Unavailable skins for Belgians

[Smallisbig.4923]

Hey !

 

This will probably be lost in the sea of posts - and I don't know if I'm in the right section.

 

But here's the thing that's been bothering me lately : I'm Belgian and, since a few months, black lion keys have been unabled in the gem store. I understand Anet has to abide by our country's laws, but -

But it means we can't get black lion keys (except through the weekly farm - only 1 per week - or by completing some maps of the LS) nor black lion statuettes. And those two items both offer items you can't get anywhere else ! For example, the envoy scythe staff skin is now available through black lion statuettes - can't get it since I only have 3/4 of them. Same for the exalted shoulders : they would be a perfect fit for my outfit but there's no way I'll get them unless I'm extremly lucky with the 1 black lion chest I can open every week (in the few weeks the skin is available) !

I know we Belgians are a minority in GW2's population - we're maybe 1% of it, probably even less. But wouldn't it be possible to make those skins available by other means ? To make them buyable for xxx gems in the gem store instead of making them rewards of a gambling game which isn't allowed in our country ?

 

Well, I'll understand if no 'fair for everyone' solution is possible - or if it would just take too much time to find and implement a solution. Though it disappoints me to be unable to get those skins - even when i'm ready to spend money to get them !

 

[thehipone.6812]

Yeah it kinda sucks, but the path is to complain to your politicians who passed the stupid laws. You can't really expect a private (and foreign) company to spend resources/incur costs and a loss to create a system to get around silly laws.

[Smallisbig.4923]

The real problem is that it's forbidden even if you're 18+. Don't know how they could forbid it only for people who aren't 18 yet though. And I don't expect anything from politicians : it's already a miracle when one of them is in its forties and I'm pretty sure none of them knows that multiple game genres exist. But yeah, guess I'm in a deadlock unless I travel to another country to be able to buy BL keys =/

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I agree with @"thehipone.6812": it's not reasonable to expect that a game company will invent a whole new system just to accommodate a single country, representing a tiny fraction of income... especially when many people disagree with the way the regulators decided to handle it (treating all cash boxes the same, rather than noting that some games are predatory and some aren't).

 

It's a problem caused by Belgian regulators deciding to impose their preferences without negotiating with the industry first, so it's most efficiently handled by expressing the same opinion to them. They might decide to impose further regulations (to disallow the possibility of citizens of one country not being able to get certain items) or they might decide to adjust the original rules. Or they might not do anything. Whatever it was won't be quick: it took them about 6-9 months to introduce these rules, so I'd expect at least that much time if they wanted to make a change.

 

 

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"Smallisbig.4923" said:

>To make them buyable for xxx gems in the gem store instead of making them rewards of a gambling game which isn't allowed in our country ?

 

Problem there is they likely make significantly more money on selling keys for people 'trying' to get these items from BL chests than they would if you could just purchase them.

 

Eventually you will be able to get them with BL Statuettes, and between weekly key farming and map completion, you can build up a nice quantity of those.

[Leablo.2651]

I have seen it said in other games that one can use a VPN to get around Belgian regulations. If interested you can probably find a guide for how to do that.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Would it be possible to buy these items when you are out of the country? For example, when you are temporarily in France or in The Netherlands?

Or is it blocked for account owners whose registered address is in Belgium, no matter where the purchase is made?

[Smallisbig.4923]

> @"Leablo.2651" said:

> I have seen it said in other games that one can use a VPN to get around Belgian regulations. If interested you can probably find a guide for how to do that.

 

Wow, I didn't think about that. I'll try it out, thanks !

 

> @"TheQuickFox.3826" said:

> Would it be possible to buy these items when you are out of the country? For example, when you are temporarily in France or in The Netherlands?

> Or is it blocked for account owners whose registered address is in Belgium, no matter where the purchase is made?

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about too - just need to make the travel with my laptop to try it out, borders are never far away from where you live in Belgium. Don't know if it will work though

 

[Asum.4960]

> @"thehipone.6812" said:

> Yeah it kinda sucks, but the path is to complain to your politicians who passed the stupid laws. You can't really expect a private (and foreign) company to spend resources/incur costs and a loss to create a system to get around silly laws.

 

Or, you know, complain about gaming companies locking things away behind gambling mechanisms to exploit consumers in the first place.

[kharmin.7683]

:::coughcoughVPNcoughcough:::

[derd.6413]

there's still a couple of ways to get keys in game for us belgians

[TexZero.7910]

> @"Asum.4960" said:

> Or, you know, complain about gaming companies locking things away behind gambling mechanisms to exploit consumers in the first place.

 

Glad someone else said it. The laws restricting lootboxes are good, unfortunately the industry can't shake profit at all cost from their nature.

 

[Drecien.4508]

I want to see statistics of how many homeless there are in Belgium due to loot boxes.

[Smallisbig.4923]

Well, Anet answered me through an ingame mail, and, since I can't answer to them, I'll just say it here, hoping they'll see it : thank you, kind dev(s) for taking the time to answer to your customers, even when in troubled times. I've been playing Guild wars 1 and 2 since their releases and you'll still have my support for many years to come.

[biczkowski.2961]

OP, take it up with your government which obviously believes that you aren't adults capable of making your own decisions but rather children that need to be watched over by an extensive nanny state. And in return you have one of the highest tax rates in the world.

 

ANet just follows your local laws.

[biczkowski.2961]

> @"Asum.4960" said:

> > @"thehipone.6812" said:

> > Yeah it kinda sucks, but the path is to complain to your politicians who passed the stupid laws. You can't really expect a private (and foreign) company to spend resources/incur costs and a loss to create a system to get around silly laws.

>

> Or, you know, complain about gaming companies locking things away behind gambling mechanisms to exploit consumers in the first place.

 

So yeah. Let's make the world less free for everyone because there's a tiny minority of people who can't control their urges and spend too much on pixels and politicians abuse this to make themselves look good by passing totalitarian laws.

 

Don't kid yourself. Those politicians don't really care for "addicted gamers". All they care about is having a bullet point on their rep sheet: "In 2020 $politician took up to combat game addiction. Because he/she cares about CHILDREN".

 

Addicts gonna addict. No amount of prohibition is going to change that. It just makes the life for the majority of people, who are not addicted, less free.

[derd.6413]

a couple of things to clarify:

 

there was no new laws introduced that banned lootboxes in Belgium, lootboxes were in violation of the already existing laws according to the gambling commission.

the ban is mostly due to the fact that minors buy these lootboxes.

 

a bit of speculation on my part but:

 

given that lootboxes are classified as gambling by the gambling commission and IRL money is involved it's easy to assume that the reason companies block them is because to continue using them would probably bump up their pegi (European ESRB) rating to +18 (Ao would be the closest for peeps familiar with ESRB) which does negatively impact sales.

[Asum.4960]

> @"biczkowski.2961" said:

> > @"Asum.4960" said:

> > > @"thehipone.6812" said:

> > > Yeah it kinda sucks, but the path is to complain to your politicians who passed the stupid laws. You can't really expect a private (and foreign) company to spend resources/incur costs and a loss to create a system to get around silly laws.

> >

> > Or, you know, complain about gaming companies locking things away behind gambling mechanisms to exploit consumers in the first place.

>

> So yeah. Let's make the world less free for everyone because there's a tiny minority of people who can't control their urges and spend too much on pixels and politicians abuse this to make themselves look good by passing totalitarian laws.

>

> Don't kid yourself. Those politicians don't really care for "addicted gamers". All they care about is having a bullet point on their rep sheet: "In 2020 $politician took up to combat game addiction. Because he/she cares about CHILDREN".

>

> Addicts gonna addict. No amount of prohibition is going to change that. It just makes the life for the majority of people, who are not addicted, less free.

 

I'm guessing you are also in favour of companies being free to dispose of toxic waste in any way they please, because requiring them to do so safely is a totalitarian law that restricts freedom.

 

Freedom is not a catch all positive term. Protecting **people** from exploitation by curbing the freedoms of **corporations** certainly isn't a bad thing in most cases.

Why consumers would stand up to defend companies implementing psychologically exploitative ways to make more money is beyond me.

 

Also, this doesn't just affect a minority with gambling addictions.

There are plenty of people who end up spending obscene amounts of money on loot boxes to get some skin, which they would have never spent if the item was just sold for equally as much directly, be it through falling into the sunk-cost fallacy after they started gambling for it for a bit, or some other trick these companies bank on to keep you over spending.

 

The intention of politicians to self promote is pretty irrelevant for me (as that would otherwise invalidate essentially anything they do), as long as the results are good, such as protecting consumers from predatory business practices.

[derd.6413]

> @"biczkowski.2961" said:

> > @"Asum.4960" said:

> > Freedom is not a catch all positive term.

> Just quoting this here and ignoring all your other appeals to emotion. Really, says a lot about you :-1:

 

you're not allowed to declare anything illegal because that's a violation of my freedom to commit arson

[Erasculio.2914]

> @"Smallisbig.4923" said:

> Well, I'll understand if no 'fair for everyone' solution is possible - or if it would just take too much time to find and implement a solution. Though it disappoints me to be unable to get those skins - even when i'm ready to spend money to get them !

OP, in the long term your best bet is hoping the United States will approve laws similar to those you have in Belgium. Then ArenaNet would likely remove loot boxes from the game world-wide (other than China, of course), and make those skins available through other ways.

 

If it really bothers you, you could try writing to some American senators. One option would be Senator Maggie Hassan, for example ([source](https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ftc-will-invesigate-loot-boxes/)).

 

 

[Turin.6921]

Give it time...Legislation takes time to become universal for things to balance out everywhere.

 

And you have to ask yourself what is worse: missing a few skins in a game that has an abundance of them or have companies be completely uncontrolled to use anti-consumer and gambling-based monetization

[Pirogen.9561]

Some countries have decided that those "boxes" are a form of gambling. Gambling is not illigal, but its regulated. You can't open a casino just like that.

 

Belgium was one of the first. But many/most/all will follow soon.

 

Its not belgium problem, its ANet/NCSoft. Decide: do you have a regular shop or casino. If its casino, get a proper gambling licence, pay gambling taxes and so on.

 

P.S.:

Its mostly about taxes. Companies want gambling money, but don't want to be flaged as adult-only casino and pay taxes.

[Yannir.4132]

> @"thehipone.6812" said:

> Yeah it kinda sucks, but the path is to complain to your politicians who passed the stupid laws. You can't really expect a private (and foreign) company to spend resources/incur costs and a loss to create a system to get around silly laws.

 

They probably should because this legislation will be EU-wide within a few years. Belgium went ahead and did it first, while most other countries are waiting on Union-wide decisions to start working on their own legislation.

[mercury ranique.2170]

> @"Yannir.4132" said:

> > @"thehipone.6812" said:

> > Yeah it kinda sucks, but the path is to complain to your politicians who passed the stupid laws. You can't really expect a private (and foreign) company to spend resources/incur costs and a loss to create a system to get around silly laws.

>

> They probably should because this legislation will be EU-wide within a few years. Belgium went ahead and did it first, while most other countries are waiting on Union-wide decisions to start working on their own legislation.

 

Knowing the EU, the end result will be much less then the current Belgium outcome. EU wide legislation is very complicated and known to be very susceptible to lobbies.

 

 

[anninke.7469]

Excuse me for being slightly OT, but this has been bugging me for quite some time - if lootboxes are considered gambling does it mean that things like Kinder Surprise (or similar) eggs and all kinds of "mystery packages" are forbidden too? Because I can see no difference there. And many of them are directly targeted at children, which should be even worse seen from this point of view.

Anyway, I was just curious and wanted to ask...