This is what really shits me. "Oh, the sports companies won't be able to fund themselves." If that's true, too fucking bad. Our laws shouldn't exist to arbitrarily prop up certain industries even when we've decided that the industry is causing harm.

But also, it's just fucking not true. You can make an argument and say "oh but gambling companies fund 60% of the sport league" or whatever number it is, and pretend that banning gambling would cut the NRL's budget by 60%. But that's just not how it works. They're sponsors because they were the highest bidder, not the only bidder. You'd just go to the next highest bidder if gambling sponsorships weren't allowed. In the short term, maybe a 10% loss of revenue at most. Realistically, in the long term, it'd be negligible.

Same goes for pokies at local pubs and clubs. Australia has 0.3% of the world's population and 18% of the world's poker machines. And if you look specifically at poker machines not located in casinos it goes up to a ridiculous 76%. The entire rest of the world doesn't allow poker machines at local clubs like we do, and their venues do just fine. The cries that venues would die off if they couldn't have pokies are just nonsense.

Yes. Make them all adult only. Still doesn't change the cancer in games industry. Frankly they should require a gambling license to sell a gambling app.

I think the major difference between the two is that in video games, the cost of the loot boxes is deliberately obfuscated through the use of whatever single-use currency the publisher has dreamed up, and made worse by the fact that the currency is only purchasable in select denominations, meaning you're always spending more than you're going to use.

You're not wrong that there are plenty of examples of physical "loot boxes" marketed at children, but at least with those you know exactly how much it costs straight up.

I wish our government would look into the actual predatory practices that these publishers are using in these games, but this is a good first step. At least the EU is looking into it.

God I hope so, its a cancerous scheme and encourages using a phone while driving.

Yeah, GameFreak figured out the casino stuff wasn’t a good idea in gen 4 (HeartGold/SoulSilver) and replaced slots with Voltorb Flip outside of Japan, and otherwise closed the game corner in subsequent titles. In Pokémon: Let’s Go (Gen7) the player receives Porygon from a random person instead of needing to grind coins in the casino. Would be interesting to see if they could/would hack in that change.

if I spend money for a currency in a gacha game, and then trade that currency for some character pulls, does that count? [...] Essentially, I paid for a character, and I still get a character, I just don't know which one I will get.

Yes. A real money purchase that leads to randomised rewards counts.

Kids don’t care about the rating system, it’s the parents that see the label and second guess their decision.

I think the government could definitely be doing more, but I don't think it's a bad thing to force companies to clearly disclose the nature of their products so consumers can make informed choices.

To be honest M can still be sold to anyone of any age. But the text descriptions usually highlight the more highly classified content so sports games with loot boxes will see changes like this: