Welp. My luck sucks now.
Plot twist: I have no Robux yet
Saying that makes me mad at Roblox for this. That game is too fun to be cancelled for laws.
I really hate life now hearing about this. Even if I didn’t make sense saying my opinion. Anyways. Will be sleeping until this is reversed and pet sim x actually works again.
So users aged 18+ in Australia won’t be prohibited from buying paid random items in Roblox experiences?
I see there’s still a bit of confusion about the policies of gambling and paid random items wrt Roblox. It’s easy to conflate the two, and there’s also a bit of unfortunate flaming going on while people are trying to understand this change or what they can do differently.
When this policy is true, the only thing you can’t do is have Robux at any step of the equation (cannot purchase item boxes directly nor with in-experience currency that can be purchased with Robux or exchanged from a currency purchased with Robux, etc). No direct or indirectness. That doesn’t mean, otherwise, that you can’t have lootbox or random mechanics in your experience at all.
The policy is local. If you, an Australian developer, have lootbox features in your experiences, you can still sell them to users in other countries such as the United States. PolicyService is intended to block things on a user-by-user basis if you insist on having these features in your experiences. The alternative measure of compliance, and maybe goodwill, is to remove it altogether.
If you want your “lootbox” to have a predetermined order, you will have to take every measure to explicitly declare this in your code and to the player. No randomness whatsoever, not even to set the predetermined order of a box once and once only. Predetermined means predetermined period, must be the same every single time. At that point, might as well make a battle pass instead.
Great to see that moral grandstanding and hostility is in full force on topics like this.
If a game is providing loot boxes to Australian users, it must be classified as M. No stated exceptions if it’s restricted to <18 users only
As an Australian I hope this only applies to paid random items with Robux and not in game currency please let me know if this is the case. Edit: I’m over all glad my country is doing this as it is basically gambling for children which is illegal for people under the age of 18.
I don’t know whether it’s true or not but according to this Roblox’s post, paid random items will be prohibited for all ages in Australia.
If your in-game currency can be purchased with Robux, you must use the APIs.
does anyone know what Federal legislation is making this happen? I’m curious
As an Aussie, I love this change.
I couldn’t find much, but I did find this.
You’re speakin like its the end of the world. You can very easily make money WITHOUT paid RNG, but if you still want it (for whatever reason) you can use PolicyService to make said items only appear for users who are allowed to purchase them.
Also, just because its common, doesn’t mean its good, ethical or that you should also do it.
Paid RNG is not a “Useful Game Mechanic”, its a useful “Money Generator”, know the difference.
A useful mechanic would be a benefit to the players, but paid RNG is only beneficial to the dev(s), as you can make everything in paid RNG terrible, except for the rarest thing so people spend as much money as possible on it, even if you don’t, people will still spend too much money on it. Its a lose-lose for the player, win-win for the dev.
No it doesn’t. Gamepasses don’t fall under this, and money purchases also don’t unless if you can buy lootboxes with the money, which again you can just use PolicyService to limit that.
Just don’t have coin purchase options, or better yet, don’t have the item tied to a lootbox. Have a rotating shop or something.
You can still implement RNG elements into the shop (having different rarity items), but the user isn’t paying for the RNG, they are paying for an item they want and they know they will get.
(Just the fortnite shop, you can wait for an item you want and then buy it when its there)
No idea why you’d ever want to do this, sounds horrible.
“Buy an XP boost! You can get 5 to 10 minutes!! haha!!”
There is no extra content anyones missing out on with paid lootboxes. Again, they’re only beneficial to YOU, the Developer. Everyone else just looses money.
Again, shop example.
The law is giving all games which contain lootboxes a minimum age rating of M, roblox is just outright blocking lootboxes because they don’t want that M rating.
Its not limiting anything or anyone, roblox just doesn’t want a M rating.
I’m not going to reply to each part of your post because it’s quite long.
I don’t know how can you say that RNG mechanics are a “lose-lose” for players while in reality they love the random purchases.
They love it so much that it’s been a common practice to get a VPN just to evade those oppressive regulations.
A real “lose-lose” for both the user and the developer is when someone joins a game’s discord server asking why they’re not allowed to engage in certain in-game activities and have fun just like others. I experienced it a lot.
Or maybe you know better what’s good for them and how better they can spend their money?
I have no clue what makes people think they have the right to judge whether someone’s purchase is a waste of money or not lol.
Saying that “it’s not a big deal, you just have to figure out different ways of monetization” is funny because this is how you can justify pretty much any oppressive change.
Banning cars? Not a big deal, just add airplanes.
Im of the opinion that anyone 18+ should be allowed to spend their money how they want, which is why the UK law is berter here. I am also of the opinion thats theres better ways to implement randomised mechanics that dont directly involve real money.
Its also ironic that Australia is banning lootboxes on the basis of gambling. if yk yk
Deepwoken players are gonna be CRYING over this because they can’t reroll their race anymore (I mean there’s new slots but it’s more expensive)
Thats called an Addiction. You want to avoid giving players such addictions.
Again, the loss for the player is their money, which is FAR more important than how much “fun” they’re having.
You get money, yes, but the players can lose all their money AND develop gambling addictions, and when this is CHILDREN we’re talking about, very bad.
The only case I’ve seen of something SIMILAR to this is when a player reported a bug because a games lootboxes were missing from the store, but they completely understood and weren’t disappointed when the devs told them it was because of laws.
The problem is that people are dumping possibly thousands of dollars into lootboxes, and because they are essentially gambling, these people are developing a gambling addiction, which if they’re children, is then INSANELY bad.
Its not JUST that these purchases are a “waste of money”, its that they develop addictions in children that should be avoided at all costs.
Again this isn’t an oppressive change, its preventing children from getting a gambling addiction.
Remember as well, ROBLOX is only fully banning lootboxes in Australia because they do NOT want an M (15+) age rating.
Plus, the most alternative ways I mentioned are essentially the same, you just add a few extra things into the code.
Again, PolicyService can be used so you can have lootboxes, but make it so some users can’t see or purchase them depending on their age and/or location.
And, if you want to avoid that, just don’t put items in lootboxes and put them into some kind of a rotating shop.
Honestly, I agree with this. And the law in Australia does allow for lootboxes, but just refer to what I said earlier in this post. Roblox would need to get an M 15+ rating in Australia if they didn’t fully ban lootboxes.
This too.
Its not hard at all to find/create better ways to monetize your game. Hell having a P2W game is better than having lootboxes I’d say.
https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2023L01424/asmade/text
Under each classification, it states whether “In-game purchases linked to elements of chance” are permitted
Damn this going to be interesting developing loot boxes as an Australian…
18+ Should be allowed since adults gamble like crazy in Australia on sports/election/casino betting, ect…
In 2 years : paid random items (with robux) will be totally be banned on Roblox
Lootboxes that are earned or paid with an ingame currency that can’t be bought still will be allowed
I also saw that Belgium planned to allow lootboxes for who are above 18
is it enough if the user simply clicks and is prevented from buying, or is it necessary to remove the gui button?
What is “Paid Random Items”? It’s something like gamepasses, developer products?
Absolutely terrible. Governments need to stop regulating lootboxes. Lootboxes are harmless.
I get Roblox has to listen to governments, but man it’s getting rough out here as a developer. I hope other countries don’t follow.
