Loot Boxes

[Taustin Powers]

So after hearing that buzzword here and there, I finally read up on what loot boxes really are. Man, gaming is really going down the drain. Especially with a game like Shadow of War, there will never be clarity whether the game is "just hard by design" or "intentionally hard to make you spend money to win". This "freemium" model from mobile games has no place in full-priced retail games. If studios can't recover their development costs through game sales anymore, just make games more expensive. But we are entering a slippery slope here where anytime a game gets really challenging, you will start to wonder...

BTW, I'm fine with extra DLC missions or microtransactions for cosmetic items (character outfits, etc.). They don't keep me from finishing and enjoying a game I bought without spending extra money.

 

[gkarris]

please don't go there, please don't go there....

you went there...

(lol - on a side note - the justification is that $60 is "no longer enough" to charge for a AAA game. To keep the game from being $99, they do these in-game transactions instead. Think about it. My Mom got me Space Invaders for the Atari 2600 at launch in 1980 - retail was $30, $27 at Toys R US. This equates to $90 in today's dollars, so, $90 should be the new "retail" price for AAA games...)

What I do is just buy the game when it is $30 or lower and not pay for any of that stuff. I don't care about winning Multiplayer mode.

I will buy extra maps/missions and DLC only on games I'm a big fan of but usually I have gotten the game used or on sale for less than $20...

Just game on...

 

[JayMysterio]

 

[gkarris]

Artists don't get royalties from the sales?

That's like Atari all over again when developers left to start Activision...

 

[Taustin Powers]

What I do is just buy the game when it is $30 or lower and not pay for any of that stuff. I don't care about winning Multiplayer mode.

I will buy extra maps/missions and DLC only on games I'm a big fan of but usually I have gotten the game used or on sale for less than $20...

Just game on...

That's usually what I do as well. Very rarely do I buy a game on launch day or spend more than 30 bucks.

And microtransactions for multiplayer gimmicks are fine for me, I just never use it. But now it's starting to impact the single player experience. You basically have to spend money to make the game easier, instead of just changing the difficulty setting. That I have a problem with.

 

[JayMysterio]

A followup on lootboxes...

Disclaimer: I had to add words before my video to avoid any possible trouble I may get for just posting a suitable response.

 

[0098386]

RIGHT. So, as a few of you know I work in games. I’m so dead against these loot boxes both as a gamer and dev. They’re just out of control now. So let’s ramble;

It’s a form of gambling. You get that same risk/reward tickle in the brain that gambling provides. So, any recovering gambling addicts might relapse. That makes me sad. But aside from all that - they used to be clever! MMO’s have had them for many many years but were really bad (as they are today) with a lack of standards and being too new, the system matured and was made very popular by Team Fortress 2. The thing about their loot boxes was that you could buy keys from other players meaning there was a bartering economy, which is nice! The price for keys was therefore low. The items themselves, weapons, were also not an improvement over basic weapons. The game was incredibly well balanced.

But now it’s just crazy. I don’t play any loot box games just out of protest. I don’t mind the mechanic so to speak, I just don’t like that real money is involved in gambling. If the player earnt the keys in game and a system was in place so that eventually you’ll get everything (make the rewards a pool of content, and as you unlock things that pool drains, rather than repeated content potentially showing up).

Don’t buy loot box games. I’m even avoiding Battlefront 2 despite being in love with the first game. Gotta be strong.

 

[gkarris]

It’s a form of gambling. You get that same risk/reward tickle in the brain that gambling provides. So, any recovering gambling addicts might relapse.

Gamblers do it for money, not for videogaming...

 

[0098386]

Gamblers do it for money, not for videogaming...

It tickles that same reward response though. Both are doing it to gain something, be it money or (potentially) an advantage in a game, or to look nicer.

Sidenote: I deal with gambling addicts sometimes and it really upsets me to see gambling companies advertise. I believe they can't broadcast adverts here, but they do appear on Twitter/Facebook etc. I've seen people become addicted all over again because of adverts.

 

[Taustin Powers]

I can support DLC missions / extra story content. It's like a little slice of game that the dev team put work into. They are selling you substance, a product. Good quality examples are DLC missions in Mass Effect 2 & 3, or the Bloodborne and Dark Souls expansions.

Loot boxes are money for nothing, on a developer standpoint.