Let's talk about Loot Boxes

[K]

It'd be prime territory for a kind of virtual version of the shell game - NPCs winning amazing, rare loot to sucker in the PC marks.

[Harsin]

I wonder what kind of razzmatazz there is when someone gets a rare/legendary item.

 

Many years ago, when on holiday with my parents, I had the misfortune of them dragging me to a 'short' timeshare presentation on the promise of some kind of free gift. If you've seen the South Park episode Asspen, it's pretty close to the truth. Everytime they got some schmuck to sign up they'd make this huge fuss, ring a bell, play music, let off poppers, get everyone in the room to clap...etc.

 

I can see something similar here. Bobby Kotick's face appearing god like from the clouds and booming 'XX~l33tDETHSni3pZ~XX' just won a gold sniper rifle and a 30% xp bonus for 48 hours. You could too if you just buy a bumoper pack of CoD bucks off the PSN store now for the low low price of $50!'.

[Qazimod]

Loot appearing during gameplay? Twisted ingenuity, but what happens if a crash or connection drop kicks you out of the game before you can open it up and get the goods?

 

EDIT: oh I guess it's like Destiny's Postmaster stuff; appearing in a central social space...

[RubberJohnny]

[SozzlyJoe]

There's an almost touching faith these convention organisers have in YouTubers, like you just have to shout 'go' and they will launch into an entertaining monologue of indeterminate length. When in truth, they have no live audience skills whatsoever, no idea how to work the room. They'd be better off hiring Ken Dodd.

[Qazimod]

Didn't they see... *googles* ...Jesse Wellens' Need for Speed trainwreck in this year's E3?  Things suddenly become more awkward when you can't edit out bad bits and do re-takes.

[Harsin]

Go fuck yourself with a rusty lightsaber EA.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-11-09-the-price-and-state-of-star-wars-battlefront-2-loot-crates-at-launch

 

And this is after they responded to criticism of their loot crate economy.

[Stanley]

2 hours ago, Harsin said:

Go fuck yourself with a rusty lightsaber EA.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-11-09-the-price-and-state-of-star-wars-battlefront-2-loot-crates-at-launch

 

And this is after they responded to criticism of their loot crate economy.

The whole thing is so complicated. How did we get from Doom  (original) to that?

[TehStu]

Yeah, still going to vote with my wallet. If this money is genuinely needed, they're going to have to put more effort into the balance to get me to buy in.

[Broker]

11 hours ago, Harsin said:

Go fuck yourself with a rusty lightsaber EA.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-11-09-the-price-and-state-of-star-wars-battlefront-2-loot-crates-at-launch

 

And this is after they responded to criticism of their loot crate economy.

 

That is the most confusing system I’ve ever heard about.

[Stanley]

The whole thing has really put me off what was originally one of my most anticipated games this year. I guess we'll have to wait for reviews to see just how damaging it is, but having packs of loot boxes costing upto  £100 for a single purchase just feels vulgar.

[Stanley]

I would have thought that the reason people buy loot boxes is to get the higher level gear that you'd otherwise have to level up or grind for. But in this it seems that it will only award you items upto your current skill level anyway, so you'd still have to grind to increase your level. Sounds like they're at least trying to balance the game but at the same time taking advantage of those willing to spend extra to avoid having to grind. It's a bit incongruous to say the least. 

[Digfox]

I would have thought that the reason people buy loot boxes is to get the higher level gear that you'd otherwise have to level up or grind for. But in this it seems that it will only award you items upto your current skill level anyway, so you'd still have to grind to increase your level. Sounds like they're at least trying to balance the game but at the same time taking advantage of those willing to spend extra to avoid having to grind. It's a bit incongruous to say the least. 

From the YT video linked in the EG news piece, they spent $90 on loot boxes. And they note that you level very fast to begin with. So 3.5 hrs to reach lvl 10, and around 5 hrs to reach lvl 15. So in other words it doesn't take long at all to be able to use the highest tier cards.

 

In addition they have made the in-game costs quite expensive to craft anything which again is going to be good for those who spend real money. Reminds me of For Honor's system.

 

For a game that's £80, and tied to an old fashioned retail model which is probably only likely to get one year of support (in prep for the new Battlefield) I find it all fairly abhorrent. Certainly not a game I want to buy or put time into.

[Digfox]

I've said this before but it's not just regulation, so protection for consumers to stop them being addicted etc. but also we need better consumer rights. That should include refunds across all types of digital content including microtransactions, and not just some silly two hour window for the main game only. Although this opens the publishers to abuse from customers that is no different to what Amazon or Marks & Spencers have to deal with on a daily basis, for example.

[Digfox]

Regarding SW:BF2 I found an interesting nugget of information on Reddit: It takes 40 hours to unlock a hero

 

As per the title of the post, someone has worked through the numbers and calculated it takes just under 40 hours (39.42) of playtime to unlock one hero in the game.

 

Happy to be corrected if the hero count is off, but even so this is similar to For Honor, SFV and Rainbow Six Siege where there are extremely long grind times for those unwilling to spend extra on microtransactions. I would imagine EA will be keen to add more heroes and gear to the game to keep the grind times very high (again similar to For Honor etc.). Also fairly interesting to see the penny drop for some of the posters in the reddit thread.

 

Open Critic tweeted not long ago that it would be good to start detailing the hours it takes to earn items in game with their review agreegates. And I think this sort of information is fairly critical to get out there, so hopefully they able to do something.

 

It really is a freemium mobile game, in terms of this game's progression system.

 

Final EDIT: Edited my post as things moved on and I read more of that thread. As noted in the SW:BF2 thread the unlock time for all heroes is c.170 hours. The spreadsheet is further developed from when I posted earlier today. You only need to unlock 6 heros atm, as 8 available by default). Either way the figure will increase as more heroes are added to the game.

[Digfox]

48 minutes ago, grindmouse said:

 

What BF2 does is worse than all of these games, imo. Also when a game has paid season pass content that you have the option to grind for free that's not necessarily a bad thing. And having targets to grind for, again is no bad in of itself. 170 hours to unlock all heroes is easily achievable over a few months.

 

But when a game is designed to extract cash from you for content that should be part of the base game, and has pay-to-win content locked behind loot boxes  - that's problematic.

 

Yep - It's probably a fair statement to say that this is probably the worse (or amongst) and most aggressive 'freemium' business model implemented in a AAA premium game. That said it isn't that far removed from For Honor. That included P2W and there were estimates of similarly massive times (and only got worse with new items added) to grind out all of the content without spending money. However For Honor didn't include Lootboxes but still required ridiculously high in-game amounts to unlock stuff. Equally there were bonuses and better gear in that game that could also be bought with real money.

 

I'm not fully convinced on the maths (so far) for SW:BF2 and wouldn't be surprised that to unlock everything is a similarly, ridiculously large number of hours.

 

[Digfox]

I'm not sure if this should be in the SW:BF2 thread, but following on from yesterday's discussions, there is an interesting thread on Reddit (linked from ResetEra): 

 

 

Again the additional content being locked being even more credits would make sense, and again isn't something new. I'm sure there will be gestures from EA to for good PR in response to some of the backlash, but it will be token gestures rather than anything meaningful (similar to the beta-feedback reaction from EA/Dice).

 

EDIT: Oh and it's get worse...the challenges give out sod all reward or require the locked heros. Some very impressive data logging from the reddit community. Taken from ResetEra: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cFVYwhb5RvnsemdVmTEIT96olswDZ-m0ta47UoSJy30/edit#gid=1171067011

 

Obviously don't click on the above if worried about spoilers. I don't think it gives anything campaign related but didn't read every line. Going to stop posting about this now if I can help it. 

[Isaac]

https://kotaku.com/loot-boxes-are-designed-to-exploit-us-1819457592

 

Was this article already posted in here?

 

I thought it was a great summary of just how exploitative loot boxes can be.

[Harsin]

Looking back, the outrage over Horse Armour feels a bit like Victorians being scandalised over a glimpse of a woman's ankle.

[mushashi]

These things have become so normalised that the only line you can't seem to cross is Pay2Win currently, anything else is acceptable without much fuss.

[JohnC]

https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/16/battlefront-ii-belgium-gambling-investigation/

 

Belgium are looking into loot boxes and the concerns that they are gambling. With particular concern about them targeting the underaged.

[Mr. Gerbik]

15 minutes ago, JohnC said:

https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/16/battlefront-ii-belgium-gambling-investigation/

 

Belgium are looking into loot boxes and the concerns that they are gambling. With particular concern about them targeting the underaged.

I also mentioned this in the SW Battleloot 2 thread - this has me wondering whether other countries will follow suit. Or, whether the European Commission will get involved if the Belgian investigation concludes that, yes, this is getting kids into gambling (imo it totally and obviously is btw - you pay to have a small chance at winning something). What would that mean for games as a service games? That they might not be allowed in Europe? That's a significant market. It's a big 'if' of course, but maybe that would lead to the likes of EA producing different versions of their games for the EU, ones with the loot boxes ripped out. And you might see British and American gamers import the EU version? Either way: mosspopcorn.gif

[deerokus]

No lootboxes on child accounts would be a start. 

[Benny]

Imagine this: a new WB published Injustice style DC fighting game where the characters have special moves that are not all available at the start, but they can be unlocked in, wait for it, loot boxes. You can get them normally by playing arcade mode over and over, where you might get a few here and there and probably unlock the odd shitty sweep kick or two, but if you really want to develop your characters and not get trounced all the time you'll have to suck it up and buy a few... Only a few quid each of course for a random chance to get a cool new move for your hero!

 

Keep buying games that include gameplay abilities locked away in gambling mechanics and this is what we'll get. In fact someone is probably going to tell me this has already happened.

[Harsin]

Try and imagine EA's Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

 

- £60 basic game allows you to play as Mario in a 50cc kart.

- £80 'Lakitu Edition' also comes with Yoshi and a 100cc Kart.

- £100 'Bowser Box' comes with the above and exclusive access to Rainbow Road track and let’s you play the game a fortnight before everyone else

- You can sloooowly earn coins (limited per day of course don’t want people 'abusing' it) or buy...

- Kart Crates

- Part Crates

- Character Crates

- Consumable Crates (oh, didn’t I mention that ? boxes are no longer on the track. Now you you buy random batches of consumable pick ups from Crates. The blue shell is only available from the most expensive variant)

[Qazimod]

35 minutes ago, Benny said:

Imagine this: a new WB published Injustice style DC fighting game where the characters have special moves that are not all available at the start, but they can be unlocked in, wait for it, loot boxes. You can get them normally by playing arcade mode over and over, where you might get a few here and there and probably unlock the odd shitty sweep kick or two, but if you really want to develop your characters and not get trounced all the time you'll have to suck it up and buy a few... Only a few quid each of course for a random chance to get a cool new move for your hero!

 

Keep buying games that include gameplay abilities locked away in gambling mechanics and this is what we'll get. In fact someone is probably going to tell me this has already happened.

 

It's F2P so it's not too bad but some of the loot boxes (named relics) in Skullgirls for mobile included new supers ("Blockbusters") and special moves which you could equip fighters with. If you check the below video you can see the unlocks at the start - skip to 1:20 and you can see how new moves are equipped:

 

 

[Benny]

You start ignoring politics because it's got to the point where there is no hope for reason anymore, so you try to escape into videogames and you find that the endless march into everything being really fucking shit has infected them too and satire is dead.

[footle]

56 minutes ago, Harsin said:

Try and imagine EA's Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

 

- £60 basic game allows you to play as Mario in a 50cc kart.

- £80 'Lakitu Edition' also comes with Yoshi and a 100cc Kart.

- £100 'Bowser Box' comes with the above and exclusive access to Rainbow Road track and let’s you play the game a fortnight before everyone else

- You can sloooowly earn coins (limited per day of course don’t want people 'abusing' it) or buy...

- Kart Crates

- Part Crates

- Character Crates

- Consumable Crates (oh, didn’t I mention that ? boxes are no longer on the track. Now you you buy random batches of consumable pick ups from Crates. The blue shell is only available from the most expensive variant)

 

Amibo. Just because you get an overpriced model doesn’t mean that Nintendo is immune from this trend.

 

Particularly given the number of prompts in Mario Odessey (BoTW was ok for not doing this).

[Isaac]

Check out the new Need for Speed's reward system:

 

 

This is just a slot machine...

[Dig Dug]

Super Maro Bros has used slot machines as bonus levels for decades. It’s nothing new.

 

EDIT: So it's part of the lootbox system, I see.