98 replies to this topic

[KoalaBrownie]

TWIAFU, on 08 December 2016 - 10:25 AM, said:

Sure, strengthen my knowledge.

List what games that are allowed to be played by the Chinese Government, in China, that this will effect?

No one here is your research assistant. Do your own googling.

[Chuck Jager]

Spheroid, on 08 December 2016 - 08:52 AM, said:

Or what? PGI has no assets in China. The game servers are elsewhere and financial transactions servers are not in China. They have no leverage. Do they even have enough manpower to review and sanction every online game in the world? Lets be realistic.

I agree

Online games in China that feature blind loot boxes will be required to outline their drop probabilities in the future.

Basically China is going to get hit by the same loophole their manufactures use bypass product licenses on Alibabba" . If the company selling the product and the transaction takes place outside of the jurisdiction that the law covers, no offense takes place. If you get something on the internet, it is not located at your house, but in the location of the manufacturer,distributor and IP/servers. This is a great big loop hole or smart business move, depending on if you are the pitcher or the catcher.

Folks try and read what is written, not what you want to see.

Edited by Chuck Jager, 08 December 2016 - 11:35 AM.

[TLBFestus]

TWIAFU, on 08 December 2016 - 08:49 AM, said:

One major flaw, you are gambling in Vegas, your not gambling in MWO.

Really? Sure seems like gambling to most of us. Regardless of the fact that PGI and other companies are using the "Your aren't paying cash, your are BUYING MC and using it to open crates, therefore it's not gambling" loophole, anyone who uses MC is really paying cash for a random outcome in which they hope to win something valuable.

You are gambling, paying a small amount in hopes of winning a larger amount.

Personally, I'm in favor of it being mandatory that these companies be legislated to reveal the actual odds of winning.

We've seen in this thread that some think it's 1:1000 to win a mech and others feel it might be as low as 1:100. That's a significant difference, and for all we know it might be 1:5000. What's important is that people should be making informed decisions/choices even when they gamble.

Players can figure out or be gladly told the odds of winning in various games of chance in Vegas, it's no secret. Why should it be here?

[Dimento Graven]

TLBFestus, on 08 December 2016 - 11:30 AM, said:

Really? Sure seems like gambling to most of us.

...

Technically it's gambling, even if you purchase MC and risk that. In casinos you rarely gamble with real cash, but instead you're using house currency in the form of chips, that you "buy" from the casino. It's similar enough to legal tender such that, it's actually illegal to counterfeit casino chips.

Anyway, the type of 'gambling' is more less like 'game show' gambling.

You randomly win a box, and you can either 'sell' the box for 50k Cbills, OR, you can risk (I dunno how much is 25mc in real dollars, a buck? Let's just call it a dollar for simplicity's sake) a dollar and win one of these things that might be worth more than 25mc, or 50k cbills.

The only real uncertainty is the actual odds, and I doubt publishing the actual odds is going to change anything for anyone currently in the habit of opening these boxes.

[Chuck Jager]

TLBFestus, on 08 December 2016 - 11:30 AM, said:

We've seen in this thread that some think it's 1:1000 to win a mech and others feel it might be as low as 1:100. That's a significant difference, and for all we know it might be 1:5000. What's important is that people should be making informed decisions/choices even when they gamble.

I have opened less than 20 crates and won a Dragon. Be careful what you wish for.

The real tinfoil hat question is do the odds stay the same for all players at all levels. Some of the reasons for posted odds is so that gambling oriented businesses can more easily be pegged for baiting players with easy wins. In a pool game this is called hustling and can end up getting your a** beat. IN business it is called a loss leader.

[Dimento Graven]

Chuck Jager, on 08 December 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

I have opened less than 20 crates and won a Dragon. Be careful what you wish for.

I've opened a lot more crates than that, and haven't won a 'mech yet, not even a crappy dragon...

Maybe there's something to what you say...

[L3mming2]

Spheroid, on 08 December 2016 - 08:52 AM, said:

Or what? PGI has no assets in China. The game servers are elsewhere and financial transactions servers are not in China. They have no leverage. Do they even have enough manpower to review and sanction every online game in the world? Lets be realistic.

Also a game developer that struggles to deliver core game features is not going to bend over backwards to appease the Chinese government. The game will be dead long before that unlikely scenario.

china, "Do they even have enough manpower" lol

they can block the acces of annyone chinese to the MWO servers (dont know if there are enough chinese mwo players for that to matter do) and all it takes for them to find out is 1 guy who is unhappy with PGI and/ore there lootcrates to warn them.
then the chinese goverment can simply give them the ultimatum, ore make the lootcrate chance numbers public ore get bloced from acces to our market..

[Chuck Jager]

Dimento Graven, on 08 December 2016 - 11:47 AM, said:

I've opened a lot more crates than that, and haven't won a 'mech yet, not even a crappy dragon...

Maybe there's something to what you say...

As an amateur competitive cyclist, I became type 1 diabetic at age 27. Two years later, I was diagnosed with radiation resistant cancer. So trust me odds are a weird thing (1in 100 for type 1 diabetes multiplied by 1 in 1000 for the radiation resistant cancer)

But yes fixing odds to entice folks is very real. Every time you make a user name or allow your facebook login to be used you are giving a company a user profile of how you may react in a pure mathematical algorithm. It is the same as them finding out that people spend more if their interior layout has certain features.

[Lily from animove]

Dimento Graven, on 08 December 2016 - 10:26 AM, said:

Well the stated 'rarity' implies that the 'wedges' of that MWO prize wheel are different sizes. Where a rare item is on a single thin sliced 'wedge' and common items are on huge slices...

But again, I don't see a problem posting the odds.

I doubt for many people it will change their unlock habits one bit.

it's buisness + game theory
lets say an atlas costs 2000 mc and a key 200 mc yet chances to get an atlas is 1%. no one in his sane mind would choose to buy keys. hiding the odds means you cannot make a proper estimation of the returnvalue you will averagely get. The reason why the odds are hidden is because the avergae win is much lower compared to the stufff you would buy directly.

game theory was one of the interesting subjects I had at university.

[TWIAFU]

TLBFestus, on 08 December 2016 - 11:30 AM, said:

Really? Sure seems like gambling to most of us.

For it to BE gambling, there MUST be a risk of loss.

So, what are you risking to loose?

If you make a bet, ala gambling, what happens if you loose your bet? You loose what you wagered in that bet.

When you "gamble" in opening a box, what's the bet? What you are doing is "gambling" on what you want vs what you get.

There are no odds for that.

This is not gambling.

[TWIAFU]

KoalaBrownie, on 08 December 2016 - 10:36 AM, said:

No one here is your research assistant. Do your own googling.

Cute.

Best you can do for imparting knowledge?

Ok then, why should PGI, add code that limits online play to three hours to MWO for China or automatically cut off loot boxes as loot after three hours?

After that, why should they make code changes to show odds of these loot boxes for China players?

Does PGI even have enough Chinese players to actually give a flying ****?

[Mawai]

The cited article actually says:

"2.6 – Online game publishers shall promptly publicly announce information about the name, property, content, quantity, and draw/forge probability of all virtual items and services that can be drawn/forge on the official website or a dedicated draw probability webpage of the game. The information on draw probability shall be true and effective."

Note that the text cited here specifically states website and webpages associated with the game. This may also include in game items like MWO has but it also might not. It really depends on exactly what they are trying to regulate and from the description it sounds like websites on which you can gamble for virtual merchandise in game rather than an ingame optional supplemental reward system that utilizes in game currency that can be purchased for real currency.

[QuantumButler]

Realtalk folks: MWO is such a tiny, irrelevant game to the online gamers in general that no one in China is going to care enough to even send PGI a google translated form letter.

[GenghisJr]

I dont think you can play in China, the chat function would enable communication that was not monitored with the outside world, they cant get YT or FB for the same reason. I have never met someone from china in MWO, perhaps Hong Kong but never mainland China

[Lily from animove]

TWIAFU, on 08 December 2016 - 01:41 PM, said:

For it to BE gambling, there MUST be a risk of loss.

So, what are you risking to loose?

If you make a bet, ala gambling, what happens if you loose your bet? You loose what you wagered in that bet.

When you "gamble" in opening a box, what's the bet? What you are doing is "gambling" on what you want vs what you get.

There are no odds for that.

This is not gambling.

well, theres your definition of gambling and then theres the one that nearly the entire world uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling

Edited by Lily from animove, 08 December 2016 - 03:03 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Lily from animove, on 08 December 2016 - 12:53 PM, said:

it's buisness + game theory
lets say an atlas costs 2000 mc and a key 200 mc yet chances to get an atlas is 1%. no one in his sane mind would choose to buy keys.

...

You aren't serious are you?

Check the stated odds on various state run lotteries, and then check to see how many people are willing to invest money on odds, SIGNIFICANTLY LESS, than 1%...

Again, I think you're over estimating people's 'risk averse'-ness...

[Anjian]

I doubt if there is any MWO player in mainland China to even matter. Even if it did, you would be running dedicated servers over there with a partner, and you can make specific alterations for that region.

What's more important is that the EU takes a bleak look at companies that "nerf" or alter digital content or products after they are sold. If you want to change/nerf the already paid digital product you maybe required to offer refund or other compensation.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Nice that someone is concerned about the addictive gambling problem in Asia. Of course "good" MMOs are even more addictive than crack.

[Dimento Graven]

MechWarrior5152251, on 08 December 2016 - 04:45 PM, said:

Nice that someone is concerned about the addictive gambling problem in Asia. Of course "good" MMOs are even more addictive than crack.

I had over a decade into EverQuest before I got out...

So... Yeah...

[TLBFestus]

TWIAFU, on 08 December 2016 - 01:41 PM, said:

For it to BE gambling, there MUST be a risk of loss.

So, what are you risking to loose?

If you make a bet, ala gambling, what happens if you loose your bet? You loose what you wagered in that bet.

When you "gamble" in opening a box, what's the bet? What you are doing is "gambling" on what you want vs what you get.

There are no odds for that.

This is not gambling.

Would you prefer the term "Lottery with unknown odds"?