Uh-Oh regulations impacting Paragon Store

Was reading through the financial news and stumbled across this article.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/6117...ndscape-part-1

Could this be trouble for things like Heroes/Villians pack and the paragon market?

I'm not really concerned. The likelihood of legislation limiting corporations from making money in nearly any fashion they deem worthy actually passing congress in the United States seems very slim.

When I first saw the super packs on beta I explicitly called attention to the fact that the mechanism was trying too hard to be like gambling (turning over five "cards"?), and that it might be illegal in some states and countries.

Of course, I'm someone who thinks the very definition of boring and wasteful is sitting in front of a slot machine, plugging it with hundreds of dollars worth of quarters.

One of the things triggering this is that, on some of these other games, it's a complete black-box system. All the players know is that they CAN get something. But they don't know what, and don't know the odds.

Cryptic sidestepped that a while back by publishing the percentages.

Whether or not it's still "gambling" is debatable. Personally, my opinion is "yeah". But having this get legislated would probably be the absolute WORST thing that could happen.

In short, when the US Government gets involved in ANYTHING, expect them to **** it up royally, and waste a bunch of money doing so (both yours, and theirs (which is also "yours")).

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

It will never be "trouble" for a game company because they'll simply change the store and increase the individual item costs appropriately so they don't lose money.

Personally, I think it's an excellent idea since I'd rather not pay for the crappy extras (inspirations/temp powers) just to get costume pieces or recipes.

Also, I think game stores should follow the same rules as any other stores. I don't see random grab bags at my local grocer or Target store.

I don't know.

I mean, when you "gamble" in general there is a chance for loss on your part.

Example, I bet $10 that the Jets will win versus the Giants. If I win, I get my money + whatever winnings. If I lose, I lose my $10 and possibly more depending on what the terms were.

With the Super Packs, you're not losing any of your points/money. You're always guaranteed to get -something-. Whether Team Insp, Reward Merits, Costume Pieces, etc.

And even at the 80pts/pack, you still always wind up getting more than what you're paying for, points wise. (Based on the market cost of the items).

Just my thoughts on the matter...

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoyLeyenda It will never be "trouble" for a game company because they'll simply change the store and increase the individual item costs appropriately so they don't lose money. Personally, I think it's an excellent idea since I'd rather not pay for the crappy extras (inspirations/temp powers) just to get costume pieces or recipes. Also, I think game stores should follow the same rules as any other stores. I don't see random grab bags at my local grocer or Target store.

But is a grab bag really gambling? There's really no penalty and you don't "lose" per se. You pay $X and get Y products. So long as the combined value of Y products is more than the $X you paid, I don't see a problem with it. Whether or not what the customer "feels" the value of the Y products is accurate is a different story.

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IF it did infact affect CoH, which is rather unlikely, I can only see it being banned for those under the legal age to gamble. If i got the gist of it on that link that is.

Packs cost 80PP maximum and even assuming you got 4 insps and 3 windfalls you've got 340PP worth of stuff. You might not have anything you wanted but you can't have less than you paid for.

The problem of people selling rare items you can only get from super packs is avoided by having the cossies and wolf account locked. It's not just that it's against the EULA to sell them like in the other games referenced, it's simply not possible.

Not that such technicalities are likely to be relevant, it would be rather rare for the government to know what it was talking about prior to getting involved.

You guys are glancing over the fact that this pending legislation in Japan is due to targeting children, who end up racking up massive amounts of credit card charges in just a few days -- $1500+ over a long weekend. The gear in those packs is traditionally only available through those packs and is often some of the best available.

On the other hand, CoH limits you to a maximum of $400 in transactions per month, and all the performance-enhancing items in the Super Packs are available outside of the packs via direct purchase (XP Boosters, special insps, etc.) or in-game methods (Reward Merits, AT-Specific Enhancements). The only things in the Super Pack that are not available through other methods are purely cosmetic (costume pieces, Black Wolf pet).

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike Cryptic sidestepped that a while back by publishing the percentages.

Cryptic hasn't had anything to do with this game for 4 years now. It's Paragon Studios.

If you actually paid attention to the article, you'd see that they mention a Cryptic game that did not publish the odds of earning items in their grab bags, which is against the law in some countries.

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The short of it is, as long as Paragon continues to post the possible contents of each Super Pack, the odds of receiving each, and offers an alternative way to earn any items that directly enhance powers or gameplay, they're probably not going to run into any trouble whether the "online baseball card pack" is officially labelled as gambling or not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Grab bags or "fuku-bukuro" are insanely popular in Japan at New Years, which is probably part of why this became a problem in online games. But I doubt the Paragon Store could care any less about possible regulations in Japan, considering what a minor market it is for the COX games. Of course, they've never made any real effort to go after what until recently was the second largest market for movies (largely Hollywood-made) and dumped a COH localization project by NC Soft Japan--yeah, putting all the eggs in the Korea basket worked out real well for them.

[sarcasm]I can't imagine how a certain Sci-Fi MMO based on a long-running TV series could have possibly earned a mention in that article...[/sarcasm]

< Is not a fan of the in-game store system currently in place in said MMO.