3 ms·

I feel they are very similar, but do have a few key differences. If these differences matter enough to make a moral difference is something we can discuss. A

I feel they are very similar, but do have a few key differences. If these differences matter enough to make a moral difference is something we can discuss. A few of the key differences, in no particular order: 1. Trading card games come with base sets that have guaranteed cards and are useful for playing the game. This makes it TCGs better. 2. CCGs can be traded to others or sold. This one I'm unsure about. 3. Loot boxes are wrapped into games and are often designed to appeal to players in a much more intrusive way than TCGs . This makes loot boxes worse. 4-1. Some loot boxes have no impact on gameplay. These make loot boxes better. 4-2. Some loot boxes have an impact on gameplay larger than the impact of buying TCG boosters. These make loot boxes worse. 5. Loot boxes are often purchased through currency systems made to separate the buyers understanding of how much they are paying. This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes, with some games have layers of currency in between. Compare this to TCG boosters which are sold in stores for specific dollar amounts. This make loot boxes worse. 6. You can buy specific cards you need directly from other players, while most loot box systems require buying more loot boxes until you get the specific item desired. This one is related to 2 and I am also unsure about. 7. Loot boxes are often built into games on ones phone and use tactics to encourage worse spending habits. This make loot boxes worse. Overall my personal opinion would be that loot boxes as a whole are worse than TCGs, but the better done loot boxes are comparable or slightly better (less predatory) than TCGs while the worse loot boxes are much much worse (more predatory). Edit: One way to look at it is that the more predatory loot boxes are an extension of TCGs that doubled down on the worse parts, which might be enough for it to cross a person's personal moral threshold.

q-big 5y ago
> 5. Loot boxes are often purchased through currency systems made to separate the buyers understanding of how much they are paying. This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes, with some games have layers of currency in between. Compare this to TCG boosters which are sold in stores for specific dollar amounts. This make loot boxes worse. Converting between currencies is easy "rule of three" - you learn that very early in school. Also, before the introduction of the Euro (and for some border frontiers in Europe even after), children who lived near borders of neighboring countries very often had to become accustomed to two (multiple) currencies from very early on and better were able to convert them in their heads. > 7. Loot boxes are often built into games on ones phone and use tactics to encourage worse spending habits. This make loot boxes worse. Encourage bad spending habits: sounds like classical advertising.
- SkyBelow 5y ago
  >Encourage bad spending habits: sounds like classical advertising. Extremely targeted, omni-present advertising with more techniques used to maximize the impact. It's a bit like asking where does kids rough housing turn into assault and battery. If you took 100 different situations that fall in-between these two points and ordered them, each one would sound like the ones next to them, yet the one furthest on one side would be categorically different than the one furthest on the other side. Or a bit like the example where you start a paragraph with a red word and ever letter you shift the smallest amount possible with RGB towards blue. Eventually you end up at blue, but every letter looks almost identical to the letter next to it.
GaelFG 5y ago
A bit off topic but as a game developper I see surprising often the opinion : "This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes" ,it's even in my google search top : https://www.quora.com/Why-do-games-make-you-convert-real-world-currency-to-in-game-currency-instead-of-just-allowing-to-buy-items-in-terms-of-your-own-regular-money https://www.quora.com/Why-do-games-make-you-convert-real-wor... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjNuJ_a87v2AhWuzoUKHVCiBrUQFnoECC4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fjamiemadigan%2F2019%2F12%2F19%2Fthe-perils-of-in-game-currency%2F&usg=AOvVaw1aWxfU7Vj8Xb5ascL_jKvm https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... and so on. I'm confident it's a purely anecdotical side effect, they are tons of reasons to use a virtual currency. Manipulating money on internet if awfully complicated AND Costly. Each transaction cost a lot (when dealing with microtransaction like in games), currencies are complicated and their value change a lot, simply reimbursing someone for low amounts can cost you more than the transaction total, and convincing someone to spend the time to fill a payement form is aldready complicated,asking to do so each time you want to spend less than the cost of a coffee is doomed to fail. In the (frequent) case of working with multiple store/processor, it also help you to abstract things : painfully make your currencies pack once in each store/platform, and them internally code your in game store using this currency, like 'standard' game currency. "Tricking" users who can't apply a rule of three seems like anecdotical.

q-big 5y ago

> 5. Loot boxes are often purchased through currency systems made to separate the buyers understanding of how much they are paying. This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes, with some games have layers of currency in between. Compare this to TCG boosters which are sold in stores for specific dollar amounts. This make loot boxes worse. Converting between currencies is easy "rule of three" - you learn that very early in school. Also, before the introduction of the Euro (and for some border frontiers in Europe even after), children who lived near borders of neighboring countries very often had to become accustomed to two (multiple) currencies from very early on and better were able to convert them in their heads. > 7. Loot boxes are often built into games on ones phone and use tactics to encourage worse spending habits. This make loot boxes worse. Encourage bad spending habits: sounds like classical advertising.

SkyBelow 5y ago
>Encourage bad spending habits: sounds like classical advertising. Extremely targeted, omni-present advertising with more techniques used to maximize the impact. It's a bit like asking where does kids rough housing turn into assault and battery. If you took 100 different situations that fall in-between these two points and ordered them, each one would sound like the ones next to them, yet the one furthest on one side would be categorically different than the one furthest on the other side. Or a bit like the example where you start a paragraph with a red word and ever letter you shift the smallest amount possible with RGB towards blue. Eventually you end up at blue, but every letter looks almost identical to the letter next to it.

GaelFG 5y ago

A bit off topic but as a game developper I see surprising often the opinion : "This is why games often make you buy some currency and then use that currency to buy loot boxes" ,it's even in my google search top : https://www.quora.com/Why-do-games-make-you-convert-real-world-currency-to-in-game-currency-instead-of-just-allowing-to-buy-items-in-terms-of-your-own-regular-money https://www.quora.com/Why-do-games-make-you-convert-real-wor... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjNuJ_a87v2AhWuzoUKHVCiBrUQFnoECC4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fjamiemadigan%2F2019%2F12%2F19%2Fthe-perils-of-in-game-currency%2F&usg=AOvVaw1aWxfU7Vj8Xb5ascL_jKvm https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... and so on. I'm confident it's a purely anecdotical side effect, they are tons of reasons to use a virtual currency. Manipulating money on internet if awfully complicated AND Costly. Each transaction cost a lot (when dealing with microtransaction like in games), currencies are complicated and their value change a lot, simply reimbursing someone for low amounts can cost you more than the transaction total, and convincing someone to spend the time to fill a payement form is aldready complicated,asking to do so each time you want to spend less than the cost of a coffee is doomed to fail. In the (frequent) case of working with multiple store/processor, it also help you to abstract things : painfully make your currencies pack once in each store/platform, and them internally code your in game store using this currency, like 'standard' game currency. "Tricking" users who can't apply a rule of three seems like anecdotical.