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People don't care about odds, or the odds on the back of lotto tickets would reduce gambling. Even if you do know the odds, do you even know the cost of the lo

People don't care about odds, or the odds on the back of lotto tickets would reduce gambling. Even if you do know the odds, do you even know the cost of the loot box? Say the loot box cost 500 murp points, and you can buy 25 merp points for $1 or 700 merp points for $9 or 10000 merp points for $80, and the odds of your loot box are 1:100 for having a rare item - what is your EV to spend to get the rare item?

randomblob 9y ago
Can't really compare lotto tickets to loot boxes. Even the most invested player knows it's just digital items they win. Winning the lottery can change the course of life in a dramatic way, thus making the extreme low odds justifiable for lotto players.
Spooky23 9y ago
Uh, people do. Hardcore lotto players know which scratch offs have the best payouts and know the most efficient betting strategies for most games. Some of them even track the outstanding jackpot winners available. Look at what people buy when you're in a gas station. Disclosure would probably reduce the temptation to offer really shitty odds.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  Yah I do. And I see people without teeth buying 5 tickets of whatever looks shiny. I also live in Indiana so perhaps biased.
- ThrowawayR2 9y ago
  But these games are aimed at children and teenagers, not hardcore lotto players. They probably won't do the math.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    True, but as a parent, if its disclosed in App Store, you can do the math for the kid and decide if you want them to play the game or forbid it and offer an alternative, more fair game.
logfromblammo 9y ago
$400. You consider the smaller merp packages to have an intrinsic penalty, to punish the player for not being a whale. And yet that $400 will only give you a 63.4% chance of getting a rare item. An 80% chance will cost you $640, a 90% chance costs $920, and a 99% chance a whopping $1800. On average, you'll spend $400 per rare item. But can you imagine all your whale players spending $1800 each, and that 1% of them might not even have a rare after all that? Can you imagine being that whale that spends $1800 and gets nothing? If I were developing that game, I would certainly add an "odds pressure" escape valve to the randomness, so that both your overall win-loss record and your recent win-loss record influence your odds of winning on the next play. But as long as we're doing that, we might as well also set up an intermittent reinforcement schedule that essentially guarantees one win in the first five boxes you open, one in the next five, the next ten, the next fifteen, etc.

randomblob 9y ago

Can't really compare lotto tickets to loot boxes. Even the most invested player knows it's just digital items they win. Winning the lottery can change the course of life in a dramatic way, thus making the extreme low odds justifiable for lotto players.

Spooky23 9y ago

Uh, people do. Hardcore lotto players know which scratch offs have the best payouts and know the most efficient betting strategies for most games. Some of them even track the outstanding jackpot winners available. Look at what people buy when you're in a gas station. Disclosure would probably reduce the temptation to offer really shitty odds.

brianwawok 9y ago
Yah I do. And I see people without teeth buying 5 tickets of whatever looks shiny. I also live in Indiana so perhaps biased.
ThrowawayR2 9y ago
But these games are aimed at children and teenagers, not hardcore lotto players. They probably won't do the math.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  True, but as a parent, if its disclosed in App Store, you can do the math for the kid and decide if you want them to play the game or forbid it and offer an alternative, more fair game.

logfromblammo 9y ago

$400. You consider the smaller merp packages to have an intrinsic penalty, to punish the player for not being a whale. And yet that $400 will only give you a 63.4% chance of getting a rare item. An 80% chance will cost you $640, a 90% chance costs $920, and a 99% chance a whopping $1800. On average, you'll spend $400 per rare item. But can you imagine all your whale players spending $1800 each, and that 1% of them might not even have a rare after all that? Can you imagine being that whale that spends $1800 and gets nothing? If I were developing that game, I would certainly add an "odds pressure" escape valve to the randomness, so that both your overall win-loss record and your recent win-loss record influence your odds of winning on the next play. But as long as we're doing that, we might as well also set up an intermittent reinforcement schedule that essentially guarantees one win in the first five boxes you open, one in the next five, the next ten, the next fifteen, etc.