The Ongoing Loot Box Drama

Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Administrator
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Yop
Disney is big enough to start or buy their own game studios IMO, and the Star Wars franchise is worth it; look at their stocks, the company's stocks pretty much doubled after they got the Star Wars license back in 2012 - it cost them $4 billion to get the license and then some more to make the films, but disney represents a value of almost 160 billion atm so it's paid itself back.
 
Obsidian Fire

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
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The Engineer
^The video a page back did a rough comparison between the number of IPs EA has and the number of IPs Blizzard has and yeah... that was my thought to...
 
X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
That's the main issue in most places, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see some folks pushing to redefine that, or make Loot Box-specific legislation in the near future as a result.





X :neo:
 
Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Administrator
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Yop
They probably realized that hey, nobody's actually playing their game. inb4 free to play.
 
Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Administrator
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Yop
I'm still on the fence though - why ban lootboxes when e.g. football or pokemon cards are still allowed? Same formula. Maybe less fireworks when you open them but it's literally the same thing. Except that you can actually use MTG cards in a game for more than just looks :monster:
 
Obsidian Fire

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
Yup. Loot boxes are the digital equivalent of booster packs in trading card games. The real difference is how easy it is to go get the packs/boxes. Phisical "loot boxes" are limited by going to where the loot box is, digital ones aren't. And that accessibility makes it way more of a problem.
 
Joe

Joe

I KEEP MY IDEALS
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Joe, Arcana
Personally I'd like to see them stay but given similar restrictions to actual gambling.

You want to put Loot Boxes in your game, fine. But that should bump the rating up to an 18+

I used to love Pokemon booster packs. I occasionally like and enjoy dropping £5 on a game I play regularly to see what skins and cosmetics I can pull. I feel like a kid again when I get something rare and I can show it off.
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i did like buying packs of card as a kid

they did have a fundamental difference in being physical items that you could trade (which arguably was part of the fun, swapping with people and having a collection to display). whereas i don't think there are many games when you can trade lootbox items? idek i don't play that many games with them but i've never seen it in any i have.

plus your pokemon cards will still be around, you can still play the game as long as you have those cards even if they stop printing them and discontinue the whole thing. you can sell them off (why didn't i collect magic the gathering cards and make my living fleecing cards to nerds) at some point. but once ea decides that they aren't going to support battlefield or whatever any more, unless someone unofficially keeps the servers running if that's possible then what are you going to do with that stuff now.

(lack of permanence is a problem with any digital product and people should be going into buying them with the knowledge that they can just disappear whenever but still)

(have i shown you my shiny gyarados card)
 
Joe

Joe

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Joe, Arcana
Valve has had item trading (for a multitude of games) on Steam for at least the last six years. There's been a few instances in my time playing Dota where I've been able to fleece some nerds sell off items earned in game to other players for a tidy sum. Pretty sure I bought an Assassin's Creed game entirely through a couple of in-game items I sold through the marketplace.

Obviously this doesn't speak for EA of whom you brought up, but EA is a steaming pile of corporate cow shit that is destroying industry integrity the way my school teachers destroyed my chances of ever trading Pokemon cards with my friends.
 
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X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
Obsidian Fire said:
Yup. Loot boxes are the digital equivalent of booster packs in trading card games. The real difference is how easy it is to go get the packs/boxes. Phisical "loot boxes" are limited by going to where the loot box is, digital ones aren't. And that accessibility makes it way more of a problem.
Click to expand...

Given that you can order card packs and physical things online, I don't think that that's really a valid argument. It's like saying that a casino isn't gambling, because you have to physically go there to gamble. Inherently they're equally inherently problematic, just because of the mechanics of how they prey on how human brains work. Tackling the real issue involves looking at anything that's explicitly using gambling-type mechanics for getting money from individuals, and holding them all to the same standard.




X :neo:
 
Keveh Kins

Keveh Kins

Pun Enthusiast
Irish Government starting to look into loot boxes now too

It'll be interesting to see what happens. There's some rumblings in Ireland over whether this will require game developers to have gambling excise licenses from the tax folk, and how that would be implemented, we're pretty far behind when it comes to this kind of stuff. Most likely we'll just follow suit with whatever the rest of Europe decides to do on it.
 
Lestat

Lestat

He/him
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Ergo, V
Interestingly Fortnite made a change to their loot boxes also. When buying loot boxes in games players will see what's in the box prior to purchase therefore eliminating the uncertainty factor.
 
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