I would like to clarify that it is likely in fact due to regulation that the Yoz Jar was removed, you either have not read or have misunderstood the regulations in question.
Under Dutch law, something is considered gambling if it meets two criteria:
It is considered a game of chance
Players have an opportunity to win a prize
A game of chance is defined as a game where a player does not have any significant influence over the actual outcome of a game.
A prize is defined as something that has economic value.
Why Steam disabled the Marketplace in the Netherlands and why FIFA fell under gambling under Dutch law, while things like the card packs in Lost Ark and many gacha mobile games do not is while the gacha systems are clearly games of chance, the card packs and gacha games are not considered “prizes” because they do not have any economic value. By introducing a player driven second-hand market, such as the Auction House for skins and Steam Marketplace for CSGO and DOTA skins, and the fact that you can sell player cards in FIFA both in-game and in third-party black markets, they become “prizes” in the legal sense. This is why card packs are not “gambling” and why Dutch regulation is likely the reason for the jar’s removal.
It’s not the current regulations that are being mentioned, but more like the future regulations that are being considered, that do include a more broad scope of what is considered as “economic value”, meaning that there are more ways to define the “payout”. This is obviously a very crude explanation but I am sure you can find very easily the lootbox laws that are being considered in Spain and the rest of the EU.
Regardless, the idea that the Yoz Jar was removed because of these possible regulations is pure speculation. This was a very sporadic decision because people not wanting the Yoz Jar’s system in itself. A lot of criticism went into the idea of legendary skins being quite expensive lootboxes. This, I believe, was the real determining factor.
Some ideas of “necessity for gameplay” when the power spikes of legendary skins were well under 1% of increases of throughput are pure nonsense. If AGS took any consideration in their decision here, they clearly don’t play or understand the game.
Personally, I think AGS was a little too trigger-happy with this and, once again, completely failed in communicating with players on what their decision was going to be. Simply declaring that they would remove the system WITHOUT any alternative being implemented in any timeframe, was misguided.
Yes a lot of problems with Yoz jar has to do with communications problems. They do not address how players who wouldnt spend a single dime on Yoz jar, will get the skins from it other than buying from AH and dismantle them themselves. As you know our current situation of skins from the Lost Ark Shop to AH marketing cost a ton at the moment. New players and current general players already spending a lot of gold on honing, engraving and building their characters in general. They probably barely have enough to spend it all on skins.
They dont really mention KR/RU that their players get their Skin dismantle cloths from event and daily login rewards or how much we are gonna differ from them. EX: are we gonna get the same amount of free cloths as them or ours is gonna be dumb down like how our free Pheons are super dumb down. Russia Lost ark are getting more free pheons than us. I am pretty sure we are gonna barely get any or even enough to roll one Yoz jar
What i mean is they dont address possible issues with solutions that may arise
Why do people think the game revolves around EU? Not a chance AGS removes a money maker from the game in NA because of Belgium. C’mon lol. Had nothing to do with it. Did Blizzard change Diablo Immortal everywhere because of China regulations? No.
Well the problem is that EU and NA servers are linked together in our LA version. If EU players can switch to NA severs and buy the suppose Yoz Jar or Loot box, that defeat the purpose of this so called speculating regulations that may or may not happen in the future.
Diablo Immortal isnt allowed in Belgium already, so they can’t have their products there without having to use VPN. Here we have regions server linked together with a simple switch and not needing to use vpn in other words EU players are still technically playing their game.
By that logic, if one small town in one country in EU banned the game entirely for example as a predatory pay to win game, then AGS would scrap the entire game for all western regions. Since there is no way they would do that, then the logic doesn’t hold. They would not lose money in an entire region because of one town or one country. They would just prevent someone with a Belgium IP from buying Yoz jars. If they VPN’d, that’s not their problem, they complied with the law. That’s reality.
That’s one scenario that could happen. I am just trying to display the current situation of our western version VS KR/RU.
Other choices that could happen is AGs could scrap the whole EU servers and close it down. Afterall, it seems AGs having hard time changing price localization of Lost Ark Shop, we arent even sure if they can change the shop individually in each region without affecting other regions as display they are hesitant to even localize regional prices or even if they could do it.
The other choice is what they display now, just remove the loot box entirely and implement in another way, which they are thinking about doing.
Edit: In other word what is the best way for AGs and SG to generate more revenue without incur possible lawsuit that may or may not happen in the future. Closed down any of the regions will take a hit on their revenue which isnt feasible. Therefore, the best possible choice for them is the last choice. Even if it isnt because of possible regulation that could happen, the amount of people worried about the Yoz Jar situation already turn it like this unless they bring it back and actually communicate in detail how they are gonna deal with issues that arise.
Again with this…never see people so eager to see her money taken. You all are like candy shop for AGS
I hope Yoz Jar will never come back in the west in the way it is now. And if that means shutting down servers, so be it.
Thank you for the explanation of Dutch law, I was actually unaware that Lost Ark was released in Netherlands, as I only remember it not being in the original launch countries. I’m very curious what changed to allow release in Netherlands post-launch, and if there are any differences for such players.
Looking at the dates of the announcement, Netherlands release was announced weeks after the June team update. That kinda makes it seem like Netherlands only got the game after they decided not to include Yoz’s Jar.
So I would actually speculate the opposite of your comment; Yoz’s Jar wasn’t removed for Netherlands regulation, Yoz’s Jar’s removal is the only reason Netherlands can play the game now.
After all, why would they announce Yoz’s Jar is coming when Netherlands wasn’t a released country, and then announce it after they decide not include the jar? Suspicious enough for speculation.
The original lawsuit in The Netherlands was appealed and ruled Fifa loot boxes were not gambling, so it is currently irrelevant to the release. It was appealed in March, far earlier than June.
I also think they have done 0 research and just parrot something they saw streamers say at this point. It takes literally 2 seconds to google it. Can’t be bothered to fact check though.
While RU does get cloth as an option from their beatrice’s blessing login duration rewards, You only get 1 a day. With a 10% chance of a legendary skin, you’d have to spend 14 + 7 * 9 = 77 cloth on average for a single legendary (assuming you recycled failed rolls for the half refund). That’s 2.5 months of login rewards to roll 1 legendary, let alone a whole set (308 cloth, on average).
Additionally, in all regions, skins received via events or otherwise for free from the game (like the chaos dungeon skins) can not be dismantled for cloth. Only skins bought from the cash shop can be dismantled.
The FIFA lawsuit was overruled because the court held that because the packs were opened “primarily obtained for gameplay reasons” and that the value was based more around full account sales than individual cards, the FIFA Ultimate Team packs were not a game of chance since it could not be isolated from the FIFA game as a whole and therefore the Dutch Gaming Authority did not have jurisdiction to issue fines to EA. You can argue that Yoz Jar is still obtained “primarily for gameplay” but the link is much weaker due to it having an insignificant effect on actual gameplay and power, and more importantly, the value of each “prize” can be isolated individually because there is a sanctioned ingame auction house for player exchange.
According to the people on the forums one of the main reasons they wanted it removed was because of the stat increase it gives. So I’d argue it is quite significant for gameplay reasons and part of the overall Lost Ark game, not a seperate one. Value doesn’t matter because its not being sold for RL cash, if you could legitimately sell items in this game for RL cash you would probably be correct here.
The issue with the real value thing is Smilegate put an ingame exchange rate for gold which places a real value on the auction house items. Its how CSGO and DOTA skins are considered prizes under the legislation, as when you make a purchase on Steam, while most of us just consider it money, you are actually purchasing “Steam Wallet” currency to make the transaction, which while being one less level of conversion, is the same principle as using money to purchase royals to buy gold. Steam Wallet currency not being a direct cash equivalent like Royal Crystals becomes apparent when you realize there is no direct way to “cash out” the Steam Wallet back to actual currency without black market exchange.
The direct gameplay separation isn’t 100%, but it is significantly weaker than that of FUT and their packs because packs are essentially the only way to obtain players for your Ultimate team, it would be the equivalent of having to roll Yoz’s Jar to unlock classes for your alts or relic weapon variants. It is much easier to play the underlying game in Lost Ark without Yoz’s Jar, but FUT would be practically unplayable without the player packs.
It is still equivalent, you can nit pick all you want but the reality is its part of the game, not a stand alone one which was seemingly the main point of the appeal decision. I understand where you are coming from, but I do not think it applies here. FUT is also its own mode though, as far as I’m aware you can play the game fine while ignoring FUT, which to me makes it seem like FUT is more of a stand alone game than Yoz Jar would be.
These are the people you cater to with your “based on player feed back” decisions, fun stuff
Many of us would like some class themed skins, the ones that clearly have more work put in to them… to not be the last thing added to our version. The summoner we played in the beta or the legendary skins used in promotional stuff since launch, what will come first…
I hope Yoz Jar will never come back in the west in the way it is now
Yup, your feedback as a player is more valid than mine because it is something that YOU want; all this of course, despite your poor reading comprehension…read again the strong text but slowly this time…
