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Loot boxes come from Japan, where they are extensively used in mobile games and all sort of products. In there the concept is known as gacha. https://www.serka

Loot boxes come from Japan, where they are extensively used in mobile games and all sort of products. In there the concept is known as gacha. https://www.serkantoto.com/2012/02/21/gacha-social-games/ https://www.serkantoto.com/2012/02/21/gacha-social-games/ In Japan, gambling is illegal and the games industry looked for ways to bypass this regulation. Gacha is what they found. But after gacha was perfected into its ultimate addictive form, Kompu Gacha, the government had to take action and regulate it. Now Kompu Gacha is illegal. The legal alternative is Box Gacha, and that is what all westerners are copying. The idea is to not sell you what you want, but rather to sell you a low probability of getting what you want for a lower value. This causes people to underestimate and lose track of what they're spending. But Box Gacha is not the only thing, there are millions of other ways in which those guys have perfected the art of taking money from addicted gamers. Pay to win is a race to the ground. Some players won't mind throwing $10,000 to win, you will never beat them. And if you do beat them, you are a chump.

Cyberdog 9y ago
"They copied it from Japanese games!" is kind of a cop-out. It implies that the loot box concept would not have developed in Western games in isolation, which I don't believe at all, and this article, which highlights how EA was developing the concept well before smartphones went supernova, lends more weight to that non-belief.
- partycoder 9y ago
  Before smartphones the Japanese still had feature phones, and games with micropayments and gacha ("loot boxes") in them. Btw you are talking with someone who worked in the games industry so unless you've got certain credible source to refute what I am mentioning here just concede the point.
  - Cyberdog 9y ago
    > Btw you are talking with someone who worked in the games industry so unless you've got certain credible source to refute what I am mentioning here just concede the point. Wow. Well, I'll turn it back on you. What evidence do you have that loot boxes would not have come about in something very close to their current form if the Japanese game industry did not exist? And "because I work in the games industry" is not an answer. I mean, this is a ridiculous hypothetical in the first place. But the broader point is that the fault for the current condition cannot be blamed solely or even primarily on the Japanese industry alone. "The merchants and the traders have come; their profits are pre-ordained."
    - partycoder 9y ago
      The gacha formats are very specific (e.g: how the probabilities are distributed). In many countries it is required by law to specify to the user what is being purchased. Because of this, it is very easy to track / verify that one system is equivalent to a specific form of gacha. Then, it is widely accepted that loot boxes are based on gacha. The Wikipedia article for loot box has more context in this regard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box#History

Cyberdog 9y ago

"They copied it from Japanese games!" is kind of a cop-out. It implies that the loot box concept would not have developed in Western games in isolation, which I don't believe at all, and this article, which highlights how EA was developing the concept well before smartphones went supernova, lends more weight to that non-belief.

partycoder 9y ago
Before smartphones the Japanese still had feature phones, and games with micropayments and gacha ("loot boxes") in them. Btw you are talking with someone who worked in the games industry so unless you've got certain credible source to refute what I am mentioning here just concede the point.
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  > Btw you are talking with someone who worked in the games industry so unless you've got certain credible source to refute what I am mentioning here just concede the point. Wow. Well, I'll turn it back on you. What evidence do you have that loot boxes would not have come about in something very close to their current form if the Japanese game industry did not exist? And "because I work in the games industry" is not an answer. I mean, this is a ridiculous hypothetical in the first place. But the broader point is that the fault for the current condition cannot be blamed solely or even primarily on the Japanese industry alone. "The merchants and the traders have come; their profits are pre-ordained."
  - partycoder 9y ago
    The gacha formats are very specific (e.g: how the probabilities are distributed). In many countries it is required by law to specify to the user what is being purchased. Because of this, it is very easy to track / verify that one system is equivalent to a specific form of gacha. Then, it is widely accepted that loot boxes are based on gacha. The Wikipedia article for loot box has more context in this regard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box#History