This post was originally published on the Our World blog on 3rd December 2017:
Greetings Friends,
As you may be aware more and more games use in-app purchases in the form of loot boxes where you need to pay REAL MONEY to receive a random prize. Sound like gambling to you?!
The uproar has not got so large that EA has finally been forced to remove this feature from one of their latest games Star Wars Battle Front 2.
In Australia they are considering now making games featuring these predatory gambling techniques (in the form of loot boxes) 18 rated.
In China they have now forced game publishers to state the chances of "winning" from these loot boxes. But we feel this is not enough and Australia's lead is the best way to follow, but even this may not be enough.
We are pleased to announce that this is something we would never do in Our World or any of our other apps & games. Since the game will be free to buy and play, we need to make some money from the game by having small in-app purchases but these will be simply to purchase additional items, that you can just as easily find in the game or by completing quests. They will NOT be part of this pay to win techniques used in other games. We will also no way have any sort of gambling where you pay real money to have a random prize.This really teaches kids the wrong message and life lessons, something Our World is strongly against. The same goes to the violent gory video games that kids also play.
Our World does not promote gambling, violence, stealing and other negative behavior has many other games currently do...
Our World aims to each kids and everyone else the right life lessons to help create a better society and a better world...
Lessons such as looking after your health, the environment, coming together as a community and helping others which then will also help you in the long run...
We may even remove ALL in-game purchases if we can successfully secure alternative funding to continue its development... As has been made clear previously, we are not interested in making money, our sole purpose is to help create a better world, but we do need money to fund the development of Our World and others apps & games.
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