11 ms·

The User Experience of Lootboxes

91 points by kawera 9y ago

sexydefinesher 9y ago
I cant say that i want to support this direction videogames are going in. We get less content and still need to pay full price and then theres the pressure to buy all the dlc and microtransactions. At least before lootboxes you could buy exactly what you wanted, now you need to grind 100h and just hope you get the correct one. Im happy i bought my overwatch key on g2a, those people buying keys in bulk and then doing chargeback can have the money rather than Blizzard. edit: To expand upon, most of these costs are invented the game makers. In games like CS source you didnt need to buy any skins, you could make your own and replace the in-game models to see them client side and if you wanted everyone to see it you could have the server you ran the game on use it. But now no one lets you host your own server and prevents you from mixtering with the game files, so now you need to pay for simple recolors that you could have made yourself before or get through the community. And another reason not to buy games anymore is that you really dont own them. When steam finally dies one day your 'license' expires and all your games are gone, not like it mattered anyway since more and more games require verification from servers owned by the developer/publisher either to play online or to verify your copy (doors in Diablo 3 are server side iirc). These servers then close down to force you to buy the latest game in the series. Or nobody bothers to keep them online when the company gets purchased or closed. And rarely to never at all do they let anyone set up third party servers because why would they. /rant
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- empath75 9y ago
  Yeah they’re all basically slot machines now.
- Nexxxeh 9y ago
  Have you played Overwatch? Overwatch is ONLY cosmetics in lootboxes, has high drop-rate in normal play. They give them out like candy. They literally gave you more at Christmas. It's rubbish suggesting you have to grind, you earn lootboxes for virtually EVERYTHING because you are constantly earning XP for playing almost every game, QP or ranked or arcade. There's a reasonable in-game currency, no external trading, and is frankly an example of loot boxes done right. Your attitude is "I'd rather defraud the devs, even though the game I have is the opposite of Pay-to-Win." I don't get it.
  - platz 9y ago
    > defraud the devs I seriously don't understand game culture these days. The rhetoric seems to hint at things I don't understand. I herald from the relatively pastoral times of doom, mortal kombat, x-com, worms. Reading discussions between gamers and about games these these days feels like a postmodernist imbroglio involving Derrida and lacan.
    - thatguy0900 9y ago
      He's refering to buying the game on g2a, a grey market key reseller that's notorious for using stolen credit cards to obtain the keys it's vendors sell to players. This often results in charge back to the devs who then feel compelled to allow the key to remain valid anyway for fear of public outcry.
    - wickawic 9y ago
      > postmodernist imbroglio involving Derrida and lacan. Spoooky! How do they have anything to do with this?
      - platz 9y ago
        I can't say it, you understand—I'd just be falling into their metaphysical trap of socio-hierarchic power structures
        wickawic 9y ago
        That sounds more like Focault
    - ShabbosGoy 9y ago
      > I seriously don't understand game culture these days. The rhetoric seems to hint at things I don't understand. It’s not difficult at all to understand. If you pay $59.99 for something, are you entitled to ownership of the entire game? Or are you entitled to ten slot machines that randomly payout enhanced functionality at low probabilities? The majority of publishers seem to think the latter is a fair way of doing business.
NelsonMinar 9y ago
I hate to think how many talented designers and engineers are building systems to convince their marks to spend more money than they intended to spend. Or maybe can afford.
- epicide 9y ago
  This is basically the concept of Dark UI Patterns. Great video on some examples here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KVyFio8gw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KVyFio8gw4 I find the Ryan Air example particularly interesting.
- rhizome 9y ago
  "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to get people to click ads." --Jeff Hammerbacher
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
Yep. And this is why I play emulated and pirated games. These older games don't use loot boxes, DLC, or the myriad of other tricks and traps to sink more money after the initial purchase. I'll also play more current games where I actually buy the game outright, although that's changed from computer to board games. I know what I'm getting with a board game. None of that stupid lootbox crap, or the Diablo3 method of forcing people to buy crap on eBay to play "single player game". The game companies have forced me to migrate to local games. And Emulation serves its purpose very well. It assumes the same hardware, and just works. Yeah, it's breaking copyright, but well - I'd get screwed in buying legit. So well, whatever. Arr.
mikestew 9y ago
One of things I don’t like about loot boxes is that it doesn’t involve shooting avatars. I didn’t buy CoD WWII so that I could take sixty seconds to load The Headquarters, wander around, push the lever, wait for the drop animation, wait for the opening animation. Only to get a box full of shit I already have (I’ve just quit opening them now). I want to shoot shit, not stand around doing paperwork. So in summary, if this is the direction games are going, I guess I’ll start looking at more board games, and get better on that mandolin. Because this is not how I care to spend even a minimal amount of my gaming time.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Ironically, you like the game less, the more it gets close to true military life experience :). That said, I sympathize. Things tangential to the core gameplay should be... tangential. The problem is that these days, the idea of what constitutes "gameplay" differs is different for the studios than it is for the players.
  - philipov 9y ago
    I don't think it's ironic. Games are not there to be accurate simulacra of life; that's what life is for. People usually play games to escape from the tedium of realism. If I wanted to spend more of my time grinding, I'd work longer hours.
    - platz 9y ago
      which is why i find the genre of Simulation so interesting. of which Flight Sims seem to be most well known, most typical example of. In the old Falcon 4, there was a large manual that one required just to operate the radar screens. and folks would learn them . Perhaps it provided some feeling of mastery over a complex task - and knowing it derived from something from reality/nature meant that task was in some way grounded in "truth". In something newer like the DCS series each aircraft has rows of knobs - that represent reality as closely as possible. Of course you can expand Simulation to all sorts of domains. e.g. for tanks Steel Beasts is almost a game in the proper sense, but quite simulation influenced (actual militaries use it to train tank teams). Finally, why restrict yourself to avation/military... you could truly attempt simulate any experience. essentially, you would de-gamify it. i think the core values of simulation are free-form structure, customization, exploration, experimentation. Are engaging with these sims "fun"? I dont' know, but folks sure seem to spend a lot of time "playing" them. They must be getting something out of it. I'm interested how far you could take this, how far you could expand into something engaging that not along the well-trodden path of flight/military/car stuff.
autarch 9y ago
Extra Credits did a good video on AAA game pricing recently (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhWGQCzAtl8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhWGQCzAtl8) that talks about why developers are going down the lootbox and microtransaction roads. Their argument is basically that AAA games are just way too cheap. The price has been at $60 for a long time, and even though the market has expanded since then, it's still not enough to cover the development costs, which have skyrocketed. Finding other revenue streams has become a necessity. The alternative would be $80 or $100 AAA games.
- CivBase 9y ago
  I am a fan of Extra Credits, but I was actually disapointed in that particular video. I thought they failed to acknowledge many other aspects of video game monetization. I encourage you to check out Jim Sterling's video "The Sixty Dollar Myth" as a good argument for the other side. https://youtu.be/pHSso2vufPM https://youtu.be/pHSso2vufPM
- watwut 9y ago
  There is going to be a point where the price is too big and devs have to sacrifice some bells and whistles. You can rank up dev costs till infinity, but customers won't pay till infinity.
- JBlue42 9y ago
  The crazy thing is that the workers actually creating those games are worked to the bone to get them done by the deadlines. The economic model is abusive on both sides (worker and player).
- onion2k 9y ago
  The alternative would be $80 or $100 AAA games. Or lowering production costs. Less reliance on expensive licenses and must-be-bigger-than-the-last-one sequels and more original content instead would be a good starting point.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Relying on more original content would actually be more expensive if they were trying to maintain the same quality. Having to develop a new IP and new story from scratch, plus new assets and models, plus the major chance that it might not actually succeed... it's a risk-averse model. Everyone knows that CoD will sell, or Madden, or GTA. It's guaranteed money, even if it's a relatively small profit. Small profit is better than maybe zero maybe negative.
dvt 9y ago
I am morally opposed to exposing children to faux-gambling to make Blizzard or Valve an extra buck -- or get them to spend an extra 20 minutes in game. The argument that loot boxes are "only cosmetic" is also a terrible argument. The game experience involves customizing your character. Cosmetic items are by definition part of the game and, therefore, enhance gameplay. Many lawsuits were lost a few years ago where dozens of skin selling/trading/gambling sites had to be shut down. At least I'm happy governments all over the world took a stand. But unfortunately, this trend won't stop until consumers also take a stand and vote with their wallets. I was excited for Battlefront and the new Shadow of War games but decided not to buy (or pirate) either. On the other hand, maybe litigation is the only way to change these exploitative grey-area practices.
- Macha 9y ago
  The issue is unlike previous anti-consumer practices (like day-1 DLC), no more does one customer = one wallet vote. Sure, 50 of us could not buy the game, but that one whale who spends $3000 has just outvoted us with his wallet.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - wand3r 9y ago
    At least it prepares kids for how the real world works...
    - ryanianian 9y ago
      ...at a time at which they're unprepared for making financial decisions.
  - ACow_Adonis 9y ago
    Which is to say, how all things in any economy with divergent wealth/income has always been :p /and I'm not saying that prescriptively/judgmentally, just saying that is literally how the market mechanically works.
EdgarVerona 9y ago
I have two points I'd like to make. First, I disagree with those who have been saying that piracy or purchasing keys from the grey market are solutions: those are just making the problem worse, not better. These gambling-like mechanics are coming from companies looking for a way to remain economically viable when their base prices stay the same even as the cost of development goes up, and stealing the product is just going to make this already bad situation much worse. That being said, I am also firmly against the loot box model. While many genres of games use behavioral conditioning as a means to the end of making the game entertaining, the conditioning inherent in loot boxes represents a much tighter loop: one where the primary act of deriving enjoyment comes not from the experience of the game, but rather comes exclusively from that conditioning itself. When you look at it that way, the only difference between a loot box and gambling is that gambling has the additional harmful effect of being a "closed loop": that is to say, the solution to gambling may appear to a user to be "gamble more to make up your losses." But to me, that doesn't excuse loot boxes; it merely makes gambling a particularly egregious cousin within the genre of variable ratio scheduling-based "entertainment". When I look at loot boxes, I see something that is (at least, in the general case) well-intentioned: the designers feel a need to find a way in this difficult market to retain viability, as mentioned recently by Extra Credits. They're in a hard spot, and a very personal one: indeed, their jobs and the jobs of their co-workers are on the line. Designers may also look at the entertainment caused by the reinforcement of conditioning and see that as providing value in itself: the act of "scoring big" on a random roll is indeed thrilling to people, and it is easy to believe that providing that to people provides them "value". But is it thrilling for the right reasons? Is that really value? Are we optimizing for the wrong measurement? My feeling is that this potentially well-intentioned pivot to loot boxes has and is derived from models of behavioral conditioning that feel harmful to end users even if they came from well-intentioned reasoning. I would like to see the industry move away from this model; I know that right now a higher initial price tag is a hard pill to swallow, but at various times in the industry the price has been higher (adjusted for inflation), and the market accepted it. I think for example about the SNES era, where SNES games defaulted even back then to $80 for a new AAA game (adjusted for inflation, that'd be ~$140 today): the initial price was steep, but the market held and the people found value in it. There is also something to be said about profitability being obtained by being able to reach our much wider target audience - profit by volume, which is something that loot boxes take advantage of but that other models could take advantage of as well. This is by no means an easy problem to solve, and I don't know where the industry will end up. The kinds of pressures mentioned recently by Extra Credits are very real, and loot boxes present a very obvious way to circumvent that issue. But I hope that an alternative model can be found; one that derives itself less from gambling and behavioral conditioning and more toward providing an obvious, easily calculable cost-to-benefit.
detcader 9y ago
In Magic, booster packs are actually useful for drafting. Adults in the MtG community constantly stress that you shouldn't buy booster packs for yourself--they're made for draft play. In pretty much all video games that have them, you can't draft with loot boxes, or it wouldn't make any sense. I played Destiny 2 recently and had a good amount of fun, but much of the game felt so artificial and designed around a boardroom-brainstormed economic strategy. It seems this has just resulted in chaos in the fan community. I strongly recommend Monster Hunter World instead. Loot-based, grindy action game, without loot boxes.
- EdgarVerona 9y ago
  I agree, that is an important distinguishing point between trading card packs and loot boxes and I am glad that you mentioned it. Looking at trading card packs in isolation of drafting, I would call the two the same. But drafting does create a situation where trading card packs actually have an entertainment use beyond the gambling-like mechanic that exists when the pack is looked at in isolation.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Could you explain what "draft play" means? Also: I hereby regret that I didn't make contact with adult CCG communities when I was ~10-13 and into Magic and other games; with my cousin, we've spent plenty of our pocket money buying booster packs...
  - EdgarVerona 9y ago
    Ah, by draft we are referring to a mode of play in modern CCGs: one where players gather around a table, passing packs around and picking cards from them for the purpose of making a deck on the spot, and then playing with that deck in the subsequent tournament. With drafting, having a randomized pack actually serves a purpose other than gambling, in that the unknown nature of the contents of the pack means that the people sitting at the table picking cards for their deck don't know what will be coming and what others have picked (which makes the act of this drafting itself an interesting skill and entertaining experience separate from merely "opening a pack hoping for a good card")
alkonaut 9y ago
EA/Dice in Battlefield moved from a perfectly healthy grind-to-improve mechanic where you got improvements and unlocks by grind and achievement that actually felt worth doing (BF3 and BF4). I even had zero issues with the possibility of buying these perks for money. Then they release their latest iteration and they completely ruin it. Some extremely complex mechanic of crates giving crap that seems to be cosmetic only? I mean who is feeling rewarded in any way by having a purple gun if it works the same?
- reificator 9y ago
  Can we just not have grind? I liked multiplayer back when there was no progression, you just came back because it was actually fun. I already have a job, that's not what I've ever wanted out of video games.
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    In “simple” FPS I agree (e.g quake style shooters etc). But in BF where there is tanks and planes and a hundred modes I like the incentive it gives me to vary my playing with unlocks for “fly a plane for an hour” etc. After a hundred hours or so you have most stuff and there isn’t much progression for many hundred hours after that. I agree it shouldn’t be useless grind, it should be rewards for varying it up. Such as just trying something, or getting 5 kills with a gun. When you go out of your comfort zone, you are initially shit (naturally), so without the lure of an unlock “if I can just not suck for enough time to shoot down 3 planes” you stick with where you would have just gone back to the comfort zone otherwise. Not something you need hundreds of hours of repetitive play to do. So perhaps “grind” is the wrong term for this type of progression. Getting to the end if the progression might be a grind if you want to do it deliberately. But I enjoyed the progressions of BF3 and 4 and I probably would have had less fun without it. I did the first 1000h because the first 100h had those rewards that compensated for me sucking as a player.
    - reificator 9y ago
      I don't know, I just get sick of the feeling that every game needs progression systems. Constant popups telling me I've accomplished something and here's your reward make me feel like all my accomplishments are meaningless and just exist to beef up an arbitrary number on a server somewhere. I really like FPSes, but I don't remember the last time I had fun playing a new one because the skinnerbox mentality takes so much away from the design. I don't mind modern mechanics that don't have to do with telling me how great I am. Ironsights are great and even going back to Left 4 Dead 2 from 2009 felt like going decades backwards in design. Cover systems range from okay to really good. (Red Orchestra 2 being my favorite on that front) Regenerating health is... okay well I don't like regenerating health much because it encourages corridor based level design rather than the classic exploration you'd get from Doom or Jedi Knight 2 or whatever. And I'm especially upset that the single "element" pulled in when a game has "RPG elements" is the leveling system. That's not what makes an RPG an RPG, that's just the system that best fits tabletop games. I miss when I could hop into a game, and apart from skill, everyone is on the same level.

91 points by kawera 9y ago

I cant say that i want to support this direction videogames are going in. We get less content and still need to pay full price and then theres the pressure to buy all the dlc and microtransactions. At least before lootboxes you could buy exactly what you wanted, now you need to grind 100h and just hope you get the correct one. Im happy i bought my overwatch key on g2a, those people buying keys in bulk and then doing chargeback can have the money rather than Blizzard. edit: To expand upon, most of these costs are invented the game makers. In games like CS source you didnt need to buy any skins, you could make your own and replace the in-game models to see them client side and if you wanted everyone to see it you could have the server you ran the game on use it. But now no one lets you host your own server and prevents you from mixtering with the game files, so now you need to pay for simple recolors that you could have made yourself before or get through the community. And another reason not to buy games anymore is that you really dont own them. When steam finally dies one day your 'license' expires and all your games are gone, not like it mattered anyway since more and more games require verification from servers owned by the developer/publisher either to play online or to verify your copy (doors in Diablo 3 are server side iirc). These servers then close down to force you to buy the latest game in the series. Or nobody bothers to keep them online when the company gets purchased or closed. And rarely to never at all do they let anyone set up third party servers because why would they. /rant

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
empath75 9y ago
Yeah they’re all basically slot machines now.
Nexxxeh 9y ago
Have you played Overwatch? Overwatch is ONLY cosmetics in lootboxes, has high drop-rate in normal play. They give them out like candy. They literally gave you more at Christmas. It's rubbish suggesting you have to grind, you earn lootboxes for virtually EVERYTHING because you are constantly earning XP for playing almost every game, QP or ranked or arcade. There's a reasonable in-game currency, no external trading, and is frankly an example of loot boxes done right. Your attitude is "I'd rather defraud the devs, even though the game I have is the opposite of Pay-to-Win." I don't get it.
- platz 9y ago
  > defraud the devs I seriously don't understand game culture these days. The rhetoric seems to hint at things I don't understand. I herald from the relatively pastoral times of doom, mortal kombat, x-com, worms. Reading discussions between gamers and about games these these days feels like a postmodernist imbroglio involving Derrida and lacan.
  - thatguy0900 9y ago
    He's refering to buying the game on g2a, a grey market key reseller that's notorious for using stolen credit cards to obtain the keys it's vendors sell to players. This often results in charge back to the devs who then feel compelled to allow the key to remain valid anyway for fear of public outcry.
  - wickawic 9y ago
    > postmodernist imbroglio involving Derrida and lacan. Spoooky! How do they have anything to do with this?
    - platz 9y ago
      I can't say it, you understand—I'd just be falling into their metaphysical trap of socio-hierarchic power structures
      - wickawic 9y ago
        That sounds more like Focault
  - ShabbosGoy 9y ago
    > I seriously don't understand game culture these days. The rhetoric seems to hint at things I don't understand. It’s not difficult at all to understand. If you pay $59.99 for something, are you entitled to ownership of the entire game? Or are you entitled to ten slot machines that randomly payout enhanced functionality at low probabilities? The majority of publishers seem to think the latter is a fair way of doing business.

NelsonMinar 9y ago

I hate to think how many talented designers and engineers are building systems to convince their marks to spend more money than they intended to spend. Or maybe can afford.

epicide 9y ago
This is basically the concept of Dark UI Patterns. Great video on some examples here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KVyFio8gw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KVyFio8gw4 I find the Ryan Air example particularly interesting.
rhizome 9y ago
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to get people to click ads." --Jeff Hammerbacher

crankylinuxuser 9y ago

Yep. And this is why I play emulated and pirated games. These older games don't use loot boxes, DLC, or the myriad of other tricks and traps to sink more money after the initial purchase. I'll also play more current games where I actually buy the game outright, although that's changed from computer to board games. I know what I'm getting with a board game. None of that stupid lootbox crap, or the Diablo3 method of forcing people to buy crap on eBay to play "single player game". The game companies have forced me to migrate to local games. And Emulation serves its purpose very well. It assumes the same hardware, and just works. Yeah, it's breaking copyright, but well - I'd get screwed in buying legit. So well, whatever. Arr.

mikestew 9y ago

One of things I don’t like about loot boxes is that it doesn’t involve shooting avatars. I didn’t buy CoD WWII so that I could take sixty seconds to load The Headquarters, wander around, push the lever, wait for the drop animation, wait for the opening animation. Only to get a box full of shit I already have (I’ve just quit opening them now). I want to shoot shit, not stand around doing paperwork. So in summary, if this is the direction games are going, I guess I’ll start looking at more board games, and get better on that mandolin. Because this is not how I care to spend even a minimal amount of my gaming time.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Ironically, you like the game less, the more it gets close to true military life experience :). That said, I sympathize. Things tangential to the core gameplay should be... tangential. The problem is that these days, the idea of what constitutes "gameplay" differs is different for the studios than it is for the players.
- philipov 9y ago
  I don't think it's ironic. Games are not there to be accurate simulacra of life; that's what life is for. People usually play games to escape from the tedium of realism. If I wanted to spend more of my time grinding, I'd work longer hours.
  - platz 9y ago
    which is why i find the genre of Simulation so interesting. of which Flight Sims seem to be most well known, most typical example of. In the old Falcon 4, there was a large manual that one required just to operate the radar screens. and folks would learn them . Perhaps it provided some feeling of mastery over a complex task - and knowing it derived from something from reality/nature meant that task was in some way grounded in "truth". In something newer like the DCS series each aircraft has rows of knobs - that represent reality as closely as possible. Of course you can expand Simulation to all sorts of domains. e.g. for tanks Steel Beasts is almost a game in the proper sense, but quite simulation influenced (actual militaries use it to train tank teams). Finally, why restrict yourself to avation/military... you could truly attempt simulate any experience. essentially, you would de-gamify it. i think the core values of simulation are free-form structure, customization, exploration, experimentation. Are engaging with these sims "fun"? I dont' know, but folks sure seem to spend a lot of time "playing" them. They must be getting something out of it. I'm interested how far you could take this, how far you could expand into something engaging that not along the well-trodden path of flight/military/car stuff.

autarch 9y ago

Extra Credits did a good video on AAA game pricing recently (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhWGQCzAtl8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhWGQCzAtl8) that talks about why developers are going down the lootbox and microtransaction roads. Their argument is basically that AAA games are just way too cheap. The price has been at $60 for a long time, and even though the market has expanded since then, it's still not enough to cover the development costs, which have skyrocketed. Finding other revenue streams has become a necessity. The alternative would be $80 or $100 AAA games.

CivBase 9y ago
I am a fan of Extra Credits, but I was actually disapointed in that particular video. I thought they failed to acknowledge many other aspects of video game monetization. I encourage you to check out Jim Sterling's video "The Sixty Dollar Myth" as a good argument for the other side. https://youtu.be/pHSso2vufPM https://youtu.be/pHSso2vufPM
watwut 9y ago
There is going to be a point where the price is too big and devs have to sacrifice some bells and whistles. You can rank up dev costs till infinity, but customers won't pay till infinity.
JBlue42 9y ago
The crazy thing is that the workers actually creating those games are worked to the bone to get them done by the deadlines. The economic model is abusive on both sides (worker and player).
onion2k 9y ago
The alternative would be $80 or $100 AAA games. Or lowering production costs. Less reliance on expensive licenses and must-be-bigger-than-the-last-one sequels and more original content instead would be a good starting point.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Relying on more original content would actually be more expensive if they were trying to maintain the same quality. Having to develop a new IP and new story from scratch, plus new assets and models, plus the major chance that it might not actually succeed... it's a risk-averse model. Everyone knows that CoD will sell, or Madden, or GTA. It's guaranteed money, even if it's a relatively small profit. Small profit is better than maybe zero maybe negative.

dvt 9y ago

I am morally opposed to exposing children to faux-gambling to make Blizzard or Valve an extra buck -- or get them to spend an extra 20 minutes in game. The argument that loot boxes are "only cosmetic" is also a terrible argument. The game experience involves customizing your character. Cosmetic items are by definition part of the game and, therefore, enhance gameplay. Many lawsuits were lost a few years ago where dozens of skin selling/trading/gambling sites had to be shut down. At least I'm happy governments all over the world took a stand. But unfortunately, this trend won't stop until consumers also take a stand and vote with their wallets. I was excited for Battlefront and the new Shadow of War games but decided not to buy (or pirate) either. On the other hand, maybe litigation is the only way to change these exploitative grey-area practices.

Macha 9y ago
The issue is unlike previous anti-consumer practices (like day-1 DLC), no more does one customer = one wallet vote. Sure, 50 of us could not buy the game, but that one whale who spends $3000 has just outvoted us with his wallet.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wand3r 9y ago
  At least it prepares kids for how the real world works...
  - ryanianian 9y ago
    ...at a time at which they're unprepared for making financial decisions.
- ACow_Adonis 9y ago
  Which is to say, how all things in any economy with divergent wealth/income has always been :p /and I'm not saying that prescriptively/judgmentally, just saying that is literally how the market mechanically works.

EdgarVerona 9y ago

I have two points I'd like to make. First, I disagree with those who have been saying that piracy or purchasing keys from the grey market are solutions: those are just making the problem worse, not better. These gambling-like mechanics are coming from companies looking for a way to remain economically viable when their base prices stay the same even as the cost of development goes up, and stealing the product is just going to make this already bad situation much worse. That being said, I am also firmly against the loot box model. While many genres of games use behavioral conditioning as a means to the end of making the game entertaining, the conditioning inherent in loot boxes represents a much tighter loop: one where the primary act of deriving enjoyment comes not from the experience of the game, but rather comes exclusively from that conditioning itself. When you look at it that way, the only difference between a loot box and gambling is that gambling has the additional harmful effect of being a "closed loop": that is to say, the solution to gambling may appear to a user to be "gamble more to make up your losses." But to me, that doesn't excuse loot boxes; it merely makes gambling a particularly egregious cousin within the genre of variable ratio scheduling-based "entertainment". When I look at loot boxes, I see something that is (at least, in the general case) well-intentioned: the designers feel a need to find a way in this difficult market to retain viability, as mentioned recently by Extra Credits. They're in a hard spot, and a very personal one: indeed, their jobs and the jobs of their co-workers are on the line. Designers may also look at the entertainment caused by the reinforcement of conditioning and see that as providing value in itself: the act of "scoring big" on a random roll is indeed thrilling to people, and it is easy to believe that providing that to people provides them "value". But is it thrilling for the right reasons? Is that really value? Are we optimizing for the wrong measurement? My feeling is that this potentially well-intentioned pivot to loot boxes has and is derived from models of behavioral conditioning that feel harmful to end users even if they came from well-intentioned reasoning. I would like to see the industry move away from this model; I know that right now a higher initial price tag is a hard pill to swallow, but at various times in the industry the price has been higher (adjusted for inflation), and the market accepted it. I think for example about the SNES era, where SNES games defaulted even back then to $80 for a new AAA game (adjusted for inflation, that'd be ~$140 today): the initial price was steep, but the market held and the people found value in it. There is also something to be said about profitability being obtained by being able to reach our much wider target audience - profit by volume, which is something that loot boxes take advantage of but that other models could take advantage of as well. This is by no means an easy problem to solve, and I don't know where the industry will end up. The kinds of pressures mentioned recently by Extra Credits are very real, and loot boxes present a very obvious way to circumvent that issue. But I hope that an alternative model can be found; one that derives itself less from gambling and behavioral conditioning and more toward providing an obvious, easily calculable cost-to-benefit.

detcader 9y ago

In Magic, booster packs are actually useful for drafting. Adults in the MtG community constantly stress that you shouldn't buy booster packs for yourself--they're made for draft play. In pretty much all video games that have them, you can't draft with loot boxes, or it wouldn't make any sense. I played Destiny 2 recently and had a good amount of fun, but much of the game felt so artificial and designed around a boardroom-brainstormed economic strategy. It seems this has just resulted in chaos in the fan community. I strongly recommend Monster Hunter World instead. Loot-based, grindy action game, without loot boxes.

EdgarVerona 9y ago
I agree, that is an important distinguishing point between trading card packs and loot boxes and I am glad that you mentioned it. Looking at trading card packs in isolation of drafting, I would call the two the same. But drafting does create a situation where trading card packs actually have an entertainment use beyond the gambling-like mechanic that exists when the pack is looked at in isolation.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Could you explain what "draft play" means? Also: I hereby regret that I didn't make contact with adult CCG communities when I was ~10-13 and into Magic and other games; with my cousin, we've spent plenty of our pocket money buying booster packs...
- EdgarVerona 9y ago
  Ah, by draft we are referring to a mode of play in modern CCGs: one where players gather around a table, passing packs around and picking cards from them for the purpose of making a deck on the spot, and then playing with that deck in the subsequent tournament. With drafting, having a randomized pack actually serves a purpose other than gambling, in that the unknown nature of the contents of the pack means that the people sitting at the table picking cards for their deck don't know what will be coming and what others have picked (which makes the act of this drafting itself an interesting skill and entertaining experience separate from merely "opening a pack hoping for a good card")

alkonaut 9y ago

EA/Dice in Battlefield moved from a perfectly healthy grind-to-improve mechanic where you got improvements and unlocks by grind and achievement that actually felt worth doing (BF3 and BF4). I even had zero issues with the possibility of buying these perks for money. Then they release their latest iteration and they completely ruin it. Some extremely complex mechanic of crates giving crap that seems to be cosmetic only? I mean who is feeling rewarded in any way by having a purple gun if it works the same?

reificator 9y ago
Can we just not have grind? I liked multiplayer back when there was no progression, you just came back because it was actually fun. I already have a job, that's not what I've ever wanted out of video games.
- alkonaut 9y ago
  In “simple” FPS I agree (e.g quake style shooters etc). But in BF where there is tanks and planes and a hundred modes I like the incentive it gives me to vary my playing with unlocks for “fly a plane for an hour” etc. After a hundred hours or so you have most stuff and there isn’t much progression for many hundred hours after that. I agree it shouldn’t be useless grind, it should be rewards for varying it up. Such as just trying something, or getting 5 kills with a gun. When you go out of your comfort zone, you are initially shit (naturally), so without the lure of an unlock “if I can just not suck for enough time to shoot down 3 planes” you stick with where you would have just gone back to the comfort zone otherwise. Not something you need hundreds of hours of repetitive play to do. So perhaps “grind” is the wrong term for this type of progression. Getting to the end if the progression might be a grind if you want to do it deliberately. But I enjoyed the progressions of BF3 and 4 and I probably would have had less fun without it. I did the first 1000h because the first 100h had those rewards that compensated for me sucking as a player.
  - reificator 9y ago
    I don't know, I just get sick of the feeling that every game needs progression systems. Constant popups telling me I've accomplished something and here's your reward make me feel like all my accomplishments are meaningless and just exist to beef up an arbitrary number on a server somewhere. I really like FPSes, but I don't remember the last time I had fun playing a new one because the skinnerbox mentality takes so much away from the design. I don't mind modern mechanics that don't have to do with telling me how great I am. Ironsights are great and even going back to Left 4 Dead 2 from 2009 felt like going decades backwards in design. Cover systems range from okay to really good. (Red Orchestra 2 being my favorite on that front) Regenerating health is... okay well I don't like regenerating health much because it encourages corridor based level design rather than the classic exploration you'd get from Doom or Jedi Knight 2 or whatever. And I'm especially upset that the single "element" pulled in when a game has "RPG elements" is the leveling system. That's not what makes an RPG an RPG, that's just the system that best fits tabletop games. I miss when I could hop into a game, and apart from skill, everyone is on the same level.