Loot Box Legislation: The Grave concern for Second Life’s Gacha Economy
Now, before you come at me with pitchforks, gamers of the Second Life userbase, I abhor Lootboxes and over-zealous Microtransactions. Honestly, it’s the big reason I don’t buy triple-A games anymore, especially after the Driving your car off a cliff into the Digital Void Simulator that was the 2015 Need for Speed game, but I digress.
Second Life is bound to have problems abound in the near future if Loot Box regulation becomes a thing. However, due to the ambiguity as to whether Linden Lab would be required to ban or self-regulate them vis-a-vis the whole Skill Gaming situation in SL that was a hot topic in the past few years —Results in a problem for gachas that is just that — ambiguous, up in the air.
KENTUCKY (AND LINDEN) LEGISLATIVE WINDAGE
However, if the bills and legislative actions taken match what I fear they’ll be, Gacha sales will probably cease to be, at least in effected regions. The following wording, for example, would outright ban Gachas in a certain region — This, given my experience in observing legislation and law would be mostly what you would expect from reading a bill regarding the Loot box situation:
“ANY software that provides games of chance in relation to accessing content within said software rather than monetary gain is to be considered, pursuant to KRS (Kentucky Revised Statutes) 528.010(5)(b), to be a gambling device and is hereby ILLEGAL to be sold or used within the Commonwealth of Kentucky for such a purpose, be it active or passive.”
Now, the latter bit, with being active or passive purpose is questionable, but the first part is the important one — “ANY software that provides games of chance in relation to accessing content within said software rather than monetary gain is to be considered, pursuant to KRS (Kentucky Revised Statutes) 528.010(5)(b), to be a gambling device and is hereby ILLEGAL” — That is the one you want to look out for. It mentions that any software — ANY. It could be second Life, it could be Battlefield 5, hell, it could be Microsoft word, if Microsoft wanted to look like a bunch of idiots. The thing is — this would outright ban Gacha in their current form. Sure, this example is based from my home state of Kentucky — But the situation can easily be translated to other state legislations, the US Code, the EU’s Legislation or even the Japanese Diet’s Legislative codes, or any country, with adjustments to pursuant legislations. Now, sure — Gachas are made by the users. And linden Lab could scream to Legislators about how User-created content should be exempt, but in this case, gambling is gambling, be it the Lindens or NOMAD/MadPea at the helm of it. Sure, users could spoof their IP using a VPN (with what few free VPNs can tunnel traffic to SL, since it requires both TCP and UDP IIRC) — But that’d put them at risk, as with all gambling legislation, all parties are considered guilty (when found as such) in a court of law.
And since Second Life’s situation is extremely niche, Gachas will most likely be threatened by legislation. Now, if the laws were to say this…
“ANY software that provides games of chance in relation to accessing content that gives an advantage over other users rather than monetary gain is to be considered pursuant to KRS 528.010(5)(b), to be a gambling device and is hereby Illegal in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”
This would provide Linden Lab and Gacha devs grounds to defend themselves, because let’s think about it — Is there a goal in Second Life? Some would say yes, others would say no, but objectively, the answer is a flat out no. There’s no way to one up someone that can’t be done through means outside of a gacha machine — Especially with resellers, which is a market answer to Gachas — which is, honestly, the best answer to the loot box situation.
ECONOMIC-LEGISLATIVE DETERRENCE
Just like the nuclear doctrine it’s inspired by, Economic-Legislative deterrence is where consumer unfriendly business practices are mitigated by the threat of “Control yourselves or the government will do it for you.” For corporations like EA, Take-Two and Activision, Being restrained by laws is the biggest fear of theirs, and this is no different. ESRB and the ESA are desperately grasping at straws to prevent legislative action without proper self-regulation, which is what both Legislators and consumers want — for them to control themselves. In Second Life, this isn’t needed. Gacha creators are always competing with resellers, because resellers cut out the game of chance and allow consumers to recieve the item they want for the same, if not slightly higher price— and frankly, Gacha creators are fine with this — They don’t mind it, as it helps create a healthly ecosystem for the industry.
The problem here for the games industry is that this is exclusive to platforms like Second Life. Now, if you could resell items you get from lootboxes for a set price by the user, to other users — That would probably resolve things and make it so that it can make a healthy in-game economy. It provides a viable alternative to just using lootboxes and not being able to hand people items you get from them that you either don’t want or have duplicates of.
So, from the looks of it, the future of Gachas can go two ways — It can stay safe with legislation that considers advantages given by the gambling mechanics, or it will slowly become obscure as a result of federal and LL regulation vis-a-vis the skill gaming situation.
Here’s hoping it’s the former, and that Game devs in general take a page out of SL’s book. If it does improve the situation, you can thank us by doing this — Realizing that we’re not as dead or weird as you think we are.
