I mean, you’re not really winning unless you’re winning while looking good right? 
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I don’t disagree with you, but society has not decided to protect kids from that in law. They leave it to parents. Kids can spend every allowence penny they have to get a cracker jack toy, MTG card, or carnival toy. Online games actually have age restrictions, unlike their counterparts.
This is an issue that needs to be raised at the legislature level across the board, not just for online gaming. Change would need to impact all industries. Not sure how well that is going to go over with your legislators though. Our recent state legislature changes relaxed gambling laws. I don’t know about other states but they don’t seem to take it as a major issue.
In particular, governments have been too slow to act which is hardly surprising.
And it has. US Congress has a bill that aims to ban loot boxes and has bipartisan support. Still has some way to go and nothing much has happened since.
UK parliament inquiry has recommended that they be regulated under gambling. It was here where EA infamously coined the term “surprise mechanics” as a way to rebrand loot boxes.
Belgium and the Netherlands have banned them already.
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Focusing on only online versions of loot boxes is a total legislative failure though. “Blind bags” in which you buy a package of goods in hopes to get a toy, collectable, MTG card, etc, are the same thing. And those have been allowed for as long as I am aware. You always get the product you paid for, in that something of value was given, but the thing you want is rare so you buy many packs.
I can’t really fathom that people don’t realize where this came from and that there is a very very long legal history of allowing it.
I am not for it, I am just talking about the realities of using “maybe you get X” to sell boxes/packages/card packs/toy claws, etc.
EDIT - so what I am trying to get at, is that if they go after online loot boxes, they need to go after all blind bag style purchases where you buy a box of X in hopes of getting Y.
At the same UK parliament inquiry, EA tried the same defense - they equated loot boxes to toys found in Kinder eggs.
Not necessarily the same thing.
I’ll let YongYea explain it:
She probably meant casino mechanics. People often misspeak while being nervous.
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That would be worse, virtually admitting that loot boxes are gambling.
They are a form of gambling! Just like all the other things I cited. They get around it by saying “you always get something with X value even if it is not what you want”. Riiiiight. Technically true, but those who want a specific toy will by the cracker jacks over and over. Same for loot boxes.
All those mechanics are equally harmful. Consumers need to know what the chances of getting the “free” toy are, so they can calculate how many boxes they need to buy for X. Even worse, are the concepts like the golden ticket on the candy bar or the sweepstakes prize under the soda cap. Some people buy them by the thousands in hopes of winning. Sure, they got the value of the $1 they spent on the product, but the gambling aspect makes them buy product they don’t need.
This is a huge issues across the board. I am not sure why online loot boxes are vilified more than the myriad other versions that came before. They are all bad.
I can only give Blizz a bit of credit in that their boxes are cosmetics. No game play need, no food need, no drink need, no need at all. Still, they are gambling.
My solution?
If a loot box costs $1 and something has a 1/13 chance of dropping, charge $13 dollars for it outright. Just let people buy it. It still limits rarity in that many won’t feel the price is worth it.
Knowing the actual odds may deter some folks but I’m just not sure how much a true impact that will have. People play the lotto or continue to gamble knowing the odds are stacked against them.
But I guess if the companies show that the odds are very low, there would be more of an outcry since people can see that they are being “cheated”.
In some countries they are required to show the odds. I suppose that might help.
I was saying that instead of showing the odds, or selling 25 loot boxes to get a rare item, just sell the item for a bit more in the store. Open, honest, etc. Higher price makes it less common so it is still fancy in game.
EDIT -
It is almost 3am. Holly cat has finally forgiven me for the bath this morning (she had a very gross accident). I am about asleep at the keyboard. I may not have many more responses in me before I fall asleep.
Fwiw, loot boxes as an earnable reward works well to increase the longevity of a game. I really enjoyed being able to earn them in HOTS2.0… the feature gave some additional life to that game for me.
I always wished CR caches had a guaranteed ancient leg.
Lootboxes shouldn’t be purchasable though.
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They do this in WoW too. Once you get Exalted with a faction (reputation), you essentially earn paragon points and every X you get a loot box with in-game rewards. Some are basics like gold, specialty currency, or rare pets/items. None are game changing.
That is a fun way to keep people interested in doing the daily quests, but for WoW, you can also argue it keeps some people subscribed so they can find the rare items. Rare items that have no impact on gameplay.
Most folks don’t have an issue with that though.
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Of course. But the gaming industry does not want anyone to know that because they stand to lose a ton of money if the laws belatedly catch up.
Around 25% of EA’s revenue is from FIFA Ultimate Teams; that’s $800 million or more. Not hard to imagine why they would fight tooth and nail to protect that golden goose.
That was one recent proposal by the ESRB and ESA recently - that by the end of 2020, games with loot boxes will show the odds of winning.
Bit of a tokenistic gesture as it doesn’t seem like it would have any meaningful effect just like the lotto example.
They only did this partly because of the threat of legislation and the growing backlash; they needed to be seen as if they cared but in reality, they don’t. If they really did care, they would be doing significantly more instead of defending this predatory behavior.
I became aware of Ghost Recon’s P2W MTXs after watching YongYea’s video on the subject. My reaction was rather subtle: almost crushed my head with the facepalm.
And there’s the problem. If lootboxes get legally qualified as gambling, P2W MTXs will become the norm. The game companies will find a way to milk the playerbase dry one way or another. P2W MTXs are very insidious because from a legal standpoint they are fine, you get what you pay for.
Can’t believe people are indifferent to this.
Predatory behavior isn’t new, but in modern society
should be stamped out.
Miss C. has made bad comparisons to past things, like sweepstakes
in cola, prizes in cereal boxes, or carnival games.
With most of those you still get a drink or food, with loot boxes
you get a virtual thing worth nothing.
Plus with the internet, and credit cards you can spend ridiculous
amounts of money is seconds.
Just because something isn’t illegal, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be.
There is no reason to have these in games, and hopefully
people will boycott games with these things in them.
As far as Blizzard goes, they are one of the worst, remember the real
Money Auction House, and the horrible drop rates, all to make
money.
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The jump to DLC annd Microtransactions has been one of my long-time “things wrong with gaming these days” when it was obviously discovered that devs could release incomplete games or overcharge for the most inane of things and have people defend them for it, typically under the mantra of supporting the game/franchise/series.
As I’ve remarked in numerous threads here and in the old board relative to this model, it’s that we pretty much have zero guarantee that that money goes back to the host product in significant majority. I would not buy something for D3, as an example, just for Blizzard to instead devote that cash to WoW, HotS, Hearthstone, scantly connected CEO’s new coffee machine, or whatever. I want it going back into D3 because it is the game I am playing and would certainly like to continue to play if they focused on actual content development.
Overall, I’ve outlined the hierarchy as: Base Game > Expansion > DLC > MTX/LB. Anything after Expansion is getting into the predatory grey area where you start wondering if something was cut from the game so they could sell it individually, or wanted to half-baked production by not having to develop quest lines or something around the related reward. Blizzard used to have the motto that they would release things when they’re ready, and from the consumer end, I also don’t mind waiting if that’s actually what’s being done. I can’t really say that’s the case for anyone anymore, though, where you have the frequent dead zone of gaming between Christmas and Summer, with it progressively growing more active toward Christmas to wrangle in those holiday bucks before repeating the cycle anew.
Anyone who otherwise prioritizes the “Think of the children!” aspect has been severely underselling the issue. Some might even smugly assert that people should be able to spend their money how they want, when I counter that it’s this dev whale hunt that’s worsening things for everyone. Subscriptions are, in their own way, also predatory, for reasons mentioned above, but also because they instill a timed sense of pressure to get your money’s worth when you further add on things like daily/weekly/monthly quests. And once more, you’ll probably have some jerk assert that those are only a couple days’ worth of lunch or that someone who can’t afford a sub shouldn’t be gaming. I call bull. As I gamer, I want as many people to enjoy games as I do. The sham of a premium service has done nothing to prove to me they’re actually superior than sub-less models, as you’ll even see FFXIV’s lead dev complain about SE’s budgeting despite XIV being the only thing really in the same lane as WoW when it comes to competition.
And as budgets go, there’s also the overall dev environment. Underpaid, overworked, and the notorious crunch time has been the bane of many a studio, and not just the little indy games. We’re frequently told games are far more expensive to produce these days, and to some extent, that is true, but is it because the money isn’t being wisely spent or people who have no business in the process are otherwise calling the shots? No one asked for D:I. Blizzcon reaction proved that. I would like to believe someone on the Diablo team even said this was a bad idea. Yet, here we are, with bonus points of some schlubs saying we deserve it because some people actually enjoyed D3. So, it’s not just greed at play, but also our fellow players cannibalizing one another in the pursuit to be “right” or “superior”.
The UK had it right to assert that laws weren’t with the time when it came to all this, and it’s that much more difficult to get lawmakers to care when they’re not playing games, themselves. I’m glad we are finally starting to see some progress, but there will be continued resistance, just a the recent Net Neutrality repeal was maintained by our unshockingly corrupt administration. The success of things like Fortnite are spurned by an audience who literally didn’t know what gaming was like before all this. The phrase “vote with your wallet” just doesn’t cut anymore. The industry needs to be told they’re bad. Regulation needs to come to prevent them from being bad in the future. It’ll be hard to figure out the other problems until this happens.
if diablo 4 doesnt have some kind of shop/loot boxes, i will literally eat a shoe
The most expensive wings in PoE are almost 50$. There is no single cosmetic item for more than that… There are on the other hand supporter packs which vary from 30$ to 480$ although…
Bon Appetit. Just because you’re a credit card warrior doesn’t mean everyone is…
Unless you’re just trolling…
I think he means that he’s betting that Blizz will keep up with the monetising rather than he wants microtransactions.
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For your information, you can’t longer buy lootbox with real money in Heroes of the Storm. Lootbox can be only purchased with in-game gold which you can earned by playing the game. The only thing that you can buy now with real money in Heroes of the Storm is the skin, hero, mount and exp boost.
Not sure that they changed this is due to the fear of banning lootbox law regulation in the future or they have completely abandon their will to milk HOTS.