" If no real money is paid out to players and winnings have no monetary value, social games will not attract regulation under the 2005 Act because the virtual money does not constitute money’s worth. This is on the basis that it is not exchangeable for any goods or services and cannot be traded for anything other than additional play (that is, a ‘‘closed loop’’)."
Not a fan of Hyper-whatever personally. Then again I’m not a gambler(1) nor do I suffer from a medical condition(2) that may cause me to gamble impulsively.
(1) I went to a casino once. After 45 minutes on roulette I had a profit of just over £600. Left and never went back.
(2) Sounds strange, but some medical conditions, Parkinsons for example, can lead to impulsive behaviour such as unctrolled spending and/or gambling.
To be fair, they are a business, and do need ways to increase revenue if they want to grow.
But there are better ways to do this, that don’t involve gambling and other shitty practices.
They are a business and that is why they charge subscriptions and sell ingame items in the NES. It is not, however, any sort of justification to introduce online gambling into EVE. Especially considering their history of banning it.
A couple of people I play with have tested it out on SiSi. The real money portion are the HyperCORES, this is different from what the people participating in the raffle purchase, those are HyperNODES and are bought with isk. So the real money portion for participating in the raffle portion is the same as someone buying enough PLEX to turn into isk and buying a Titan.
That being said, I still think that this should be an opt in feature and a way to lock it behind a password for those that either don’t want their kids to be able to participate in it or don’t trust themselves not to participate in it.
Setting aside the obvious issues with gambling, I’m not happy about this for an entirely different reason.
When I saw the word “Hypernet” in the trailer I was excited, daring to hope that the devs were finally implementing a use for the Hypernet Science skill that has been languishing unused in the database for over a decade, possibly since launch.
Instead, we’re given…this. I’m under no illusions that my expectation was at all likely, but this particular announcement leaves me disappointed in CCP for an entirely different reason. Call it a raffle, call it gambling, but whatever the particular game of chance it happens to be it’s still not one of the things I was hoping to see in EvE.
Sometimes feels like that. This is only year 6 though. And my last. Time to bow out, rather than stand again and not get elected. (in by 12 votes this time)
I voted for you, and don’t regret it. Don’t walk into the wall of fire that is ‘feedback’ and go out sour, please. Your greatest strength is that you engage. I think your weak point might be that you sympathise with the devs too much sometimes, or go out of your way to shield them. These complaints are, at the least, interesting. It says a lot about the community and the wider internet/trends. v0v it’s not all bad feedback either.
The UK and it’s territories are quite an attractive propostion for all manner of gaming. Gaming in the sense we have here, more traditional gaming such as online casinos and gaming in the sense of having low tax overseas territories that facilitate both tax avoidance and tax evasion - for those that can afford it.
Sadly, the only real measures in place to protect people are those that are left for the individual to impose upon themselves - and those are definately not adequate.
