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Video game "loot boxes" may become federally illegal??......
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Smokey:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/08/video-game-loot-boxes-would-be-outlawed-many-games-under-forthcoming-federal-bill/?utm_term=.0567cb655eb8

--- Quote ---Loot Boxes have "...what psychologists call “variable rewards,” meaning outcomes that are better or worse depending on seemingly random factors."
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---"Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan (N.H.), who said the practice of paying for random loot had a “close link to gambling.”"
--- End quote ---

How about a thought experiment...
Lets substitute "loot boxes" for "packs of baseball cards" (or "magic the gathering packs" or "Pokemon card packs" or whatever card game packs) and see how fast law makers get laughed out of the jobs for suggesting making baseball cards federally illegal "because of the children!".

Problem solution #1: Stop being negligent parents and being unaware of what your kids are doing with the devices that you gave them to play with!  If your kids screw up, take responsibility for not doing a good job of supervising and teach your kids a life lesson.  That's your job.
Problem solution #2: Use the tools the tech companies already give you to address this exact problem:

--- Quote ---“We look forward to sharing with the senator the tools and information the industry already provides that keeps the control of in-game spending in parents’ hands,” Stanley Pierre-Louis, the group’s acting president, said in a statement."
--- End quote ---
Problem solution #3: MORE LAWS!  Tech is scary!

Note:
This is actually relevant here because we all have an interest in the tech world and this is an example of a stupid legislative reaction to a problem of scary new technology that's really a result of bad parenting, which is not going away any time soon and a slippery slope further down the road to anything "new" "digital" and "technology" being considered "bad for the children". 
For example, how about making all Youtube videos illegal since you don't know what ads you are going to see and kids might click them and buy something? 
madires:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/20/the-netherlands-starts-enforcing-its-loot-box-ban
Brumby:
I'm not that against the idea.

These games become immersive and you could claim they are addictive.  By offering purchase of stuff - using real money - useful in a players progress through the game, you are using their addiction to extract money.  With this becoming a part of the game play, players will head down the path of financial peril.  This is taking the "game junkie" and turning them into a true junkie, complete with monetary malice.

I find that morally reprehensible and I think legislation to make such entrapment illegal is not inappropriate.
T3sl4co1l:

--- Quote from: Smokey on May 10, 2019, 10:38:22 am ---Problem solution #1: Stop being negligent parents

--- End quote ---

I find it peculiar how common this statement is.  As if simply repeating it were to have any effect?  It's like a prayer: it's never heard by those it's directed at, nor is it ever heeded by them any more than chance.

Devil's advocate: if the parents don't want to teach their kids, the state SHOULD step up and teach them!

Ah, but the counter-argument to that (if you can call it that) is that the state shouldn't dictate what children think.  Which, for all the things states get up to, is a very good precaution.

But it's also an implicit excuse to do nothing.  If we aren't keeping the state accountable, and, we aren't keeping parents accountable, well, then what, we're just a bunch of shitty people, aren't we?

That's really what it seems to come down to, making excuses to not be involved in the system, in any way.  It's a prayer for apathy.

It doesn't matter if you're going to take negligent parents to task directly, or have the state take charge.  The effect is equivalent.  And the means are equivalent.  Getting involved and holding authority accountable. :palm:

Tim
Bud:
What is loot boxes?
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