It’s not that you have to win money in the US for it to be gambling.

The “chance to win big” is the problem that makes gambling different. It is the dangerous carrot-on-the-stick. It looks like a better deal to the player, but that’s precisely why it has to be regulated harshly.

I never said that loot boxes weren’t dangerous or that they weren’t a problem.

Which ones have actually done so?

There are certainly ways in which the mental stimuli of gambling and loot boxes are very similar. But gambling comes with bigger societal issues, like its synergy with organized crime and its potential to prey on the poor.

Depends on what impact you’re trying to measure. If you’re only looking at an individual player’s spending and satisfaction, loot boxes might be worse. If you’re looking at the larger trend of how gambling gives false promises to the poor and can become entangled with organized crime, then no, loot boxes are…

Having a monetary or resellable benefit as the prize seems less problematic to the average consumer, but that’s precisely what makes it dangerous. Because gambling *can* actually hypothetically make you more money than you spend, it has an undeniable but deceptive allure.

Laws absolutely need to be updated; that’s my point. My issue is with the effort to classify loot boxes as gambling as a means of applying existing laws instead of actually tailoring new laws to regulate loot boxes specifically.

That’s not true yet. Several government institutions have begun investigating loot box mechanics, especially with regard to how they are promoted to minors, but there has not yet been an official redefinition of gambling to include games where no prize of tangible value can be received.

Loot boxes where items can be easily traded for money are a lot closer to gambling, and I think they should be examined as such.

The incentive is fundamentally different, however. The fact that actual money can be won in gambling entails a number of additional consequences. It promises tangible wealth to those who can’t actually afford to play. It has synergy with organized crime, as it provides a channel for money-laundering and corruption.

Gambling will always be worse, since it constantly promises the chance of wealth to those who can’t actually afford to play.

Loot box mechanics, where the prize you receive has no monetary value, are not gambling under many countries’ legal definitions precisely because what you receive is wholly worthless.

I imagine the backend network code for WC3 Classic did need some upgrades, and it’s possible that would have required frontend changes as well.

It’s quite likely that the game will still register with one or more of those clients. The discs may just save you the initial game download. 

No idea.

Cel-shading isn’t particularly more expensive than standard light-model rendering, but it may not have provided the look they were after. 

The original episodes of GiTS: SAC has solid writing, but they were *not* always animated well. The art could be really hodgepodge. I love the show, but we should be careful about rose-colored glasses with regard to its visuals.

Artificial sweeteners tend to be more sweet than sugar, while caffeine itself is a little bitter. Often diet drinks will have more caffeine than their sugary counterparts because the caffeine is being added to balance the sweetness. 

That wasn’t known at the time of the abdication. Wallis was rejected by English society for being a divorced woman. It’s a happy accident that their bigotry managed to keep a Nazi sympathizer out of any real royal power.