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

[(PSN)Eargirith]

The ONLY change that this bill could cause on the boosters is that, in a worst case scenario, they will be removed from the store. However, they'll continue to be available as daily rewards, sortie rewards and such.

And i'm saying "in a worst case scenario", because DE can easily plead that with the trading system, it's not mandatory to pay money to acquire platinum. 

[(PSN)IroncladBomber]

Boosters aren't considered Loot Boxes. You know what you are getting when you buy them. Double Credits, Double Resources, Increased Drop Chance for Rare Materials.

Besides, The whole Outlawing loot boxes probably won't go very far. Just a lot of Smoke and Mirrors, and Politicians making a Big Noise.

[-Krism-]

Boosters are not loot boxes, there's no random stuff that looks acts like & gamble, so they're not in "danger"

[Autongnosis]

Il y a 5 heures, Im_a_Turtle a dit :

Electronic Arts, Acti-Blizz and many pay-to-win games will be devastated by this bill. Not so much Warframe as we don't have lootboxes that have overpowered mods/weapon locked content behind them as most of the things we can get (outside of insanely rare mods and cosemtics) can be grinded and traded in-game.

You guys are really underestimating the power of legal interpretation. This bill will probably have more value as a symbolic act than with the effects it will actually produce. 

[Ascarith]

4 minutes ago, Autongnosis said:

You guys are really underestimating the power of legal interpretation. This bill will probably have more value as a symbolic act than with the effects it will actually produce. 

It's not just interpretation, enforcement is going to be a factor as well. I didn't see any private cause of action (but also just skimmed it), so some piece of the government has to be convinced a particular case is worth the cost of pursuing.

The bill puts the FTC in charge of enforcement, so at best a private party can file a complaint and hope the FTC does something about it. If the bill passes, boosters are probably still not going to be very high on the FTC's priority list.

A state AG can enforce in certain scenarios, but that means the state AG is voluntarily assuming responsibilities of the FTC. Unlikely to happen except in very extreme situations (which means again that boosters are probably not going to be the trigger). 

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

6 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.

>implying anything significant will get passed in the current DC gridlock.

[Girador]

6 hours ago, Ced23Ric said:

... 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;

Going by this that's everything that's not a cosmetic that can be purchased for plat meaning that they would either need to gut their entire plat system or accept an AO rating if that makes it permissible that said i suspect that sony and nintendo would both start allowing games that have an AO rating for this reason due to many of those games being incredibly popular in their home country of japan.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

3 hours ago, Lysithea.Nya said:

Isn't DE based in Canada and therefore unaffected by dumb US laws?

If you believe a law that bans predatory monetization in video games is dumb, then I feel pity for you.

[spirit_of_76]

1 hour ago, DatDarkOne said:

This is basically it in a nutshell.  The politicians always try to find a easy stance/topic to fight instead of using that time on something more worthwhile.  Video games just becomes the target about every 10 years or so.

yep, and the other easy topic is too much of a hot button issue atm so it won't get them any points I think that some of the last good men in Washington were found during the Cold war but after Nixon and Reagan, we have only had trash.  

[FlusteredFerret]

52 minutes ago, (XB1)Cubic Clem said:

Man all this talk and I'm sitting hoping this game would be pay to win.. v.v

Who are you trying to beat, exactly? 

 

[FlyingDice]

I see a whole lot of people in this thread are under the delusion that a law is defined by how individuals think it should be defined rather than how it's written.

It's not much different from the guy insisting he only had one beer after failing the breathalyzer.

I'd suggest going and reading up on the text of the bill and how it defines P2W rather than trying to pass off your opinion as fact.

 

And let's be real here, the principle reason relics replaced towers and kuva is used to roll rivens is so that DE could sell boosters to people who don't want to run 8-12 relic missions for one rad or three floods for one reroll.

[(NSW)Sniperfox47]

Also keep in mind that DE is Canada based, not US based so at worst it'll require them to stop sales of those items in the US but they can still offer them for sale in other countries and offer them in the login rewards for US users.

[PatternistSlave]

Problem once it gets to the point the government gets involved and laws start being made.  Isn't usually a lot of room for nuance.  I would say Warframe does pay2win in a very non-predatory, consumer friendly manner, but it is still pay2win by strict definitions.  I would imagine DE will just up their rating to AO and forget it, but hard to say.

[(PSN)UltroAdsunt]

Pay to win in a PvE game...

I've seen everything.

[Lakais]

It is a good cause. But the current version seems far too broad. It covers things that clearly are not lootboxes for the "reasonable user". I mean, the bill uses language like "minor oriented" and I find it difficult to imagine Warframe as minor oriented. Sure, some steps are made to comply with accepted Mature ratings, but the subject mater and core loop of the product is clearly not for very young people even if children end up playing the game. 

I agree that the part about things that speed up gameplay is overzealous. I hope it was put in as a broad stroke to avoid loopholes with the intention of refining and dialing it back to be more specific. 

Though I admit, I find the idea of a full on AO rating on Warframe intriguing, the issue with platforms then does pop up. But then again, the console platforms themselves would have to reconsider their criteria as I think basically every game made in recent years goes foul with SOMETHING in this bill. Point being that these plaforms might find their libraries very empty. And then of course there's the question if console platforms can be considered distributors because they all have internal stores for games and add-ons. 

But that raises the question: how hard do devs, publishers and distributors have to police their community to make sure that underage people aren't playing the game? Will it be enough to slap a 18+ rating on the box (or store page), clearly state that this is a product not aimed at minors and call it a day or will they be required to suspend accounts that have been proven to a reasonable degree to actually belong to minors? Brings me back to the "reasonable user" classification. Reasonable to whom?

If their rating criteria are based on ESRB then I believe M is a very solid cutoff point. The only chink there is the 18+ requirement in the bill. And for all intents and purposes, the difference between M and AO is that the later doesn't bother with the body-paint. But thing is that these ratings are all eventually just guidelines and not actual rules or laws. 

[bibmobello]

In game purchases are perfectly legal, loot boxes instead allow you to buy random stuff with important  gear inside, mandatory to continue the game.

Edited May 27, 2019 by bibmobello

[Thrymm]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Eargirith said:

 

And i'm saying "in a worst case scenario", because DE can easily plead that with the trading system, it's not mandatory to pay money to acquire platinum. 

Why does this come up so much?  It's simply not true.

Every.....single.....platinum in the trade system was purchased.  With money.  There are, perhaps, extreme fringe, ultra rare examples of otherwise, such as tradeable plat given as a prize or giveaway(even most of this is untradeable), but outside of any outlier, all platinum is purchased.  Platinum is not free, even if the person currently holding it isn't the one that exchanged currency for it.

In other words, the trading system uses real money(in the form of platinum that represents real money, in case someone isn't following along).  It IS mandatory to pay real money to acquire platinum.  In essence, real money to platinum equation works the same way that the gold standard did with currency---there is an actual, quantifiable valuable backing up each piece of currency.

This game has a ton of problems with legislation like this, in it's current form.  And make no mistake, it's the more egregious pay2play things that are most questionable.  This is most illuminating:

... 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;

Boosters, the topic of the thread, aren't particularly questionable---with their current in-game acquisition(near non-existent, and usually exorbitant when they do show up outside of log in), affinity and resource acquisition boosters markedly allow fast progression than can otherwise be obtained.  There is little question that they qualify, literally all they do is ease a users progression through otherwise available content.

Mods and Credits for platinum?  Probably ok, amazingly.  The quantities are so small and value so little that it's actually less time and effort to obtain them in game.  If someone takes a cursory glance and does not explore that, however, we're literally given the option to skip farming for money---that's a progress easer.

Purchased weapons or frames?  Easing progression.

Anythings that shortens or allows you to skip content eases a user's progression.

And here come Riven mods---ahh, the lootbox of warframe.  These little purple cesspools of insipid randomness are the very crux of legislation like this--and the very reason I felt the above quoted was worth mentioning, they are the potential trade system killer, and yet would take quite the digging to uproot. 

Yeah, you can get them in game, their specific acquisition is not a real issue with this bill.  Activating them is not, again, a financial issue.  Even purchasing storage for them with platinum isn't an issue.  Neither is kuva an issue(resource doubling boosters, however......).  Amazingly, it's entirely possible that they'd be skipped over because much of what they do is only achievable in game.

However, if they don't get skipped, they encompass one of the worst money swaps in gaming.  Getting one you'll actually want is exponentially increased(the actual progress situation) by trading for it---spending money.  The progress increase from these is sizable and quantifiable.  Buying the right one, as opposed to waiting for your magic free roll, eases progression, assists in accomplishing achievements, and the purchase itself is assisting the user in receiving an award associated with the game.

Any reasonable person will see that progression in this game comes from item acquisition.  Your mastery rank is determined by items purchasable in the store---heck, it's entirely possible that a reasonable person could assert that weapon and warframe slots above the initial pittance could count in this, as the originals provided for free are not reasonably enough to play the game and acquire your scores.

Change is already coming, albeit grudgingly and slowly.  We saw slots as nightwave rewards.  We're seeing boosters on Baro sometimes.  The mod gambling in the platinum store has been replaced with a direct and specific purchase that is easily obtainable in game(just as useless as the gamble was, but less morally ambiguous).  There are slight changes here and there to offer more things more reasonably to players in order to have systems in place to handle it when the day comes that legislation finally happens.

And while this particular piece may not be the one, make no mistake, something will pass eventually and the world will respond in kind.  Companies like DE haven't really caused this, but there are plenty of others out there(I bet the lockboxes sitting on my Star Trek Online account would take five thousand dollars to actually open) that have sealed the fate of microtransaction gaming.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Admiral_Aetius said:

Pay to win in a PvE game...

I've seen everything.

Ever heard of any mobile game, ever?

[(PSN)Dishinshoryuken]

Boosters are pay to win as they speed up doing something in game. If you and a friend start the game at the same time, you use boosters and they do not, who will get to use anything requiring a level 30 Frame first? Look, I have enjoyed and on some aspects, "loved" WARFRAME since I started playing 5 years ago....but when I saw the Boosters, I knew either DE cut the amount of XP in half and gave a way to get it back or they added a way to get more of the XP which players would want to get so they would keep buying once their "fix" ran out. This is the reason people kept asking for it to be only while they were playing that Boosters would run since they didn't want to lose that boost from living outside the game. It falls under the lootbox aspect as it speeds up the game compared to those who do not have it.

Mod packs WERE the loot box of Warframe with no disguise on it. Same with the Credit Packs. If a player started with $100 of bought plat, they could sit there and use those to get mods and credits. If that player felt they didn't get anything good and dropped another $100 into plat to get more of those.....that is loot boxing. Thank goodness we do not have players that did that (except the one guy who did the Kubrow thing)....but it is there.

DE either gonna change how Mod packs work (HMMMMMM.....) or make sure the bill does not effect the game. Cuz if it does pass, they fall into the same catering to the gambling that can cause kids to empty parents wallets just as other direct loot box games did. I should know, I got kids that tried to use our CC to get plat to get a chance at mods.

[(PSN)UltroAdsunt]

29 minutes ago, (XB1)Thy Divinity said:

Ever heard of any mobile game, ever?

It's not under p2w if it's against AI.

 

[Chappie]

25 minutes ago, (PS4)Dishinshoryuken said:

Boosters are pay to win as they speed up doing something in game. If you and a friend start the game at the same time, you use boosters and they do not, who will get to use anything requiring a level 30 Frame first? Look, I have enjoyed and on some aspects, "loved" WARFRAME since I started playing 5 years ago....but when I saw the Boosters, I knew either DE cut the amount of XP in half and gave a way to get it back or they added a way to get more of the XP which players would want to get so they would keep buying once their "fix" ran out. This is the reason people kept asking for it to be only while they were playing that Boosters would run since they didn't want to lose that boost from living outside the game. It falls under the lootbox aspect as it speeds up the game compared to those who do not have it.

Mod packs WERE the loot box of Warframe with no disguise on it. Same with the Credit Packs. If a player started with $100 of bought plat, they could sit there and use those to get mods and credits. If that player felt they didn't get anything good and dropped another $100 into plat to get more of those.....that is loot boxing. Thank goodness we do not have players that did that (except the one guy who did the Kubrow thing)....but it is there.

DE either gonna change how Mod packs work (HMMMMMM.....) or make sure the bill does not effect the game. Cuz if it does pass, they fall into the same catering to the gambling that can cause kids to empty parents wallets just as other direct loot box games did. I should know, I got kids that tried to use our CC to get plat to get a chance at mods.

People are now redefining P2W to fit what ever narrative supports their viewpoint in order to pass legislation to appears voters who really have no clue what they are voting for..but since it is "for the children" it must good.   But...keep it up.

[Chappie]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Admiral_Aetius said:

It's not under p2w if it's against AI.

 

It would depend if the AI was intentionally coercing you into it.   That is the issue with most mobile P2W games...the outcome of the game is determined even before you start for the most part.   The AI is not shown to the public in this sapce for good reason in that it isn't as "random" or "deterministic" as you think.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Admiral_Aetius said:

It's not under p2w if it's against AI.

 

It doesn't matter who you're playing against, you're still paying to win.  Bethesda literally just got into hot water for that in Fallout 76 with their P2W items in the cash shop.

[IspanoLFW]

24 minutes ago, (PS4)Admiral_Aetius said:

It's not under p2w if it's against AI.

 

There's always been the possibility for P2W in PvE games. Just because YOU feel it's something that cannot exist, doesn't mean it doesn't. In fact, they lay out what they consider to fall under that label in the bill. And Boosters in this game, do fall under it.

Again, look at what THEY define in the bill, not what YOU think it is.

[Ham_Grenabe]

27 minutes ago, (PS4)Admiral_Aetius said:

It's not under p2w if it's against AI.

 

If the bill is made into law, it doesn't matter what your definition of P2W is. It doesn't matter what mine is, or EA's, or anyones. It will only matter what the law's definition is, and whether courts agree that it applies. 

Edit: ninja'd by mere moments.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Ham_Grenabe