gaming Skin Gambling

[Anneal 2,198]

(Not entirely sure if this should be in Debate Pit or not, but it’s related to video games.)

So almost two weeks ago, Valve placed a seven day period on re-trading recently traded items, specifically for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS:GO for short. Their explanation for this is to combat scamming and frauds, but some players believe there’s another ulterior motive for the change: to combat skin gambling.

Skin gambling has been a controversial game economy that is especially prevalent in CS:GO, though it’s also been appearing in other high profile games such as PLAYERUNKNOWN’S Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Dota 2, which not only have an extremely large community market economy on Steam and other sites – in other words, tradable skins – but usually a significant eSports and streaming presence. Skin gambling in CS:GO started from betting on eSports games, but over time expanded towards games of chance. This is often compounded by the fact that sites exist that also allow players to sell their skins into real money in a PayPal account or credit/debit card or cryptocurrency (which could then be converted into real money) instead of other in-game items or money on Steam.

With how popular these games are and how unregulated the skin gambling economy is, skin gambling makes a profit of millions of dollars each year, possibly even more. There are also issues of underage gambling – these games also attract many children who are exposed to these sites.

What is your opinion on skin gambling? Is it truly gambling? Should it be considered illegal or legal? And does it hurt a game or benefit one? And while we’re on the topic, do you consider paying to unbox lootboxes (such as TF2 crates or CS:GO cases) to be gambling? 

[Aqua shine 1,899]

to unlock tf2 crates beacuse they can be awesome but you hafe to spend money to ulmite crates

[Kronos the Revenant 1,973]

Skin gambling is stupid. To be honest, putting any sort of monetary value on in-game cosmetics/skins is a really stupid practice as a whole. Why should some flashy recolor of a tool used in a video game be given any sort of real life value? It doesnt change how the game plays or change he effectiveness of the tool you’re using. No, it’s just an aesthetic in a video game that has no real life value whatsoever. 

To be fair, however, it is those skins and cosmetics that allow the company Valve to make money in the first place. You know, the very same company that implemented these features to add a pleasing aesthetic to their games and to make extra money. I guess what im saying is, as long as there are markets sanctioned by Valve for these skins, it should be okay since whatever money people lose out of it go to the company that made it. If it was some sort of individual or a group of players that are hosting these gambling sites, however, that’s borderline theft of property not just from the player base, but from the company as well. The company made these skins obtainable through monetary means to make money off of the players of the game. If someone basically gets these for FREE just for hosting a gambling site, that’s theft from a COMPANY. 

I guess what im getting at here is that gambling sites are stupid. Skin gambling is stupid. If Valve were to sanction some sort of skin gambling event, that’s on them. But, if outsiders that have little to no association with Valve whatsoever host these gambling sites where people put in game items with monetary value, that’s double-ended theft of the players and the company. 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Kronos the Revenant

[The Recherche 29,982]

I'll try to summarize my thoughts on the subject as best as I can:

In my opinion, I can't stand lootboxes in video games; they're yet another trick used by avaricious AAA video game publishers to milk you for all you're worth. I don't really care what it is that you're unlocking, it's a ripoff either way. If it's only cosmetic, than it's a waste of money and completely useless because of it. If it's more than that, than it breaks the game and shifts the odds in the favor of those who spend more money, rather than who's better at the game.

With all of that said, however... I don't personally think that they should be outright illegal. Do I think that lootboxes should warrant a higher ESRB/PEGI rating? Sure, but I think that outlawing lootboxes goes too far. When you ultimately get down to it, it's an individual's choice whether or not to buy a game (as well as its in-game purchases). Though it may suck that we're in an industry that shoves these kinds of systems into video games... they're there for a reason: they make money, and lots of it.

If we want to see these kinds of practices go away, than we need to demand that video games get rid of them, and refuse to buy their shit. It worked with Star Wars Battlefront II, so I'm sure it can work again if we demand that they remove systems like this from the video games we buy.

TL;DR: Though I despise these kinds of practices like you do, I think outlawing them is a bit extreme.

That's just how I feel about this whole debacle, anyways.  Feel free to disagree.

Edited April 11, 2018 by Recherche

[Celtore 2,770]

At its core, I feel this problem is caused by crap game design and what should be legislated is the loot box. The skin gambling issue arises from the fact that these items are obtained by random chance from a store, and naturally, some are more desirable than others. If these items can be traded between players, it creates a small supply and demand market tied with actual currency that's fairly easy to jump in on.

If every item was outright purchasable, you couldn't have a gambling economy because everyone would just buy what they wanted. You might have small-scale gambling between players with in-game items and people who bought the items from the store, but nobody will be making any money from these sorts of bets besides the publishers upon the initial purchase. We shouldn't be legislating a symptom of bad game design, we should be taking it out at its dirty roots.

Another easy solution to get away from this would be to make the items from loot boxes untradable. Now, all money flows to the publisher as players desperately try to get that one cosmetic item they want with maybe a 2-10% success rate. Problem solved.

[Anneal 2,198]

4 hours ago, Recherche said:

I'll try to summarize my thoughts on the subject as best as I can:

In my opinion, I can't stand lootboxes in video games; they're yet another trick used by avaricious AAA video game publishers to milk you for all you're worth. I don't really care what it is that you're unlocking, it's a ripoff either way. If it's only cosmetic, than it's a waste of money and completely useless because of it. If it's more than that, than it breaks the game and shifts the odds in the favor of those who spend more money, rather than who's better at the game.

With all of that said, however... I don't personally think that they should be outright illegal. Do I think that lootboxes should warrant a higher ESRB/PEGI rating? Sure, but I think that outlawing lootboxes goes too far. When you ultimately get down to it, it's an individual's choice whether or not to buy a game (as well as its in-game purchases). Though it may suck that we're in an industry that shoves these kinds of systems into video games... they're there for a reason: they make money, and lots of it.

If we want to see these kinds of practices go away, than we need to demand that video games get rid of them, and refuse to buy their shit. It worked with Star Wars Battlefront II, so I'm sure it can work again if we demand that they remove systems like this from the video games we buy.

TL;DR: Though I despise these kinds of practices like you do, I think outlawing them is a bit extreme.

That's just how I feel about this whole debacle, anyways.  Feel free to disagree.

I can understand where this is coming from, but I made the distinction between lootboxes which can only be opened by purchase (or indirectly by trading for the item) and lootboxes which can simply be opened by obtaining enough in-game currency or completing some achievement or objective (or optionally purchasing it). In Battlefield 1, for example, you can purchase Battlepacks with "Scraps", an in-game currency you can accumulate from scrapping weapon skins or simply playing daily, or through micro-transactions. These games usually don't allow you to trade said skins in the first place, so they have no real value. Gaming companies like Blizzard and Riot deliberately do this to prevent gambling and scamming. 

But in Valve's online games, lootboxes in the form of TF2 crates or CS:GO cases can only be opened by purchasing keys for $2.49, and because of this, said keys have a monetary value assigned to it. In TF2, keys and "refined metal" (which you get from scrapping weapons) are basically the game's dollars and cents. CS:GO is a bit different in that there's no player assigned currency, and all items have a direct value based off the probability of getting that skin from unboxing. Because CS:GO trading is directly from skins to money without an intermediate, compounded by the fact that CS:GO has a huge presence on eSports and streams, it's much more vulnerable to gambling. 

Lootboxes that actually impact how the game works are terrible, though, I can agree with that. I'm only concerned with how paid unboxing works. Some people think it's gambling, while some people treat it more like opening up a Yu-Gi-Oh or a Magic card pack from Walmart. Skin gambling is gambling to me though, there's no question about that. 

[BlinkZ 1,151]

I find the fact skin gambling is thing to be digusting and just plain terrible to exist. spending THAT much on what is frankly nothing but pixels put together is just mind blowing.
oh and let not forget it make a nice way to money laundering no doubt