Child gambling has quadrupled in the UK thanks to loot boxes

Amadeus said:
Laws don't fix anything guys, we might as well give up.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how much experience you have with writing law (I have none) but I worked with the guys who enforced law and they loved broad laws with no scope in order to hammer as many people as possible.

Give me a sample draft legislation to stop loot boxes for under 18 year olds that they can't circumvent and I can get on board.

Edit - also want to note you guys are broken enough that you equate someone wanting to tackle the root cause with being "for" the maintanence of a practice. It's pretty fucking shitty what discourse has come to. Plenty of people with ideas but no idea the process to implement or the multiple order magnitude of effects in doing it. Nobody thinks of the man hours to craft a puff piece of unenforceable legislation that could have been used towards actually legislation of substance but I believe its indicative of the emotion driven laws that tend to get passed. Ban all marijuana! Wait no unban all marijuana and let the kids smoke it! Generally speaking the answer is in the middle if people take the time to look critically at both sides of an issue and also compare how the sides line up with American (in this case british) values, as well as ramifications from saying this act is ok/not ok.
 
Last edited:
Esteban_Villa said:
I'm not sure how much experience you have with writing law (I have none) but I worked with the guys who enforced law and they loved broad laws with no scope in order to hammer as many people as possible.

Give me a sample draft legislation to stop loot boxes for under 18 year olds that they can't circumvent and I can get on board.
Click to expand...
Why are you asking me? I'm not a lawmaker.

Also, for the record, I'm with Jim on this one. I'd much rather that the industry regulate itself so that the government doesn't have to get involved. But that's clearly not going to happen, so government regulation is the next best thing.
 
Pretty sure we already have laws on the books that state it is illegal for kids under 18 years of age to gamble.

Don't need no mo laws, man. Just enforce the ones we already have.

40+ thousand laws are passed every year in this country.
 
Esteban_Villa said:
Who said this was a critique? I know Amadeus likes to jump the gun and lash out at those who go against his orthodoxy through misguided logical equivalencies and questions answering questions, so I'll respond to you.

Does banning kids from having guns preventing them from shooting up their schools? Does banning kids from drugs stop them from getting drugs? The populace is dumb and will leave gun safes unlocked so lets further regulate the right to bear arms to restricting parents from having guns. your capstone argument opens the door for making everything illegal.

You can superficially treat this and pretend you did some real good for the chilluns or get to the root cause. You admit most adults don't know what is going on with their kids in regards to technology - how many of us easily got around parental controls? How easy is it to say 'I am above the age of 13'? These kids will find ways to masquerade as adults through buying new accounts, paypal cards, and the like.
Click to expand...

So if labeling/restricting the sales to minors doesn't outright protect every single child then there's no point in any restrictions/advisory warnings? I'm not in agreement with you.

Lots of kids get around shit. They drink their their parent's booze when they're away. They buy cigarettes from shitty convince stores that don't fucking care. They access pornography. They handle their parent's firearms... In conceding to all of these truths, at no point would I suggest that gambling, firearms, tobacco or alcohol be widely sold to minors.

I expect kids to do kid shit - we all did. But I also expect corporations to be liable for when their products are exploitative or damaging to their consumers.
 
samUwell said:
Pretty sure we already have laws on the books that state it is illegal for kids under 18 years of age to gamble.

Don't need no mo laws, man. Just enforce the ones we already have.

40+ thousand laws are passed every year in this country.
Click to expand...
The problem is that loot boxes don't technically qualify as gambling according to the current laws (even though they are, for all intents and purposes, gambling). I agree that we don't need fundamentally new gambling laws, we just need to update the legal definition of gambling to include loot boxes.
 
I imagine you tell a lot of businesses how they should run based on your attitude.

I know you're a big statist who hates family values do you think the state can solve this but let me ask you - when we were in the 60s and banned all the vices under the sun did that stop people from doing it or actually encouraged them to become more?

You ban lootboxes you're going to have more kid addicts and addicts as adults dropping hundreds just as we saw happen with the counter culture movement of the 70s.

I argue for responsible education and encouraging kids to be told 'dont waste your money on cosmetic shit that doesnt exist in real life'. You argue for shit that infrgines on civil and business rights, stigmatizes a group, and as evidenced by taking the same course of action with other vices will create more addicts/users.

I know you dont really want to help kids but dream for a day where you can molest kids in exchange for loot boxes, but your statist solutions just like the statist solutions will fail and your sole reliance.on emotion based arguments is proof you want this legislation not for evidence based reasons but to feel like you helped the chilluns.
 
Entirely remove lootboxes and just have defined prices for shit instead of the current system of "roll the dice to get random items in the hope that you get the item you want" roulette

Fuckin ez, I just solved the problem
 
Atreides said:
I expect kids to do kid shit - we all did. But I also expect corporations to be liable for when their products are exploitative or damaging to their consumers.
Click to expand...

I dont necessarily disagree with the rest of your post. We come to a point where, I argue based on the push back against drug legislation in the 60s you will just Streisand effect this into a bigger deal. Maybe not. Maybe yes idk we dont have crystal balls.

This line is the issue.

THE STATE ISNT THERE TO PROTECT YOUR FINANCES EXCEPT FROM FRAUD/THEFT

Tell me where gambling hurts someone? We ban it from kids because they should be spending their time doing other shit.

And before you argue

THE STATE ISNT THERE TO PROTECT YOUR EMOTIONAL WELL BEING

This isnt cigs where you seriously effect your own health and more importantly others. This isnt drinking and driving. This is - all you're doing is banning how someone spends their money. Dumb people lose their money on shit all the time and lord knows myself and everywhere here have our stupid shit we blow money on.

The state - will not - ever dictate how any citizen chooses to pursue happiness. Plenty of under 18s are emancipated citizens. The minute you do that you give up. Kids need to learn when they're 14 this shit is stupid when they dont have sizable sources of funds. This is the crux of my argumentation. They srent being harmed by the cigs or alcohol. They're not brandishing firearms over immature shit.

Tell me one instance where a 14 year old blew his 20 bucks on a lootbox spree and it detrimentally hurt their life. They dont have kids that will go hungry (not that it should be a consideration). They aren't physically stunted or injured (not that it should be an consideration if they're an adult). Where is the harm? Financial harm other than through fraud or theft shouldn't never be illegal or else you're oking the state to illegalize all business pursuits that have a winner and loser...aka goodbye capitalism.

Not over my deadbody.

As Sam said tho - enforce the laws on the books. Open and shut, statist pedophiles like amadeus gtfo
 
Esteban_Villa said:
I imagine you tell a lot of businesses how they should run based on your attitude.
Click to expand...
I don't. Also, I'm not in this case either.

Esteban_Villa said:
I know you're a big statist who hates family values
Click to expand...
I'm not.

Esteban_Villa said:
I know you dont really want to help kids but dream for a day where you can molest kids in exchange for loot boxes, but your statist solutions just like the statist solutions will fail and your sole reliance.on emotion based arguments is proof you want this legislation not for evidence based reasons but to feel like you helped the chilluns.
Click to expand...
Who are you talking to?
 
Ztir said:
Entirely remove lootboxes and just have defined prices for shit instead of the current system of "roll the dice to get random items in the hope that you get the item you want" roulette

Fuckin ez, I just solved the problem
Click to expand...
In an ideal world, yeah.

But that wouldn't make more money for AAA game companies than they did last quarter, so it's not an option.
 
Ztir said:
Entirely remove lootboxes and just have defined prices for shit instead of the current system of "roll the dice to get random items in the hope that you get the item you want" roulette

Fuckin ez, I just solved the problem
Click to expand...

this is v reasonable - y cant amadeus just say this instead of wanting more laws that cascade into an even bigger nanny state?

edit - o i c now. he's the type of person who says 'this won't work, this will because I think it, but no i dont actually know how legislation works but i want it anyways please save me daddy government'
 
Esteban_Villa said:
Tell me one instance where a 14 year old blew his 20 bucks on a lootbox spree and it detrimentally hurt their life. They dont have kids that will go hungry (not that it should be a consideration). They aren't physically stunted or injured (not that it should be an consideration if they're an adult). Where is the harm?
Click to expand...
The harm is in the potential development of neural patterns that will lead to problem gambling in adult life.

Do you think that the current laws that prohibit minors from gambling are unnecessary?
 
Esteban_Villa said:
this is v reasonable - y cant amadeus just say this instead of wanting more laws that cascade into an even bigger nanny state?
Click to expand...
Because that would actually be interfering in the business of privately owned companies.

If a game developer wants to put loot boxes in their game, that's their choice. They just shouldn't be allowed to then give that game a PEGI 3 rating, or do anything else that would violate gambling laws.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top