Related to /u/DanBC's comment: how do people feel about collectable card games (Pokemon, Magic, baseball, etc), which also expressly target children? Are these worth distinguishing from video game...
Related to /u/DanBC's comment: how do people feel about collectable card games (Pokemon, Magic, baseball, etc), which also expressly target children? Are these worth distinguishing from video game loot boxes, or are loot boxes just the modern iteration of trading cards?
The older I get the more I honestly can't help but feel the same as @DanBC does about videogame loot boxes/gambling mechanics, but also towards physical "collecting" products as well. They all...
The older I get the more I honestly can't help but feel the same as @DanBC does about videogame loot boxes/gambling mechanics, but also towards physical "collecting" products as well. They all exploit the same addictive behavior to make their money, rely on artificial scarcity to inflate prices, and when targeted towards minors that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
And I say that as someone who spent thousands of dollars on M:TG as a teen myself without thinking much about that before recently, and still plays monetized CCGs occasionally too. But now that I have a young nephew that is growing increasingly obsessed with Pokemon cards along with all his friends/schoolmates, and am starting to see all the same negative things that happened to me and my peers start happening to him and his (trading drama, jealousy, spending all their money on it, theft of cards, friendships ruined, and even a few physical altercations deriving from all that), I am confronted with those problems on a regular basis now. It's gotten so bad that a bunch of his teachers have banned Pokemon cards in their classrooms, and his school is even considering banning them from school grounds. And I am inclined to agree with them if they do.
I haven't played any of those games but I got into playing Dominion for a while. It seems like a healthier way to play the same kind of game, without the collectable aspect to it? (Although there...
I haven't played any of those games but I got into playing Dominion for a while. It seems like a healthier way to play the same kind of game, without the collectable aspect to it? (Although there are many expansions.)
I was curious so I looked it up and there's a good list on BGG for deck building tabletop games. I'm more of a fan of single deck and worker placement games but some of these look pretty fun.
I was curious so I looked it up and there's a good list on BGG for deck building tabletop games. I'm more of a fan of single deck and worker placement games but some of these look pretty fun.
I've never played Dominion, but I am aware of it, and I suspect that, yes, removing the collectable aspect changes things quite dramatically for the better/healthier.
I've never played Dominion, but I am aware of it, and I suspect that, yes, removing the collectable aspect changes things quite dramatically for the better/healthier.
I've always found the unlimited spiraling cost of playing Magic terrifying (I played it for a bit as a kid in 1995 and thereabouts). There's a really good, really obscure and now quite old...
I've always found the unlimited spiraling cost of playing Magic terrifying (I played it for a bit as a kid in 1995 and thereabouts).
There's a really good, really obscure and now quite old videogame designed by Richard Garfield called Spectromancer which is basically Magic without the deck. Every player gets an arrangement of 20 cards from a common pool (if a player has a card, the other can't have it) that are semi-randomly selected but based on a strict set of rules. All 20 cards are in the player's hand from the start of the game and can be used any amount of times as long as the player has the requisite mana (+1/element/turn). If you enjoy the strategy of the combat this is very positive, since it usually results in decently balanced matches and predatory monetization would actually be quite difficult. I always figured, "hey, he made this to fix the gameplay defects of MtG!"
Then again, I'm aware many MtG players derive much if not most of their fun from deckbuilding...
I think it's important to distinguish them from loot box games for several reasons. (Disclaimer: I play and collect Magic.) Physical collectible card games create a secondary market, and players...
I think it's important to distinguish them from loot box games for several reasons. (Disclaimer: I play and collect Magic.)
Physical collectible card games create a secondary market, and players can just go buy directly the cards they need. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Magic product gets opened by stores these days which sell single cards directly to consumers. I know this is true of Valve as well, but for many loot box games it is not.
At least for Magic, players are able to, and have indeed, adapted to WotC's increasingly scummy business practices. In addition to buying less sealed product, the vast majority of players are open to people proxying cards (playing with an illegitimate copy) outside of sanctioned tournaments. People want to play against other people, not your wallet or length of time in the game.
These sorts of relief valves where players can opt out of the worst parts of the structure are not present in most digital goods, which I think is worth a distinction. Although the fact that they are also marketed towards children is worth discussing for sure.
Any loot crate/blind bag product is garbage that makes the world a worse place. I know you all already know how shitty it is that they take advantage of children and people with addictive...
Any loot crate/blind bag product is garbage that makes the world a worse place.
I know you all already know how shitty it is that they take advantage of children and people with addictive personalities. But it also has an environmental cost as well. They are manufacturing products that by nature are at least 1/3rd landfill fuel.
I think that's a bit hyperbolic, no? Utility matters. I do agree that there is by nature a lot of 'draft chaff' in each pack, but a lot of people also enjoy drafting? Children's...
They should all be outlawed.
I think that's a bit hyperbolic, no?
Utility matters. I do agree that there is by nature a lot of 'draft chaff' in each pack, but a lot of people also enjoy drafting? Children's colouring/construction paper vastly outnumbers draft chaff by weight, but I hardly think we should ban consider banning it. And at least all of this is recyclable.
A volume tax on products with parts likely to end up in the landfill or recycling programs seems like a more realistic starting point.
I don't think that it's hyperbolic at all. I find your tax idea strongly wanting in effectiveness because it only addresses the waste/environmental issue and not the simple fact that companies who...
I don't think that it's hyperbolic at all. I find your tax idea strongly wanting in effectiveness because it only addresses the waste/environmental issue and not the simple fact that companies who produce these things are doing so in such a way that takes advantage of people's compulsions. It doesn't even touch digital loot boxes at all.
Construction paper is also an extremely poor example; when you buy a pack of construction paper for children to draw on (or otherwise consume), you generally are expected to use all of it. If you wanted a specific color, you could simply purchase that color. But the types of products that I am proposing to outlaw are the ones where one specifically does not have the ability to purchase the exact item they want.
I think the environmental aspect is a good reason for a tax, but I'm far less convinced any randomized product needs to get banned. Gambling is much less niche and is far more targeted towards...
I think the environmental aspect is a good reason for a tax, but I'm far less convinced any randomized product needs to get banned. Gambling is much less niche and is far more targeted towards people vulnerable to addiction and I don't think it should be banned either.
I outlined some of the reasons why a paper product is different than a digital one in a sister comment but to reiterate, you can buy exactly what you want, just not directly from the manufacturer. Yes, this does create waste, but the randomized format is also exactly what many people want to be able to play a draft. You need randomized boosters to play a draft, which is one of the most popular ways to play magic. I compared it to kids' colouring because the end result is the same: some level of waste is traded for the utility/enjoyment of the product. We can use taxes to fine tune this to whatever we deem is an acceptable ratio .
With all due respect, reading your comment sounds a lot like someone who is defending the status quo simply because you are used to it. It doesn't seem like you understand the full extent of the...
With all due respect, reading your comment sounds a lot like someone who is defending the status quo simply because you are used to it. It doesn't seem like you understand the full extent of the damage that it can cause.
The loot crate model is designed specifically to prey on people with addictive personalities. And addiction can ruin your life. People have literally gone bankrupt because of their addictions to things like gambling and mobile games. And the thing that I find most alarming is how common these tactics are applied to things that are marketed to children. Not only are they present in some of the largest video games, but the last time I visited a toy store I was frankly shocked with how many products are sold in the blind bag format. This kind of tactic can be most charitibly be described as taking advantage of children's lack of understanding of statistics to make more money off of them but it could also be argued that they are attempting to put the addictive mindset into childrens' pliable psyche.
To make matters worse, there isn't really as much resources put into preventing people from being swallowed up from addiction that isn't gambling. If you go into any Casino in Las Vegas, you'll find signs saying "Gamble responsibly" and there are fliers and phone numbers posted to hotlines that people can call if they think they might be having problems with addiction. I've never seen that in a video game or pack of playing cards.
Frankly, the idea that you can buy the specific item in a randomized set from the used market is self-damning. One of the major driving values of any given rare card is because people are addicted to collecting them, so people actually end up spending more money on the used markets than they would if they could have just purchased them outright.
But a far larger problem is when we're talking about digital items, where you do not have used goods markets, items are non-transferrable, and everything has essentially zero monetary value. The entire proposition is pure exploitation in every step of the way, and they have extremely fine tuned psychological tools that are far more effective when combined together. You may have seen this video by Dan Olson on Fortnite for an example.
Just to make sure that we're on the same page, by "drafting" I assume you mean picking at random? That's not a use of that term that I've ever seen before.
If my definition is right, the fact that you get the items at random is not fundamentally helpful. If you are trying to get a random selection, simply take your collection, put them in a bag, mix them up, and then draw them at random. The only benefit you get from doing it from a mixture of blind bags is that your selection will have a similar probability to whatever the manufacturer decided on it being when they put the packs together, which can also be undesirable in some cases (especially if true randomness is an important factor).
"Drafting" is a style of playing TCGs where you sit down and open booster packs one after another, usually selecting a single card from each, in order to build a semirandom deck. While financially...
"Drafting" is a style of playing TCGs where you sit down and open booster packs one after another, usually selecting a single card from each, in order to build a semirandom deck. While financially wasteful, it is a very different practice from just randomly building a deck from the cards you already have, and I'm not sure it's possible to emulate the outcome physically without that waste. Digital is the future for card games for that reason, but as you've mentioned, the exploitative nature of "money in, bits out" makes that rather unsavory.
Christ, that's wasteful. And needlessly expensive. Doesn't Magic use a 60 card deck? That's Warhammer levels of investment. While you wouldn't eliminate the waste, you could still do this without...
Christ, that's wasteful. And needlessly expensive. Doesn't Magic use a 60 card deck? That's Warhammer levels of investment.
While you wouldn't eliminate the waste, you could still do this without the blind bag model. You wouldn't be able to do this with your collection because your collection would be by definition curated, but you could simply buy as large a variety of cards as you can, shuffle them all together, and then draw them in groups of n to simulate the booster packs.
People do do this, it's called 'cube drafting.' You curate a collection of cards that get randomized into packs, and then people come over and draft your cube. It's quite fun but not as popular as...
People do do this, it's called 'cube drafting.' You curate a collection of cards that get randomized into packs, and then people come over and draft your cube. It's quite fun but not as popular as regular drafting. The appeal of drafting is that it's a low investment. 8 people show up and each chip in $15 or whatever to buy a box and you draft the contents, keeping the cards you draft.
I think you are overstating how much a TCG like Magic is targeting or relying on people who are prone to addictive behaviour. Most adults understand sealed product is not worth buying unless you...
I think you are overstating how much a TCG like Magic is targeting or relying on people who are prone to addictive behaviour.
Most adults understand sealed product is not worth buying unless you are trying to collect a lot of cards without caring what exactly you are getting. The vast majority of players buy single cards. I do agree that none of this sort of product should be in kids aisles or toy stores, who can't really be expected to differentiate.
If WotC did sell singles (and they do, sort of through 'secret lair' products) they wouldn't sell them for less money than they currently fetch on the secondary market.
At the end of the day I don't think we should ban gambling because some people are susceptible to it. Casinos and slot machines in particular are far more predatory and far more deserving of additional scrutiny but even then I think there are better approaches than just banning it entirely.
The cost that is charged for these products is not the main issue; the problem is that it's manipulative and damaging to an entire class of people. Loot crates don't make their money because...
The cost that is charged for these products is not the main issue; the problem is that it's manipulative and damaging to an entire class of people. Loot crates don't make their money because everyone's a little addictive, but because there are people to whom it becomes consumingly addictive.
You're talking about all these people who are avoiding the loot crates as if that forgives the fact that they are only sold under that model; the fact that that market exists is a much worse reality. They create an entire market that is built upon the leftovers of the people who are truly addicted; the people who are buying third or even fourth boxes of booster packs because they didn't get the specific card they wanted in the first two they preordered.
Loot crates are not "like gambling"; loot crates are gambling.
I feel like I'm just repeating the same things over and over again, so I'll make this my last response to you on this subject.
Digital loot boxes and the vast majority of that ecosystem is a hellscape, I agree with you there. I'm specifically talking about Magic here. But this doesn't really happen in Magic. Large stores...
Digital loot boxes and the vast majority of that ecosystem is a hellscape, I agree with you there. I'm specifically talking about Magic here.
You're talking about all these people who are avoiding the loot crates as if that forgives the fact that they are only sold under that model; the fact that that market exists is a much worse reality. They create an entire market that is built upon the leftovers of the people who are truly addicted; the people who are buying third or even fourth boxes of booster packs because they didn't get the specific card they wanted in the first two they preordered.
But this doesn't really happen in Magic. Large stores open a huge amount of the product. People buy boxes to draft, collect, or speculate, not to acquire specific cards for their decks. I think if you are calling to ban something, you should understand it or at least talk to and understand the perspective of the millions of people who engage with the game in non-destructive ways.
The problem with a tax is that it affects the end user, not the company that's causing the harm. People who are being exploited by companies pushing gambling at them are not helped by increased...
The problem with a tax is that it affects the end user, not the company that's causing the harm.
People who are being exploited by companies pushing gambling at them are not helped by increased costs. They keep gambling (almost by definition) even when the costs go up to harmful levels.
If you change consumer behavior you can change company behavior. A tax on 'likely going to waste' products might incentivize selling 'collector' packs which don't contain any chaff at all, which I...
If you change consumer behavior you can change company behavior.
A tax on 'likely going to waste' products might incentivize selling 'collector' packs which don't contain any chaff at all, which I think would be pretty popular.
But increased costs do not change consumer behaviour for gambling products, which is why children spend hundreds, thousands, of dollars on collectibles that have very little intrinsic value. All...
If you change consumer behavior you can change company behavior.
But increased costs do not change consumer behaviour for gambling products, which is why children spend hundreds, thousands, of dollars on collectibles that have very little intrinsic value. All the increased price is doing here is causing additional harm, because it's the cost that's harmful.
I think that's going a bit far out on a limb. Increased costs have some effect on smoking, for example: I haven't looked for studies, but I would expect it to have some effect on gambling as well,...
I think that's going a bit far out on a limb. Increased costs have some effect on smoking, for example:
Price-based policy measures such as increase in tobacco taxes are unarguably the most effective means of reducing the consumption of tobacco. A 10% tax-induced cigarette price increase anywhere in the world reduces smoking prevalence by between 4% and 8%.
I haven't looked for studies, but I would expect it to have some effect on gambling as well, to the point that reduced sales would result in stores not carrying the product anymore? Gamers complain all the time about prices that they think are too high.
My claim was not about addictive products, it was specifically about gambling products. The mechanism of addiction is different, and a core feature of addiction to gambling is the belief that...
My claim was not about addictive products, it was specifically about gambling products. The mechanism of addiction is different, and a core feature of addiction to gambling is the belief that "I'll get the money back when I get a big win". This is what drives the harm: people get into huge, astronomical, amounts of debt because of this belief. This is not present for alcohol or tobacco.
New research has revealed one in four (24%) women aged 18-49 who gamble expect to gamble more in the coming months due to the cost-of-living crisis, with one in ten (12%) reportedly already having turned to gambling in an attempt to supplement household income
This shows that despite having less money available, some people with problem gambling will increase the amount of money they spend on gambling. I believe this also shows that increasing the cost of gambling does not deter people from gambling if those people have problems with gambling.
I'm kind of stuck on their mentioning of the lego minifig mystery bags. I usually buy a bag or two if I spot them while out shopping. I just like having minifigs around. They're all decently...
I'm kind of stuck on their mentioning of the lego minifig mystery bags. I usually buy a bag or two if I spot them while out shopping. I just like having minifigs around. They're all decently designed and I've never seen one that I wouldn't put on display or add to my collection for use elsewhere (D&D, added to another set for display, etc.). And if I get a duplicate I can resell it on bricklink or just give it to my kids to play with. I guess my point is that, imo, if I'm after a specific minifig and I don't get it, I still get my money's worth one way or the other. Absolute worst case scenario I can still salvage some accessories or spare minifig body parts.
But there are a lot of other mystery bag toys out there that rub me the wrong way. You see a lot of them at stores like Five Below. Super cheap, crappy, ugly toys that don't have any display value, break with any serious play and don't have a second-hand market at all. I take issue with those. Unlike minifigs, they don't have any real value. You don't really get your money's worth at all. It's just junk that ends up in a landfill a few weeks after its bought.
Card games I don't feel strongly about because I'm not really into any of them. I was briefly into Pokemon TCG though and the randomness of it was part of the fun. But I can see how that's a bit more predatory. Those games are competitive and you have to keep buying packs to stay competitive.
I can't politely say how angry lootbox and gambling mechanics make me when they're aimed at children. (This includes things that many people don't care about, like Lego minfig packets, or Panini...
I can't politely say how angry lootbox and gambling mechanics make me when they're aimed at children. (This includes things that many people don't care about, like Lego minfig packets, or Panini sticker albums).
It's such a dumb thing for games companies to do. They're operating in a space that doesn't have much regulation, and they want to keep it like that. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. And so it's just nuts for them to move into a space that's heavily regulated with strict enforcement about "don't push gambling to kids", and then push gambling onto kids.
I'm generally in favour of regulation, but I accept that sometimes regulation is created that's confusing (cookie banners would be one example) and I feel like these companies don't realise that governments are happy to 1) extract large amounts of tax from them and 2) impose complex regulation upon them.
This is irrelevant, I know, but I'm a really big fan of the guy in this video, Quintin Smith. I just can't help but shout his praises whenever he pops up. He was the wunderkind writer for Rock,...
This is irrelevant, I know, but I'm a really big fan of the guy in this video, Quintin Smith. I just can't help but shout his praises whenever he pops up. He was the wunderkind writer for Rock, Paper, Shotgun about ten or so years ago but had left video games for a while, before returning with this investigative reporting channel. He used to write the funniest articles this side of Old Man Murray. I always recommend The Longest Day: 24 Hours In White Gold:
Boiling Point had this problem. This is the Army guy who hands out missions if you decide to join the Army faction, but they sit him down so you'll always know where to find him and so that he doesn't end a plot arc by accidentally getting killed. He is so incredibly docile that he hasn't even moved when that bit of debry from my demolitions came flying in through the window and landed on his hands. Do I kill him? Of course not. He is noble in the face of death. I eat a pineapple.
The rebels reward me for my work by giving me a jeep, armed with a mounted gun that I can control remotely with my mind. I celebrate my new jeep by accidentally driving it into the sea. Well, you win some, you lose some. I eat some more prawns and take an enema.
Related to /u/DanBC's comment: how do people feel about collectable card games (Pokemon, Magic, baseball, etc), which also expressly target children? Are these worth distinguishing from video game loot boxes, or are loot boxes just the modern iteration of trading cards?
The older I get the more I honestly can't help but feel the same as @DanBC does about videogame loot boxes/gambling mechanics, but also towards physical "collecting" products as well. They all exploit the same addictive behavior to make their money, rely on artificial scarcity to inflate prices, and when targeted towards minors that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
And I say that as someone who spent thousands of dollars on M:TG as a teen myself without thinking much about that before recently, and still plays monetized CCGs occasionally too. But now that I have a young nephew that is growing increasingly obsessed with Pokemon cards along with all his friends/schoolmates, and am starting to see all the same negative things that happened to me and my peers start happening to him and his (trading drama, jealousy, spending all their money on it, theft of cards, friendships ruined, and even a few physical altercations deriving from all that), I am confronted with those problems on a regular basis now. It's gotten so bad that a bunch of his teachers have banned Pokemon cards in their classrooms, and his school is even considering banning them from school grounds. And I am inclined to agree with them if they do.
I haven't played any of those games but I got into playing Dominion for a while. It seems like a healthier way to play the same kind of game, without the collectable aspect to it? (Although there are many expansions.)
I was curious so I looked it up and there's a good list on BGG for deck building tabletop games. I'm more of a fan of single deck and worker placement games but some of these look pretty fun.
I've never played Dominion, but I am aware of it, and I suspect that, yes, removing the collectable aspect changes things quite dramatically for the better/healthier.
I've always found the unlimited spiraling cost of playing Magic terrifying (I played it for a bit as a kid in 1995 and thereabouts).
There's a really good, really obscure and now quite old videogame designed by Richard Garfield called Spectromancer which is basically Magic without the deck. Every player gets an arrangement of 20 cards from a common pool (if a player has a card, the other can't have it) that are semi-randomly selected but based on a strict set of rules. All 20 cards are in the player's hand from the start of the game and can be used any amount of times as long as the player has the requisite mana (+1/element/turn). If you enjoy the strategy of the combat this is very positive, since it usually results in decently balanced matches and predatory monetization would actually be quite difficult. I always figured, "hey, he made this to fix the gameplay defects of MtG!"
Then again, I'm aware many MtG players derive much if not most of their fun from deckbuilding...
I think it's important to distinguish them from loot box games for several reasons. (Disclaimer: I play and collect Magic.)
Physical collectible card games create a secondary market, and players can just go buy directly the cards they need. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Magic product gets opened by stores these days which sell single cards directly to consumers. I know this is true of Valve as well, but for many loot box games it is not.
At least for Magic, players are able to, and have indeed, adapted to WotC's increasingly scummy business practices. In addition to buying less sealed product, the vast majority of players are open to people proxying cards (playing with an illegitimate copy) outside of sanctioned tournaments. People want to play against other people, not your wallet or length of time in the game.
These sorts of relief valves where players can opt out of the worst parts of the structure are not present in most digital goods, which I think is worth a distinction. Although the fact that they are also marketed towards children is worth discussing for sure.
Any loot crate/blind bag product is garbage that makes the world a worse place.
I know you all already know how shitty it is that they take advantage of children and people with addictive personalities. But it also has an environmental cost as well. They are manufacturing products that by nature are at least 1/3rd landfill fuel.
They should all be outlawed.
I think that's a bit hyperbolic, no?
Utility matters. I do agree that there is by nature a lot of 'draft chaff' in each pack, but a lot of people also enjoy drafting? Children's colouring/construction paper vastly outnumbers draft chaff by weight, but I hardly think we should ban consider banning it. And at least all of this is recyclable.
A volume tax on products with parts likely to end up in the landfill or recycling programs seems like a more realistic starting point.
I don't think that it's hyperbolic at all. I find your tax idea strongly wanting in effectiveness because it only addresses the waste/environmental issue and not the simple fact that companies who produce these things are doing so in such a way that takes advantage of people's compulsions. It doesn't even touch digital loot boxes at all.
Construction paper is also an extremely poor example; when you buy a pack of construction paper for children to draw on (or otherwise consume), you generally are expected to use all of it. If you wanted a specific color, you could simply purchase that color. But the types of products that I am proposing to outlaw are the ones where one specifically does not have the ability to purchase the exact item they want.
I think the environmental aspect is a good reason for a tax, but I'm far less convinced any randomized product needs to get banned. Gambling is much less niche and is far more targeted towards people vulnerable to addiction and I don't think it should be banned either.
I outlined some of the reasons why a paper product is different than a digital one in a sister comment but to reiterate, you can buy exactly what you want, just not directly from the manufacturer. Yes, this does create waste, but the randomized format is also exactly what many people want to be able to play a draft. You need randomized boosters to play a draft, which is one of the most popular ways to play magic. I compared it to kids' colouring because the end result is the same: some level of waste is traded for the utility/enjoyment of the product. We can use taxes to fine tune this to whatever we deem is an acceptable ratio .
With all due respect, reading your comment sounds a lot like someone who is defending the status quo simply because you are used to it. It doesn't seem like you understand the full extent of the damage that it can cause.
The loot crate model is designed specifically to prey on people with addictive personalities. And addiction can ruin your life. People have literally gone bankrupt because of their addictions to things like gambling and mobile games. And the thing that I find most alarming is how common these tactics are applied to things that are marketed to children. Not only are they present in some of the largest video games, but the last time I visited a toy store I was frankly shocked with how many products are sold in the blind bag format. This kind of tactic can be most charitibly be described as taking advantage of children's lack of understanding of statistics to make more money off of them but it could also be argued that they are attempting to put the addictive mindset into childrens' pliable psyche.
To make matters worse, there isn't really as much resources put into preventing people from being swallowed up from addiction that isn't gambling. If you go into any Casino in Las Vegas, you'll find signs saying "Gamble responsibly" and there are fliers and phone numbers posted to hotlines that people can call if they think they might be having problems with addiction. I've never seen that in a video game or pack of playing cards.
Frankly, the idea that you can buy the specific item in a randomized set from the used market is self-damning. One of the major driving values of any given rare card is because people are addicted to collecting them, so people actually end up spending more money on the used markets than they would if they could have just purchased them outright.
But a far larger problem is when we're talking about digital items, where you do not have used goods markets, items are non-transferrable, and everything has essentially zero monetary value. The entire proposition is pure exploitation in every step of the way, and they have extremely fine tuned psychological tools that are far more effective when combined together. You may have seen this video by Dan Olson on Fortnite for an example.
Just to make sure that we're on the same page, by "drafting" I assume you mean picking at random? That's not a use of that term that I've ever seen before.
If my definition is right, the fact that you get the items at random is not fundamentally helpful. If you are trying to get a random selection, simply take your collection, put them in a bag, mix them up, and then draw them at random. The only benefit you get from doing it from a mixture of blind bags is that your selection will have a similar probability to whatever the manufacturer decided on it being when they put the packs together, which can also be undesirable in some cases (especially if true randomness is an important factor).
"Drafting" is a style of playing TCGs where you sit down and open booster packs one after another, usually selecting a single card from each, in order to build a semirandom deck. While financially wasteful, it is a very different practice from just randomly building a deck from the cards you already have, and I'm not sure it's possible to emulate the outcome physically without that waste. Digital is the future for card games for that reason, but as you've mentioned, the exploitative nature of "money in, bits out" makes that rather unsavory.
Christ, that's wasteful. And needlessly expensive. Doesn't Magic use a 60 card deck? That's Warhammer levels of investment.
While you wouldn't eliminate the waste, you could still do this without the blind bag model. You wouldn't be able to do this with your collection because your collection would be by definition curated, but you could simply buy as large a variety of cards as you can, shuffle them all together, and then draw them in groups of n to simulate the booster packs.
People do do this, it's called 'cube drafting.' You curate a collection of cards that get randomized into packs, and then people come over and draft your cube. It's quite fun but not as popular as regular drafting. The appeal of drafting is that it's a low investment. 8 people show up and each chip in $15 or whatever to buy a box and you draft the contents, keeping the cards you draft.
I think you are overstating how much a TCG like Magic is targeting or relying on people who are prone to addictive behaviour.
Most adults understand sealed product is not worth buying unless you are trying to collect a lot of cards without caring what exactly you are getting. The vast majority of players buy single cards. I do agree that none of this sort of product should be in kids aisles or toy stores, who can't really be expected to differentiate.
If WotC did sell singles (and they do, sort of through 'secret lair' products) they wouldn't sell them for less money than they currently fetch on the secondary market.
At the end of the day I don't think we should ban gambling because some people are susceptible to it. Casinos and slot machines in particular are far more predatory and far more deserving of additional scrutiny but even then I think there are better approaches than just banning it entirely.
The cost that is charged for these products is not the main issue; the problem is that it's manipulative and damaging to an entire class of people. Loot crates don't make their money because everyone's a little addictive, but because there are people to whom it becomes consumingly addictive.
You're talking about all these people who are avoiding the loot crates as if that forgives the fact that they are only sold under that model; the fact that that market exists is a much worse reality. They create an entire market that is built upon the leftovers of the people who are truly addicted; the people who are buying third or even fourth boxes of booster packs because they didn't get the specific card they wanted in the first two they preordered.
Loot crates are not "like gambling"; loot crates are gambling.
I feel like I'm just repeating the same things over and over again, so I'll make this my last response to you on this subject.
Digital loot boxes and the vast majority of that ecosystem is a hellscape, I agree with you there. I'm specifically talking about Magic here.
But this doesn't really happen in Magic. Large stores open a huge amount of the product. People buy boxes to draft, collect, or speculate, not to acquire specific cards for their decks. I think if you are calling to ban something, you should understand it or at least talk to and understand the perspective of the millions of people who engage with the game in non-destructive ways.
I never said that Magic should be banned. The problem is not the product, it's the way that it is sold.
The problem with a tax is that it affects the end user, not the company that's causing the harm.
People who are being exploited by companies pushing gambling at them are not helped by increased costs. They keep gambling (almost by definition) even when the costs go up to harmful levels.
If you change consumer behavior you can change company behavior.
A tax on 'likely going to waste' products might incentivize selling 'collector' packs which don't contain any chaff at all, which I think would be pretty popular.
But increased costs do not change consumer behaviour for gambling products, which is why children spend hundreds, thousands, of dollars on collectibles that have very little intrinsic value. All the increased price is doing here is causing additional harm, because it's the cost that's harmful.
I think that's going a bit far out on a limb. Increased costs have some effect on smoking, for example:
I haven't looked for studies, but I would expect it to have some effect on gambling as well, to the point that reduced sales would result in stores not carrying the product anymore? Gamers complain all the time about prices that they think are too high.
My claim was not about addictive products, it was specifically about gambling products. The mechanism of addiction is different, and a core feature of addiction to gambling is the belief that "I'll get the money back when I get a big win". This is what drives the harm: people get into huge, astronomical, amounts of debt because of this belief. This is not present for alcohol or tobacco.
EDIT: The evidence is weak, but here's a bit of survey work in England showing that women expect to be gambling more because of the cost of living crisis. https://www.begambleaware.org/news/cost-living-crisis-could-lead-worrying-growth-gambling-harms-among-women
This shows that despite having less money available, some people with problem gambling will increase the amount of money they spend on gambling. I believe this also shows that increasing the cost of gambling does not deter people from gambling if those people have problems with gambling.
I'm kind of stuck on their mentioning of the lego minifig mystery bags. I usually buy a bag or two if I spot them while out shopping. I just like having minifigs around. They're all decently designed and I've never seen one that I wouldn't put on display or add to my collection for use elsewhere (D&D, added to another set for display, etc.). And if I get a duplicate I can resell it on bricklink or just give it to my kids to play with. I guess my point is that, imo, if I'm after a specific minifig and I don't get it, I still get my money's worth one way or the other. Absolute worst case scenario I can still salvage some accessories or spare minifig body parts.
But there are a lot of other mystery bag toys out there that rub me the wrong way. You see a lot of them at stores like Five Below. Super cheap, crappy, ugly toys that don't have any display value, break with any serious play and don't have a second-hand market at all. I take issue with those. Unlike minifigs, they don't have any real value. You don't really get your money's worth at all. It's just junk that ends up in a landfill a few weeks after its bought.
Card games I don't feel strongly about because I'm not really into any of them. I was briefly into Pokemon TCG though and the randomness of it was part of the fun. But I can see how that's a bit more predatory. Those games are competitive and you have to keep buying packs to stay competitive.
I can't politely say how angry lootbox and gambling mechanics make me when they're aimed at children. (This includes things that many people don't care about, like Lego minfig packets, or Panini sticker albums).
It's such a dumb thing for games companies to do. They're operating in a space that doesn't have much regulation, and they want to keep it like that. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. And so it's just nuts for them to move into a space that's heavily regulated with strict enforcement about "don't push gambling to kids", and then push gambling onto kids.
I'm generally in favour of regulation, but I accept that sometimes regulation is created that's confusing (cookie banners would be one example) and I feel like these companies don't realise that governments are happy to 1) extract large amounts of tax from them and 2) impose complex regulation upon them.
This is irrelevant, I know, but I'm a really big fan of the guy in this video, Quintin Smith. I just can't help but shout his praises whenever he pops up. He was the wunderkind writer for Rock, Paper, Shotgun about ten or so years ago but had left video games for a while, before returning with this investigative reporting channel. He used to write the funniest articles this side of Old Man Murray. I always recommend The Longest Day: 24 Hours In White Gold:
While I don't know whether it's public, there's a followup video on their Patreon where Chris talks about his own struggles with gambling.