Bigred's Video Game Thread

[wufwugy]

The question the needs to be asked yet seems to not be asked when it comes to the proposal to have government intervene is "would this improve preferences and efficiency?"

[oskar]

"And what legal limit is that? They offer things to buy? And some people buy them?"
CS:GO betting sites are very grey area. You can bet skins that have no monetary value outside the steam marketplace, you can upload cosmetic skins to the gambling site and they only pay out skins, so they neatly avoid any gambling laws, but there are other sites that allow you to bulk sell or buy skins in exchange for cash.
On the less obvious end of the spectrum there's item drop systems that are carbon copied from slot machines, but without any of the regulations involved with slot machines. So you don't know the odds, the odds are subject to change and they might do things like lower the odds the more you spend. Someone even dug up a patent by some game publisher that was a system to match worse players with much better players who had certain items to entice them to buy those.
So unless publishers ease up on that crap, which they're not going to, government agencies will start to see that as a place to make easy money, and then we're going to be nostalgic about the time it was just the FCC blasting us in the ass.

[spoonitnow]

Someone even dug up a patent by some game publisher that was a system to match worse players with much better players who had certain items to entice them to buy those.

That's a very smart decision.

Everything you listed will be handled by the market if there is demand for such. If not, government intervention isn't needed anyway.

[Jack Sawyer]

"And what legal limit is that? They offer things to buy? And some people buy them?"
CS:GO betting sites are very grey area. You can bet skins that have no monetary value outside the steam marketplace, you can upload cosmetic skins to the gambling site and they only pay out skins, so they neatly avoid any gambling laws, but there are other sites that allow you to bulk sell or buy skins in exchange for cash.
On the less obvious end of the spectrum there's item drop systems that are carbon copied from slot machines, but without any of the regulations involved with slot machines. So you don't know the odds, the odds are subject to change and they might do things like lower the odds the more you spend. Someone even dug up a patent by some game publisher that was a system to match worse players with much better players who had certain items to entice them to buy those.
So unless publishers ease up on that crap, which they're not going to, government agencies will start to see that as a place to make easy money, and then we're going to be nostalgic about the time it was just the FCC blasting us in the ass.

And also the whole tmartyn and prosyndicate thing, "forgetting" to disclose they owned the actual sites they were lootboxing on, then claiming amnesia, then apologizing

[spoonitnow]

And also the whole tmartyn and prosyndicate thing, "forgetting" to disclose they owned the actual sites they were lootboxing on, then claiming amnesia, then apologizing

This sounds juicy. Quick explanation?

[Jack Sawyer]

This sounds juicy. Quick explanation?

So it's a game. Then started the skin gambling. Then, these jackasses would upload huge wins and reactions on their sites, failing to mention that it was their sites. Investigation quickly followed, and then they would claim it wasn't theirs, then claim amnesia, then eventually uploading apologies as they figured out that yes, indeed, they owned the damn sites (and had admin accounts. Like lee jones at pokerstars, against you, headsup.)

This is basically the tip of the iceberg, a whole saga ensued

[spoonitnow]

So it's a game. Then started the skin gambling. Then, these jackasses would upload huge wins and reactions on their sites, failing to mention that it was their sites. Investigation quickly followed, and then they would claim it wasn't theirs, then claim amnesia, then eventually uploading apologies as they figured out that yes, indeed, they owned the damn sites (and had admin accounts. Like lee jones at pokerstars, against you, headsup.)

This is basically the tip of the iceberg, a whole saga ensued

Is the tldr that they were marketing fake huge wins to promote their own skin gambling sites?

I'm asking because that's a common tactic in gambling markets. I've added this video to my queue regardless. This type of thing is super interesting to me because I'm quite involved in the larger online gambling industry.

Edit: So I had a look at the first several minutes of that video, and it's pretty much what I expected. I've heard bits and pieces about how skin gambling works, but I've never really sat down and looked into it deeply.

With regards to the making fake videos about winning (and sometimes losing) large amounts as a marketing tactic, my understanding is that they were pretty stupid with how they were so transparent about it. They took no precautions whatsoever to make the story they were trying to tell look legitimate. I have no moral/ethical qualms with the basic idea of what they were doing, but I do have a huge issue with how poorly executed it was. It's just plain terrible.

With that having been said, my understanding of marketing and the lengths to which things like this happen in virtually (no pun intended) all other sectors and markets probably makes me not care too much about it. That general conversation gets out of the scope of video games pretty quickly, and I might make a post about it in the randomness thread to continue that particular conversation there.

Thank you for the video and brief explanation.

[Jack Sawyer]

Thank you for the video and brief explanation.

Np.

These are the shenanigans I'm against. You know, now you add kids to the mix, because CSGO (and it's lootboxes) is PG13 of course. I didn't check that rating, but I'm willing to bet money on it being PG13.

They took the gambling not-gambling aspect of this particular game's lootboxes and built an entire empire on it. Which is what the "reaction videos" are all about. Granted, it was a house of cards, but those were their actions

[oskar]

https://kotaku.com/activision-patent...ers-1819630937