRANSACTIONS", which is very broad and seems to catch booster packs, maybe even Prime Access and Prime Vault too.

Edited May 28, 2019 by BrazilianJoe

[Shiichibukai]

Am 27.5.2019 um 12:08 schrieb SonicSonedit:

Warframe boosters do ease obtaining in-game rewards such as resources and especially traces. which allow you to farm more prime items via refined relics and sell them for plat for other players, as well as allowing to progress through game easier with affinity booster. They pretty much fall under pay-to-win mictoransaction of US bill now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYdq--Rpdu8t=285

So will they be removed / reworked? I personally don't engage in trading or any social activity except clan events, mostly play Warframe as singleplayer with coop game and not MMO, and therefore I find progress without booster awfully slow.

Sincerely, a concerned Tenno.

Boosters arent lootboxes, therefor this topic is kinda pointless.

[Ascarith]

1 minute ago, Shiichibukai said:

Boosters arent lootboxes, therefor this topic is kinda pointless.

This topic is more about "pay-to-win" as defined by the bill in question. It's not really about lootboxes...

As other posters have already gone over, lootboxes aren't a huge issue for WF. "Pay-to-win" (in the bill's sense), however, might be.

[KennBone]

These items are not pay to win, is pay to go faster wich its not needed if you know how to farm

[Blatantfool]

38 minutes ago, Unagi604 said:

My tinfoil hat might be on too tight, but I think it may be naive to think that any governing body will use powers appropriately, rather than to the full extent of the way the law is written.

 It is on too tight, I'll explain myself a bit. There is cost associated with chasing these cases down and actually committing to fighting the business in court to properly penalize them. It isn't like this Bill will pass and then the next day EA Games will see a massive fine that just get stripped right from their coffer. They're gonna lawyer up and fight to keep the case stuck in court as long as possible so that they can either change the offending game before they get the hammer dropped OR just to put off the fines.

 Basically, the Bill could be expensive. Paying all those people to work the case while the business and it's lawyers dawdle as much as possible. Courts just aren't fast.

 So all the 'little offenses' will probably tend to be left alone. Battles will be picked primarily based off of how important it is to win them. Even if by the word of law the Government could come knocking for the little stuff what they're really more concerned about are the big ticket situations like Mobile Games from overseas or EA's stupid games as service shenanigans. Make an example of the big ones and occasionally apply pressure to the borderline bad ones and the little companies will get shy about risking it.

[Ham_Grenabe]

39 minutes ago, beercritch said:

Warframe has one of the best pay structures of any FTP game in existence. The ability to earn plat by playing the game will i think negate most of the troublesome areas of the game with regards to this bill.

The one thing that stands out was the random mod packs that offered a "selection" of random mods. These types of packs are available in almost all FTP games and IMHO are the nub of the problem where people can buy endless packs in the hope of getting that "rare" item. This is little more than gambling and all happens without the need to play the game. WG have seen this and reacted and the old mod packs are all getting changed to something new which doesnt have the random element

Boosters and such items that reduce the grind I think will be completely fine moving forward IMO as all they do is reduce the grind but its all within the game play 

Couple things - that plat came from somewhere, so money changed hands. In the case of a hypothetical investigation, it may matter very much where that plat was injected into the economy. 

As for boosters, they may not be an issue, but they do ease progression in the game via content otherwise available without a purchase. That word "ease" does a ton of work here, because it can be broadly interpreted (and abused). In all cases, "ease" can apply: does it make it faster? give more drops? better chance of drops? All of those fit under that massive umbrella of "easing." 

[F8ted]

 

1 hour ago, HellVOps said:

Dragon mod packs? They were removed in the latest patch. There are new mod packs, that tell you what gonna get for your plat, no rng bs.

This is actually the reality in a nutshell. This was not even prompted by the newly proposed law in question. It was prompted by European nations targeting loot boxes in particular. Many rightly stated that you were gambling on the contents and gambling is by and large a very regulated industry. Instead, because of a law that a handful of players could have raised concern about, they removed the concept from the game for the global build. 

20 minutes ago, Blatantfool said:

 It is on too tight, I'll explain myself a bit. There is cost associated with chasing these cases down and actually committing to fighting the business in court to properly penalize them. It isn't like this Bill will pass and then the next day EA Games will see a massive fine that just get stripped right from their coffer. They're gonna lawyer up and fight to keep the case stuck in court as long as possible so that they can either change the offending game before they get the hammer dropped OR just to put off the fines.

 Basically, the Bill could be expensive. Paying all those people to work the case while the business and it's lawyers dawdle as much as possible. Courts just aren't fast.

 So all the 'little offenses' will probably tend to be left alone. Battles will be picked primarily based off of how important it is to win them. Even if by the word of law the Government could come knocking for the little stuff what they're really more concerned about are the big ticket situations like Mobile Games from overseas or EA's stupid games as service shenanigans. Make an example of the big ones and occasionally apply pressure to the borderline bad ones and the little companies will get shy about risking it.

I'm afraid your observation is just not true. Without even laws backing them, Congress rushed social media giants to testify as to the lengths they are currently going to protect users data, made laws based off those testimonies, then promptly fined the companies for going to slowly implementing them. The EU did the same thing, fining Google a billion dollars when they insufficiently updated their policies. This could end EA the same year it is passed. The same for any game that primarily markets to the US or EU. Cases can be lightning fast, and companies are forced to appeal these cases, not keep them locked up forever in court.  

56 minutes ago, beercritch said:

Warframe has one of the best pay structures of any FTP game in existence. The ability to earn plat by playing the game will i think negate most of the troublesome areas of the game with regards to this bill.

The one thing that stands out was the random mod packs that offered a "selection" of random mods. These types of packs are available in almost all FTP games and IMHO are the nub of the problem where people can buy endless packs in the hope of getting that "rare" item. This is little more than gambling and all happens without the need to play the game. WG have seen this and reacted and the old mod packs are all getting changed to something new which doesnt have the random element

Boosters and such items that reduce the grind I think will be completely fine moving forward IMO as all they do is reduce the grind but its all within the game play 

I definitely think Warframe is about middle ground, with MOBAs being industry leading. The problem is there are plenty of times that Warframe is in fact pay a little bit of money and get a little bit more powerful. Sure, Arcane sets may cost 1000+ plat for a set, but that directly increases your power. Need a quick boost to damage? Go buy you a Primed Mod or Riven maxed out at 400+ plat. Yeah, you can in fact farm plat from other players by likewise selling progression to other players, but that's the problem from the other perspective. In MOBAs, you can pay to unlock new characters, and you can pay to unlock skins. Most are free to play, and make tons of money on these two ideas that have nothing to do with progression.

[Blatantfool]

2 minutes ago, F8ted said:

I'm afraid your observation is just not true. Without even laws backing them, Congress rushed social media giants to testify as to the lengths they are currently going to protect users data, made laws based off those testimonies, then promptly fined the companies for going to slowly implementing them. The EU did the same thing, fining Google a billion dollars when they insufficiently updated their policies. This could end EA the same year it is passed. The same for any game that primarily markets to the US or EU. Cases can be lightning fast, and companies are forced to appeal these cases, not keep them locked up forever in court.  

 Hey fair enough, I'm not about to pretend I have any first-hand knowledge or useful sources to have learned anything like this from. I figure this is one of those topics it's easy to be misinformed about, so I'm not surprised I might be.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Blatantfool

[BrazilianJoe]

1 hour ago, Shiichibukai said:

Boosters arent lootboxes, therefor this topic is kinda pointless.

If you read the bill, boosters fall under its definition of "PAY2WIN MICROTRANSACTIONS", which aren't the same as loot boxes, but are regulated by the same bill, which also spells trouble. 

Not pointless.

[Nichivo]

7 hours ago, HellVOps said:

Dragon mod packs? They were removed in the latest patch. There are new mod packs, that tell you what gonna get for your plat, no rng bs.

Were they? I just came back after a few months hiatus, I haven't even looked at the store recently. Maybe they were getting a jump on it just in case.

[(PSN)thowed]

This is kinda reaching, just saying.