Please add more ways to obtain Black Lion Statuettes.

[Ashen.2907]

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

This has less to do with the politicians than it does to the way of Anet offering these statuettes in game.

No, it has everything to do with the politicians. Note that everywhere that politicians have not deprived citizens of the self determination to spend their money as they see fit and where politicians have not chosen to deprive property owners of the right to do with their property as they see fit players can get statuettes.

[Treacy.4067]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Treacy.4067 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:@gnotshr.9136 There are potential solutions, as you call them, to a problem that doesn't exist for Anet. The entire thread premise is flawed.

What's flawed is thinking that it's not an issue for Anet.Clearly, it is not an issue for Anet or else they would have made some change back when these laws started. Mount-gate was a fiasco and was a huge issue for Anet, so much so that they almost immediately changed the way in which mount skins were sold. I don't see them scrambling to make changes to the way in which statuettes are obtained because some countries block the purchase of keys.

@Treacy.4067 said:So what the OP is suggesting is giving an alternative way to earn those statuettes. It's a valid premise.I disagree because it is a solution that is looking for a problem. A problem that appears that Anet doesn't see as one.

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:What's in it for Anet to make this change? Sure, we all want easier access to things in GW2, but the current model earns the company profit. How would this change benefit Anet?

Even more money for Anet because people in anti-lootbox regions can now spend money on statuettes in the gemstore while still selling the same amount of black lion keys.If this were indeed the case, then I would think that Anet would have changed something by now. They have their own statistics and internal financial figures. It would seem that they are content with the status quo. To me, that says that the reason that you suggest is not a strong enough benefit. Perhaps if you had something stronger, it would be considered?

Everyone, please don't get me wrong. I hate spending money/gems for keys and would also like to have statuettes available by other means. I just don't see why Anet would want to do so.

Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's not a problem for them. It's disingenuous at best because I'm assuming you know the situation isn't resolved. The fact that countries have not only enacted laws but are actively considering legislation and investigating this issue is proof that it's a concern and you can bet it's being addressed internally at gaming companies. The FTC also gave a press release only two months ago regarding loot boxes:

"Since the workshop, the video game industry hastaken steps to enhance self-regulation, including through odds and point-of-purchase disclosures.In recent months, there also has been a rise in video gameplay due to the COVID19 globalpandemic that has kept a significant percentage of the population indoors, potentiallyamplifying the loot box concerns raised at the workshop. Staff encourages industry to continueefforts to provide clear and meaningful information to consumers about in-game loot box andrelated microtransactions. The FTC will continue to monitor developments surrounding lootboxes and take appropriate steps to prevent unfair or deceptive practices.

Regarding the FTC in the US, it's still early but it's very likely that gaming companies have a contingency plan if something similar happens. Some won't make changes until forced to do so as is what happened in Belgium whilst others will proactively make some alterations to their policies slowly over time. Bottom line is, it's a problem not just for ArenaNet but for all gaming companies and it will be interesting to see how it plays out since it's still an ongoing debate.

[kharmin.7683]

@Treacy.4067 said:Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's not a problem for them.I don't work for Anet, but can pretty much guess that it is not a problem. If it were, they would have done something about it. Again, take mount-gate as an example. They stood to really kitten-off the player base and lose money, so they almost immediately made changes. If Belgium players being unable to get statuettes was enough of a problem, then I think that Anet would have done something about it way before this thread opened.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

Does anyone know, is it possible to gift Belgian players keys through the store from a non-Belgian account?

[Scratchpaw.1069]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

This has less to do with the politicians than it does to the way of Anet offering these statuettes in game.

No, it has everything to do with the politicians. Note that everywhere that politicians have not deprived citizens of the self determination to spend their money as they see fit and where politicians have not chosen to deprive property owners of the right to do with their property as they see fit players can get statuettes.

I don't agree with this. Per definition, the statuettes aren't rng drop items, as they are a guaranteed drop. They just so happen to be bundled with an rng item, making them unavailable for us. It has more to do with the way that statuettes are offered in this game. I liked other suggestions where maybe Anet could bundle a statuette with a 'booster pack' for example in the gemstore, thus making them available for our region.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Treacy.4067 said:Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's not a problem for them. It's disingenuous at best

Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's a problem for them. It's disingenuous at best.

Your statement goes both ways.

[Ashen.2907]

@Treacy.4067 said:

Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's not a problem for them. It's disingenuous at best

What is YOUR position with ANet?

[Ashen.2907]

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

This has less to do with the politicians than it does to the way of Anet offering these statuettes in game.

No, it has everything to do with the politicians. Note that everywhere that politicians have not deprived citizens of the self determination to spend their money as they see fit and where politicians have not chosen to deprive property owners of the right to do with their property as they see fit players can get statuettes.

I don't agree with this. Per definition, the statuettes aren't rng drop items, as they are a guaranteed drop. They just so happen to be bundled with an rng item, making them unavailable for us. It has more to do with the way that statuettes are offered in this game. I liked other suggestions where maybe Anet could bundle a statuette with a 'booster pack' for example in the gemstore, thus making them available for our region.

It doesn't matter if you do not agree with facts.

Fact: They were available in your region in the same manner as for everyone else.Fact: It was action by your government that made them unavailable.

[Scratchpaw.1069]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

This has less to do with the politicians than it does to the way of Anet offering these statuettes in game.

No, it has everything to do with the politicians. Note that everywhere that politicians have not deprived citizens of the self determination to spend their money as they see fit and where politicians have not chosen to deprive property owners of the right to do with their property as they see fit players can get statuettes.

I don't agree with this. Per definition, the statuettes aren't rng drop items, as they are a guaranteed drop. They just so happen to be bundled with an rng item, making them unavailable for us. It has more to do with the way that statuettes are offered in this game. I liked other suggestions where maybe Anet could bundle a statuette with a 'booster pack' for example in the gemstore, thus making them available for our region.

It doesn't matter if you do not agree with facts.

Fact: They were available in your region in the same manner as for everyone else.Fact: It was action by your government that made them unavailable.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that the politicians 'deprive' citizens of spending their money as they see fit. It's there to protects citizens from shady business practices. It might not be an issue for you as an individual, but there are people out there who just can't stop themselves and spend their entire wages on lootbox items ingame. Kids that spend hundreds of dollars/euros on these items using their parents cc behind their back, etc... It's highly likely that this law will be made EU-wide in the near future. This will probably force Anet to reconsider they way they are currently offering statuettes ingame.

[Treacy.4067]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Treacy.4067 said:Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's not a problem for them. It's disingenuous at best

Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's a problem for them. It's disingenuous at best.

Your statement goes both ways.

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Treacy.4067 said:

Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's not a problem for them. It's disingenuous at best

What is YOUR position with ANet?

N> @kharmin.7683 said:

@Treacy.4067 said:Unless you work for Anet you can't say that it's not a problem for them.I don't work for Anet, but can pretty much guess that it is not a problem. If it were, they would have done something about it. Again, take mount-gate as an example. They stood to really kitten-off the player base and lose money, so they almost immediately made changes. If Belgium players being unable to get statuettes was enough of a problem, then I think that Anet would have done something about it way before this thread opened.

It's common sense for anyone to see that it's a considerable issue for gaming companies especially with the studies/legislation and lawsuits going on as we speak, some of which I mentioned above. Again, this is a newer controversy that has gotten more attention over the last 3 years or so, which means it's early in terms of legislation for many countries. It was two years ago that legislators began to urge the FTC to look into the practice which finally resulted in their initial findings released just two months ago. You don't need to work for a company to get this information. There's been numerous articles and news reports about it over the last couple of years. I just googled and some of these came up:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/19/18226852/loot-boxes-gaming-regulation-gambling-free-to-playhttps://www.tomsguide.com/us/what-are-loot-boxes-microtransactions,news-26161.html

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-10-22-ea-faces-class-action-lawsuit-over-loot-boxes-in-canadahttps://www.classaction.org/blog/class-actions-claim-apple-google-facilitate-illegal-gambling-through-in-game-loot-box-purchaseshttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53253195 Loot boxes: Lords call for 'immediate' gambling regulationhttps://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/jun/07/uk-could-class-loot-boxes-as-gambling-to-protect-children

in addition, S.1629 — 116th Congress (2019-2020) A bill to regulate certain pay-to-win micro-transactions and sales of loot boxes in interactive digital entertainment products, and for other purposes was introduced as well. From what I can tell it was only read twice at this point. From a technological and legislative standpoint, I find the whole issue very fascinating and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the future. However, it's naive to think that gaming companies (including ArenaNet/NCSoft) don't think this to be a concern, especially in the midst of all this.

[schokelmei.8271]

I still hope we get this Belgian law for the whole EU. Black Lion Chests are a really bad design and buying keys is the worst thing you can do with your money. I normally don't even do the level 10 quest for a key, because I get disappointed over the outcome 99% of the time.The chances to get something worthy out off BLC is so low, you should spend your money on gems and turn them into gold and still get the items way cheaper than with the key gambling.

[Raizel.1839]

Your country did it right, now I only hope more countries to enforce such laws so that companies are forced to remove paid gambles in their games.

[Blaeys.3102]

It doesnt apply to me personally, but given the regulatory aspect - meaning players really have no legal recourse - I think this is a fair request. I hope someone at Anet sees this and considers potential solutions.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Well they could sell statuettes for 125 gems each.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

They could make the statuettes work as a loyalty system, like RL shops use stamp cards. Give out 1 statuette per x gems spent in the store. Extra statuettes for promotions, or an extra statuette for buying a new store item during the first week, that sort of thing. Might even drive up sales if they play it right. Restricting them to BLCs is a good way to make those more attractive, but they could be making any sort of purchase more attractive.

[Veprovina.4876]

@Manasa Devi.7958 said:They could make the statuettes work as a loyalty system, like RL shops use stamp cards. Give out 1 statuette per x gems spent in the store. Extra statuettes for promotions, or an extra statuette for buying a new store item during the first week, that sort of thing. Might even drive up sales if they play it right. Restricting them to BLCs is a good way to make those more attractive, but they could be making any sort of purchase more attractive.

Should they also retroactively give them to players who spend god knows how much money on gems over the years?Cause that would mean some people would basically get everything in the BLS shop at once because how much BLS they'd get...Which of course, what loyalty system is all about, those who spent a lot of money on gems would get the most BLS, but i wonder, since a lot of the stuff in BLS is not account or soul bound, that it might flood the economy.Other than that, i like the idea.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@Manasa Devi.7958 said:They could make the statuettes work as a loyalty system, like RL shops use stamp cards. Give out 1 statuette per

x

gems spent in the store. Extra statuettes for promotions, or an extra statuette for buying a new store item during the first week, that sort of thing. Might even drive up sales if they play it right. Restricting them to BLCs is a good way to make those more attractive, but they could be making any sort of purchase more attractive.

Should they also retroactively give them to players who spend god knows how much money on gems over the years?Cause that would mean some people would basically get everything in the BLS shop at once because how much BLS they'd get...Which of course, what loyalty system is all about, those who spent a lot of money on gems would get the most BLS, but i wonder, since a lot of the stuff in BLS is not account or soul bound, that it might flood the economy.Other than that, i like the idea.Of course they shouldn't. People got what was advertised when they spent money and gems in the past. They're not owed anything more than that.

[Veprovina.4876]

@Manasa Devi.7958 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@Manasa Devi.7958 said:They could make the statuettes work as a loyalty system, like RL shops use stamp cards. Give out 1 statuette per

x

gems spent in the store. Extra statuettes for promotions, or an extra statuette for buying a new store item during the first week, that sort of thing. Might even drive up sales if they play it right. Restricting them to BLCs is a good way to make those more attractive, but they could be making any sort of purchase more attractive.

Should they also retroactively give them to players who spend god knows how much money on gems over the years?Cause that would mean some people would basically get everything in the BLS shop at once because how much BLS they'd get...Which of course, what loyalty system is all about, those who spent a lot of money on gems would get the most BLS, but i wonder, since a lot of the stuff in BLS is not account or soul bound, that it might flood the economy.Other than that, i like the idea.Of course they shouldn't. People got what was advertised when they spent money and gems in the past. They're not owed anything more than that.

Well, that's a good point. Though, i bet there would be a lot of threads like "i spent X amount of dollars on this game, wtf Anet i quit" and simmilar...But you're absolutely right, they spent their money knowing what they'll get, if Anet would implement BLS as a loyalty at any point, anyone who bought gems before that isn't owed anything. Though, you'd always have entitled people that think they're owed something. I suppose Anet could mitigate that by giving everyone who bought above X amount of gems a small BLS package as a thank you i guess. Still... I can already see it - "Wtf Anet, i spent X amount of dollars on this game and you give me a laughable X amount of BLS, this is tragic" etc. :tongue:Can't please everyone i guess haha! :tongue: