Do you think its right gambling is being forced onto kids in games?!
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.
Other ways we plan to monetize Our World is for businesses to sponsor it so some items in the game will have their name such as the Samsung Shield, etc. Also businesses can rent virtual space to build virtual shops, etc in the game.
But we are still considering whether sponsors can also advertise via notice boards, etc since we do not want to push advertising on people. It is a fine balance we are continuously reviewing... At the moment we are hoping we can avoid in-game advertising...
We will also hope that donations can help fund development.
Please help NOW by donating below on our Crowd Funding page:
Finally Our World is Open Source so we hope many developers would want to contribute for free especially since it is for such a good cause...
As always we are very open to your suggestions so please do get in contact on ourworld@nextgensoftware.co.uk
Also, please comment and get involved on our online forum on the best ways to make Our World sustainable:
In the UK they go as far as saying that it does not even class as gambling! This is why we need to step up and do something about this...
Please sign this petition to urge the Government to step in and intervene:
Read more here:
https://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/gambling-commission-says-loot-boxes-arent-within-its-purview/1/
In Hope,
The Our World Team.
