So it’s recently been all over the news here in Belgium how the lootbox system in the game is too much like gambling according to the government, and so they are attempting to make a lootbox-like system illegal for games. According to the news, if the developers of Overwatch don’t remove the lootboxes in Belgium, they might face punishments for it. I have not yet heard Blizzard’s response to this and what they are going to do about it.
Overwatch is my favourite game and the cosmetics are awesome, losing the lootboxes would mean losing a great part of this game and I really hope that’s not the case.
Can anyone/any devs tell me if they know what is going to happen?
No, I’d rather Blizzard just take the hint and realize lootboxes are a dumb mechanic. Get rid of it. Let us buy items directly or have an easier way to earn the currency. Right now it’s pretty much impossible to get all the new holiday skins when they’re marked up at an insane 3000c per skin. Especially if you don’t have any currency saved up.
I could give them $50 and then still not be guaranteed the thing I want. The price of a full game. That’s gambling. It’s time for these companies to realize they’re abusing their consumers and change their behavior now before the governments around the world do it for them.
First it’s china, now it’s belgium, who else is it going to be? Are we going to have like 100+ versions of the game in the next couple of years?
In the event Blizz credits for loot boxes doesn’t satisfy Belgian requirements, Blizz will take the path of least resistance and just cut off loot box sales in Belgium altogether. We’ll have to wait and see.
Plus with the whole CS GO thing a while back, its not like this gambling idea just came out of nowhere, they knew this was a possibility and will have been getting ready.
Imo getting rid of lootboxes, letting people buy credits and letting players earn credits for each match/amount of matches/whatever is more balanced would be the best option.
League of Legends has this system and it’s a FREE game (i haven’t played it in a while so give me a nudge if it changed), we already pay to play Overwatch so there’s no way this system would cause a bankrupt. It’s a win win.
Also me and i’m pretty sure many other players avoid spending any money with this game exactly because we don’t accept the gambling system so changing it is also an opportunity of getting more “costumers” for Blizzard.
how is buying credits scummy and buying lootboxes ok.
if u buy credits u 100% get the skin u want
if u buy a lootbox there is a miniscule ridiculously tiny chance u get the skin u want
so i can’t understand how u think buying a skin for like 5-10 bucks is scummy while having to buy 50 lootboxes for a decent chance of even getting the skin u want
That’s the key. Just save up your credits. Personally, I don’t spend any credits until the end of events, so I can just buy all the crap I wanted that I didn’t unbox. As for regular loot, it can be obtained at any time, so why spend credits on it?
The way loot boxes work in this game now (you won’t get duplicates of a certain tier of item unless you have everything) is pretty great actually. I’ve gotten every gray and blue quality item, and most of the purples as well from every event since they changed the system.
Dude, the question here isn’t how it is and how to deal with it.
The question is what it could be, and it could be better.
Why be against improvement in any situation whatsoever? Do you really love corporations that much that you will defend their gains above your own quality of life?
This is kind of becoming like politics where people get conformed with their countries’ current states instead of going after change… but in the gaming industry. Can we not stagnate progress like this?
The credits are marginal and are provided alongside the lootboxes.
The credits really equate to about the average amount of currency you would be obtaining at the cost of two loot boxes. You could have made more you could have made less.
It’s basically a wash in my opinion. No net gain, just a way to corcumvent and in no way better.
I will be interested to see how much the gaming industry as a whole is affected by the lootbox situation (I know it applies to Overwatch here, but this could pave the way to the lootbox model as a whole being considered gambling). I doubt that much overall, but Belgium is closer to the western market than China, so it may not be too long before other countries adopt it and thus force the industry to systematically change. Well, either that or find loopholes.