5 ms·

I’ve never heard about loot boxes before. But I wonder: how is this any different from “Kinder Surprise” (a chocolate egg with a small surprise toy inside that

by baxtr 9y ago

I’ve never heard about loot boxes before. But I wonder: how is this any different from “Kinder Surprise” (a chocolate egg with a small surprise toy inside that you can buy in supermarkets)?

Doxin 9y ago
It's different in that the prices in these loot boxes can be sold for hundreds of (real) dollars.
- wastedhours 9y ago
  The Beanie Babies in McDonald's Happy Meals did too - regulating these away from kids is a good idea, but for adults, I don't see how the digital equivalent of collecting (and maybe selling) random stuffed toys is gambling.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Difference is, the Teenie Babies from the Happy Meals weren't worth anything. Regular Beanie Babies were supposed to have enormous value as a collector's item, but you could order all 12 Teenie Babies as a box set and complete the whole collection without ever ordering a single Happy Meal. They were just toys, not collectors items.
    - wastedhours 9y ago
      But people did pay outsized amounts for the McDonald's ones.
TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
I think because with the Kinder Surprise you’re always purchasing pretty much the same worthless piece of plastic.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Not really. At least here (in Germany), they have promotional toy lines derived from well-known brands (e.g. I saw a store display promoting Powerpuff Girls toys in Kinder eggs a few days ago). The ads tout a guaranteed probability of finding one of these promoted toys in the egg (every 7th egg wins). There is a vivid aftermarket for these promoted toys. They're worth more if you collect a full set. You're right insofar as the non-promotional toys are pretty much only worthless plastic.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    Ah, righteo, I wasn’t aware of that, thanks.
  - DanielleMolloy 9y ago
    They had three pretty great serieses of Lord of the Rings figurines, for every of the three movies when they came out. I recommend to google them up. The ones I got still have value for me. Even some of the "worthless plastic" toys are actually quite creative (at least you often get some fun assembling them) and thus more than anything that can fall out of a digital loot box. As a child I didn't want to throw them away. What is not coming up here very often is the irrational customer behaviour of buying digital objects, which will disappear when the servers turn off.
icebraining 9y ago
And also trading cards that come in packets with a random selection, like Pokemon.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
larkeith 9y ago
I've never had a kinder egg, but are they generally purchased for the surprise or the chocolate? Generally speaking, there's no specific guaranteed reward from loot boxes, let alone one that outweighs the randomly chosen loot. Also, what is the probability distribution for kinder eggs? Most loot boxes have a chance to drop a variety of items at different likelihoods, generally with the most desirable items being very unlikely to drop (0.1-2%, depending on the game).
- icebraining 9y ago
  I can't say I have statistics on the issue, but the surprise is the general motivation amongst my young brothers and their friends. I've seen many who didn't even eat the chocolate.
- rndgermandude 9y ago
  They (used to?) advertise the special figurines as being "in every 7th egg". So 6 in 7 eggs would have the "shitty". essentially worthless toys in them. Then, a collection of special figurines had an uneven distribution of the particular figurines, e.g. "Papa Smurf" was rarer than other smurfs IIRC. So yes, basically they are loot boxes, but at least you get chocolate (and a shitty toy). Unless you were my buddy, who was obese as a kid but also a major collector, trader and seller. His mom prohibited him from eating the chocolate, and yet he still bought hundreds if not thousands of eggs per year, mostly financed by him selling rare collections he previously obtained, on top of his regular allowance. He used to bring huge bags of just the chocolate eggshells to school for us to eat... Well, it wasn't entirely chance. I once or twice went to the shop with him and watched him select the eggs, by shaking and very carefully listening. He was really good (or really lucky) and IIRC was was close to a 2 in 3 success rate (compared to the 1 in 7 as the ads stated).
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    From what I recall, I liked the other tiny toys as a kid, and didn't care for the figurines. OTOH, I would describe the quality of the current toys as "shitty", yes. Perhaps it's just the perspective?
endymion64 9y ago
You know partly what you buy, namely the chocolate egg. That's the main part of the product. Same applies to Happy Meals at McDonald's for instance. Loot boxes have a random distribution over the entire content.
Double_a_92 9y ago
I think the worth of the loot is the difference. The surprise is just nice to have but it's just a piece of plastic, and all of the different ones have the same value. Where as in e.g. CS:GO you can get weapon skins that are worth thousands of dollars and are even tradeable for real money (via 3rd party sites). Also because the skins are easily tradeable and have a real money value they are basically virtual casino chips. And they are used on real 3rd party gambling sites, which are completely unregulated and even children can participate. At that point it's beyond the loot boxes, it's real gambling with roulette and everything!
- majewsky 9y ago
  > and all of the different ones have the same value. Not quite, as I point out in a comment to one of your siblings. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16929805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16929805
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Those skins though - is there any reason other than gambling/speculation that someone would spend that money on them?
  - Double_a_92 9y ago
    You spend a lot of time as your character in the game... It's maybe nice to give yours an unique look. The high prices just come from the money that you theoretically need to unbox a rare one. I wonder however who does actually buy those.
deleted 9y ago
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usrusr 9y ago
A key difference would be that the little plastic toys are all nominally the same value. A much closer physical equivalent would be Magic:tG boosters, where the different play values arguably create value differentials. But even they contained a defined mix of different rarity classes, probably to fend off anti gambling laws. And with M:tG boosters, at least you knew the dice were pre-rolled so you could absolutely trust the cards to not be individually stacked against you. Online gaming loot boxes on the other hand can have all kinds of dark patterns hidden in supposedly random distributions that are actually manipulative sequences tailored to each player. (And also, Kinder Surprise contain chocolate, which makes them infinitely better than any virtual loot box could ever be, but that's just my personal opinion) Edit: I was assuming gameplay-relevant loot boxes here, apparently some/all of those under Belgian scrutiny are just cosmetic mods, which brings them much closer to the Kinder Surprise analogy (although strictly speaking, I would not consider cosmetics entirely without gameplay effects in something like CS:GO, relative camouflage qualities of avatars were absolutely a consideration no my day)
- ccozan 9y ago
  My experience with Kinder Surprise is that is impossible to get all the advertised set. Sometimes is so rare that it makes for collectors quite a huge difference in value. I remember hunting with my kids a certain figurine and after spending quite some time/money on this, we gave up. Chocolate was good, though.
- bobthepanda 9y ago
  I don't think Kinder is a good comparison, because the Kinder toys, while they are collectables, largely do not interact with each other. Getting one Kinder toy does not really require you to get the others, the way some of these games hold themed events with limited-time lootbox content. A better example would be if Barbie, with her thousands and thousands of iterations, completely stopped selling the prepackaged outfits. Instead, you now have to buy a mysterious box, that has one top piece of an outfit, one bottom piece of an outfit, and one accessory. The pieces you get don't necessarily match. On top of that, there are bigger value packs that give you five random ones of each type, or ten, or a hundred, depending on how much cash you want to spend. And on top of that, let's say that these outfits are impossible to trade. I basically just described Overwatch lootboxes. The problem is not necessarily the lootboxes, which are fine as an in-game reward earned by completing games or leveling or what have you. The problem is that the only way to purchase more cosmetics is by chance; as a new player, there's no way to get a specific cosmetic guaranteed unless you either grind every waking moment or spend untold amounts of money.

by baxtr 9y ago

I’ve never heard about loot boxes before. But I wonder: how is this any different from “Kinder Surprise” (a chocolate egg with a small surprise toy inside that you can buy in supermarkets)?

Doxin 9y ago

It's different in that the prices in these loot boxes can be sold for hundreds of (real) dollars.

wastedhours 9y ago
The Beanie Babies in McDonald's Happy Meals did too - regulating these away from kids is a good idea, but for adults, I don't see how the digital equivalent of collecting (and maybe selling) random stuffed toys is gambling.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Difference is, the Teenie Babies from the Happy Meals weren't worth anything. Regular Beanie Babies were supposed to have enormous value as a collector's item, but you could order all 12 Teenie Babies as a box set and complete the whole collection without ever ordering a single Happy Meal. They were just toys, not collectors items.
  - wastedhours 9y ago
    But people did pay outsized amounts for the McDonald's ones.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

I think because with the Kinder Surprise you’re always purchasing pretty much the same worthless piece of plastic.

majewsky 9y ago
Not really. At least here (in Germany), they have promotional toy lines derived from well-known brands (e.g. I saw a store display promoting Powerpuff Girls toys in Kinder eggs a few days ago). The ads tout a guaranteed probability of finding one of these promoted toys in the egg (every 7th egg wins). There is a vivid aftermarket for these promoted toys. They're worth more if you collect a full set. You're right insofar as the non-promotional toys are pretty much only worthless plastic.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  Ah, righteo, I wasn’t aware of that, thanks.
- DanielleMolloy 9y ago
  They had three pretty great serieses of Lord of the Rings figurines, for every of the three movies when they came out. I recommend to google them up. The ones I got still have value for me. Even some of the "worthless plastic" toys are actually quite creative (at least you often get some fun assembling them) and thus more than anything that can fall out of a digital loot box. As a child I didn't want to throw them away. What is not coming up here very often is the irrational customer behaviour of buying digital objects, which will disappear when the servers turn off.

icebraining 9y ago

And also trading cards that come in packets with a random selection, like Pokemon.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

larkeith 9y ago

I've never had a kinder egg, but are they generally purchased for the surprise or the chocolate? Generally speaking, there's no specific guaranteed reward from loot boxes, let alone one that outweighs the randomly chosen loot. Also, what is the probability distribution for kinder eggs? Most loot boxes have a chance to drop a variety of items at different likelihoods, generally with the most desirable items being very unlikely to drop (0.1-2%, depending on the game).

icebraining 9y ago
I can't say I have statistics on the issue, but the surprise is the general motivation amongst my young brothers and their friends. I've seen many who didn't even eat the chocolate.
rndgermandude 9y ago
They (used to?) advertise the special figurines as being "in every 7th egg". So 6 in 7 eggs would have the "shitty". essentially worthless toys in them. Then, a collection of special figurines had an uneven distribution of the particular figurines, e.g. "Papa Smurf" was rarer than other smurfs IIRC. So yes, basically they are loot boxes, but at least you get chocolate (and a shitty toy). Unless you were my buddy, who was obese as a kid but also a major collector, trader and seller. His mom prohibited him from eating the chocolate, and yet he still bought hundreds if not thousands of eggs per year, mostly financed by him selling rare collections he previously obtained, on top of his regular allowance. He used to bring huge bags of just the chocolate eggshells to school for us to eat... Well, it wasn't entirely chance. I once or twice went to the shop with him and watched him select the eggs, by shaking and very carefully listening. He was really good (or really lucky) and IIRC was was close to a 2 in 3 success rate (compared to the 1 in 7 as the ads stated).
- Piskvorrr 9y ago
  From what I recall, I liked the other tiny toys as a kid, and didn't care for the figurines. OTOH, I would describe the quality of the current toys as "shitty", yes. Perhaps it's just the perspective?

endymion64 9y ago

You know partly what you buy, namely the chocolate egg. That's the main part of the product. Same applies to Happy Meals at McDonald's for instance. Loot boxes have a random distribution over the entire content.

Double_a_92 9y ago

I think the worth of the loot is the difference. The surprise is just nice to have but it's just a piece of plastic, and all of the different ones have the same value. Where as in e.g. CS:GO you can get weapon skins that are worth thousands of dollars and are even tradeable for real money (via 3rd party sites). Also because the skins are easily tradeable and have a real money value they are basically virtual casino chips. And they are used on real 3rd party gambling sites, which are completely unregulated and even children can participate. At that point it's beyond the loot boxes, it's real gambling with roulette and everything!

majewsky 9y ago
> and all of the different ones have the same value. Not quite, as I point out in a comment to one of your siblings. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16929805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16929805
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Those skins though - is there any reason other than gambling/speculation that someone would spend that money on them?
- Double_a_92 9y ago
  You spend a lot of time as your character in the game... It's maybe nice to give yours an unique look. The high prices just come from the money that you theoretically need to unbox a rare one. I wonder however who does actually buy those.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

usrusr 9y ago

A key difference would be that the little plastic toys are all nominally the same value. A much closer physical equivalent would be Magic:tG boosters, where the different play values arguably create value differentials. But even they contained a defined mix of different rarity classes, probably to fend off anti gambling laws. And with M:tG boosters, at least you knew the dice were pre-rolled so you could absolutely trust the cards to not be individually stacked against you. Online gaming loot boxes on the other hand can have all kinds of dark patterns hidden in supposedly random distributions that are actually manipulative sequences tailored to each player. (And also, Kinder Surprise contain chocolate, which makes them infinitely better than any virtual loot box could ever be, but that's just my personal opinion) Edit: I was assuming gameplay-relevant loot boxes here, apparently some/all of those under Belgian scrutiny are just cosmetic mods, which brings them much closer to the Kinder Surprise analogy (although strictly speaking, I would not consider cosmetics entirely without gameplay effects in something like CS:GO, relative camouflage qualities of avatars were absolutely a consideration no my day)

ccozan 9y ago
My experience with Kinder Surprise is that is impossible to get all the advertised set. Sometimes is so rare that it makes for collectors quite a huge difference in value. I remember hunting with my kids a certain figurine and after spending quite some time/money on this, we gave up. Chocolate was good, though.
bobthepanda 9y ago
I don't think Kinder is a good comparison, because the Kinder toys, while they are collectables, largely do not interact with each other. Getting one Kinder toy does not really require you to get the others, the way some of these games hold themed events with limited-time lootbox content. A better example would be if Barbie, with her thousands and thousands of iterations, completely stopped selling the prepackaged outfits. Instead, you now have to buy a mysterious box, that has one top piece of an outfit, one bottom piece of an outfit, and one accessory. The pieces you get don't necessarily match. On top of that, there are bigger value packs that give you five random ones of each type, or ten, or a hundred, depending on how much cash you want to spend. And on top of that, let's say that these outfits are impossible to trade. I basically just described Overwatch lootboxes. The problem is not necessarily the lootboxes, which are fine as an in-game reward earned by completing games or leveling or what have you. The problem is that the only way to purchase more cosmetics is by chance; as a new player, there's no way to get a specific cosmetic guaranteed unless you either grind every waking moment or spend untold amounts of money.