Belgium’s gambling regulators goes to war against RNG

[Stigbob]

The interesting thing is that dependent on who you believe, EA shut down their single player star wars visceral studios game (which was looking to me to be a sandbox spacetrader with spacelegs and a story) because they couldnt work out how to put reward boxes into the multiplayer element of the game EA wanted shoehorned in.

I wonder how it'll affect future game design, and what impact it will have on legacy games?

I could believe that, companies go where the money is after all. As with tax evasion as long as they are legally allowed to do it they'll take advantage as much as they can, and from a business viewpoint so they should.

I'd like to see it being either banned outright or stuck behind the same sort of regulation and restrictions we've got for online gambling. The thing is they can sidestep the gambling classification by removing the random element and just flogging pay2win stuff via an online store. They'd get criticized for being pay2win and the compulsive gamblers wouldn't be as profitable, but people would still buy the stuff so lootboxes are here to stay. They might have a legally enforced contents list in future though.

 

[Stealthie]

The interesting thing is that dependent on who you believe, EA shut down their single player star wars visceral studios game (which was looking to me to be a sandbox spacetrader with spacelegs and a story) because they couldnt work out how to put reward boxes into the multiplayer element of the game EA wanted shoehorned in.

I wonder how it'll affect future game design, and what impact it will have on legacy games?

I can't really blame people for being concerned about Battlefront 2.
I don't see what the confusion might be. It looks like a completely deliberate and cynical attempt at "paradigm shift" in order to generate more revenue.

We currently have a few fairly well-defined business models.
1) Outright purchase. You pay full-price for a product and that provides you with all the goodies.
2) Subscription. You pay a monthly fee in return for access to all the goodies.
3) F2P: You have free access to the basic game but you have to pay for any of the goodies.

Seems like somebody at EA thought it'd be a good idea to try and introduce a bit of double-dipping in the hope that people would accept it and get used to it and then a similar thing could be integrated into other games in future.

S'funny how it's not the first time this has happened with Star Wars stuff too.
When Bioware (through EA) released "The Old Republic" MMO, people were moaning cos it was, IIRC, something like £25 to buy and then there was a monthly subscription too.
Maybe the companies think that SW is such a high-profile franchise that people will accept iffy business practices if it means they get to play an SW game?

*EDIT*

Suppose it's worth saying that, if nothing else, FDev will always have my respect and my gratitude for going with a straightforward business model when it came to ED.
I'm sure it was tempting to consider a subscription model or even an F2P model but good on 'em for just going with a straightforward, one-off payment. [up]

 

[Infiltrait0r]

this is going to affect a lot games with gambling boxes. I don't even know why it is investigated, it is clearly gambling at all. It always has been in every of these games. the only possible contr aganst this si that you always "win" something even if it's worthless.

So for example you buy a lottery ticket, and if they print a recipe for a cookie on it's back side then it stops being gambling? Since, you know, you've got something. A nice recipe to try in this case. But it could be some good wishes too, or some good advice.

Also i don't get it why real money changing hands are so important in this definition of gambling. With engineers for example you gamble away not your money but your time. And time is money as we know. Also time is your life.

 

[kofeyh]

Elite has a roulette wheel. It takes materials, time, and turns it into regret.

Doesn't really matter if it took real money, or bits of virtual sulphur, it's still essentially gambling. It's still triggering the same centers in the brain. It's still addictive and it's still going to impact people as a consequence. I can only presume there was, at some time, a wager at Frontier, that they'd never get away with it, and someone called the bet.

It doesn't involve currency, however as noted. So this is fine^tm. But of all the ways frontier could have elected to design engineers. [noob]

 

[Achibot]

When we eventually get spacelegs, FD could place casinos inside stations. Our CMDRs could go in them and bet credits on poker games, slot machines, fights, whatever, and win or lose credits by the billions. This would still not be seen as gambling that could be regulated, as real money didn't get spent, lost or won. But if credits ever became purchasable and/or saleable with real money, it would become gambling.

It's the fact that real money changes hands that makes it gambling.

End of Thread guys. Seriously. This refers entirely to items which can be purchased for actual currency, where the outcome of said purchase is entirely random. When you buy ED you buy a license to play software and none of the DLC (skins etc) are random. This is a fairly massive and justifiable blow to crooked operators out there, one that is long overdue, but not an issue for 90% of game developers and not for FD.

 

[Lightspeed]

Random Numbers will be regulated.

On Mondays, only numbers from 1 to 10 will be permitted.
On Tuesdays, 11 to 100.
Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays will allow up to 1000.
Saturdays and Sundays will not permit any random numbers because these two days interfere with the week being decimalized. Which will be the subject of another Directive.

 

[duckofdeath]

Impressive way to misinterpret things to get a reaction. Loot boxes are gambling. You actively pay money to get a random item. Which has nothing to do with this game.

 

[Kaybe]

ALL online games have some element of RNG somewhere. I don't think this article targets RNG at all. Rather, it targets the RNG where players pay real money to have a random chance to having an item in a loot box that gives them a competitive edge. Which I'd argue is indeed quite bad. IMO, loot boxes are fine as long as the items within are only convenience items (increased XP, for example), cosmetic items, or items that are no stronger than those you could get in game without spending money.

I played a whole lot of Star Trek Online and I can definitely tell you what ugly loot boxes look like from there. Pretty much every ship that you could randomly (very rarely) get from loot boxes was categorically more powerful than regular ships ... and that's saying a lot since those regular ships were already very difficult to get through in game means without purchasing the premium currency with real money. Cryptic is notorious for this kind of sh*t.

Be happy you're playing Elite where there's zero way of buying your way into dominance. And no, expansions (i.e. Horizons) don't count.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

It is about lootboxes that you can buy for real money as hidden form of gambling.

 

[Troy_McClure]

I think the OP might be overlooking the need for money to be involved before games of chance face legal issues.

As I understand it, one of the mechanics of Battlefront 2 involves buying random "loot crates" which may contain power-ups that can usually only be earned via hours of play.
That would add the element of money as well as chance and (possibly) be considered as gambling.

The same isn't true of ED (or snakes & ladders or snap) unless you decide to bet on it.

There is actually one significant example of monetised gambling in ED...the LEP!

One is not only gambling on one's own personal return, but also on the future of the game ie. goodwill/moral fortitude of Frontier to provide appropriate, sustained development with at least a modicum of motivation.

'Fingers crossed, everyone! [blah]

 

[Snarfbuckle]

All games have random elements, stops boredom setting in almost immediately and adds replayability. If engineers had sliders there would be one mod recipe for each weapon or module and it would all be very samey. I like tinkering with my ships on an individual basis.

No, what we have today with the RNG is basically a "god" roll goal for each modification merely giving us a hunt for the perfect roll and that IS making every weapon the same.

if we could truly TINKER with the gear we could tune them for specific values we would want for each ship. Instead of random drawbacks we would be able to create personal unique versions of a weapon.

- Select each value you want to increase = Each value of X cost Y materials
- Each increase demands an equal decrease = Each decreased value of X ALSO cost materials
- Select the special effect we want = Multiply the cost of the special effect with the total rating of weapon change

Instead of slot machine we would actually be able to create far more fun and different weapons and gear and choose different kind of negative effects instead of the ones locked into a few engineering choices.

 

[Stigbob]

No, what we have today with the RNG is basically a "god" roll goal for each modification merely giving us a hunt for the perfect roll and that IS making every weapon the same.

if we could truly TINKER with the gear we could tune them for specific values we would want for each ship. Instead of random drawbacks we would be able to create personal unique versions of a weapon.

- Select each value you want to increase = Each value of X cost Y materials
- Each increase demands an equal decrease = Each decreased value of X ALSO cost materials
- Select the special effect we want = Multiply the cost of the special effect with the total rating of weapon change

Instead of slot machine we would actually be able to create far more fun and different weapons and gear and choose different kind of negative effects instead of the ones locked into a few engineering choices.

God rolls are for the grindlords who spend equal time whinging about their eye's bleeding and wrongly advising people they need hundreds of rolls for an acceptable upgrade, I usually go with the best of three.

I broke that rule when I engineered a pair of increased ammo seeker missile racks, as I wanted both to run out at the same time whilst firing in pairs. I probably did 6 or 7 rolls for the second one it took me a good ten minutes.

 

[Becky]

God rolls are for the grindlords who spend equal time whinging about their eye's bleeding and wrongly advising people they need hundreds of rolls for an acceptable upgrade, I usually go with the best of three.

I have to say I'm in the that category my corvette and python thrusters have 50 rolls each on them, minimum; but I was trying to roll against the dice in this case. most RNG modules I do get 10 minimum. But now all RNG is on hold until Q1 update.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

God rolls are for the grindlords who spend equal time whinging about their eye's bleeding and wrongly advising people they need hundreds of rolls for an acceptable upgrade, I usually go with the best of three.

I broke that rule when I engineered a pair of increased ammo seeker missile racks, as I wanted both to run out at the same time whilst firing in pairs. I probably did 6 or 7 rolls for the second one it took me a good ten minutes.

But that's basically it, each single engineering has ONE interesting main attribute we want to maximize and a few other set attributes and drawbacks.

It would be far more interesting to be able to choose drawbacks and other attributes we would want instead and pick the drawbacks.

There are so much MORE we could do with modules if we could tweak ALL values with engineering and choose the negative and positive values and then pay the material cost depending on the result we want.

For FSD we have the following attributes split over different blueprints instead of simply having a tweak menu with all attributes.

- Integrity
- Mass
- Optimized mass
- Power Draw
- Fuel Consumption per jump
- Waste heat generated per second
- Boot time

 

[Variform]

"Peter Naessens, says that if your ability to succeed in the game is dependent on random outcomes [...] then the commission will have to consider it a game of chance."

https://www.pcgamesn.com/star-wars-...2-loot-box-gambling-belgium-gaming-commission

Might be worth considering alternative options for Engineers - sliders perhaps; because, as everyone knows, Elite is all about having the top notch random rolls.

I have been aware of this issue for years now. When you play Star Trek Online there are lock boxes as well. The chance to get a ship from a box is 1 in a 1000 or so. Someone once explained to me that through some statistical magical reasoning you can be guaranteed to get that rare ship when you open 1000 boxes. And the ships are the only real reason to open them because the ships can be sold in the exchange for hundreds of millions. Boxes need to be opened with a key that you buy with Zen, which is the game currency you can buy for real money, or you can get Zen by exchanging dilithium for it and the ratio varies depending on economic factors.

However: "...your ability to succeed in the game is dependent on random outcomes..." is where the difficulty lies. In STO you don't need these ships to 'succeed' because they might come with special modules or traits, you ccan finish the campaign and do all the queues without such ships. So you gamble for vanity items. So in the case of STO I don't think they could win a case.

 

[Han Zulu]

Might be worth considering alternative options for Engineers - sliders perhaps; because, as everyone knows, Elite is all about having the top notch random rolls.

FDev has already announced that they're working on changing the Engineers for the Beyond Season.

 

[Han Zulu]

But that's basically it, each single engineering has ONE interesting main attribute we want to maximize and a few other set attributes and drawbacks.

It would be far more interesting to be able to choose drawbacks and other attributes we would want instead and pick the drawbacks.

There are so much MORE we could do with modules if we could tweak ALL values with engineering and choose the negative and positive values and then pay the material cost depending on the result we want.

For FSD we have the following attributes split over different blueprints instead of simply having a tweak menu with all attributes.

- Integrity
- Mass
- Optimized mass
- Power Draw
- Fuel Consumption per jump
- Waste heat generated per second
- Boot time

Agree. You gain effects but lose on others, and you can pick which ones. Perhaps a point system would work better? For an upgrade, you get a number of points you can spend on upgrading different modules, and if you want more, you can take existing points from another function.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

I have been aware of this issue for years now. When you play Star Trek Online there are lock boxes as well. The chance to get a ship from a box is 1 in a 1000 or so. Someone once explained to me that through some statistical magical reasoning you can be guaranteed to get that rare ship when you open 1000 boxes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler's_fallacy

God rolls are for the grindlords who spend equal time whinging about their eye's bleeding and wrongly advising people they need hundreds of rolls for an acceptable upgrade, I usually go with the best of three.

I broke that rule when I engineered a pair of increased ammo seeker missile racks, as I wanted both to run out at the same time whilst firing in pairs. I probably did 6 or 7 rolls for the second one it took me a good ten minutes.

This is a good point, it's easy to get a few G5 upgrades, which are significantly better than stock.
That takes very little effort.

 

[Han Zulu]

Besides the rolls on engineering, there should be a more predictable way of getting the mats, but perhaps more dangerous or difficult. Right now, the skill set you have to have is patience and sitting and looking at a screen for USS. If instead the USS were more common, but they would show up in systems at war, and those war systems were to be really intense and difficult (harder interdiction, maybe even pirates dropping in when you're at the USS), so it's more of a skill to get them instead of just .... blank-stare waiting for the right USS to show... I think it would be more interesting.

 

[Starbreaker]

God rolls are for the grindlords who spend equal time whinging about their eye's bleeding and wrongly advising people they need hundreds of rolls for an acceptable upgrade, I usually go with the best of three.

I broke that rule when I engineered a pair of increased ammo seeker missile racks, as I wanted both to run out at the same time whilst firing in pairs. I probably did 6 or 7 rolls for the second one it took me a good ten minutes.

+1

Looking at my statistics I have generated 612 G5 rolls, I estimate roughly 240 modules on ships and in storage with G5 rolls on them. So I have on average 2,6 rolls per G5 module rounded up, in most cases my ships will have stats close or better than what I would have if I used the 'best' roll option on coriolis compared to actual numbers. Now I know that some might scoff at the 'best' shown at coriolis, personally I'm happy with it. Which is also why I am fine with how engineers are except for the way they handle material storage.