US ratings board the ESRB have revealed they won't be mirroring PEGI's recently announced changes to how games containing the likes of loot boxes are rated.
“Daily quests”? You mean like how in Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald you get a berry per day from some NPCs and can check once per day whether Mirage Island was visible…? (I remember a phase in my childhood where I did that every day.) Or whatever is meant by this?
Possibly yes, though that’s the lowest age category and only bumps games up to a PEGI 7.
I think the logic is generally sound, because as benign as that mechanic can be, there really shouldn’t be things in games which encourage or force you to come back to the game on a specific schedule, or punish you if you don’t.
In the context of loot boxes, gacha games, etc, a Daily Quest is a minor task to complete that is randomized every day, with the reward usually being some amount of in-game currency. The same in-game currency you can buy for real money, but in a much smaller amount. It’s a way to induce FOMO - Fear of Missing Out.
The purpose of Dailies is to permanently take up mind-share, to always be occupying your brain with the game. If we can extend the metaphor of companies “rent-seeking”, Dailies are them basically squatting inside your head.
I also went to visit the Berry folks in Ruby all the time, but consider the major difference between that and what I just described: the Berries are free, they’re not in-game currency, and they have immediate utility. Berries don’t incentivize you to grind Pokemon more, they don’t entice you to pull out your credit card and buy more Pokedollars - naturally, the Gameboy Advance did not have an NFC chip reader for your credit card attached to it.
Oh right, I remember foolishly going around the world, harvesting every berry tree, and then selling all the berries. I thought I had lost the ability to get new berries permanently, but the NPC’s provide a failsafe in that event.
“Daily quests”? You mean like how in Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald you get a berry per day from some NPCs and can check once per day whether Mirage Island was visible…? (I remember a phase in my childhood where I did that every day.) Or whatever is meant by this?
Possibly yes, though that’s the lowest age category and only bumps games up to a PEGI 7.
I think the logic is generally sound, because as benign as that mechanic can be, there really shouldn’t be things in games which encourage or force you to come back to the game on a specific schedule, or punish you if you don’t.
In the context of loot boxes, gacha games, etc, a Daily Quest is a minor task to complete that is randomized every day, with the reward usually being some amount of in-game currency. The same in-game currency you can buy for real money, but in a much smaller amount. It’s a way to induce FOMO - Fear of Missing Out.
The purpose of Dailies is to permanently take up mind-share, to always be occupying your brain with the game. If we can extend the metaphor of companies “rent-seeking”, Dailies are them basically squatting inside your head.
I also went to visit the Berry folks in Ruby all the time, but consider the major difference between that and what I just described: the Berries are free, they’re not in-game currency, and they have immediate utility. Berries don’t incentivize you to grind Pokemon more, they don’t entice you to pull out your credit card and buy more Pokedollars - naturally, the Gameboy Advance did not have an NFC chip reader for your credit card attached to it.
Oh right, I remember foolishly going around the world, harvesting every berry tree, and then selling all the berries. I thought I had lost the ability to get new berries permanently, but the NPC’s provide a failsafe in that event.