Loot Boxes Illegal Under Belgium Gambling Laws

[MAdHowie]

Well at least summat good can come of BREXIT, Belgium wont be able to tell the brits what to do

[Quitted]

NY State is in

http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A10075&term=2017&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Text=Y&Committee%26nbspVotes=Y&Floor%26nbspVotes=Y

[Whatif]

56 minutes ago, Quitted said:

NY State is in

http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A10075&term=2017&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Text=Y&Committee%26nbspVotes=Y&Floor%26nbspVotes=Y

\o/

[fademist]

they always will find a way to rip us off

[beleaua]

On 5/9/2018 at 1:33 PM, Quitted said:

Whoever said it's just minnesota well was totally wrong [.pdf link to the washington state bill] --> Washington Senate State Bill

Third but most important of all overwatch had a different set up in china they had to disclousure all the chance rate and the loot boxes could only be purchased by ingame coins [real money for ingame coins -> ingame coins for loot boxes (aka you can get something useful but 99.99% of the time you get pure garbage)] aka ncsoft way of acting or gatcha like this practice is called in japan [gatcha = slotmachines].

Stating that lootboxes are illegal, not matter how, well it's the first nail in the coffin.

I think it's me. I responded with:

Quote

It looks like the law is not as harsh in the U.S as it is in Belgium. From what I know, different states have different custom laws that don't apply in other states, like California in this case. Even in Minnesota, it doesn't say a ban of gambling boxes for 18+ y/o, just a warning for anyone under 18 y/o.

I wasn't trying to imply it is just Minnesota but you linked one article and it was from Minnesota, therefore I worked with that. It doesn't matter in the end, not because I'm not from U.S. and I don't care but because even the Washington senate bill says the same thing, it's about regulating them just like Minnesota does,  rather than banning them altogether, considering them illegal as in some EU countries.

For China it seems normal. I've been playing another game that published the game in China and there is such a law, to divulge the % of whatever you get from random boxes you buy from their shop, yet they don't do it outside of China.

Quote

And yes European countries can block IPs without an issue.. This has been done in the past with a vast number of online betting sites.. If companies do not abide by one country's law they are easily blacklisted.. Hopefully, if it goes there, the companies will change their policies and not close their games..

Not as easy and not North Korea level of blocking, not even Turkey level of blocking. If you visit Turkey you can see that websites like wikipedia are down but they let you use your home service through your phone and as a foreigner you still have access to them. Same as they can give you access to certain online services at a hotel but block for the locals. On top of that, the rest of the European countries that already have betting websites blocked are not doing a hard block. Some are just displaying you a message that you enter an illegal website, others are doing it by changing their DNS records and block the domains. Doing a N.Korea level of blocking means violating certain rights. The point is, all methods are easy to circumvent. Even if it's not easy, pick up a vpn service from a European country that is not adopting such laws.

 

[Quitted]

No bele. This is a misunderstanding. I hate only Aizen

My words were referred to part of the press.

As I said before it's a lot complicated than that.

First of all all the bills are referring to a certain age limit 18 or 21. So you will need to fill an appliance with your own real id, ensurance number etc [no aizen anymore]

Secondly it's all related to this https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-tax-digital-france/france-germany-want-progress-on-taxing-tech-giants-idUSKBN1FR29K

or web tax.

Imho ncwest won't give 3% of its year revenue to eu. It's not a matter of banning but a matter of stopping file publishing in eu.

And it's a lot more complicated than what I wrote + trust me it requires 2 to 4 days to access to an us bill.

I'm sure there are others just give me the time to find em out.

[m0da]

3 hours ago, beleaua said:

Not as easy and not North Korea level of blocking, not even Turkey level of blocking. If you visit Turkey you can see that websites like wikipedia are down but they let you use your home service through your phone and as a foreigner you still have access to them. Same as they can give you access to certain online services at a hotel but block for the locals. On top of that, the rest of the European countries that already have betting websites blocked are not doing a hard block. Some are just displaying you a message that you enter an illegal website, others are doing it by changing their DNS records and block the domains. Doing a N.Korea level of blocking means violating certain rights. The point is, all methods are easy to circumvent. Even if it's not easy, pick up a vpn service from a European country that is not adopting such laws.

 

What i said has nothing to do with the censorship applied by countries line N.Korea or Turkey.. I talked about blocking specific IPs from specific companies.. If the policies of a company are against the laws of a country, the country has certainly the right and the means to blacklist and block this company.. And this blocking will be performed on an ISP level, meaning that noone will be able to access the site/service of this company within the country..

This blocking is also almost impossible to circumvent, since even if you use VPN services to hide your country of origin, you will not be able to use your bank card to purchase since this will have been issued by banking institutes of a country that has blacklisted the company itself.. The only way i can think of is using VPN service and having a bank account in a country where these services are not blocked..

This is exactly what happened with online betting sites in many countries in Europe, when the governments decided to legislate online gaming/gambling...

I am not saying i would like to have L2 blocked in my country.. I would prefer NC to minimize their money grabbing policies and offer some visibility to the players..

[beleaua]

I think I quoted someone else there, and I was giving general examples of what kind of internet blocking exist and to expect in the future. N.Korea was the extreme example, censoring all their internet, China has some censoring as well but they can use vpn, Turkey or Russia have only certain websites (domains) blocked but can be bypassed by vpn, and there are those gambling sites example, blocked by certain European countries. Now, these gambling websites are not hard blocked. I think one of the country still allow to access them but you always get a message that is illegal, and then you have other countries where the DNS is altered by the ISPs, redirecting you but it's not IP blocked, and these websites can be easily accessed once again after you simply change your DNS settings, or obviously use a vpn. I'd say that European countries don't believe in a hard censorship, and Turkey/Russia barely qualify as European by their ideology.

It's not hard to circumvent it in Europe but there's the issue with the bank/card as you mentioned, in case you want to purchase something. For EU citizens it's not hard, as you can freely travel to another EU country that don't have such laws and you can use certain services. I heard of so many players going to a cheaper neighboring country to buy stuff or coins in games, just because prices are different from country to country for EU publishers. If it's not a possibility, then you have to continue playing games like L2 as truly f2p player, as so big advertised on the website.

I too want that these things get lowered down, as so many games are trying this kind of scam and not only L2, promoting rng boxes more and more. However, I don't believe in making things illegal or hard censoring of the internet, just regulate them. It's too extreme. In the end that's what they want, more taxes, they are not interested in the health of their citizens. Imagine that a country like Netherlands was priding itself in things like being among the first to legalize drugs. On top, cigarettes and alcohol aren't illegal, they are regulated, and those affect your health more than a gambling addiction. Making gambling illegal is making no sense to me, as this would be like making one step forward and two steps back.

Anyway, NCWest is hosting an L2 server for European players. They would have to do something about it if they want to keep it for Europeans.