#loot boxes

exact example of why the so called “generous gacha” (oxymoron) games still get players addicted to gambling. The special animation that plays when a consumer acquires the highest-grade rarity character or equipment has been studied and perfected. It is to give the player a huge, and very short, high grade dopamine rush. The player will always chase this feeling, some will get more addicted than others of course but every single one of these games relies on this. Why do you think after nearly a decade the game Fate/Grand Order will update summoning animations for “extra special” characters but has not updated the basic fighting animations of already released characters in years?

There's no way for a single user to do it by herself in that case. The best means of approach is to collect aggregate data. Since unopened loot boxes are fungible (i.e. all loot boxes are functionally equivalent until opened), it doesn't matter if one person opens a thousand loot boxes or a thousand people open one loot box apiece. Thanks to the combined powers of statistics and math, we can calculate the sample size we would need for an average result at a given confidence level and interval step.

Mathematically, I believe we expect a sample size of ~381 draws to have a 95% confidence rate and an error margin of +/- 1%. The more precise we become, the higher the necessary sample size becomes (e.g. a 99% confidence rate with an error margin of +/- 1% requires around 660 draws). If players tracked and aggregated all of their combined results from the same loot boxes, they could run statistical analysis on them and see whether the results lined up with the posted odds.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Seems that EA is now allegedly accused of a mayor privacy violation, having used tracking tools on The Sims FreePlay app to secretly gather and transmit players’ personal information to Facebook for advertising purposes. This data potentially includes unique Facebook IDs, which can be used to match players’ in-game activities to their individual Facebook profiles. Attorneys suspect that these potential data-sharing practices may violate a federal privacy law and are now gathering players to take action.

So, there are at least two class action against EA, because it seems to collect data from players using the Meta Pixel software to harness data from players and sell it to the Meta company, who owns Instagram, Facebook and other social networks.

It would be interesting to learn if this allegations are true and how this would be seen in the eyes of GDPR, European Regulation 679/2016, which allows the processing of personal data only with consent given by the data subjects and also in the context of (online) games.

Consent in the context of the GDPR must be understood as an unambiguous indication of an informed and freely given choice by the data subject, relating to specific processing activities. The burden of proof that these criteria are fulfilled falls upon the controller (i.e., the game developer).

Google Play list the privacy condition of EA for its games, including The Sims Freeplay. Basically EA claims to use players data only to give them "better game experience", which seems vague but not less legit. The only less transparent thing I noticed is that the instructions to opt out of targeted marketing of in-game ads are in English and not in Italian: downloading the game, players allows EA to share their account information with third-party partners to customize advertising experience, which is basically all app developers do, but it's weird that the instruction to opt out doesn't have been translated at all!

This is not the first time EA is accused of, well, unethical commercial practice, since EA has been sentenced to pay fines by Austrian (2023) and Belgian (2018) civil court, because their FIFA loot boxes violated local gambling laws.

Moreover, it's important to notice that in January 2023, the European Parliament adopted a report calling for harmonized EU rules to achieve better player protection in the online video game sector.

The Parliament called for greater transparency from developers about in-game purchases: player should be aware of the type of content before starting to play and during the game. Also, players should be informed on the probabilities in loot box mechanisms, including information in plain language about what algorithms are devised to achieve.

The Parliament further stressed that the proposed legislation should assess whether an obligation to disable in-game payments and loot boxes mechanisms by default or a ban on paid loot boxes should be proposed to protect minors, avoid the fragmentation of the single market and ensure that consumers benefit from the same level of protection, no matter of their place of residence.

The Parliament highlighted problematic practices, including exploiting cognitive biases and vulnerabilities of consumers through deceptive design and marketing, using layers of virtual currencies to mask/distort real-world monetary costs, and targeting loot boxes and manipulative practices towards minors.

Every Chinese Censorship Gaming Regulation Mihoyo Ignores!

China's game censorship board tightened regulations back in 2021. It led to 4 character skins being altered. But nothing else has come from the new regulations even though genshin breaks multiple other rules in this memo. Join Terry in discussing those broken rules and the reason Mihoyo can ignore the "recommendations" of the ccp.

While trying to research topics for a possible winter holiday video I fell down the censorship rabbit hole. I hope you found this interesting! Chinese censorship is complex and changing all the time.

But it is important to know that Genshin is Not at risk of actually being banned. Mihoyo would just have to make more changes to line up with new rules.