This is gonna be a controversial take, so get your pitchforks out.
When Overwatch came out with its lootbox system, it sent waves across gaming journalism. The biggest game release has you gambling for skins! Little kids wasting their parent’s money on pointless emotes! Those were the articles written. Overwatch wasn’t the only culprit, of course (cough EA) but it was the biggest game making the most noise. It got so bad some governments passed legislation against lootboxes which forced Blizzard to change it up for those few.
I will not pretend that lootboxes are the best thing ever, nor that it is even a business model I like. But I will be realistic in stating the fact that Blizzard’s lootbox system was the best designed system for a live service model. New characters, new maps, new skins, new emotes - all were free. And people complained. No, you couldn’t get every new skin, but you had the agency to save up and buy anything at any given time (barring of course charity and tourney skins etc. but its fair to separate them here). That’s where the business model kicked in - when you wanted everything. Blizzard still wanted to make money out of it and if you wanted to get everything in a timely fashion you had to pay. It did not affect your gameplay, it is completely cosmetic, and anything that affected gameplay WAS free (like new characters or maps). It is a fair trade off but one that allowed the most average player to have access to everything and agency to buy anything as well at no extra cost beyond the initial buy in of the game.
And people complained. I had discussions and debates with both friends and randoms online over it, and the story always went the same way. But I want to pay for skins directly. But I don’t like the gambling aspect. But fortnite got it better, you pay $10 and get everything if you play!
I really did not understand these criticisms. Was the idea to get everything for free at no extra cost really that bad of a model? Was I missing something? Was the burning desire to get every cosmetic item really need us to change it so everybody was forced to pay for stuff now?
So what’s my take here? It’s the fans who complained. It’s the fans who had these online petitions going to the government.Now I get that the forums for OW didn’t have a majority of these naysers, but people on reddit, or under game news articles or on youtube etc. - they really were saying this stuff… and now we got it. The fault is on them for ruining it for the rest of us. So yeah, be careful what you wish for.