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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: etc.

What are the requirements of "gambling"? Does virtual goods have "value"?

Even the players who are most addicted to drawing cards and unpacking know that these games they play have a certain element of luck, and whether they become "European emperors" or "non-emirate", it is said that metaphysics is actually the product of the careful control of game developers. However, in most parts of the world, whether to open a box is gambling, there is no legal determination, and it is still in a heated discussion between the public and relevant institutions.

In some countries and regions, there have been calls for legislation on out-of-the-box games for a long time. Regulators in the United States, Australia and a number of European countries all want to identify opening the box as gambling, leading to stricter regulation. Industry associations and game rating agencies object that opening the box does not have all the elements of gambling and it is unreasonable to equate it with gambling.

In September 2022, Sebastian Tintrynin, a member of the Finnish Parliament, introduced a bill proposing to regulate in-game unpacking as a form of gambling. Some time ago, in order to explore the impact of the bill on the Finnish gaming industry, the media interviewed Dr. Joseph Messi, doctoral students Tobias Martinen and Tintrunin himself. As a scholar, Messi focuses on the relationship between video game consumption and participation in emerging gambling activities, while Martin focuses on unpacking and gambling behavior in games.

As a member of Parliament, Tintrunen is also a member of the Orthodox Finn Party and a representative of right-wing populism in Finnish politics. Asked whether Mr Tintrunin's views would affect the bill's pass rate, Mr Martin said it was a possibility, but not necessarily in the way people imagined. "oddly enough, this bill may benefit from Tintrunin because he is a highly controversial figure who can push the bill to get more attention."

But Martin stressed that the content is more important than who proposed the bill.

Before Tintrunin was identified as the key to "racial incitement" for making inappropriate remarks, Finland had never tried to regulate the opening of the box in the game. According to the current law, if an activity is to be classified as gambling, participants must pay a fee, the result must be accidental, and the prizes won by participants must have monetary value. "like most countries and regions, Finland defines gambling in terms of money or the value of money." Martin said.

In Finland, the National Police Commission oversees police work throughout the country and has a special department responsible for interpreting and implementing the Finnish Lottery Act. This department does not regard most unpacking as gambling, because players can only use the reward items they get in the game, which can not be exchanged for real money and are considered to have no monetary value. Since most out-of-the-box rewards are indeed designed not to be exchanged directly for money, they are not usually seen as a form of gambling.

This view is similar to the situation in some other countries and regions of the world, as long as it is not paid money and won real money, it is not regarded as gambling. The Entertainment Software rating Board (ESRB) believes that as long as it does not involve two-way money transactions are not "gambling", can only be regarded as "virtual goods purchase".

Martinen explained that Tintrunin's bill aims to amend the Lottery Law to extend the legal definition of lotteries to include "virtual available profits" or prizes with virtual rather than monetary value. This means that unpacking may be seen as a gamble, even if the prize you get cannot be exchanged for real money.

It is not clear how much impact the change will have. In a sense, the legal interpretation of "available virtual prizes / profits / results" will determine how the bill affects the Finnish gaming industry. But even in Finnish, there is no clear definition of the term.

'The point is that even if the out-of-the-box prize has no monetary or exchange value, it can be considered a gamble, 'Mr. Tintruning said. As long as unpacking meets the other two characteristics of gambling, that is, players need to spend money and do not know the contents of the box in advance, this behavior should be regarded as gambling. Regardless of whether the prize has monetary value or not.

In 2021, the total revenue of the global gaming industry was $178 billion, of which about $15 billion came from unpacking and in-game purchases. if the bill is passed, then in Finland, unpacking will be defined as gambling-even if players cannot sell, trade or transfer prizes they have won, they can only be used in the game. At the same time, if players can sell or trade out-of-the-box prizes through third-party websites, it will also be regarded as gambling.

"if players are willing to spend money to get random content out of the box, then at least from the player's point of view, the content is valuable," Martin said. " In other words, even if the player can not profit from the objects in the game, because the input and love of the game will subjectively agree that they are valuable. Martin wants to pass the bill: "We don't have to argue over and over again whether an item has real monetary value and whether it can be sold in some markets."... in this way, when a new game is released, or when there is a new form of out-of-the-box prize trading, there is no need to amend the law every time. "

It is worth noting that the application of this bill is not limited to out-of-the-box prizes, but includes all in-game virtual awards.

"although the amendment takes opening the box as the entry point for introducing this change, it does not explicitly mention that these actions must be out of the box." "the bill refers to random paid props, including virtual items that have some useful value to consumers, not just out of the box," Dr. Joseph Macy said. it also includes any in-game transactions based on probability and virtual rewards for players. "

In recent years, similar games have been added to "FIFA" and other large games, which are often criticized by youth groups and researchers abroad.

Star Wars: frontline 2, the EA game, has met with strong resistance from players because of its outrageous design, and both Messi and Martin are happy to see the bill draw more attention to related topics because of its outrageous design. "it's a good thing that this bill is not narrowly focused on unpacking, but on the whole concept of virtual items being gambled." Martin said.

According to the bill proposed by Tintrunin, Finland will only regulate the behavior of players who spend money to open the box. Messi explained that this was "a conscious attempt to distinguish normal situations that are acceptable to people and based on probability from gambling behavior". Mr Martin agrees that this is a reasonable restriction on the amendment, because the purpose of regulation should not be to eliminate all randomness in the game. "it is also obviously wrong to treat all forms of random rewards in video games, such as random equipment drop in RPG, as out of the box."

"if you expand this concept too much, it can easily cause the situation to become very chaotic." Martin said.

When talking about the potential impact of the bill, Martin first pointed out that there is a monopoly in Finland's traditional gambling industry. In Finland, only the Finnish National Lottery can provide gambling services that directly involve money, such as casinos or slot machines. If opening the box is regarded as real money gambling, then only the National Lottery Company can operate.

In Finland, small-scale "raffles" are also considered gambling, but can be organized by companies with the permission of the Finnish National Police Council. Under the current Finnish law, gambling licenses cannot be issued to private companies that try to profit from gambling activities. If unpacking is seen as a lottery, then the game company must apply for a license to join the game.

"Game companies add these elements to the game because it allows them to make more money, which is unacceptable," Messi said. " Martin pointed out: "under Finnish law, if unpacking and similar mechanisms are regarded as lotteries, then it is actually very difficult for game companies to get permission to sell these props."

In the era of mobile games, many game companies from Finland grew up by free games. If this bill is passed, how will Finnish game companies such as Supercell and Rovio react?

"these companies contribute a lot of tax revenue to the Finnish economy and the government." "this change will seriously affect their business model, and the games they run such as clash of tribes are all in the form of F2P," Messi said. "

Mr Martin added: "companies such as Supercell can either change the way games are profitable or leave the Finnish market. Game companies can stop offering games in Finland instead of really changing the way they sell these props to players. At the same time, it is hard for me to imagine foreign companies such as Valve succumbing to the Finnish government and changing the way they operate."

While the bill is likely to have a huge impact on the revenues of Finnish gaming companies, Tintrunen stressed the importance of promoting legal changes. "the gambling problem in Finland is very serious." "A 2019 statistic shows that as many as 112000 people in our country of 5.5 million people are addicted to gambling, which is shocking," he said. "in Finland, there can be rows of slot machines next to any ordinary grocery store."

"like slot machines in grocery stores, unpacking in games brings gambling into our daily lives, especially for young people. most people know the dangers of online casinos and coin-operated slot machines, but many people don't know much about unpacking, even though gamers are already familiar with them."

Finland has been reducing the number of physical slot machines in recent years, but online gambling has become popular and the average amount of time people spend playing video games is increasing. Both Martinez and Messi welcome the new law. Messi believes that "gambling is not a problem in itself", but game companies must change the "way they provide"-in games that offer out-of-the-box games, they have to assume the "obligation and responsibility" to take care of players. "this is exactly what game companies lack, and they are never willing to take any form of obligation to players."

However, Messi also expressed concern about how effective the bill will be.

"when these bills come into effect, opening the box will be completely different from what it is now. as soon as there is any indication that the bill will be passed, game companies will take other actions. they modify the content of the game much faster than the legislative process that took years."

The two scholars also mentioned that game companies may find ways to exploit legal loopholes. For example, it can be changed to provide boxes when players buy virtual currency, or only allow players to use virtual currency to buy boxes-players can either accumulate virtual money while playing or spend money to buy it.

"We have to understand that this is a relatively new phenomenon and it is not simple," Tintruning said. But the point is that we have to act quickly and constantly strengthen regulation, and the most dangerous thing is to do nothing. We can't expect a panacea to be organized all of a sudden, but I think they all agree with us, including the Norwegian Consumer Council. It sends a clear message that we should all listen: opening the box is really a problem and clearly needs to be regulated. "

"while strengthening regulation, we need to think one or two steps ahead and try to solve this problem. We also have to be realistic: in order to avoid regulation, some companies may play all kinds of tricks …... so we need to pay attention to changes in the gaming industry and respond when we see signs of new problems. this is a marathon, not a sprint."

Whether or not the bill is passed to effectively achieve its goals, Messi stressed the importance of raising public awareness of the issue. "it is very difficult for us to effectively regulate games, and it would be nice if we can get the relevant departments and the general public to start discussing these topics."

This article is compiled from: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/exploring-finlands-proposed-loot-box-regulation

Original title: "Exploring Finland's proposed loot box regulation"

Original author: Hannah Heilbuth

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