3 ms·
Valve likely played a role in normalizing lootboxes in Western markets, but they definitely didn't invent the idea. MapleStory was doing lootboxes years earlier
by pseudo0 2y ago
Valve likely played a role in normalizing lootboxes in Western markets, but they definitely didn't invent the idea. MapleStory was doing lootboxes years earlier, and EA's Fifa was doing P2W lootboxes prior to TF2.
Their model of cosmetic-only lootboxes is also far less obnoxious than the P2W form that has taken over mobile gaming. Many mobile games today are designed to be as obnoxious as possible in the hopes that the player will crack open their wallet for a shortcut.
- jcranmer 2y ago> Valve likely played a role in normalizing lootboxes in Western markets, but they definitely didn't invent the idea. My first thought was that lootboxes were a natural development of Japanese gacha toys, and Wikipedia's article does cite them as a precedent for lootboxes. Not that it was a pay-real-money-to-spin situation, but Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap had a gacha-based minigame mechanic in the game, and that came out several years before TF2, let alone TF2's shift towards free-to-play mechanics.
- shortrounddev2 2y agoIf you wanna go further back, magic the gathering booster packs are just lootboxes. Old arcade games were pay to win via extra lives/tries for more quarters
- lmm 2y agoI remember laughing at the lawsuits claiming that Pokemon cards were promoting gambling to children. In retrospect they were right and I wish they'd won.