Gambling? Sk? Are you stoned off your gourd?

Only thing close to a game of chance in sk, are the lockboxes. And those don't require real money.

And need i point that free to play, means it's FREE, unless you WILLINGLY throw money at it.

Gambling shouldn't be banned in the first place. If people are willingly, and knowingly throwing their money away, so be it. If people have an addiction, why not leave them be, like tobacco companies?

It's insane, and i don't want to live on this planet anymore. (someone please insert the professor farnsworth meme, since i'm doing this on a tacky mobile phone)

Sorry for teh stereotyping/racism, but the country full of tentacles and other weird !"&%$ complains about videogame gambling?

But first of all, I'm not a priestess, I'm a princess.
Now that we've cleared that up, let me respond seriously to this article. First, I had to look up what a gewgaw is (a showy trifle : bauble, trinket, i.e., accessory), I'm fairly certain the Japanese government would only target certain type of Japanese games sites, which are quite different from English sites. Would the government ban Pokemon style games in which people buy packs of random cards trying to complete a set? Of course, not. And the onnline games are using that same model, so I'm not sure what the government is thinking exactly. If they want to try to remove the randomness from a game, then Punch may get run out of town, and lockboxes may come to an end, but the possibility seems extremely remote. And if Spiral Knights did get banned in Japan somehow, then, Yes, that would be the end of the Dragon Princess (for awhile anyway).

"But first of all, I'm not a priestess, I'm a princess."

Wow, & I've been saying it Wrong this whole time. I need to Slow down when I read...

...

Eh, Imma call you a Priestess from now on. I'll Edit it Once, but after that, you're going to be a Priestess.

IMO, you're not gambling if you're guaranteed something in returned or if the means of gambling can be obtained through ways that don't require money, or even the prize.

The closest thing too it would be the lockboxes and UV's, both of which ALWAYS come out with something you can use (whether you wanted it or not). Keys and UV'd gear can also be bought using crowns gained for free from the auction house or for specifically Uv's punch.

If they forced you to buy keys that had a chance at giving you nothing, you'd have a point, and since Sega is their parent company they'd probably make an effort to fix it were this a threat.

Triplejuances has a point.
Also, I've met a few players from Europe while playing Spiral Knights, but I haven't met anyone from Asia yet.

You made me skip a heartbeat there... and no don't overreact, they won't ban SK in Japan, unless they want to turn me into a terrorist...

What about those that don't WANT to quit?

There are already support groups for those that do want to quit, and many succeed. Addiction, as far as i'm concerned, is either a bad choice, or an educated choice. You can be an idiot, and screw up you life, or you can learn all the facts and use it responsibly.

Are you telling me you want to protect idiots? Because they're too stupid to know better?

This reminds me of S4
lol

SK? Gambling? Nope.
How is it? Gambling to me is pumping money into a 'game' with a chance that you can lose it, or also make big profit. I don't particularly understand how SK is gambling, any money you pump into the game gives you something in return, sure if you choose to waste it then, yes, it's a waste but oh, guess what, you. Wasted it.

Anyway, I may be biased though (meaning I wouldn't agree with you either way), if you remember our little disagreement xD

~The Mighty Cheese Knight; WeeGee

> "players pay a small fee to purchase a random, mystery in-game item (similar to real-world gashapon machines), in an effort to collect complete sets of similar items that unlock a rare "grand prize" item"

Remember that once upon a time, the only way to get shadow keys was via lockboxes.. so if you wanted that Snarbolax set, someone somewhere had to open a box

I consider it gambling if your odds for getting something crappy/worthless are much much higher than getting something that you want/valuable. In SK's case, the lockboxes are filled with accessories no-one wants, and are therefore essentially worthless, and there is a small handful of items that are really popular and valuable. Not to mention, there are certain really really rare items that seemingly never come out of the boxes. Kinda sounds like gambling to me.

Take Maplestory's gachapon, for example. Your odds of getting something of value is really really really close to none, so you have to dump a ton of NX (read: real money) into it to even have a chance of getting something good.

Honestly, I don't see how that's not gambling, even if you "get something" every time.

There's quite a lot of chance-based things in SK (most notably drops, UVs, boxes) and all involve putting in money one way or another, and winning money by selling the items for in-game currency, or steam trading (games/cross-game items) so it can definitely be argued that it's a form of gambling.

That being said, I think a government trying to police gambling in general is a significant cost for little benefit.

"Crossproduct"

Aren't you that guy who keeps saying worthless things?

WRONG SIDE OF THE ROOOOOAD