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Before CoD4 got completely taken over by hackers, I managed to get myself the golden Dragunov. One of the first games I used it in, I laid down in the grass to watch this one alleyway leading into our base. I’m scanning the area with my scope, and when I look away from my scope, I see two of my teammates crouched over me on either side just to examine my gun. Made me feel proud and annoyed at the same time.
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See, I don't really mind lootboxes to that extend, as long as MOST of the things that I would get are things I (somewhat) like. If I can get 2 random chances in a box with thre being a 70% chance I'll get a skin for a character I like, sure. I like the idea of not knowing which character I'll get something for, it might surprise me and give me a Mc Cree skin so I'll try him out. As long as I get something I somewhat like out of it, I don't mind.
**However**, if the thing I want has a low % drop chance and is only from an RNG box, no thanks.
Basically it comes down to what I get from the pulls. If the end result makes me happy, I will love it. If the chances are super high that I'll end up getting crap, fuck that shit.
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I know that you think pixels on your computer screen are really important, but they're not. It may seem callous of me to discard something that's clearly pretty central to your identity but nobody in the world is going to care how unfair it is that your character in your video game doesn't look the way you want it to and looking for sympathy from people because of that is only going to alienate you. You're someone who gets upset about cosmetics in video games so you're probably already pretty alienated as is.
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Completely different. With a TCG like magic, the cards you buy in the pack **are the game**. With a loot box system in a $60 dollar game, the loot box materials do not constitute the game. The game is shooting rebels or storm troopers, flying around in the Millennium Falcon firing at TIE fighters, or leaping through the air as Luke Skywalker twirling around your lightsaber. The loot box system is entirely immaterial to the actual game and is only there to monetize a game you already payed $60 for. They brute forced this insane convoluted economy into a simple shooter style game in order to bridge the *actual* game to something to spend money on via this economy. You can't monetize **pew pew** at the AT ST, but you *can* monetize -STAR CREDITS-. There is literally like three different currencies and exchange rates and they do different things and...it is fucking ridiculous. They designed it so that the economy is that actual "game" and shooting storm troopers and swinging the lightsaber is just the excuse the fuel the economy.
And they infuriatingly act as if there is just no other way to implement a "progression" system without this kind of economy saturating the game. Somehow forgetting that a general experience points (XP) system that can be spent on upgrades in weapons, abilities, or stats has been tried and true for fucking decades now. These EA devs genuinely act like they are baffled and just have no idea how there could be "progression" in a multiplayer game without a monetized economy around it. Like they are genuinely unaware that almost every game ever made has some kind of XP system that does just fine giving a sense of progression in a game. It is to the point where the economy around the actual game becomes the main focus and actual takes priority over the game itself. They don't want people playing single player so they actually cut off earning any XP (or whichever of their three currencies lets you unlock characters) after like an hour of single player a day. The game punishes you for not playing in the way that most keeps you in contact with and dependent on their economy.
Anyway whatever I don't want to rehash the whole thing over again, but absolutely yes I would say there is virtually no valid argument that TGC games like MTG are the same thing as loot boxes in AAA $60 games. In MTG, the cards you are buying *are the game*. There is nothing more to the game than the cards. There's nothing else to spend money on. You *buy* the cards because that's what MTG *is*. It's like buying more legos. The lego bricks *are the thing you want*. In say, SW Battle Front, the game is ostensibly shooting rebels and flying X Wings and shit. That's the game. The whole loot box/star credit/whatever economy graphed on to the game is it's own thing. It is the simplest thing in the world to just have a standard XP system to get new upgrades and progress and there is absolutely no need for some complex economy *other than the fact that it is possible to monetize for micro-transactions*. And deciding to introduce randomness into the system is also unnecessary and done with the sole intention to serve as bait for more money. They could easily just have their upgrades/cosmetics available for a certain amount of xp without any randomness. Not only is the loot box system entirely unnecessary and utterly irrelevant to shooting SW characters, it hamstrings the very game it is graphed onto. The game itself, the thing that you payed for and is supposed to be the like, point and focus of your time playing, is designed to push you back to the loot system. Things are *intentionally* fucked up and unbalanced in a way where the solution is something you get from a loot box. The real product, from the perspective of EA, is the loot box economy system and the Star Wars based shooting/action game is the packaging and marketing. In Magic the Gathering, the cards ARE the real product, even if there is an element of randomness to booster packs.
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If you talk to anyone in the Magic community though, 95% of people will tell you not to just open booster packs for the hell of it. If you are looking for a particular card, you should just go to ebay or the store/website of your choice and just buy the card (s) you are looking for. The gambling aspect gets a bit removed when you consider that there is an actual game you are intended to play when you open booster packs. That game is drafting where you and 7 other people each open 3 booster packs and attempt to make a playable deck from what you open. Drafting a great deck sometimes means passing a highly valuable card to the person on your right because it won't fit in to your deck.
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I've been a gamer basically since I could manage it (and honestly, before that).
The overwhelming prevalence of loot box and microtransaction systems makes it so I can't even get excited about new releases anymore. One of my favorite games of all time (Red Dead Redemption) is getting a sequel in about a month's time and I'm not even that excited because it's Rockstar and they brutalized GTA:O within an inch of its life.
Bethesda has also admitted (though I'm not sure to what extent) that FO76 will have microtransactions. I've given so much of my life to this hobby and because of companies being shitty and exploiting people I can't even be excited about it anymore.
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Thinking about the movie comparison, with how overpriced some microtransactions are for what they offer it is kinda like movies offered "1 minute extra scene after credits only 15 dollar!" well with lootboxes more like "5 dollar for a ten percent chance for the scene, 90% chance for various 10 second outtakes!" (If you ever play smartphone games with a collection mechanic they tend to be even more ridiculous, I know some that offer a set+a skin + a few other items for 60 dollar or crazy things like that.)
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The difference is the direct link between to pay for a physical existing object, with all limitations about those object. Its also tradable like there is also no RNG factor behind that can even at the time you open your pack is under the possibility of changing.
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You buy your booster and thats it. Lootboxes have a preset of % chance to get x... but up to the point where you open it, you cant be sure it would actually realy use this prese chance. So there is not only a huge room of cheating around those lootboxes, especially with the now upcomin big date AI systems and several studies to make sure the whole ratio of possibill "wins" is fitted in a enjoyable way to the specific customer, its also limited to the game enviroment, so, no realy trade, nothing like it, everytime the chance to loose everything (Game -> Offline) and its not controlled like a whole sale of physical items is controlled.
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Its not just lootboxes are gambling because you have a chance of whatever you want, its also a whole manipulated system that lures everybody to get more. So even as gambling, we are facing an unsave enviroment around gambling and also gambling addiction with huge space for abuse in favor of the selling company because, at least, its all just date that can be manupulated easiely by the company itself even while you are playing/gambling.
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Even around this... they are still embedded in a mostly common and regular service, that also effects the funcionality of the service itself. Its like a craftsman will do on purpouse on a building site a damage to the old wall to say "hey, that wasnt part of the contract to also rebuild this damage here, I want more money!"
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Yeah that shows how scummy this really is. They so desperately don't want you to know how low the chances of getting what you want are that they jump through every loophole not to show it. It's the same strategy casinos use, keep you hoping for success, keep you in the dark about exactly how unlikely that is.
Up until that happened I was on the fence, but I haven't bought one since
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Straight up it's fucking over people like me who work all the damn time.
I want to have fun online, I don't have time to grind & practice for 4 hours every night. I'm lucky if I can get an hour in before bed these days
I stopped playing battlefield because I'll literally never unlock everything, and I can't justify paying to unlock shit in a game I barely play. So instead I just miss out.
It's fucking bullshit dude, I play games as an escape from. troubles in real life, not to be reminded I'm broke irl
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>"Spending large amounts of money on loot boxes was associated with problematic levels of spending on other forms of gambling. This is what one would expect if loot boxes psychologically constituted a form of gambling. It is not what one would expect if loot boxes were, instead, psychologically comparable to baseball cards."
My understanding is that, even though the mechanisms are similar, they didn't observe the same behaviours when it came to baseball cards, and we can assume with TCGs in general.
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>Would you argue that Trading card games such as Magic the Gathering or Pokemon would also be gambling?
Yes. They could sell the cards you want outright but instead chose to sell only blind bags containing mostly garbage to maximise their profits.
> Gaming companies could argue that baseball card manufacturers and TCG company's have been doing this for years
Correct. Are you saying that we shouldn't bother to fix any wrongs unless if there is more than one wrong thing?
> One difference I can spot would be the ability to buy a rare card in real life that you've sought after, compared to some games which make it impossible to access some content unless it is pulled through a loot box system
It's still gambling - when you buy a specific magic the gathering card from a 3rd party exchange then you simply pay some 3rd party to gamble for you.
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Absolutely. I enjoyed the single player experience on GTAV though. So I just played that and didn't even do online. As long as my single player campaign is still long and rewarding, I'm still going to buy it, as I'm still getting as much content as any other GTA game prior to there being online multiplayer.
For FO76 that is VERY concerning, as the game will only be online to begin with. They can do that with a free to play, but why do they get to milk us after we already purchased the damn thing? (alternatively, I'd argue maybe they should just make it free to play instead, or just give us a complete game for what we pay.)
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That you can't trade an item after having bought it isn't the same thing as it having no value. Compare with food. I buy a sandwich and eat it, and the economic value deprecation is 100%. I'm still satisfied having eaten the sandwich and have no reason to regret the transaction. Compare with my grandma. I love her, but she can't (legally) be sold or traded. That doesn't make her worthless.
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Essential yes, but guess what? No upfront cost.
Lets be honest, this entire situation isnt because of free 2 play mobile games, its because the big boys got a taste of it and now want to greedily get more. I dont personally mind loot boxes... in F2P games. But when you toss a $60 price tag on something THEN add-in lootboxes, I call bullshit.
The difference though, is that MtG, Pokemon and baseball cards have real world value. Your skin for Tracer in Overwatch does not.
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>My problem with lootboxes will always be that I am gambling for product I can't sell at full price or keep forever/extended time. My Magic cards can be sold 20yrs from now at an antique auction. My Witch Mercy skin cannot.
but in Fifa they have right to take it from you and loses its value after a year..how dumb is that we still try to buy(fifa points) those worthless cards with real money
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Feels like I’m talking about halo every other day damn I really miss halo 3, company’s need to take a step back and look at games like halo 3 with tons of customization without paying for anything, but if the games completely free and the purchases are “skins” like what fortnite and league of legends has to offer then I’m fine with that. (Although for not so rich people like myself it’d be nice not to feel left out when it comes to customization, that’s why I loved halo 3 so much..)
No loot boxes though, league of legends recently introduced loot boxes EXACTLY like how overwatch does them and I don’t get the point behind them other then you can spend less money and get a random skin you probably won’t like.
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I remember the Rare days, where mastering the dozens of cheat codes or completing extremely difficult challenges actually rewarded you with more fun ways to enjoy the game.
Nowadays it's all "let us prey on your baser instincts to milk as much cash out of you as possible before you realize that the lack of tangible rewards after grinding away at the game for hundreds of hours is not actually satisfying the addiction we've programmed into your brain and dismissively manipulate".
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I just dont know why you are angry because someone mentioned trading cards. Disagreeing is one thing but "fucking hate you trading card people" seems awfully strong, especially considering we are talking about hobbies.
Funny thing is, I'm on your side, but that person is as allowed to their opinion as you are yours.
And for the record, yes of course I over exaggerate when upset or angry, but this doesnt seem worth getting that upset about.
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TCGs can still exist, but the packs system would need to change. Instead of the surprise of getting random cards, you would get a pack with all the cards in it listed on the back, so you can pick which one you want. Ofc, these'd end up being a bit more expensive, but overall you'd be cheaper off than buying dozens of packs to get one single card.
Hearthstone could also use similar systems. You could get the option of, say, 5 card packs, and you can see whats in them and pick which one to buy. Once you buy you'd get a new lineup. If you dont want to buy any of them you'd need to fulfill some arbitrary thing for a new lineuip, to prevent people from just endlessly scrolling for that one perfect pack, but it would be something like winning a game or something.
That, and you could modify the Arena to where if you reach a certain amount of wins, you get to pick a card from the Arena deck you made that you want to keep.
Etc etc.
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the thing that i believe will save MTG (and probably the others but i dont know for sure) is that Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro has always ignored the secondary market. when you buy a pack from them each card is worth 1/15th the price of the pack, with each pack guaranteeing you a specific distribution of rarities. In the official eyes of the company, the chase rare is valued exactly the same as the jank common.
the only way to buy singles is through the seconday market which is not controlled or regulated by WotC/Hasbro
Draft is a hugely popular way to play the game and was how the game was originally intended to be played. Each player starts with 3 packs and sits in a circle. they then open one pack, choose one card and pass the remainder around. in this way you build your deck for that session. since the 'money' card in the pack may not fall within your strategy it is often more optimal to pass on it. there is a story from a big tournament in which a player almost passed a card still valued at over $100 (more back then) for a card that was worth $0.25. taking the cheap card would have undoubtedly made his deck better and he was criticized by many for doing so.
I think that leaning on this play experience being independent of a cards monetary value on the secondary market will help them make more of a case legally
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I've read who knows how many threads about this topic and you always get clowns dropping the trading card crap. Honestly at this point I'm convinced there is not a small amount of schilling going on to that effect. In any event its not like I'm sitting around fuming about it or them. I read it. It annoyed me. I wrote a reply. It took 2 seconds. I forgot about it. Until of course you started breaking my balls about it lol. No hard feelings my dude.
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More scummy thing with TCG like Magic The Gathering is that Wizards of the Coast actually set fixed prices on card rarity.
Which means all cards of same rarity have same monetary values according to them. That then means they can say that booster pack always give you what is promised.
But if you loot at "secondary" market AKA trading and buying individual cards there's clear price difference between different rares. From single set there can be rares worth under 1€ - 100€.
I'm adult and I understand that. But everytime there's new set release I see tons of kids buying MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon boosters just for "big" rares or rare cool characters. Pretty sure a lot of them don't even know how to play it.
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Tbh even trading card packs aren't ideal. It predisposes us as children towards gambling. But the great thing about trading card packs is that you and your parents have a very physical idea of how much shit you've bought in how much time so it self limits. You don't buy 40 packs because you can see how much you're spending. Aphysical game loot boxes are this without the inhibition. That's dangerous.
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> Thinking about it though when I've had to buy multiple parts for something from multiple vendors I sort of lose the ability to keep track of all the transactions at the same time (this may also be why I'm terrible at budgeting).
Sometimes I have to buy things in chunks like that. What helps me is to just do up a spreadsheet, plan out all my purchases, then look at the "total project" cost.
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> after reading some more posts and thinking about it myself, having a cash value actual makes it more like gambling as there’s a “cash out” option.
Still I think the reverse is true - having the ability to resell is what gives other players the ability to avoid the gambling aspect and puts a limit on how many packs people will buy in search of a rare card. Why would I buy hundreds of packs when I can just go on ebay and get exactly the thing I need?
It also gives the opportunity to reduce my outlay by selling on cards I don't need. No purchase is a total loss.
Compare this to lootboxes, where a bad result is literally valueless (from both a personal and monetary point of view) and there is no other way to acquire the item I desperately desire.
The reason the law is based around "cashing out" is because this is what gives casino chips their value. You win the chips to convert to cash to purchase goods/services that you want. Lootboxes just go straight from gamble to valuable goods/services. The lack of the intermediate 'cash' step doesn't change anything.
Consider a slot machine that gives vouchers instead of cash. Every pull is a winner - some tickets are for one free M&M, others are for a free all-inclusive vacation (non-transferable). I think that would pretty clearly still be gambling, despite the fact it never pays out cash.
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I know. You kinda do know what your buying right? (Lets forget about any game that EA has done that has some type of form of loot boxes) no matter what. you will get one of the items that they show you in the loot boxes. Correct me if I'm wrong if there is a game that does not show you what you will get. And the other thing. Video games and esports as a whole can change and go down hill because of a ban like this. They make good money with cosmetic items in the game. They help build the esports industry, they help keep the game alive and it helps them be able to update the games ever other month. But if there is any pay to win aspect of loot boxes. Then that needs to go.
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I miss times when items required effort or skill to unlock... now most stuff is about luck or money. Especially in multiplayer games where the developers want to create an atmosphere of jealousy in order to get you to spend money on MTX to have a chance of getting those same items.
Games have improved in so many ways, but this... this is such a step backwards for the entire industry. And when it's at a point where we WANT governments to intervene and sort it out, you know it's gotten bad.
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"any transaction that requires currency* that results in the customer receiving any product (physical or digital) or service where there is any probability less than 100% of the customer receiving everything advertised, must have all probabilities advertised to the customer, in the same size, font, typeface, color, and design as the amount of currency required for the transaction. This includes nested transactions: if, because of a transaction, the customer is purchasing an item which has less than 100% probability of delivering everything the customer is advertised to being possible to receive, this transaction is covered by these provisions, and probabilities of those nested transactions must also be published with the parent transaction.
*currency includes actual currency, or any object generally recognized as a form of currency (such as gift cards, store credit, tokens, etc)"
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Seriously, COD WWII was such whiplash for me. I hadn’t played a COD game since 2012, and just picked up WWII the other day to try out. Holy crap, the amount of new bs was overwhelming! Plus I feel like they tweaked the gunplay to be more random, nobody seems able to absolutely dominate like they could in the older CODs if they were good enough to do so, like they’re trying to not have anyone have too “unfair” an experience.
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I think the biggest difference between Lootboxes and something like blindbags/trading cards is that in my experience what you get out of a booster pack, even if it isn't necessarily what you *want* is still useful, such as for building a deck. In contrast, often lootboxes seem to be filled with absolute crap 90% of the time, which is of questionable value to begin with. One of the dangers of trying to make Lootboxes 'cosmedic' is that making such things is time consuming/requires a large investment, so those things ultimately always get bumped up to a higher rarity tier, leaving the commons and uncommons to be random junk.
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> Some games even get easier for you immediately after you purchase
Wasn't there some popular Candy Crush-like mobile game that actually got harder if you completely multiple levels quickly? Their rationale being that you probably like the game but are also a bit too good for their liking and that way your "addiction" to it right now may lead to you buying whatever they are selling. And if you managed to rush through all of the levels without losing lives and buying something they'd lose out on possible profits.
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> 3DS
Yup, there's also Pokemon Picross (I think), capped at $40. I think they called those type of games "*free to start*". It's kinda like you get a free demo and can buy some (or all of the) extra stuff but there's an upper limit to how much you can spend. If I remember correctly once you paid the for tokens to get to the full price for the Picross game they also removed the timer (or counter) that restricted you with a cooldown period (or gave you unlimited tokens).
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Collectible card games that only come in full decks actually exist, at least one does, but it's nowhere near as popular.
I don't know how I feel about TCGs, on one hand I loved constructing decks from random cards, and opening packs was fun as a kid, on the other, I would not spend money on random packs as an adult, but perhaps if it was just deck based... I might have kept collecting pokemon cards afterall.
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Why would buying singles work differently with kids? My fiance and his brother all played MTG growing up and would buy the cards they wanted and could afford as it's cheaper to build a deck this way than buying a package. You would have to spend 100s before you had a usable deck but premade decks are like 25$ and you can build your own usable deck for about that much.
No one gets Magic cards to sit around and compare and look at, they get them to play a game and packets aren't conducive to that.
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Every form of economic system has it's draw backs. Socialism where everything must cost the same is bad because while everyone has the same amount of money,... that's it there's no real reason for you to start a buisiness, and therefore less goods to go around. There is no ideal realistic economic system. At least in the end as far as essentials such as food and water go, companies are competing for your money and will lower their prices to get your money, which benefits you too
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Depends on what your target playerbase is. I remember one company saying something in the lines of "this is a limited lootbox available only for a month. There is a 1% chance that you'll get top tier stuff out of it and a 1% chance of that is the rare mount. We estimate that there will only be 3 to 5 of those in the whole game, ever." I know people who dropped 1k+ USD on that lootbox alone.
TL;DR 0.01% chance to get a mount out of a lootbox and people spend upwards of a $1000 on it.
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That's definitely something that's been troubling me recently. I think a lot of subreddits have that problem, I think. Any community based around consumption (such as my vices of guitars, headphones, fountain pens, and keyboards) will naturally lend itself to the larger spenders (and likely more active users) making jokes around how much they spend which winds up influencing the approach for the community as a whole. Like, I would not have spent 150 dollars on GMK Laser without the r/mk community. But I'm a bougie fuck. And I cut costs in areas it's ok to cut costs in. So it's ok for me to spend as much as I do, but I still want to cut down.
But I'd bet that some people aren't joking when they talk about eating packet ramen for a month because of their hobby. So I think people do have to take a look at the way they approach spending and cost in many different subs.
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>They have market value but so do many digital items.
The point is you can utilise the market value of trading cards. Look at Pokemon, if you went nuts years ago, you could well have a small fortune in your attic.
Comparatively loot boxes may have a market value, but often you have no means to utilise it. You can't sell the item on, you can't (usually) trade it for something else and ultimately short of actually selling your account (Which isn't always possible, and is often against ToS) then you have no actual means to benefit from the supposed value of what you acquired.
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The big problem too is that the publisher controls your drop chance. There's a few games with tailored chances (you haven't bought a box in some times/it's your first box? You'll get a skin fo your most played character)
They comtrol the chances, they set up the entire game environement to slow down levels and push you towards the box.
Sure if you take the lootboxes in a vacuum they look a lot like trading card (that you can't exchange, trade or sell and do not own) but you have to consider the environment they are sold in.
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Did you get what I said? I agree with the banning of Random loot crates, but in my comment I only wanted to state that I wouldn't mind opening cases you wouldn't be able to sell for money, or win the game with, because you'd really get nothing in return, the problem is that you can or, win the game, or, gain money from it. The sad part is that European/Australian court probably doesnt care and wants to ban them all.
By this method you could also ban those machines at stores that drop out a plastic ball with a toy in them.
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It would be like that if the concept of shuffling cards didn't exist. You then choose a subset of those shuffled cards. Voilá: Randomness without any gambling aspect. There's literally nothing about playing the game that cannot be replicated if you take out the gambling part when buying booster packs.
You only lose the excitement that's caused by the gaming itself. It's the exact same excitement you get when you spend your money on other types of gambling like Poker or Black Jack.
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That's disingenuous and you know it.
In games that have loot boxes, there's items which are markedly more valuable than others. You can try to argue "but you cant sell them or cash out, so no they don't!" Bullshit. Let's use overwatch as an example, you can't say a player icon has remotely the same value as a new legendary skin. Nobody opens a loot box hoping for that player icon, it's always the flashy high end items. Closing the marketplace doesn't mean that the items suddenly don't have value, especially relative value.
A random child's toy out of a quarter machine doesn't have the chance to wildly vary in value in the same way. It'd be similar if some of the items in the machine gave away nintendo switches or action figures some small percentage of the time but usually gave stickers or teeny plastic knick-knacks.
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It's not the worst mechanic. I'd rather be able to get loot boxes by playing the game than actually spending money on it. Yeah I get the addiction to this reward but banning this mechanic because your definition of gambling includes this mechanic is silly IMO. What's good for the minority is not inherently good for the majority. I don't find it gambling cause at the end of the day you are getting items for which you either purchased or played the game long enough to use in game currency or other mechanic to receive the loot.
Source: Plays HOTS till 5 am some nights out of semi addiction to winning.
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There's threads on reddit or some forums every now and then about people talking about collecting TCG cards and not knowing how to play them. So there is people doing that. And if you check those out it's mostly people saying doing it as kids to get cool stuffs. I have even done that myself when I was younger.
I'm also talking about Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards too. Those are TCG with shows airing almost every morning targeted at kids in my country.
I know what you say makes sense to us adults or kids that matures early, but most kids are not fully mentally developed so they are way easier to manipulate and exploit. That's why for example there's tons of laws limiting what can be done with advertisements aimed at kids or shows during peak time.
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It's law. They cannot hold a contest that requires purchase of their products, because then you're gambling and they're profiting from your gambling and nobody has been regulated for gambling.
The promotional games of chance are always *just* that - a game of chance to promote something. You don't have to pay anything to participate - but you'll likely have to answer a basic math question before you get any kind of prize redemption, too, because that makes it a game of *skill* and not a game of *chance* that you won, and therefore you are still not gambling.
But the thingy with the skill-testing question is given out to anybody with a random win from the promotional game. Anybody can request those random chances, usually via postal mail. It usually amounts to something like McDonalds running a scratchoff promotion for discounts on food; no prices are changed on the menu, but anybody buying a boxed burger gets the slip tossed in their bag too. Anybody asking via the correct postal mail address for slips gets some sent in their self-addressed-stamped-envelope. Then anybody with a winning slip gets asked the skill-testing question, then it's rung through as a coupon or whatever to give you the promotional discount you won.
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> The only game that should get an exception to the ban are ones where the loot boxes are 100% cosmetic
But... why?
It's still a shitty anti-consumer practice that preys on people with tendencys towards gambling addictions.
Cosmetic alterations are a BIG part of a game for a lot of people, and one which used to be free and included in the base package. People spend outrageous amounts of money to get skins they want in something like OW.
Willingly agreeing to these sorts of gambling mechanics under guise of cosmetics really just weakens your voice as a consumer.
Lets look at some examples - In Fortnite and League of Legends, you can buy specifically what you want, no gambling. As a result, in LoL, some of the more popular skins go on to form skin lines - the consumer voice was heard, and more of that product was made.
Likewise for something like Fortnite. People love skins with wings for backblings (fortnite's backpack cosmetics). People buy those skins a lot, those types of backblings are being made more.
Then you look at something with lootboxes... and its nothing like that. The company can make 20 shit items and 2 desirable ones, and never know which was which given that all they saw was "sales up x% when these loot items were added to the loot box pool"
You lose your voice as a consumer. And you can simply say well you wont buy lootboxes then!. Well, not only are you missing out on the cosmetic aspects of a game you bought, but you're also probably not even impacting the issue at all, as for every 1000 'wise' players like you tolerating half of your game being sold piecemeal, there's 5 whales buying thousands of dollars of product. You're their content - you populate the servers that makes the whales want to show off. By keeping the game with the shitty monetization alive with a playerbase, you're acting as a part of the whale honeypot.
Fact is, the 5 dudes spending thousands outvote your voice 1,000,000 to 1.
It's a strange game, the only correct move is to not play at all.
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I would say it depends on the TCG and the availability of a secondary market.
Hearthstone for instance is not great because it either takes grinding your games out or buying randomized packs to get the cards you want.
However, physical games like Pokemon or Magic have secondary markets where you can buy the specific card, or even a specific amount of cards for the deck you're trying to create.
While physical games still have randomized packs, they have sort of turned more into resources for specific formats like drafting rather than an effective way to gain new cards.
Anyone who plays for more than a couple games in this day and age will realize it's far more cost effective to simply buy a singleton of the secondary market than buying 40 packs of cards and hoping for the best.
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I forget which company it was, but they showed a way to make cosmetic items pay to win. You record players skill and you match them against each other based on what cosmetics they buy. The more cosmetics the buy, the lower skill players they are matched against. The less cosmetics they buy, the higher skill players they are matched against. That way someone who spends money now suddenly starts killing everywhere while someone who doesn't spend money is constantly being killed by someone with shinny bling making them associate shinny bling with skill (and if they do end up spending money, they'll quickly notice how much better they are at the game).
And to reiterate this could be applied to purely cosmetic times. Someone like Fortnite could already be doing this.
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Well that's hardly any different than any other mystery bag or mystery toy out there. Kids like surprises and they like lording over their friends when they get something cool. That's pretty much baked into their psyche.
But as a counter argument, in every local game store I've ever been to they have singleton rares in the glass case the kids have to lean over to ask for booster packs. So there's not really a whole lot of excuse there other than "I want to buy the randomized thing".
There's also the idea that when kids play the game more and more, they want to become more efficient at it. They eventually realize they can buy the individual cards for decks they want.
Plus, as the poster above me mentioned, killing randomized packs removes an entire beloved format called draft. It kills prerelease events. A lot of fun events become casualties because "who will think of the children".
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>A game i played on my phone had a hidden value for luck and it increases when you spend money/game currency. Not long ago they made it visible for the user.
The way many games do it is they increase it when you spend money but then start decreasing it when you stop, and eventually you end up with a lower value than if you never spent money. Because they know you are someone who will spend money they'll treat you worse than someone who won't so that you will spend money. The players who never spend money are treated a bit nicer because they need them to stick around so the whales have someone to beat up on and to keep the game popular (be it direct conflict or just leader boards).;
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> Except the existence of the secondary market dictating a card's value and prices, and the makers of Magic knowingly printing cards that are sought after and in small amounts and therefore drive their monetary value up, make booster
See, I would have defended Wizards previously, when they only had three rarities. A rare was a rare was a rare, and the only thing that drove value was playability.
Now they added in super rare "mythic rares" that are a 1/8 chance when getting a booster pack. Pretty much indefensible, and is why i quit.
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I'm a little older I think, as the video game crowd goes. I recently bought a PS4, maybe 6 months ago. Before that, my last gaming console was the original play station, and I had played some PC games on Steam.
So, long story short, I understand paying for things that you want. I have a job, money, i understand capitalism etc. I dont have a problem with this. But, I got CoD WWII, and one day decided to buy an amount of in-game gold so I could get some crates. I assumed I would be able to get what I wanted. What a disappointment to find that I was paying money to buy a box full of chances.
In any case, that was the last time I'll purchase something like that in a game. But, I can definitely see where this sales strategy would lead to problems with a lot of people, and could lead to gambling issues being developed with much younger people... teens and such.
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One dream idea:
Require that any game with loot boxes, booster packs, etc have a “buy entire game” option. The price of this option must be easily obtainable to anyone (a publicly-available URL should be fine since the exploitative stuff requires Internet access). If the price is set so that lootboxes remain worth buying, the Entire Game option would be so high that it would shock a lot of people into realizing how expensive these games actually are. If they instead set it low, then people can just buy that instead.
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It's interesting that you mention trading cards. The thing here is that they are easily moved on if you get duplicates and most notably if you buy boxes the odds are usually given.
When I bought card fight vanguard boxes, you were always guaranteed one super special card (can't remember the rarities). Each pack also always gave you one rare I think?
The thing is here you don't always know what you're going to get, but you can at least guarantee that you will get so many rare and rarer cards per box. At least that was the case when I was buying them.
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They don't sell singles or control secondary market directly. They sometime do "reprint" which bring back old cards in new sets. They also do some special releases for cards with "high demands" in different playing formats.
Prices in secondary market is pretty much supply / demands. There's also cards with collector values. Different sets or art on card or have artist/designer signature etc.
They do have Magic Online where they sell singles according to secondary "paper" market.
I doubt they will start selling singles. Or at least all singles. There was backlash long time ago when they reprinted some cards with very high collectors values and now they have [list of cards that'll never be reprinted](https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Reserved_List)
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I would disagree because of the physical aspect of real world TCG. You can see a real visual representation of how much you spend in how much space the stuff takes up and the effort if going to a shop and buying a pack of cards. As someone who played magic and yugioh and Pokemon and hearthstone I can tell you it feels really different buying a 50 pack preorder for the next expansion in hearthstone vs buying a box of a new expansion in magic. The literal weight of the cards really makes you think about further purchases in a more serious way and looking at the box full of packs seems more real and often more excessive than looking at the same dollar amount of digital packs. It's really that kind of thing that makes digital versions more sinister forms of gambling. Whether through obsfucation of dollar amounts by forcing the use of paid currency or just the difference between having something in your hands vs digitally seriously changes the experience and makes it feel like less money spent than it is and often for mediocre value
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> Maybe it's partially how easy it is to keep buying more loot boxes, as your card is already set up to keep spending.
That's no different from having your information saved on Amazon, yet people can control their spending there.
> So I didn't just manically buy 40 packs in one sitting until I got the rare card I wanted.
Does it matter if the effect and pattern is the same?
> Also, for games that don't repeat the same items and offer similar tier items it's not as bad.
That's true, but buying trading card packs, you might get the same cards as you did before.
> But the loot boxes, where you have a "chance" of getting an item needs to stop. That is gambling.
I would say that [Razorfist's video on the subject matter](https://youtu.be/m5a8zEeFt9c) is the absolutely the definitive argument on how absurd this topic has become for trying to legislate against.
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>Still I think the reverse is true - having the ability to resell is what gives other players the ability to avoid the gambling aspect and puts a limit on how many packs people will buy in search of a rare card. Why would I buy hundreds of packs when I can just go on ebay and get exactly the thing I need?
because you're to broke to buy the card but can afford packs and think that you're luck is good enough you can get the card you want in the pack.
>It also gives the opportunity to reduce my outlay by selling on cards I don't need. No purchase is a total loss.
Which makes it like gambling because then you can buy a bunch of packs with the intention of getting lucky and getting cards worth enough that you make a profit.
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Not everyone is a raging alcoholic or a hopeless gambler. Everyone is different. In my 20's I bought a few packs of mtg cards and realized I'd never get what I wanted so I went the ebay route.
Someone else I played with had more money than me and could have went the ebay route too, but he was hardcore hooked on the rush of getting lucky from buying packs. Guy once spent his entire $1200 paycheck on packs.
He got 1 maybe 2 rare-ish cards. His gf almost left him at that point. Pretty sure she did later because he kept doing it.
Anyway, the point isn't if you or someone else can do it differently. The point is the entire thing is still set up to trigger and exploit those with addictive tendencies.
Trading card games are predatory by their very nature.
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Each player has 3 booster packs and opens one. You take a single card from the pack and give the rest to the player seated to your left. This continues with each of the 3 packs until you’ve selected 45 cards, and construct a 40 card deck with them. This eliminates the “who has more cards” aspect of the game as well as adding a level of skill to building a deck with limited information as to what will be available.
It’s quite well balanced as a competitive game and was my primary way of playing events after I stopped keeping up maintaining a competitive deck.
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My roommate didn't eat ramen and didn't wind up on his ass because I felt bad to make him do it but he was one of those people although his was car stuff. we split the rent and paid $500 each plus $200 for all the bills and he made me handle everything so he'd just (theoretically) give me $700 at the beginning of the month. What actually happened is he'd spend a ton of money on car stuff and then at the beginning of the month be like "sorry man I only have $200 to give you" and then if I'd ask what happened to the rest or mention that he just spent $800 on shit to deck his car out he'd either cry and talk about how he's such a terrible person or just freak out and say he might as well kill himself if he cant have things he wants. I'm never going to bother asking for the money because I know he'll never have it but if I added up all the money I lent him or used to cover his ass when he wasted his money he'd probably owe me around 15k.
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I'm not saying they should ban it or anything. It's just my experience and opinion on matter of booster / buying single and what I actually see kids doing.
I actually do MTG booster draft with friends on every set launch and would love continue doing that. I have also had few sets where I got more money from selling rares than cost of all boosters from that set.
Honestly in the end I don't really care what random kids do with their money.
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What you’re describing is called a “cube” and people make and play them. They’re far less fun than a draft with actual packs because you always know the proportion of cards in play, and the logistical overhead to fully simulate the variance presented in a draft pod would take, literally, hours of shuffling and 5000+ cards.
Booster packs are fundamentally critical to draft integrity.
Digitally, however, you can simulate drafts, and I do. This is still fun, as my enjoyment is not tied to the monetary, “gambling” aspect but rather the increased variance provided by the booster pack format.
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> Mythics are as rare as rares from old large sets are, there’s just fewer filler rares inflating the set.
Then why is it, after the change, most rares were going for 50 cents to a buck, vs 2-3 bucks?
Why is it chase cards went from $20-$25 at most, to $40-$80+?
It ruins the point of a * T * CG if trading is all but impossible for the best cards.
Add to that WotC saying mythics wouldn't be lists of the most powerful cards / utility cards, and then immediately breaking that promise not even a block later with shit like Lotus Cobra.
Add to that wizards Co-opting Elder Dragon Highlander, rebranding it as Commander (can't trademark EDH after all!) and printing broken cards to profit off of the casual player's custom game mode?
I suppose there were more reasons I quit, but almost all of them go down to WotC getting greedy.
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Well, I never did get the pestillence helmet effect on Reach. That was too grindy and I played the hell out of that game. Like, I put a shitload of my free time into that. Anybody who ranked that high would have to put double the hours in, at least. And while I don't judge for what you do in your free time, I still deem it unhealthy, because I was 15/16 and consider the time I spent to be unhealthy.
Nowadays, that grind would be even more than that, but hey, you get a sweet option to pay for it with real money. And at the cost of half a day's work, that's like 4 hours compared to the hundreds it would take to earn it in-game.
Imagine having that mindset. Like you work, 40 hours a week, and you pay your bills, electric, internet, your food and groceries and shit. In yiur free time you wanna play a video game and - oh look, a cool skin that does nothing to the actual game - oh it'll take me ages to get enough in game currency to aquire. I'll just pick up another shift, use the real money from that to purchase the alternative in game currency that's different from the first one, and now I have the thing I wanted in the game.
And game devs (or companies that own them) encourage this. It's not about the game. It's taking advantage of people's needs to collect everything by discouraging people from playing the actual game to get it, by making it take an unhealthy anount of time, and giving an alternative in real money.
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Personal thoughts:
I think parents should pay attention to their bank statements and what kids are doing with their money. I also think developers should enable a secondary market if they're going to be utilizing lootboxes. I also think lootboxes should be allowed when it doesn't impact gameplay (i.e. cosmetic) and the statistics of pulling particular rarities is clearly outlined. I don't think any of these things needs to be mutually exclusive.
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>Then why is it, after the change, most rares were going for 50 cents to a buck, vs 2-3 bucks?
Your nostalgia messing with your memory of card prices, mostly. Mythic conscription in particular was expensive after this change, as well as Jace based decks, I'll concede, but deck prices overall after that era leveled out, they were figuring it out and that was over a decade ago, and decks pre-mythic had attained price tags in the several hundred dollars as well.
>Add to that WotC saying mythics wouldn't be lists of the most powerful cards / utility cards, and then immediately breaking that promise not even a block later with shit like Lotus Cobra.
[Lets take a look at your alleged "list of most powerful cards" then?](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=e%3Azen+r%3Am)
Oh. Lotus cobra in standard, mindbreak trap as anti storm tech... warren instigator in goblins and.... I guess sorin probably showed up as a control finisher somewhere? Certainly wasn't tearing up standard. Iona? She seems pretty deservedly mythic. I'll give you 5/15. One out of three is pretty close to the proportion for normal rares being standard playable. They did *not* say good cards wouldn't be at mythic, they said mythic would not simply be every good card from the set. From that exact same set is the far more expensive fetchlands at rare, eternal staples like goblin guide, and honestly most of its competitive offerings. Its literally just a single card you're salty about because green got something interesting without a big number as its CMC.
>Add to that wizards Co-opting Elder Dragon Highlander, rebranding it as Commander (can't trademark EDH after all!) and printing broken cards to profit off of the casual player's custom game mode?
So they shouldn't make cards for popular niches? I really can't even address this because I can't fathom it. Fuck them for making more content for the things people like, right?
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If I'm not mistaken, the key difference is that in gambling, the value of the reward varies.
EA and Blizzard are trying to argue that "with every loot crate, you always get X number of items, so you always get your money's worth!"
They're trying to argue that "rare" drops have no more monetary value than "common" drops, therefore it's not gambling, because there is no chance of "winning" or "losing", since all results are "valued" equally.
We, if course, know that's bullshit, but that's their defense argument.
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>More scummy thing with TCG like Magic The Gathering is that Wizards of the Coast actually set fixed prices on card rarity.
>Which means all cards of same rarity have same monetary values according to them. That then means they can say that booster pack always give you what is promised.
Just no. Wizard's doesn't set any prices. Each pack contains 9 or 10 commons, 3 uncommon, a rare or mythic rare, and occasionally special cards. They make no promises beyond that. The values on the secondary market are based on supply and demand.
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Those are the main reasons I tolerate Overwatch's loot box system. I was gifted the game, and I haven't given Blizzard/Activision a penny after 7 months of playing and over 100 hours of playtime. Yet I still have a ton of cosmetics for a lot of different characters; many bought with credits or earned from a special event(D.Va's Nano Cola challenge recently had me putting on Seagull's streaming for 8 hours for sprays, and winning 9 matches for some more sprays, an icon, and an epic skin).
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> When I bought trading cards, I'd buy pack, go outside, open it, and see what I got. So I didn't just manically buy 40 packs in one sitting until I got the rare card I wanted.
Despite your rationalization & denial of cards being substantially similar as loot boxes , I'm not persuaded, and I don't think you quite reached the eureka differentiation (if there is any) on cards and loot boxes.
I think what you were trying to say is that somehow card packs don't trigger your personal compulsive & obsessive tendencies, the same as loot boxes. Well it's not clear you have experience with both, except for card packs. And, this is entirely your subjective opinion, and you're also probably biases because you are clearly a card player, who doesn't want to be associated with vilified loot boxes (confirmation bias bro!). There is a reason card players are suddenly coming out of the wood work to claim they are not gambling addicts. Oh yes, and I'm sure people who partake in loot boxes won't claim to be gambling addicts either..... also, not every one who gambles is a gambling addict, or feels the OCD urges, so it's really a false dichotomy, right?
Objectively speaking loot boxes are card packs are very similar.
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Ew, don't talk about Socialism if you know nothing about it. Poland, for instance, has universal health care, free college education and state-funded social security. It's a pretty progressive place with great social(ist) policies. That's also where CD Projekt Red is located, the makers of some of the highest rated, immersive RPGs of this era. I highly doubt taking care of the poor and not allowing corporations to run our country anymore wouldn't lead to the end of good video games.
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Valve has been trying to phase out trading for ever. It is the whole reason for the market place, they wanted to make infinite returns on items they already sold. Say someone spends $300 on keys to eventually get a CSGO knife, that person then sells the knife for $500. Valve made $800, and will continue to reap another $30-$550 every time someone else sells it depending on the price and whether or not the buyer already had steam funds or if they added more to buy it. The seller gains no real money at all, but gets $450 to spend on more keys or games that they weren't initially planning on doing. Now they could have sold it for paypal money, but because the market exists, you have to sell your items for MUCH less than they are "worth" as there is no difference to buyers other than paypal being extremely risky. The market killed the trading scene and sent %100+ of the profits from the real money trading scene directly into valves pockets.
Valve strangely also requires you to give them your tax ID or SSN if you sell a certain amount of things even though you aren't actually making any income at all, presumably so that they can offload the taxes onto the sellers rather than pay it themselves even though they are the ones making money.
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> Poland, for instance, has universal health care, free college education and state-funded social security.
And private property, which according to other posters here completely disqualifies it from being considered socialism. Poland would be an example of a capitalistic society with some level of welfare/socialistic policies. Not socialism.
>I highly doubt taking care of the poor and not allowing corporations to run our country anymore wouldn't lead to the end of good video games.
No, but end private property and having the government... excuse me, the collective will of the people represented by an organization that is indistinguishable from the government, set the rules of what we can and can't do since no one of us owns property will mean we will be too busy getting food to code video games (how could I code it on a computer if I can't own one, and since the group will say the computer is better used to take care of ensuring everyone is fed instead of making video games, I won't get to use the community's computer).
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> xtra? They're already twisting games to be basically unplayable to lure people into the microtransaction economy. Sure you COULD grind for 200 hours to finish the game, or just drop a couple hundred bucks on loot boxes right now. It's morally bankrupt, and worse than that it's making games less fun.
Yeah but this isn't even related to lootboxes. Don't support shitty fucking game developers for gods sake and you won't have this problem.
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No he's not, and the huge number of gambler anonymous organizations would beg to differ. Go to any casino and you'll see dozens if not hundreds of people with a gambling addiction to various degress.
All corporations have teams around to make sure they exploit human emotions and addictions as much as possible. Any game that has a chance factor involved is as carefully crafted as possible to ensure maximum sales by getting people to buy things to be rewarded with that "rush" of finding something rare.
If you can't see that, then I guess we're at an impasse.
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Why is it that a country moving toward ending private ownership (which also ISN'T the point of socialism) automatically implies that country has no means of feeding its people? Wouldn't the point of removing ownership to that level to feed more people mean less people would be hungry, which would mean they would be able to do more with their lives and time instead of working to make money to eat? A system that makes sure people are fed, educated and healthy and that is subsidized by taxation is socialist by its very nature. Just because it retains profit motive and an open market, doesn't mean socialism isn't prevalent. That's just called "market socialism." Look it up.
In essence, all people want is for the well-being of society as a whole to be put above the success of just a few individuals. This is most effectively done through collective ownership. It is simply untrue that socialism wants to do away with all private ownership, though. Its main focus is to remove private ownership over those entities and facilities that create capital for the whole country, often referred to as the "means of production."
For instance: socialism does not mean you can't own your own computer. It doesn't even mean you can't own your own company. It does mean, however, that you're not allowed to use the wealth you gain from that company to modify or change the social and political structure of the country. Socialism is a very broad set of policies that ensure that the success of the whole, or "the collective will of the people," isn't sacrificed for the success of a minority of the population.
None of that precludes the ability to work on something creative to make money, like making a video game. The idea that somehow a socialist utopia doesn't include quality art is straight up propaganda invented during the Red Scare and even earlier than that.
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It's why I like League of Legend's way of doing Loot boxes.
"Here is our entire store, you can buy anything you want (minus certain exceptions) or you can buy a box that gives you something at random! We will also give you some for doing well at the game, and if you display good sportsmanship then we'll give you the way to open them also!"
They found a way to promote playing the game well, and having good sportsmanship in game while allowing players to buy the cosmetics out right if they wish. They also don't allow the selling of cosmetics or trading them.
I will also note I don't understand why more companies don't take this approach as RIOT Games has had income figures in the $1b+ for several years due to this model.
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Because, again, gambling is addictive! That was the point of... The last few posts... Yunno, addiction? You gotta string the thoughts together bro! Conversation! Ideas building off each other! But I'll spell it out:
If we accept that some games are gambling aimed at kids, what does that mean? Well, gambling is addictive! It's manipulative! Like drugs or other vices. *Adults* have problems with gambling, so what chance do kids have?
So okay, why not just turn off the thing these companies are using to manipulate kids to for profit? Because they're still hooked and can still be hooked. Because in a digital age, they're still going to find other games to play. Games that also capitalize on them in the same way! Unless you're saying all children should live the Amish life style! Most kids play games, and it seems like most AAA games have this shitty gambling in them one way or another.
Okay, so it's not just one game, it's lots of games. So why don't we just stop companies from inserting these manipulative addictive practices into our children's lives? Hey, welcome to the club! You're on our side now!
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It's Activision, and it's incredibly sinister. They go so far as to give you easy matches after spending money so that you associate spending with winning and other positive emotions. They will also match people they believe are on the cusp of spending money with better players who do spend money, so they see players with the sick skinz performing well.
They claim it hasn't been implemented in any games, but I feel like that's complete bullshit. My guess is its in every game.
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> Why is it that a country moving toward ending private ownership automatically implies that country has no means of feeding its people?
Because people don't work as hard when they don't get to have the benefits of their labor, and a system where everyone is doing the absolute minimum ceases to function.
>(which also ISN'T the point of socialism)
Then let me know your definition because no two people I ever talk to seem to share the same one.
>Wouldn't the point of removing ownership to that level to feed more people mean less people would be hungry, which would mean they would be able to do more with their lives and time instead of working to make money to eat?
Why would farmers who just lost their land continue to work it when they could get an easier job that pays the same? Some will, but not enough to keep food production high enough to meet demand.
>In essence, all people want is for the well-being of society as a whole to be put above the success of just a few individuals.
They generally do not. They want this as long as it doesn't hurt them, but once it does, they will stop wanting it or else just determine that what ever it is that is hurting them isn't beneficial for the well being of society. See the concept of socialized sex.
>This is most effectively done through collective ownership.
All past examples contradict this. Fundamentally is that the collective will form a government, and which ever entity (be it a person or a group of people) will seize power of themselves. You might go one or two generations of a benevolent entity but it will always end up with someone greedy.
>For instance: socialism does not mean you can't own your own computer. It doesn't even mean you can't own your own company. It does mean, however, that you're not allowed to use the wealth you gain from that company to modify or change the social and political structure of the country.
Generally full socialism means you can't own your own company. And what you are describing is just considered anti-lobbying laws, not socialism.
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> Because people don't work as hard when they don't get to have the benefits of their labor, and a system where everyone is doing the absolute minimum ceases to function.
I honestly can't tell if you're describing capitalism here. Socialism basically represents the opposite of what you stated. Folks are encouraged to do other, more fulfilling things when the government prevents a certain degradation of quality of life because they aren't being hamstrung by capitalists into just working to survive. Literally, in capitalism right now, you get a tiny fraction of the product of your labor **just because**. Most of it goes to shareholders and executives whose labor is far less physically and mentally demanding, despite what CEOs will try to make you believe about their "work loads". I mean, just look a the wealth gap in America over the last several decades. That is one of socialists' biggest complaints.
> Then let me know your definition because no two people I ever talk to seem to share the same one.
There's a reason no one seems to share a definition of socialism but I'll get to that later. If you want my most succinct definition, then this is what I've got: Socialism is the name for a set of economic, legal and diplomatic policies that serve to counteract the natural exploitation of labor that occurs in capitalist markets.
> All past examples contradict this.
In fact, they do not. Actually, we have current examples that expressly support the success of *some elements* of socialism. Since you assumed I already know of all these "past examples," I'll assume you can search for "successful socialist policies" and you'll find plenty.
The reason there are no True Socialist^TM governments is because it, unlike capitalism and corporate imperialism, is grass roots. Thus it is always evolving and has nothing to prove. Socialists' minds can change and be unsure because their premise and problem aren't simple or easy to understand. Capitalists have a pretty simple premise: earn more capital than you lose at whatever the cost. Their problem: you have to do that without breaking the system in which capital is earned. Socialists are dealing with a much more complex premise and problem: how do you ensure that folks who are just trying to survive, live happy lives and contribute to society in their own way don't get artificially suppressed by other people who are just trying to gain exorbitant wealth, power and control? Socialism adapts what works from other systems and tries to implement them to best stop the negative effects of rampant capitalism. That's why it's hard to get a "single definition," although I think you can put as simply as:
societal health > individual wealth
> They generally do not. They want this as long as it doesn't hurt them, but once it does, they will stop wanting it or else just determine that what ever it is that is hurting them isn't beneficial for the well being of society.
> You might go one or two generations of a benevolent entity but it will always end up with someone greedy.
To me, this is the type of ugly mentality only capitalism and drive for profit can create. Yes, there are a lot of greedy people. There are conniving people. There are Machiavellian geniuses poised to snatch control at any moment. However, those folks are far more likely to succeed in a system that encourages cutthroat, bottom-line, short-term gains, profit earning and status quo retention. A system that creates and enforces laws and norms to literally discourage that type of behavior and mentality could potentially, believe it or not, create better people
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As dumb as it is to buy a game and have ANY sort of features behind an additional paywall or ridiculous grind hours, I agree with your comment - then don't buy the game. The only 'rights' we have when purchasing a game are those set forth by the developer / publisher, which we agree to when we purchase the game. Some companies are more liberal than others, and just like any other product, if you don't like the terms, take your money elsewhere.
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I think it's less that they don't want you to know the chances, it's that they don't want you to know the systems behind those chances. In Hearthstone, it is treated as fact by the community that the game is programmed to give you a legendary card if you haven't gotten one in 40 packs. Blizzard refuses to acknowledge this. When Blizzard officially complied with the law, the only thing they said is that the odds of getting a legendary are 1/19.
I believe the fear is that, right now, it is completely legal to manipulate odds for maximum manipulation. It's legal to make the same lootboxes more likely to have rare items if paid for with real money. It's legal to lower the change the odds right after someone has won or lost. If lootboxes became regulated, a lot of their ideas and practices are suddenly under scrutiny. Right now they can tweak the odds however they want and all anyone has are vague suspicions.
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The reason many give that argument of it being just a cosmetic is that it does not impact the game for them. They have zero desire (or low) to collect the cosmetic items and can enjoy the game play without them. They are not at the mercy of needing to collect a certain cosmetic to gain a competitive advantage.
If you don't collect the cosmetic items you are not at any disadvantage when playing against other players.
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What about rocket league? Any if not ALL desirable cosmetics are behind a pay only system, with dire crates openable by your average chump only around events like Easter.
Black ops etc, yeah... rocket league and counter strike... no.
Cosmetics are a HUGE part of any game and uou cannot use that argument. It’s unjustifiable. You can’t even use custom sprays in counter strike anymore.
It’s all a predetermined path of gambling.
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The clarify the distinction for me.
If I build a widget machine, either I own it or not. Either I own raw material or not. If I take raw material in own and put it into the widget machine I own, I own the widget that comes out. I can find someone, tell them 'Hey, turn this crank on my widget machine for me and I'll give you 1 out of every 5 widgets', which they are free to accept or walk away from. So where does personal property fit that doesn't allow me to engage in this basic form of capitalism?
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One, I said "Maybe." That's not a very confident word, and I didn't see it or claim it was a eureka moment. I'd say I'm far from it, and you have a valid point in me not having enough personal experience.
> you are clearly a card player,
Actually, I'm not. I used to collect non gaming cards for fun. Rocketeer, Dick Tracy, Rescue Rangers, Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, and Pirates of Dark Water. They weren't games, they were just collecting cards for the sake of having them. Though, I did seek the rare ones. So certainly I'm even further removed from the loot box/card gaming crowd.
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> That's no different from having your information saved on Amazon, yet people can control their spending there.
Generally you both get what you paid for, and many items need to be shipped to you. There's a barrier that slows you down.
>That's true, but buying trading card packs, you might get the same cards as you did before.
I've seen plenty of mmo loot boxes that may give you armor, or just give you generic health potions. It'd be better if you got armor no matter what. But a lot of companies are pushing loot boxes with generic consumables with a chance to get something way cooler (armor, playable character, mount) It's like buying a blind box vinyl figure with a IRL chance to win a gold nugget.
I'll watch the video later.
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Seems a little better if you offer everything as an up-front option. I feel like people with control issues could see the downsides and actually just buy the thing they want.
I'm more talking about the kind of shit where you can only get the exclusive item via a loot box that only has crappy items that no one really wants. You buy $75 worth of loot boxes, then have nothing to show for it.
It'll be nothing but health potions, but you might get a mount, weapon, or playable character. No one would usually pay physical dollars for health potions. They're cheap with the ingame currency even.
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I understood this since I was old enough to by the time loot crates became a thing. I imagine me at 13 years old wouldn't have had the same impulse control.
Hell, when I was 17 and got my first job the entire first paycheck went to a gamestop buy one get one free sale. Kids are dumb. At least I still have a binder full of PS2 games to show for it.
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The people who complain about it are the less vulnerable anyway. The people who don't even vaguely understand the issue and then pay it are often the most likely to be easily manipulated, which is the problem.
I know some people who justify by hours played. "I would typically pay $60 for a 40ish hour game. I've played this MMO for 700+ hours, so $400 in items doesn't seem so bad to me." this number seems so high, but they have a point in that if they were playing solo games like I typically do, they would have actually probably spent **more** for 700 hours of gaming.
It gets weird when someone just started playing, and drops $400 for a character. Then two months later the devs change a fundamental mechanic to the game, everyone stops playing, and the player spent $400 with no return.
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When did I say I only used cheap free items? Never once. You just said you don't believe that I use them which is obviously wrong. Also if I cared about rare items as much as you thought wouldn't I want all of my reddit posts to be showing them off?
Playing better or worse is NOT irrelevant because that is the only thing that matters.
Yes cosmetics affect the game EXPERIENCE, not the gameplay, but as long as payed loot boxes aren't the only path to cosmetics it doesn't hurt anyone.
Also how are you seriously trying to call me a "shallow gambling addict" when you know NOTHING about my habits. I spend 10-20 dollars on crates every few months when a new series comes out and that's it.
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I think the only valid argument for the difference is that once the toys are shipped, or the cards printed, you can't adjust the rarity of the delivered product.
You know certain chase mythics exist and that the rarity is roughly x% in any pack, and that will never change.
With lootboxes, they can change the drop rate on a per-player-per-session basis. In fact, as others have mentioned, Activison has a patent for this very thing.
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> You just said you don’t believe I use them which is obviously wrong
My friend, a five second clip of your default car does not somehow mean you actively use default skins all the time.
You are on the internet. You can literally present anything you want in the way you want it.
I could say I live in a mansion and post a picture of me standing in front of one with the caption “Hey this is my mansion”. Does count as actual proof that its mine and I live there? No. See what I mean here.
> If I cared about rare items as much you thought
Stop right there. **You** are the one who posted how awesome it is to get exclusive gear and dangle it in front of other people so you can feel like a snowflake.
**You** demonstrated how much cosmetics and lootboxes mean to you. I don’t *think* you care a lot about exclusive cosmetics, you’ve outright admitted it.
> wouldn’t I want all of my reddit posts to be showing them off?
Uh.....no? You do all that in-game just fine according to you.
> Playing better or worse is NOT irrelevant
Actually it is. Perhaps if you read my post properly you’d understand.
> game EXPERIENCE
Gameplay and game experience are two sides of the same coin. You experience a game through various gameplay systems, cosmetics being one of them. They do affect gameplay, since they affect your attitude and subsequently playstyle.
> As long as payed loot boxes are not the only path to cosmetics, it doesn’t hurt anyone.
Wrong. Just because a game has other ways to acquire things, doesn’t mean it won’t hurt anyone. Please take a look at the most famous case-in-point; **Star Wars Battlefront 2 EA.**
That game had lootboxes, but you could technically get the stuff in them for free by playing the game. Only, the amount of grind/time required for you to even unlock one character would take 40 hours of straight, uninterrupted gaming, which also didn’t include the time it takes to pass between matches. For people who are not suicidal and have actual responsibilities (school, work etc etc), this would obviously be a lot longer. This was a very blatant attempt at making players get so tired with the grinding, that they would just buy the boxes instead. It was the most egregious example of scummy company practices and pay-to-win in gaming in recent memory and perhaps even in history.
So no, just because a game can let you get its lootbox stuff in alternative way, it doesn’t mean the companies are going to make it easy, nor do they really want you to earn that stuff for free. They will purposely make the grind hard so that you just get fed up and pay more. Lootboxes are in that game for a reason.
Try and defend that all you wish, but anyone who isn’t blind knows that when a game says you can earn its lootboxes gear for free, knows that the grind will be ridiculously time-consuming. Lootboxes aren’t just supposed to sit on the side, they are made purely to profit the company. Any game with them in, is bad. No matter what.
> Also how are you seriously trying to call me a "shallow gambling addict" when you know NOTHING about my habits.
You admitted you find gambling fun, defend and buy lootboxes for extra shinies, because it makes you feel nice to wave things in peoples faces. I think that points to one of your habits at least.
> I spend 10-20 dollars on crates every few months when a new series comes out and that's it.
And I’m the reincarnation of the God of the Wind and Wisdom; Kukulkan.
With all the defensiveness about lootboxes in games, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take that statement with another mountain of salt.
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Knowing the rates doesn't necessarily preclude a company from manipulating you, take the following example:
I *REALLY* want that reaper skin in overwatch, I often open up the hero gallery and click it just to take a look, because I think it looks great, or I spend an extended amount of time looking at players which have that skin.
Blizzard internally tracks my behaviour, and comes up with a way to determine that I want that skin..
Blizzard then decreases the chance of *THAT SPECIFIC SKIN* dropping for me, whilst maintaining the quality drop probability.
So if the chance of a legendary dropping is 1 in 13 loot boxes, I'll still get the legendary skins at the stated rate, but the one I'm looking for will have a massively reduced chance of appearing. This may prompt me to purchase more loot boxes in order to 'speed up the process' (to purchase via coins, for example), while ultimately blizzard are intentionally fucking me over.
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But that upload was from a while ago, it isn't like I uploaded it last night to make a point. Actually my only other uploaded clip on reddit is from even longer ago is using purely free items that everyone gets.
How about my youtube channel where my only 2 RL clips are using purely free items
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR4-ObwCfVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIFneFVzIbo
Battlefront is an AWFUL example because what you received in those crates were not purely cosmetic, I think the crates in that game are trash and no company should ever use similar systems.
The issue with all of this is you keep trying to blow my feelings of having rare items WAY out of proportion. My feelings towards them are no more extreme than "It's cool to have" yet you keep trying to make it seem like it is super important to me to flex on people.
I get defensive about lootboxes because people attack them as if the concept is inherently evil. I think some games/companies do lootboxes in a shitty way and I agree that how crates are done right now can be bad for children but I think age verification is a better solution than removing all boxes.
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Selling the cards you got MAKES it gambling. You can make spend all your money trying to get rich! CCG can't be sold so it's not gambling, you're not receiving wealth in case you get lucky, you just get more toys from your toy sales company and can't turn this money that you spent into potentially even more money. So it's literally the opposite of gambling! You just don't fucking like it. You're advocating for gambling because you want to have your gamble prizes to have real world value.
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Basically, yes.
The shit service with limitations gives parents the enough time to safely moderate their child's introduction to the world of gambling. They can give them a small amount of money, explain how the hobby of collecting works, and allow the child to decide whether they like the risk/reward of collecting, or if they'd rather spend the money on something else.
Loot boxes have no mechanism for moderation. In fact it's the opposite - with extremely fast turnarounds being designed into the system in order to exploit the human reward system.
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