Kubernetic Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Still not gambling. Are you still here? I thought you left after you strangely tried to claim that it was only "gambling" if it was written that way in law... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonBraun Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) The free world is currently set up in such a way as to make everyone "want" stuff and to make people want stuff often. Every marketing gimmick out there draws upon this need or desire and suggests that if we don't fulfil it, we won't be happy and others won't be drawn to us, and our lives will be empty and incomplete. This is the way current marketing works. People are hired to case study this stuff, develop targeted campaigns and fire off these well tuned product initiatives directly at a specific and focused demographic. We aren't going to get any business types apologizing for trying to make a buck (or two) off their product. Edited March 21, 2013 by LeonBraun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exccw Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) tl;dr Solution: Self-control. Edited March 21, 2013 by exccw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kubernetic Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 You must be a Slot Machine Psychologist. I've got some background with another online game, Entropia, that masked itself very well as a game, but essentially had all of the same elements of gambling. That one went even one step further like Star Trek Online did, announcing winners in the General Chat screen of various sought items, or when a player in Entropia hit a jackpot loot worth more than $5.00 USD. If I recall, the largest "Hall of Fame" or "All Time High" win in that game was something like a $20,000 jackpot for killing a very large mob. That led me to go out and start looking at slot machine psychology to see exactly how close the system was to an actual slot machine. I'm not a psychologist by any means, but I do pay attention and I have learned a few things along the way. Eventually it led me to stop playing as I realized there were diminishing returns across the board. Once you figure out it's a gambling mechanism, it's much easier to stop using it ever again. But then again... that's why they spend so much time and effort trying to hide the mechanism, and dress it up as something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kubernetic Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 I love the preposterous nature of all of these "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE MY FREEEEEEDOOOMMMSSSSS" posts when all I was ever asking for was a simple one-time warning screen the first time you open the market. Amazing. Absolutely freaking amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBBP Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 I love the preposterous nature of all of these "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE MY FREEEEEEDOOOMMMSSSSS" posts when all I was ever asking for was a simple one-time warning screen the first time you open the market. Amazing. Absolutely freaking amazing. That is because the vast majority of people live by things called personal responsibility and common sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonBraun Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) I love the preposterous nature of all of these "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE MY FREEEEEEDOOOMMMSSSSS" posts when all I was ever asking for was a simple one-time warning screen the first time you open the market. Amazing. Absolutely freaking amazing. There have been several well written posts here explaining why this can't happen. For starters it would be admission to something illegitimate on EA/BioWare's part. Second, it's not gambling. If we got warnings of this nature on the cartel market, we would also have to get warnings on Sport Cards, Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Cracker Jack boxes and more... Everything we do in life is a gamble, but when folks buy a Cartel Pack of the CS all people are really gambling with in this case is their expectation on their 3 or 5 digital item purchase. Edited March 21, 2013 by LeonBraun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonBraun Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) There are a number of addictive activities currently that do come with certain kinds of advise or cautions: Alcohol: Please enjoy responsibly Gambling: Know your limit, play within it. Smoking: There are various messages on these boxes. If there was something attached to the cartel market in the form of council or a tip, not necessarily a warning, it might work. However, this form of advise or council could not associate CS purchases to gambling, but merely to being wise with one's spending and knowing their limit. Edited March 21, 2013 by LeonBraun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kubernetic Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 This article has some interesting points here related to the discussion: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/17/the-perfect-ten-the-truth-about-lockboxes/ To the point of the article, the Cartel Packs are even worse than regular electronic gambling games, because none of us know what the odds are for winning. By law, some casinos have to disclose the odds of winning on the game you're playing. The Cartel Pack Machine does not. And unlike a regular casino game, BioWare never has to pay out to the players. They can field those artists all day long to make those baubles, they're never going to have to pay out real money. They keep all the cash, you get none of it back. Now, another of the good things BioWare did with this system is not having Cartel Packs dropping as loot from mobs, and then only requiring us to purchase the Cartel Keys on the market. That's an even more egregious in-your-face ploy, and I'm glad they avoided that as they avoided the announcements of winnings in the chat window. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kubernetic Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) There are a number of addictive activities currently that do come with certain kinds of advise or cautions: Alcohol: Please enjoy responsibly Gambling: Know your limit, play within it. Smoking: There are various messages on these boxes. If there was something attached to the cartel market in the form of council or a tip, not necessarily a warning, it might work. However, this form of advise or council could not associate CS purchases to gambling, but merely to being wise with one's spending and knowing their limit. And I understand that delicate line they'd need to walk. But they need to start walking it, unless they've just determined that for the sake of the long-term survival of the company and the game, they're going to willingly allow anyone who falls into this trap to be sacrificed for everyone else's sake. And if they have made that decision, that's extremely disappointing. Would have been wonderful if they'd just left the stupid packs out all together. Then there wouldn't be any issue at all... Edited March 21, 2013 by Kubernetic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killmaimburn Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Problem: Cartel Packs are a probabilistic reward system that can be readily purchased with a credit card. Solution 1: Apply a weekly cap on Cartel Pack and Hypercrate purchases. This cap would not limit or in any way affect other, non-random, purchases on the Cartel Market or in-game purchases that utilize Cartel Coins (ie Legacy, cargo bay, etc). Solution 2: Put a gambling awareness / help message on the cartel packs, or the Packs tab of the Cartel Market. Solution 3: Put a commendation in every pack, with the ability to purchase any item in the packs from the vendor for a given number of commendations. This puts a floor on the value of a pack, preventing it from being zero regardless of how the user defines value (credits, BoP rep items that need certs, etc). Further Explanation: Gambling addiction is a widespread societal problem. It does not require that the rewards be in terms of real cash paid back to the gambler, simply that the reward be something the gambler values. The negative effects of gambling addiction are typically felt by those around the gambler, not the gambler themselves. With Cartel Coins being purchased on credit, problem gamblers can actually drive themselves into debt through their purchases. This does not negatively affect the ability of players to use the Cartel Market to convert dollars to credits, as non-random non-bound items can still be purchased from the CM and posted to the GTN. Additionally, the cap can be set at some reasonable value, such as 5 Hypercrates a month, that still allows for considerable transfer of funds while imposing a limit on the gambling nature of the experience. 5 Hypercrates still amounts to approx $265, and at the current price of approx 300k per Cartel Pack comes to 36 million credits. I would suggest it could be set as low as 2 per month and still not negatively impact 99.999% of non-gambler players. I think it's funny when people go into debt because of gambling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonBraun Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) To the point of the article, the Cartel Packs are even worse than regular electronic gambling games, because none of us know what the odds are for winning. On the contrary, the Cartel Store states EXACTLY what one will be purchasing when they buy their packs... You "will" receive, 1 item of x rarity, 1 item of Y rarity, and so forth... This is what the buyer of the pack gets. Edited March 21, 2013 by LeonBraun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonBraun Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) Of note, I agree with where you are coming from here... But this type of purchase happens all the time in everyday life. Can't tell you how many kids go out and buy hockey cards, or Pokemon, or other CCG games with allowance or part time jobs to buy hobby items like this. Personally, I've played more than half a dozen CCGs over the years and have been a sport card collector as well. Can't tell you how many times I've dropped 50$ on ten packs of CCG cards only to get average or junk cards. But I still got what i paid for and what was advertised; there was no gamble involved. Edited March 21, 2013 by LeonBraun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaskali Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 On the contrary, the Cartel Store states EXACTLY what one will be purchasing when they buy their packs... You "will" receive, 1 item of x rarity, 1 item of Y rarity, and so forth... This is what the buyer of the pack gets.Those aren't odds. Those are the contents of the pack. If they told us the odds, you would know how likely it is that a cartel pack will contain Revan's Mask (or a skiff or whatever you are hoping to get). We know nothing about the odds of getting super-rare items except that some kinds of cartel packs have better odds than others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBBP Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) And I understand that delicate line they'd need to walk. But they need to start walking it, unless they've just determined that for the sake of the long-term survival of the company and the game, they're going to willingly allow anyone who falls into this trap to be sacrificed for everyone else's sake. And if they have made that decision, that's extremely disappointing. Would have been wonderful if they'd just left the stupid packs out all together. Then there wouldn't be any issue at all... Yeah man. There is no doubt that your presence in this thread is because you are mad about either the Reseller Faction or you didn't get Revan's mask or some other silly item. Edited March 21, 2013 by TheBBP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonBraun Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Those aren't odds. Those are the contents of the pack. If they told us the odds, you would know how likely it is that a cartel pack will contain Revan's Mask (or a skiff or whatever you are hoping to get). We know nothing about the odds of getting super-rare items except that some kinds of cartel packs have better odds than others. They are odds. If I buy a 3 item pack, my odds of getting 3 items is 100%... This is not gambling. And, it's no more gambling than buying a pack of hockey or baseball cards. I bought a box of WoW CCGs once to get the Spectral Tiger loot card mount. I knew how many rares were in each pack. I never got the card I wanted. I still walked away with every single card I paid for though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaskali Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Gambling or not, cartel packs appear to be designed to appeal to people with compulsive or addictive tendencies. Everything about the system - the price of cartel packs, the increments in which you buy cartel coins (and the complementary cartel coin grant, for that matter), one-click cartel coin purchasing, hyperspace crate discounts, and the new cartel pack reputation, to say nothing of the actual loot in the packs or the experience of buying and opening them - facilitates compulsive gambling-like behavior. Whether it is legally gambling or not, it seems like skeezy, borderline predatory behavior on BioWare's part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaskali Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 They are odds. If I buy a 3 item pack, my odds of getting 3 items is 100%... This is not gambling. And, it's no more gambling than buying a pack of hockey or baseball cards. I bought a box of WoW CCGs once to get the Spectral Tiger loot card mount. I knew how many rares were in each pack. I never got the card I wanted. I still walked away with every single card I paid for though.By that logic, it is not gambling if I buy a lottery ticket because I know exactly what I am getting - one ticket with a couple dozen scratch-off boxes. I do not know what you are trying to accomplish here, but I am not going to explain it again because I do not believe you can possibly be this daft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SithKoriandr Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Problem: Cartel Packs are a probabilistic reward system that can be readily purchased with a credit card. Solution 1: Apply a weekly cap on Cartel Pack and Hypercrate purchases. This cap would not limit or in any way affect other, non-random, purchases on the Cartel Market or in-game purchases that utilize Cartel Coins (ie Legacy, cargo bay, etc). Solution 2: Put a gambling awareness / help message on the cartel packs, or the Packs tab of the Cartel Market. Solution 3: Put a commendation in every pack, with the ability to purchase any item in the packs from the vendor for a given number of commendations. This puts a floor on the value of a pack, preventing it from being zero regardless of how the user defines value (credits, BoP rep items that need certs, etc). Further Explanation: Gambling addiction is a widespread societal problem. It does not require that the rewards be in terms of real cash paid back to the gambler, simply that the reward be something the gambler values. The negative effects of gambling addiction are typically felt by those around the gambler, not the gambler themselves. With Cartel Coins being purchased on credit, problem gamblers can actually drive themselves into debt through their purchases. This does not negatively affect the ability of players to use the Cartel Market to convert dollars to credits, as non-random non-bound items can still be purchased from the CM and posted to the GTN. Additionally, the cap can be set at some reasonable value, such as 5 Hypercrates a month, that still allows for considerable transfer of funds while imposing a limit on the gambling nature of the experience. 5 Hypercrates still amounts to approx $265, and at the current price of approx 300k per Cartel Pack comes to 36 million credits. I would suggest it could be set as low as 2 per month and still not negatively impact 99.999% of non-gambler players. Ooooor...tell the player to take some personal accountability! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hizoka Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 How many packs do most players buy? 1.5 a month with their complimentary coins? An odd pack here and there? How many actually buy the $53 hypercrates? How many do they buy on average per month? Just like the cell phone companies eliminating the unlimited data plans when the vast majority don't exceed the cheapest limited plan, you could easily put a cap in place that hardly affects anyone at all while still letting you put out a press release about how you are looking out for your players by adding in protection against gambling addiction. multiple people in my guild bought the hypercrates... one guy bought 3 of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SithKoriandr Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 multiple people in my guild bought the hypercrates... one guy bought 3 of them. Same here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SithKoriandr Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Gambling or not, cartel packs appear to be designed to appeal to people with compulsive or addictive tendencies. Everything about the system - the price of cartel packs, the increments in which you buy cartel coins (and the complementary cartel coin grant, for that matter), one-click cartel coin purchasing, hyperspace crate discounts, and the new cartel pack reputation, to say nothing of the actual loot in the packs or the experience of buying and opening them - facilitates compulsive gambling-like behavior. Whether it is legally gambling or not, it seems like skeezy, borderline predatory behavior on BioWare's part. Why don't you think it should be the player who's held accountable for their spending habits, and not the company for offering? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irawratih Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Why don't you think it should be the player who's held accountable for their spending habits, and not the company for offering? Well if they are going to allow gambling in this game they are going to need to req people to be 21 to play it then. i cant belive no one can see a problem with kids doing this. what is to stop little billy from becoming a addict. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SithKoriandr Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Well if they are going to allow gambling in this game they are going to need to req people to be 21 to play it then. i cant belive no one can see a problem with kids doing this. what is to stop little billy from becoming a addict. As a parent, my suggestion would be, the parents? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tachenko_Yuri Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Why don't you think it should be the player who's held accountable for their spending habits, and not the company for offering? because part of the community, if not most of it (specially with f2p coming around which brought a LOT of those in), is made out of kids and teenagers that want to act like the alpha male and have all the shiny new bits and pieces before everyone else. "oh look at me i got the new speeder/saber/crystal - also known as bragging - ego-tripping " Not all of us are responsible adults that are able to hold their money, actually many aren't adults altogether. Personal note: But yeah some lads are shut in their basement all day playing games with daddy and mummy's allowance ( or the government's, depending on situation and country) so, at the end of the day, if people are weak, not our problem, and not company's problem just let'em die, let it be adults, or just reckless kids being reckless kids. /sarcasm So who gives a damn about the world around us and society and it's rules? if it doesn't affect me, it ain't my problem! the rest can sort itself out or die trying, or not trying and die anyway, wooooooo /sarcasm off I'm also getting the hell out of those forums, to enjoy the game i'm paying , farewell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts