Not sure how much of an impact this will have, but it looks like PAX West will have a panel attempting to educate attendees and gamers about how gambling, lottery, and even sweepstakes regulations apply to games, and what gamers and developers should do to avoid being “trapped” in game-casinos.
Titled “Loot Crates and Tokens: Games, Stop Acting like Casinos,” PAX West will try to shine some light on loot-boxes, microtransactions, in-game purchases, and other “casino-like” practices on September 1st.
Without shame, the description for the in-game purchase education panel points directly to EA and DICE’s 2017 fiasco that was Star Wars Battlefront 2. Additionally, you can read over the full post right here:
“2017 saw the release of Star Wars Battlefront II, and as a result loot box, token economies, and gambling vs gaming controversies have come into prominence. Regulators, advocacy groups, and the media have all picked up on the “real money” realities and consequences of modern games, microtransactions, and in-game economies. Learn how gambling, lottery, and even sweepstakes regulations apply to games, and what gamers and developers should do to avoid being trapped in game-casinos.”
It’s unclear at this point whether anything will come out of this or if it will be yet another wasted attempt that either makes matters worse or the same. What is for certain is that a focus on gamers and developers avoiding the trap that is in game-casinos methods will be front and center.
The panelist that will be there includes Ryan Black (Partner / Co-Chair / IT, McMillan LLP), Matt Dobill (Associate Attorney, Morrison and Lee LLP), Angelo Alcid (Attorney, Ludic Legal), Colin Sullivan (Head of Legal, Patreon), and Joel Liu (Managing Attorney, Joel Liu).
You can learn more about this panel, and it’s attempt to bring awareness to people about video games featuring “gambling” methods by heading on over to west.paxsite.com.