This is a really interesting example of internet debates. The company, at least two licensed attorneys (one of whom posted case law that is exactly on point), and several others have stated the reason this is NOT illegal gambling, at least not in the US. I especially find it weird that so few have engaged with the case that was posted.
You don’t have to agree with the reasoning, but it is what it is.
I don’t particularly care for the relay and don’t plan on using it, but it’s legal in the US unless Congress creates new legislation.
In Europe the Situation is different. We will See what the future will bring. At least everyone can see now what CCP have become.
Eve have turned from the best MMO to a korean loot box wonderland.
To the first para:
Fair enough. I wasn’t saying I cared personally, just more… my attitude defaults to “if people want to do that to themselves, as long as they aren’t exposing other people to second hand smoke, whatever.”
Land of the brave, home of the free, cancer of the lung.
To the second para:
I don’t remember trying to make a connection between those two things you said there, but it’s been awhile (somehow I missed the notification for this till I just went through my “all notifications” just now). ANYWAY…
I believe/recall I was only pointing out that the power of (SOME) American Parents through vessels like J.T. is misused constantly to attack stuff that adults enjoy as well, and that maybe “the children” shouldn’t be determining our entire lives in this country, that’s all.
But I agree with most of your above points, so I’ll just leave it at that.
Certainly more people play video games nowadays than played them when I started in the early 80s as a young child, yes. But there are always going to be people trying to get congress to ban this or ban that, and always invoking “the children”… as if they’re all that matter (some people took that “The Children are our Future” song by Whitney Houston and really ran with it, so to speak). As if they can’t learn about things at their own pace and not be sheltered until they turn 18 and are then unceremoniously dumped into our dog-eat-dog capitalism fantasy, also…
But that’s a whole other topic. I just mean that there’s still plenty of super-religious people that don’t like alcohol, don’t like video games, don’t like gambling, don’t like freakin’ pinball machines or “having fun” or dancing too close… for god’s sake, not only did they try to get GTA banned and Rockstar sued into oblivion, they tried to ban HARRY POTTER because magic is “anti-Christian”… wtf?
I’m going to hold a real-life raffle, where everyone pays me $1 for a 1 in 1 trillion chance to win $100’000. I’m going to market this to teenagers, and make it legal by converting all the dollars into ‘isk’ before I do the drawing.
This is unfortunate, as I just had an opportunity to try this out now. It seems others’ allegations of “legalized gambling” are correct, as to sell one needs HyperCores, (which must be bought) and are not returned in any event (even if the item doesn’t sell on the Relay). When I read this notice a month ago at first glance I thought it was finally making all markets visible across New Eden, and was thus excited about this possibility. I thought “Finally, no more hauling to Jita or wherever to get the best price for an item!”.
This is somewhat true with this system, but again, requires a bit of gambling on even the seller’s part to come to fruition. This is because again, one must purchase HyperCores to even sell an item, and they are never refunded, even if an item doesn’t sell. This isn’t even mentioning the fact buyers also take a greater risk, putting up ISK for a Hypernode that may or may not (probably won’t as a single purchase) be a winning ticket so to speak.
Disappointing (as a seller) for the reasons described above. I can understand, and really don’t have a problem with, a desire to make (real life) money from a product. However, it seems to me it’s punishing both parties.
Possible suggestion (although perhaps not as profitable for you, CCP, but still may make a lot of players like me, i.e., sellers more happy) is to make the HyperCores refundable IF a sale does NOT go through (i.e., all the Hypernodes aren’t sold in 3 days) Then you’d see a lot more selling. You could still make money through the sale of HyperCores, as they’d still be needed if a sale DOES go through, just not as much money for you (CCP) I guess since half the HyperCore sales would drop. But that would only assume the market volatility as it is now; if you make the HyperCores refundable in the event of a failed sale, you would probably see more sellers and thus increased demand for HyperCores for that reason, an increase of demand that may offset the loss from refunding them for failed sales.
A suggestion to consider at least, at least to run some numbers in financial analysis I’d say for you. And then you’d maybe even have some more pleased customers (like me).
There has to be a cost for putting these up that isn’t recoverable. If there isn’t, you’ll see both a massive amount of spam hypernets that just clog up the system and keep getting thrown up again and again, and you’re also likely to see more use of the system for RMT, because there’s no actual cost to the system. The majority of the lost hypercores are going to come from sales that don’t go through, not from the ones that do, and that is removing both isk and/or plex from the economy, which is a good thing.
Think of the hypercores as the “broker fee” for the transaction. It needs to be non-refundable. This also makes people put fairer deals up because they want a raffle to complete and not lose the “broker fee”.
A lot of people in this forum have asserted that the hypernet relay is exploitative. I disagree, but I have no doubt that it will cause problems for some people nonetheless. So, I decided to make a video about addiction and recovery. I’m a recovering alcoholic myself, but much of what I had to say is relevant to addicts of all types (including gambling).
