> 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

> 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.