OPINION: ESRB's 'Includes Random ltems' Label Solves Nothing

System

OPINION: ESRB's 'Includes Random ltems' Label Solves Nothing

Earlier this week, the ESRB introduced a new label as part of its rating system, called "Includes Random Items." This label is meant to account for in-game purchases constituting a random nature, such as card packs, gacha games, and yes, loot boxes. In truth, this label is merely a weak Band-Aid and does nothing to address root cause. It solves nothing.

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Tuor7

The whole point of this label is an attempt to deflect and mitigate legal action against the companies that the ESRB represents. That's it. They don't care one bit about children, parents, or people with poor impulse control. They care about potential lawsuits and negative Press. Nothing more.

Quizzical

Well then, would you rather have the ESRB not give any warning at all about loot boxes? Rating agencies aren't in a position to dictate game design. All that they can do is describe what is there. And I say it's good that they warn about loot boxes.

Iselin

The only thing that surprises me about this is that they didn't follow the lead of EA's idiot lawyer and labeled it as "includes surprise mechanics."

It's deliberate avoidance of the loot box label and saying that they did this because they wanted to account for loot boxes and all similar mechanics is just lame. What other similar mechanics? Loot boxes that are called happy unicorn crates?

They're just going along with the industry practice of calling loot boxes anything but loot boxes to make them seem like even more harmless benign things. This is just another version of "we call them surprise mechanics."

Slapshot1188

Quizzical said:

Well then, would you rather have the ESRB not give any warning at all about loot boxes? Rating agencies aren't in a position to dictate game design. All that they can do is describe what is there. And I say it's good that they warn about loot boxes.

I think the danger is in the T rating. Saying it’s suitable for children 13 and up. So yes in this case I think they could actually be doing more harm than good.

I’m fine with allowing developers doing whatever they want regarding mechanics, but I think this should NEVER be marketed to kids (13 is a kid) and they should have to list odds.

Quizzical

Iselin said:

The only thing that surprises me about this is that they didn't follow the lead of EA's idiot lawyer and labeled is as "includes surprise mechanics."

It's deliberate avoidance of the loot box label and saying that they did this because they wanted to account for loot boxes and all similar mechanics is just lame. What other similar mechanics? Loot boxes that are called happy unicorn crates?

They're just going along with the industry practice of calling loot boxes anything but loot boxes to make them seem like even more harmless benign things. This is just another version of "we call them surprise mechanics."

Gamers are not the primary target audience of ESRB ratings.

Let's go back in time nearly thirty years and recall where game ratings came from.  At the time, video games generally meant on either a Nintendo or Sega console.  Parents were sometimes scandalized to learn that their kids were playing games like Mortal Kombat that had gratuitous blood everywhere.  The parents typically weren't gamers themselves, and didn't have time to monitor every single thing that their kids would ever do in a game.  But they wanted their kids to stick to less scandalous fare.

At the time, the Internet barely existed, and few people had access.  Downloading games pretty much wasn't a thing.  In order to get a new game, you had to have a physical cartridge (or later CD).  Kids largely couldn't do this on their own, especially younger ones, and needed parents to buy games for them.  So parents largely had control of which games their kids could play, at least in their own home.  And parents wanted a way to screen out games that were excessively sexual or violent.

Sega and Nintendo took two wildly different approaches.  Sega introduced a ratings system for games on their consoles.  Any game that would be released had to be rated, and then parents could look at the rating and decide accordingly.

Nintendo instead insisted that all games on their consoles were appropriate for all ages.  They heavily censored games on their consoles to make it so.  Thus, you could buy Mortal Kombat for SNES, but the "blood" was clear--at least unless you also bought a Game Genie to change the color of the blood to something else.  Nintendo would allow Wolfenstein to have a rocket launcher cause a fiery, red explosion if it hit a wall, but not if it hit a person, as that looked too much like blood.  Game developers sometimes tried to slip things past Nintendo.  One game by Square had a mob that was a book flipping quickly, and if you paused the game at the right time, you could see one of the pages that it flipped past was a naked baby.

It wasn't just parents who were concerned.  There were also politicians who wanted to cater to such parents.  There were calls for government censorship of games, and the industry wished to avoid that.  Ultimately, Nintendo's censorship was untenable, and Sega's approach won out.

The gaming industry formed the ESRB to have a universal rating system to rate games and tell parents what was in their games.  Instead of having one rating system for games on Sega consoles, a totally different one for Nintendo, and yet another for Sony and their newfangled PlayStation, the entire gaming industry would settle on a common rating system and try to make it comprehensible to parents.  If you want to keep the most gratuitous sex and violence out of your home, it would be sufficient to check the rating and not let your kids play anything rated M (or the rare AO).  Stricter parents (or those with younger children) could also frown on games rated T.

A lot has changed since then, of course.  Game consoles are still around, but a lot of gaming has moved to PCs, and more recently, to phones.  Most games are downloaded now, and physical media to install a game is fairly rare.  Many games are "free", so kids can get access without needing a parent's car or even a parent's credit card.  The barriers to developing and releasing a game are much lower, so many more games launch in a given month than used to.  Many games don't get an ESRB rating at all.

The ESRB is thus a lot less important than it used to be.  One could dispute that it was ever all that important, but its influence has certainly waned.  And in an era where nearly any device connected to the Internet can readily access outright pornography, some of the parental objections from decades past seem downright quaint.

The ESRB carries on with its mission of trying to give parents who are not gamers some easy access to information about the games that their kids are playing in much the same way that movie ratings do.  One of the modern concerns is with games that find ways to trick kids into spending vastly more money than their parents expected.  And so the ESRB needed a way to warn parents who had no notion of what a "loot box" is which games might do this.  That's where this content descriptor came from.  The ESRB isn't trying to obfuscate anything.  They're trying to concisely describe things to parents who aren't gamers themselves.

xpsync

DMKano said:

ESRB solves nothing because nobody even reads the labels

What labels?

Quizzical

Slapshot1188 said:

Quizzical said:

Well then, would you rather have the ESRB not give any warning at all about loot boxes? Rating agencies aren't in a position to dictate game design. All that they can do is describe what is there. And I say it's good that they warn about loot boxes.

I think the danger is in the T rating. Saying it’s suitable for children 13 and up. So yes in this case I think they could actually be doing more harm than good.

I’m fine with allowing developers doing whatever they want regarding mechanics, but I think this should NEVER be marketed to kids (13 is a kid) and they should have to list odds.

While I agree that loot boxes should have to list odds, the ESRB is unable to enforce such a rule.  All that the ESRB can do is describe what is in a game.  If the ESRB offers an accurate, concise summary of content that people may find objectionable in a comprehensible manner, then they've done their job.  The content descriptors are there because different people will tend to find different types of things more offensive, so if one parent is primarily offended by nudity in games, another by blood and gore, and a third thinks loot boxes are the real problem, then they can each check for what they find most offensive without blocking their kids from playing a game rated T or M over reasons that the parent thinks are not a problem.

Iselin

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

The only thing that surprises me about this is that they didn't follow the lead of EA's idiot lawyer and labeled is as "includes surprise mechanics."

It's deliberate avoidance of the loot box label and saying that they did this because they wanted to account for loot boxes and all similar mechanics is just lame. What other similar mechanics? Loot boxes that are called happy unicorn crates?

They're just going along with the industry practice of calling loot boxes anything but loot boxes to make them seem like even more harmless benign things. This is just another version of "we call them surprise mechanics."

Gamers are not the primary target audience of ESRB ratings.

Let's go back in time nearly thirty years and recall where game ratings came from.  At the time, video games generally meant on either a Nintendo or Sega console.  Parents were sometimes scandalized to learn that their kids were playing games like Mortal Kombat that had gratuitous blood everywhere.  The parents typically weren't gamers themselves, and didn't have time to monitor every single thing that their kids would ever do in a game.  But they wanted their kids to stick to less scandalous fare.

At the time, the Internet barely existed, and few people had access.  Downloading games pretty much wasn't a thing.  In order to get a new game, you had to have a physical cartridge (or later CD).  Kids largely couldn't do this on their own, especially younger ones, and needed parents to buy games for them.  So parents largely had control of which games their kids could play, at least in their own home.  And parents wanted a way to screen out games that were excessively sexual or violent.

Sega and Nintendo took two wildly different approaches.  Sega introduced a ratings system for games on their consoles.  Any game that would be released had to be rated, and then parents could look at the rating and decide accordingly.

Nintendo instead insisted that all games on their consoles were appropriate for all ages.  They heavily censored games on their consoles to make it so.  Thus, you could buy Mortal Kombat for SNES, but the "blood" was clear--at least unless you also bought a Game Genie to change the color of the blood to something else.  Nintendo would allow Wolfenstein to have a rocket launcher cause a fiery, red explosion if it hit a wall, but not if it hit a person, as that looked too much like blood.  Game developers sometimes tried to slip things past Nintendo.  One game by Square had a mob that was a book flipping quickly, and if you paused the game at the right time, you could see one of the pages that it flipped past was a naked baby.

It wasn't just parents who were concerned.  There were also politicians who wanted to cater to such parents.  There were calls for government censorship of games, and the industry wished to avoid that.  Ultimately, Nintendo's censorship was untenable, and Sega's approach won out.

The gaming industry formed the ESRB to have a universal rating system to rate games and tell parents what was in their games.  Instead of having one rating system for games on Sega consoles, a totally different one for Nintendo, and yet another for Sony and their newfangled PlayStation, the entire gaming industry would settle on a common rating system and try to make it comprehensible to parents.  If you want to keep the most gratuitous sex and violence out of your home, it would be sufficient to check the rating and not let your kids play anything rated M (or the rare AO).  Stricter parents (or those with younger children) could also frown on games rated T.

A lot has changed since then, of course.  Game consoles are still around, but a lot of gaming has moved to PCs, and more recently, to phones.  Most games are downloaded now, and physical media to install a game is fairly rare.  Many games are "free", so kids can get access without needing a parent's car or even a parent's credit card.  The barriers to developing and releasing a game are much lower, so many more games launch in a given month than used to.  Many games don't get an ESRB rating at all.

The ESRB is thus a lot less important than it used to be.  One could dispute that it was ever all that important, but its influence has certainly waned.  And in an era where nearly any device connected to the Internet can readily access outright pornography, some of the parental objections from decades past seem downright quaint.

The ESRB carries on with its mission of trying to give parents who are not gamers some easy access to information about the games that their kids are playing in much the same way that movie ratings do.  One of the modern concerns is with games that find ways to trick kids into spending vastly more money than their parents expected.  And so the ESRB needed a way to warn parents who had no notion of what a "loot box" is which games might do this.  That's where this content descriptor came from.  The ESRB isn't trying to obfuscate anything.  They're trying to concisely describe things to parents who aren't gamers themselves.

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Nanfoodle

DMKano said:

ESRB solves nothing because nobody even reads the labels

I know lots of people that read them, myself included. Family guy that want to look after my family. I use sites like kids-in-mind.com to also keep them safe and many other tools like these. These things matter, if someone has a gambling problem they are trying to fight, this label will help them know what games to avoid. Im very happy to see this.

Quizzical

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

Iselin

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Quizzical

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Fine then, if you think this is insufficient, then what do you think they should do.  Assuming that you think that there should be a content descriptor for this, exactly what wording would you propose?

Iselin

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Fine then, if you think this is insufficient, then what do you think they should do.  Assuming that you think that there should be a content descriptor for this, exactly what wording would you propose?

How about "Includes gambling"? Even the most game illiterate parent would know what that means when it's included as an "In- game purchases" descriptor.

Slapshot1188

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Fine then, if you think this is insufficient, then what do you think they should do.  Assuming that you think that there should be a content descriptor for this, exactly what wording would you propose?

How about "Includes gambling"? Even the most game illiterate parent would know what that means when it's included under as an "In- game purchases" descriptor.

If it mentions gambling the ages have to match.

Iselin

Slapshot1188 said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Fine then, if you think this is insufficient, then what do you think they should do.  Assuming that you think that there should be a content descriptor for this, exactly what wording would you propose?

How about "Includes gambling"? Even the most game illiterate parent would know what that means when it's included under as an "In- game purchases" descriptor.

If it mentions gambling the ages have to match.

Oh I know and that would eliminate the bulk of their target market. This is no accidental gambling for minors: they are the target.

ShankTheTank

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Fine then, if you think this is insufficient, then what do you think they should do.  Assuming that you think that there should be a content descriptor for this, exactly what wording would you propose?

Instead of worrying about wording, eliminate the root cause: get rid of loot boxes

Quizzical

ShankTheTank said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Fine then, if you think this is insufficient, then what do you think they should do.  Assuming that you think that there should be a content descriptor for this, exactly what wording would you propose?

Instead of worrying about wording, eliminate the root cause: get rid of loot boxes

The ESRB cannot force game developers to do that.  The issue here as I see it is one of what the ESRB should do.

Iselin

Quizzical said:

ShankTheTank said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Fine then, if you think this is insufficient, then what do you think they should do.  Assuming that you think that there should be a content descriptor for this, exactly what wording would you propose?

Instead of worrying about wording, eliminate the root cause: get rid of loot boxes

The ESRB cannot force game developers to do that.  The issue here as I see it is one of what the ESRB should do.

You really do see them as a separate agency don't you? I don't. These are the developers doing their own labeling. Of course they can force themselves to do away with loot boxes.

ShankTheTank

Quizzical said:

ShankTheTank said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

That's where the "In game purchases" label came from and that is fine as a descriptor. This refinement of adding the parenthetical "includes random items" however is a shit descriptor for the type of in-game purchases that very closely resembles gambling.

Even calling them "loot boxes" in the first place is a whitewashing of the gambling it really is. So no this is a shit addition to the "in game purchases" warning that is designed to mislead.

Before the new content descriptor, they had no way to distinguish between loot boxes and the ability to buy an optional subscription or expansion pack.  That's why "in game purchases" was insufficient.

The fundamental objection to loot boxes is that people pay real money to get random items, is it not?  In game purchases of random items is pretty good for a short description of loot boxes, I think.

Getting people who are unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand why it is so insidious takes a much longer explanation.  That's probably going to require stories like this one in non-gaming media:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kendrick-perkins-children-accumulate-16000-of-fortnite-charges-on-his-credit-card/

But the point is that the ESRB knows what it is even if the parents don't. The ESRB is the ESA with the same board of directors and the CEO of Take Two Interactive as the ESRB chairman last time I looked.

They know what loot boxes are. They know what they do to addictive personalities including children. They know they work exactly the same way that slot machines work. And they also know that using gambling as a much more explicit and honest descriptor would alarm more parents and result in lower sales. Hence the more sanitized version of "random items."

Fine then, if you think this is insufficient, then what do you think they should do.  Assuming that you think that there should be a content descriptor for this, exactly what wording would you propose?

Instead of worrying about wording, eliminate the root cause: get rid of loot boxes

The ESRB cannot force game developers to do that.  The issue here as I see it is one of what the ESRB should do.

The issue is that the ESRB have proven that can’t and won’t do anything, as I indicate in the article. They need to regulated from an outside independent body. And loot boxes must be eliminated through that regulation.

Gdemami

ShankTheTank said:

Instead of worrying about wording, eliminate the root cause: get rid of loot boxes

...any mentally healthy individual or non-idiot parent handles loot boxes just fine.

Root cause is already sufficiently addressed - there are treatment programs for the former and hefty bills to pay for the laziness/irrisponsibility/stupidity of the latter.

DKLond

Does anyone expect laws to work against corporate interests when corporate interests dictate the laws?

sayuu

DMKano said:

ESRB solves nothing because nobody even reads the labels

my Mom Did when I was growing up, probably the only one that did.

Acalex

I think loot boxes are fine, as long as there isn't some gameplay advantage to buying them. If people want to blow their money on emotes and skins, that's on them.

ShankTheTank

Acalex said:

I think loot boxes are fine, as long as there isn't some gameplay advantage to buying them. If people want to blow their money on emotes and skins, that's on them.

This perspective fails to take into account those who have genuine addiction problems. Loot boxes may be fine for you, but they're not targeting people like you (or me) who know exactly what loot boxes are. They're a gambling mechanic and prey on folks with legitimate addictive issues, in addition to people who don't know better like children and uninformed parents.

tcords

It’s amazing how many people are in favor of censorship and control and so few of personal choice and responsibility. If I want to play a game and buy loot boxes, don’t stand in my way. The ESRB is doing exactly what it should be doing, allowing consumers to make informed choices. If consumers choose to ignore them, so be it. Stop trying to control monetization simply because you don’t like it.