wildcardarcana:

grimmhelm:

So for those who
didn’t notice a few things changed this week.

After EA’s frankly
disgusting Loot crate system more than a few people got upset, the
fact that it was attached to a Star Wars game made this explode in a
big way.

This morning Belgium
made the legal decision to mark ALL loot crates gambling and have
since taken the legislative action to the EU congress.

-what this means-

1) If they receive at minimum 20 votes from the gathering of almost
200 all countries within the EU can make the switch over legally to
making Loot Boxs gambling

2) If done so they simply have to make a single small court
appearance and they do not need to announce that they are doing so.

3) All game companies that sell loot crates or similar WILL have to
PURCHASE a gambling license that will consist of 20% of their tax on
the system from the last year, they must re-buy this every year.

4) The companies may also be ‘Taxed’ for all previous years of
selling the crates within the region of some countries, this would be
a loss of literally billions in some companies cases.

This will be an almost certainty in places such as Italy that is
currently going through a financial crisis at the moment and will
cost the companies greatly if the regions choose to add a tax to the
initial taking of funds, which is within there legal rights to do so.

5) All drop rates and quality rating must be made Public and actively
Updated. -the very thing Blizzard has been trying not to do since
Overwatch launched.

——————-

Loot crates will become VERY unprofitable since all prices will also
be regulated from outside of publishers and there can be up to (but
not limited too) a 40% take on all crate sales within some areas.
Added to the purchase of gabling licenses this will be around a 60
-80% take from company profits each year.

There is also a special little note here.

Hawaii have also jumped onto this little float boat, an area which
has being confirmed as a primary seller of loot crates for the last
year are now pushing it forth by the government as gabling, if it
takes hold there six other states have vowed to follow suit.

You can see the press conference here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_akwfRuL4os

This has caused Blizzard to actively state on there Twitter this
morning that meetings are currently underway about the replacement
/modification to loot boxes in both Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch
at this current time.

This after the Blizz-con 2017 event where they talked about expanding
the loot crate system to a greater extend over the course of the loot
panel held on the Saturday.

Link
here: https://twitter.com/Blizzard_Ent/status/933073205979254780

EDIT: Apparently the tweet was removed VERY quickly after, teach me not to grab a screenshot…

I’m reasonably sure someone at EA is getting screamed at right now,
and that other companies are watching this with the utmost attention,
there is also a lot of people keeping that same attention on EA since
they are being the ones pinned as responsible.

I fucking hope they all get labeled as gambling. They function very similar to gambling and actively do prey upon gambling addictions and depressive/other mental illnesses that are prone to being exploited by microtransactions

@arcaninesfavoritetrainer @drakenflagreon