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In Game Purchases Warnings
Feb. 27th, 2018 05:53 pmOver at kotaku they have an article saying after months of controversy the ESRB will now add "In Game Purchases" label to games with in-game purchases.
Is this a step in the right direction? Or is it being applied so badly that it will end up doing more harm than good?
Here's the issue, this warning will be applied to any game that has ANY DLC purchases available for it. It might just be a couple item packs that are completely unneeeded, or it might be a perverse lootbox scam linked completely to character progression in addition to other things.
In either case the only warning to the player before purchase is "In Game Purchases".
The ESRB didn't want to focus on lootbox scams directly, which is the exact thing that caused the controversy to begin with (And really most of the conspiracy was wondering why they were so insistent they weren't a form of gambling. ie: a game of chance played with money. To be clear, they STILL hold to that misguided mindset. They, and the game publishers themselves, are about the only people that refuse to see it as gambling.
Their reason for not harping on lootboxes however is because "parents don't know what lootboxes are, and those who claim they do still don't know what they are."
The future of this tag is that it will be applied to 99% of all games released from here on out, and it will be so watered down that it will not do a damned thing. Granted I know at this point you'd need a full box all to it's own these days to be specific about what DLC is available in a game, but still grouping it all together under a single little line isn't helping much.
I would like to know what happens to a publisher that doesn't have the tag added to their label because they decided to go without DLC at launch, but then add DLC 6 months down the road. So maybe this will help people sue companies that try to avoid the label by delaying their plans when the customer is explicitly trying to avoid DLC.
Is this a step in the right direction? Or is it being applied so badly that it will end up doing more harm than good?
Here's the issue, this warning will be applied to any game that has ANY DLC purchases available for it. It might just be a couple item packs that are completely unneeeded, or it might be a perverse lootbox scam linked completely to character progression in addition to other things.
In either case the only warning to the player before purchase is "In Game Purchases".
The ESRB didn't want to focus on lootbox scams directly, which is the exact thing that caused the controversy to begin with (And really most of the conspiracy was wondering why they were so insistent they weren't a form of gambling. ie: a game of chance played with money. To be clear, they STILL hold to that misguided mindset. They, and the game publishers themselves, are about the only people that refuse to see it as gambling.
Their reason for not harping on lootboxes however is because "parents don't know what lootboxes are, and those who claim they do still don't know what they are."
The future of this tag is that it will be applied to 99% of all games released from here on out, and it will be so watered down that it will not do a damned thing. Granted I know at this point you'd need a full box all to it's own these days to be specific about what DLC is available in a game, but still grouping it all together under a single little line isn't helping much.
I would like to know what happens to a publisher that doesn't have the tag added to their label because they decided to go without DLC at launch, but then add DLC 6 months down the road. So maybe this will help people sue companies that try to avoid the label by delaying their plans when the customer is explicitly trying to avoid DLC.
